Furniture

Well,
It's been about a week now. Things are going well here. On Tuesday the managers, Marge and Nelson, told us that one of the apartments was empty and we could have anything left behind that we liked. We now have a couch, chair, coffee table, TV and table for it, kitchen table with 4 chairs, and a BED! Along with a microwave and coffee pot for the kitchen. Life is good.

We've walked around town quite a bit and discovered that there's a lot of potential, but not a lot of actual business here. There's a corner grocer, a hardware store, about 3 or four places that are pretty much ongoing indoor garage sales, a pizza joint - we live above that, a restaurant, a coffee/bakery shoppe, a burger joint and an ice cream place. There are two interesting stores. One is a wood carver's place... yowza he does beautiful work. The other is a knitting store, which could be amazing... if she'd sell stuff she makes... but that is all there as decor and "ideas"... and her sales are patterns, yarn and knitting classes... sigh.

We have discovered a few events... the seniors have a thrift store open 2x a week, the library is open 3 mornings a week, the bar has a weekly karaoke night (gak) and the "legion hall ??? " has a song fest on Saturdays... folks bring guitars, pianos (can you imagine?) drums, and what ever... and its a ginormous jam session with dancing (we hear is mostly country) There is also some kind of art club, but haven't figured out what that means or when/where it is held.

Word on the education front is that the local elementary school has 36 kids total! k-8! Next week I'll be setting up a meeting with the principal to see if I can do some kind of volunteer work there... a few hours a week to keep my feet wet, as it were.

In the surrounding areas, we've explored a bit of both directions out of town. One way is Grand Forks... a Fallon size town with 2 grocery stores and a couple thrift stores and hardware and such... no where with clothes that we can find. Not that we're looking for that... it's just weird to find no sign of Walmart or McDonald's any where.

The mountains here are kind of more like hills, but forested and beautiful. Fall has come and there is a gentle rain and mists on the mountains. The trees are turning a variety of colors, not just yellow and dead.... its pretty to watch.

The town deer are still out and about... there's a sweet family of 3 that we've seen quite often in our 'back yard'... apparently if you plant pumpkins the dear are all over them! Whee!