Success!
I am back from a quickie road trip to Chino Valley and Prescott where not only did I accept a job teaching English at Chino Valley High, but I found a cute little house to rent in Prescott. I'm a wee bit scared of all the changes, but I'm also really looking forward to them.
Chino Valley is actually a nice little cowboy sort of farm town where folks seem pretty close knit. The school, while not modern and shiny, is actually pretty amazing. Like many schools that were added onto bit by bit, it's sort of sprawling, but all the English teachers adjoin each other, and we were drooling over all the class sets of books available to students. Then the principal took us around the rest of the school and farm. (Yes, I said farm.) The school has two ponds with a Quonset and regular greenhouse -- we didn't look inside, but this is where the FFA raises fish from fry to fry-up-able. That's not everything, though. We got in the car and followed him across the street to the farm.
It is a FARM. With a small herd (bevy and calves?) of black angus, two irrigated fields of alfalfa, a newly plated vineyard, a couple of pastures with heirloom Navajo sheep and a few goats, and they will have chickens and turkeys this year, too. All this is the school's and is maintained by the FFA. I picked my jaw up off the ground probably a dozen times in the space of about 90 minutes. And did I mention they have a four-day week? Monday-Thursday every week. Yowza.
But it gets better. Housing tends to be expensive and goes VERY fast. Someone puts an ad in the paper and has it rented out within a few hours of the paper coming out. Well, I found and rented a little cottage behind the house of an older couple I already love. It's small, but it has a little fenced-in yard and a good-sized shed out back with a small aviary where Mrs. G's mother (now in a residential home at the age of 100) raised canaries and such. At the age of 78, she took up word-working, and while she lived in the cottage, she built the picnic table and Adirondack out front, the cupboard in the frontroom/porch/breezeway/future library, shelves in the shed and much more. (I want to meet this amazing woman.) It's on the western edge of Prescott (outside of Prescott proper, I believe) within walking distance to trails that (so Mr. G tells me) could take you all the way to Skull Valley, if not Granite Mountain itself.
There is so much more to write about, but I'm beat and have a boatload of work and planning to do because my Sierra Vista boyfriend and girlfriend will be helping me to move up there in five -- yes, FIVE -- days. I can't contain my excitement. My cup runneth over with hope for the future.
Chino Valley is actually a nice little cowboy sort of farm town where folks seem pretty close knit. The school, while not modern and shiny, is actually pretty amazing. Like many schools that were added onto bit by bit, it's sort of sprawling, but all the English teachers adjoin each other, and we were drooling over all the class sets of books available to students. Then the principal took us around the rest of the school and farm. (Yes, I said farm.) The school has two ponds with a Quonset and regular greenhouse -- we didn't look inside, but this is where the FFA raises fish from fry to fry-up-able. That's not everything, though. We got in the car and followed him across the street to the farm.
It is a FARM. With a small herd (bevy and calves?) of black angus, two irrigated fields of alfalfa, a newly plated vineyard, a couple of pastures with heirloom Navajo sheep and a few goats, and they will have chickens and turkeys this year, too. All this is the school's and is maintained by the FFA. I picked my jaw up off the ground probably a dozen times in the space of about 90 minutes. And did I mention they have a four-day week? Monday-Thursday every week. Yowza.
But it gets better. Housing tends to be expensive and goes VERY fast. Someone puts an ad in the paper and has it rented out within a few hours of the paper coming out. Well, I found and rented a little cottage behind the house of an older couple I already love. It's small, but it has a little fenced-in yard and a good-sized shed out back with a small aviary where Mrs. G's mother (now in a residential home at the age of 100) raised canaries and such. At the age of 78, she took up word-working, and while she lived in the cottage, she built the picnic table and Adirondack out front, the cupboard in the frontroom/porch/breezeway/future library, shelves in the shed and much more. (I want to meet this amazing woman.) It's on the western edge of Prescott (outside of Prescott proper, I believe) within walking distance to trails that (so Mr. G tells me) could take you all the way to Skull Valley, if not Granite Mountain itself.
There is so much more to write about, but I'm beat and have a boatload of work and planning to do because my Sierra Vista boyfriend and girlfriend will be helping me to move up there in five -- yes, FIVE -- days. I can't contain my excitement. My cup runneth over with hope for the future.