When my son graduated from UT with his degree in Mechanical Engineering, he was offered two jobs. One in downtown Washington DC for a mindboggling amount of money – hard to refuse! The other in some tiny town in North Idaho called Bayview for not so much money. Apparently, there is a Navy base there on Lake Pend Oreille – the largest lake in Idaho. Most importantly to me, it is 2400 miles from Sharp Chapel, where we were living. Idaho offers 5 million acres of wilderness with lakes, and rivers. There is hiking, camping, rafting , fishing and hunting as well as several ski resorts for skiing and snowboarding. They are not city people. Hands down, Idaho was the choice.

We helped him and his wife make the move across the country. For years, we visited them, they visited us. And then they had children. Two of them. One boy. One girl. We started getting calls about what a wonderful place Idaho was to live in, how if the grandkids only saw us once or twice a year, they would not really get to know us BUT if we LIVED in Idaho we would have a fantastic chance to really get to know them. Since both parents work, that was also an opportunity to pick them up from daycare/school, hang out with them during school vacations, during the summer and really bond.

Bill and I hemmed and hawed. We had so many good friends, a great house, loved living in the Chapel, and loved participating in the Union County community. There was that versus grandkids. The grandkids won out and we headed to Idaho.

It was a terrific experience. There are so many child related things to do in Coeur d’Alene ID and (30 miles away) Spokane WA. We hiked, went to the Children’s Museum, swam at various beaches on the lakes and rivers, went tubing, exploring. Together we performed science experiments, read books, went to the movies, attended nature camps and bald eagle tours. It was a special time.

Flocks of turkeys, herds of deer and elk roamed through the yard as well as an occasional disinterested moose. We took advantage of the old logging roads that wandered through our back yard and into the Coeur d’Alene National Forest to go on ‘goat walks’. Wandering through the forest with goats, grandkids, dogs and neighbors. The son built a zip line and a tree house. The grands found a tall evergreen tree with lots of branches and dubbed it their “climbing tree”. American composer/singer Carole King has a song called Tapestry:

“My life has been a tapestry of rich and royal hue. An everlasting vision of the ever-changing view. A wondrous woven magic in bits of blue and gold. A tapestry to feel and see, impossible to hold”.

Then the kids grew up. They developed a network of friends to do things with. My son and his wife grew close to the parents of the friends of the grandkids and the families now do things together. Child sitting was no longer necessary, although occasionally our taxi service was called on to get the grands from one place to another. The family skis pretty much every weekend from the first of December to the middle of April. We do not ski. But we did shovel snow. And plow snow. And scrape snow off the cars. I have always loved gardening. But with about 32 inches a year average rainfall, a total of about 142 days of sunshine a year, and humidity during the summer months below 25% - growing anything was a challenge. Everything had to be irrigated and we had water lines crisscrossing the property. And then there was Covid.

It seemed like it was time to come home. But now we had 4 goats. And a large Livestock Guardian Dog (LSG). And a bunch of chickens. The chickens we could get rid of, but we were too attached to the goats and dog to desert or rehome them. We have crossed this country many times on motorcycles and in cars and RVs. Never with goats. These goats had never been hauled anywhere before and I had never hauled animals. The LGD had never been in a car for more than a couple of hours and, as an outside livestock guardian dog, would rarely want to spend any time inside. It was a conundrum. And a challenge. So much could go wrong.

Next week: The solution