A House Is Not a Home

For the past three years, Karen and I have been living in the home where she grew up. Her parents built it from 1951-1957 with their own hands. Considering Al had no training or experience in construction, he did pretty well. But, it's a relic of its times. The single-pane windows export heat and import cold; what warmth we have is provided by an ancient oil-burning furnace and a propane-burning fireplace Karen and I installed; it has one bathroom and insufficient plumbing for a dishwasher; the hookups for the washer and dryer are in the kitchen, and there is no external vent for the dryer through the pumice blocks of which the house is built (and, no, there is no wall insulation). It is not a comfortable house.

To Karen, the house is more a reminder of her unhappy teenage years. Her father was schizophrenic, her mother took a lot from him and gave nearly as good as she got, and Karen was frustrated with her parents and her isolation in the country, (all fictionalized in Karen's novel "A Devil Singing Small"). It is not a happy house, and it would never be our home.

Even before we moved into this house from an apartment in Liberty Lake, Wa., we started planning to build our final home in the eastern hills on our property. We selected a site that's warmer year-round (the old house is chilled from its proximity to Cable Creek on our western fence line) and receives more sun, being above the valley floor where the old house sits. We had a half-mile packed-gravel driveway built from the county road to the new home site and had a well drilled. Then, I got sick. Then, the stock market crashed. Then, I got sick again.

During all of that turmoil we pessimistically wondered whether we should, or could build. We optimistically hired a Spokane-based architect who designed a great house - that would have cost two-and-a-half times our budget. After I recovered from my second illness, we worked with a nearby log home company that designed another great house, but would have cost about twice our budget and come with all the inherent problems of log homes, such as log settling and twisting and cracking sheetrock.

Finally, this winter, we remembered that a friend had suggested looking into modular homes, and so we did. Stratford Building Corporation is located just 30 minutes away in Rathdrum, Idaho. We stopped in, looked at their model homes, met their construction manager, Mike Tinsley, visited the factory where they "stick-build" custom homes, and went home with a brochure. During the next few months, we worked with Stratford to develop plans, revise plans, and revise them again. On Thursday, we signed a contract agreement with Stratford. On Friday, we secured a construction loan/mortgage from nearby Global Credit Union. Today, Karen and I selected the color scheme for the entire house.

I'll be posting frequently to this blog as we progress through the construction period. We anticipate that, sometime this summer, we'll have a new house that will be a home, for the rest of our lives.

On Seeing Eagles

This morning, driving down Wellesley Ave. in Otis Orchards, Washington, I saw what seemed to be a hawk circling near the elementary school. The area is flush with red tailed hawks, and so I didn't find this particular bird remarkable - until I got closer and thought it must be the largest hawk I'd ever seen. Then, I saw the white tail and the white head. It was a bald eagle, probably over from Liberty Lake for brunch. It was a rare sight.

A few years ago, Karen and I were walking from our house in Post Falls up to the old barn when we saw a flock of crows circling the upper meadow. As we approached, they rose up, and we saw a deer carcass, which had been largely picked over. There was no blood trail. It looked like a coyote kill. Walking south along Anna Spring, we were shocked by two bald eagles crossing the trail about 10 feet off the ground, 20 feet in front of us. Magnificent. It was the first time we'd seen bald eagles here, though there are times they've been seen in profusion at Liberty Lake and Lake Coeur d'Alene.

When we lived in Laramie, Wyoming, I often saw golden eagles while on bike rides on Herrick Lane. Along that flat, undulating route, with cottonwoods along distant springs, the eagles built nests and perched atop telephone poles. Brown feathers flecked with gold, massive, watching for vermin. I thought this morning, as I saw the bald eagle, that I favored the golden eagles. Birds are what they are, but to me the golden eagle seems more stealthy, more deadly in its visual subtlety.

These days on my rides, I mostly see ducks and geese on the Spokane River along the Centennial Trail. Some quail. The occasional coyote. And, of course, red tailed hawks. I miss seeing the golden eagles as I ride, racing pronghorns across the prairie. You make do with what you've got.