Once upon a time, we had this piece of land on the Bison Range, just a few miles from our store in Dixon. Oh, the stories I could tell. These pix don't give the half of it. Okay, so back before the crash, we thought we'd sell the store and build a house on this sweet piece of land with an amazing creek. Sure, we knew it was going to be a lot of work (just look at all the junk), but we'd have time and money, right? We set about clearing and developing the land, and stripped down and remodelled an old trailer which we planned to live in while we were building. Well, like most Americans in 2006, we didn't know what was coming, so we made the mistake of not selling first. By the time the place was liveable and I was ready to put the store on the market it was too late. So we rented it out for a year, until our tenant caught it on fire. He was gone the next day! Go figure. I haven't seen him since. Thankfully, we'd used sheetrock so a passerby saw smoke and put the fire out before it had burnt to the ground.

So now we had two places. What to do? I put them both on the market, and we waited. Nothing. Finally, with winter approaching, we moved to the creek because the trailer was really easy to heat. I drove to the store every day and built a fire so the pipes wouldn't freeze. Piere had work, but I couldn't find a job. Oh, did I mention he got stiffed for three months' pay? A slight detail. Crazy days, remember? Perhaps you'd rather forget! Never mind. We actually enjoyed being at the creek for the 18 months we were there. It was easier to maintain a space a tenth the size we were used to. The birds were phenomenal. Cleo loved it, of course. I'll never forget it. We survived.

In 2010 we sold the land to the Tribes who have turned it into wetlands. I got a new computer, my camera and printer, and enrolled in school. Sometimes I miss the creek, but after putting this album together and getting a reminder of what it was really like, I'm glad we're back in Dixon. We got to keep our buildings so moved them back with
us, all four of them.