Meet the Neighbors-A story of a cow and a fire marshal

A cow and a fire marshal were our introductions to the neighbors.  Imagine driving up to your driveway and finding it blocked by a large cow that seemed to have no intention of moving...

When it became clear that the county inspector wanted us to find and dig some very specific access points for the septic system, Miles and I put on our work boots and headed out to the farm. Upon cresting the hill of the driveway there appeared a large blond bull.  Standing in the middle of the driveway. Chewing. Luckily the "landscaping" currently consists of lots of open field, so Miles was able to drive around said cow and get down to business.

About an hour later we heard people in the lower field yelling "COW"!  Cleary they are not the naming of farm animals type.  Up came our neighbors to the north.  They seemed nice enough and we enjoyed watching them attempt to get Cow to move with yelling, sticks, and anything else they could think of.  All the while the wife is reminding the husband that she hates cows and he is trying to convince us to keep the grazing agreement that he had with the previous owner.  Needless to say we left that arrangement up for debate. After about 45 minutes we had to leave and Cow seemed to have no intention of ever leaving.

A couple of months ago the friendly fire marshall took a look at our driveway. (Long insurance back story, which is boring) Fire marshal let us know that our mile and a half, gravel driveway, with 6 switch backs did not in fact meet current fire code and would have to be upgraded in order for fire trucks to get to the house in case of an emergency.  Having 3 small children, hoping to open a small guest house and the fact that there are NO fire hydrants within a 10 miles radius, that seemed reasonable.

We began to get quotes. The first one was low because he had no idea of the current requirements. The second guy refused to give a quote because he won't work with said fire marshal. The third guy said it would be up to 200k.  That's right. This seemed like it was shaping up to be a deal breaker.

I decided to work my magic with this guy.  (Anyone who knows me understands that this consists solely of hoping for the best.) I met with the fire marshal, helped him understand what was happening on our end and came to an agreement that the neighbors driveway was much closer to code and that if we could strike an arrangement with them to use theres in an emergency then we would be clear to occupy the house.  Oh, thats right.  Unless we addressed this access issue he would not sign off on the occupancy of the house.  Ever. Which means that at the end of construction we would owe the back hundreds of thousands of dollars for a house that we could not live in.

Thats how to got to meet the neighbors to the south.  I walked up, introduced myself and said "Hey, do you mind if fire trucks come lumbering up your drive if our house is engulfed in flames?"  To which they replied "Only if you pay to have it brought up to code (30k roughly) and never, ever use it for anything else."

Thats the nitty gritty. Really they are a lovely older couple who have been in the area for years.  She is the retired McMinville librarian and he is a retired art professor from Pacific University.  He was in a Night Before Christmas dressing gown complete with long grey hair, although no stocking cap unfortunately. Their home is filled with paintings and multimedia art work that is pretty amazing and I am looking forward to the day that we have enough money to commission one of his works. Also I bet she hosts a killer book club.

So driveway issues resolved (also adding a sprinkler system to the house and driveway sort of...) and the cow issue still lingering, along with all of the cow pies that are alarmingly near the front door.