Well, it's been 5 months now since moving out of the hills and into the city. I ended up selling most things, but gave away a lot too. A guy came to get my tree-climbing gear for a cheap $80, asked if I was selling my HF splitter. "Darn right i am!" Next day he comes with $1000. Was I ever glad to get rid of that thing. I, of course, told him about all the problems I'd had with it and he didn't even flinch. Nice!
There was about 8 cords of mostly oak and black locust, I think I got about a grand including giving a good third to half of it away. Local prices are $350/"Boulder Creek cord". (a B.C. cord is really about 2/3 cord thrown into a pickup bed without side rails.) It felt good to give away so much wood to my wonderful neighbors who deserved it.
Sold the Husky 359 w/ muffler mod for a paltry $250. The Stihl 015L and Echo 452VL for $90.
Sold the '71 F250 Camper Special (after moving of course) for $1500.
Gave away a bunch of furniture and garden tools to a guy at church.
Post hole auger for $250.
Wooden playground structure $150.
50cc 4-stroke bicycle $250.
Standby generator $900. ouch, paid $2500 a year prior.
On-demand Rinnai water heater $400. Ouch, paid $1100 a year prior.
Elliptical exerciser and treadmill for $400.
Those were the more memorable things, but there were many many more smaller things. All in all, we put quite a few thousand dollars into savings and didn't't have to "rent a room" for stuff. After a couple months of whittling away more items, and making some smart storage decisions in the garage, and we're finally able to park both Ford Escapes inside with just enough room to slide through with my gut that's getting bigger now. However, anytime I want to work on a project, I gotta pull car(s) out and park them down the block.
While I certainly miss the large yard (and now CERTAINLY miss wood heating now that it's gotten colder this week), the lack of maintenance is fabulous.
I'm glad to be out of the forest. Being surrounded by redwoods for seven years, and needing to drive an hour to get to anything, really had me wanting to get out of it all. Now we can ride our bikes to a multitude of places, restaurants, parks, cafes, hardware stores; everything is now so close! It was the change of pace we really needed. And no more finding scorpions, tarantulas, snakes, rodents, and vast insect life inside the house. In fact, i've only seen three tiny spiders inside in 5 months, and no more mosquitoes!!!
The cat has grown accustomed to being inside permanently, I've grown accustomed to the freeway noise (my wife was born deaf so can live next to anything) and the depression caused by such a drastic change in life circumstances is starting to lift, and the mortgage bank has finally stopped calling four times a day for the last 4 months.
All in all it was what we really needed for this time of our lives. While I never want to own another home again, that feeling may pass by the time our credit has returned. Meanwhile, we're focusing on living, rather than the circumstances themselves that drive our lives.
But that said, I miss wood. A customer brought his pickup in for repairs, there were rounds of fresh-cut fir in the back.....memories came flooding in. Drizzly forest, warm fires, smores, cocoa, and arboristsite....siiigghhhh.
