My Misadventures in Humboldt County California - Part 1

The Belly of the Beast

In my search for serenity and self-sufficiency, I impulsively purchased a cheap parcel of land in Humboldt county California - on the internet, sight unseen. Google Earth was little help in determining the quality of said parcel, but the area was BEAUTIFUL (!!!), so I clicked the buy button and became the proud owner of a brand new misadventure. Hooray!

When I first arrived in Humboldt, I was astounded by the raw natural beauty. Even in November, there was color everywhere and life exploding all over the place - quail and turkeys in the road, deer in the ditches, edible plants growing from every patch of soil and mushrooms on every log. I was on a 3,000 mile mission to inspect my land, so I forgot to get many pictures.

Misty mountain morning

Persimmon tree in the barnyard

The land turned out to be very steep, with some ENORMOUS douglas fir trees shading it. This would make it difficult to plant my food garden, but it was like a magic fairy forest, so I decided I could build a tiny house and work with it somehow.

What have I gotten myself into?

As I was shuffling around in the bushes with a GPS, looking for my parcel survey stakes, a bony, dirty, old woman appeared in a driveway up the road. Her front gate was plastered with a plethroa of passive-aggressive signs (my dog will eat you, no trespassing, etc.) and she looked... well, she looked like a dangerous, trashy psycopath, if I'm honest. She had a hard, suspicious expression and crazy eyeballs. I waved and smiled. Just then, a HUGE black dog exploded, howling and barking, out of the bushes near her and came barreling straight down the hill toward me like a runaway truck. The bony old crone yelled at him in vain as he closed the gap and I prepared to become dog food.

Having been in this situation before with dogs and bears (yes, bears), I crouched down a little with welcoming arms and said "Who's a kitty? Who's a good kitty?" I find that calling dogs "kitty" confuses them enough that they stop what they're doing. Also, I had nothing near me that could be used as a weapon, so I chose the non-combat approach.

Well, this kitty was the biggest (145lb) German Shepherd I had ever seen and he was hurtling downhill at top speed. He could barely slow down to keep from crashing into the ditch but he managed this and reared up to put his paws ON my shoulders and snapped viciously to the left and right of my face while I said "Who's a good kitty?" a few times. It's best to remain calm in the face of certain death - freaking out never saved anybody.

Giant murder-dog/kitty decided not to eat me -maybe he'd just been fed - and old crazy eyes yelled "what are you doing here?!"

Murder-kitty

Using every ounce of my diplomacy and charm, I defused the situation, explained why I was there and ended up chatting with crazy bones for two or more hours until the sun set and a supernatural harvest moon rose over our misty, pastoral scene.

I lost the pictures of that moon, so here is a cheerful panorama taken in the spring:

We exchanged names and phone numbers and I hopped in my car for the long drive back to my cousin's couch in Sacramento, then home to Colorado for a few months.

...to be continued.