"Land - Home - Mountain View: Stories From The Siskiyous"

"How could she possibly relay what thousands of square miles are like to callers who think San Francisco is Northern California?" That's the question fictional real estate agent Ingrid Fromm asks herself about the glory of Siskiyou County in the short story collection that depicts her encounters with interesting (read: quirky) clients.

 

The county, Fromm muses, is "the size of Rhode Island and Connecticut combined.... You can get lost here, stake out your territory, and retreat to a lifestyle reminiscent of rugged individualism and grit...." And there are pretty good views of Mt. Shasta.

 

Author Ursula Bendix, Peace Corps volunteer and Spanish teacher, was born in Germany in 1945 and with her family immigrated to Oregon when she was ten. Now the owner/broker of Bendix Real Estate in Yreka, she has crafted a series of deceptively simple stories about her counterpart Fromm (also in real estate in Yreka). 

 

"Land - Home - Mountain View: Stories From The Siskiyous" ($13.95 in paperback from Memoir Books, an imprint of Chico's Heidelberg Graphics; also for Amazon Kindle) presents ten vignettes, tales of clients narrated from Fromm's point of view, that in quiet ways begin to expose the soul of a woman in her sixties, divorced after thirty-four years of marriage, with a son and daughter, living a "conventional" life.

 

Fromm's work makes her almost a voyeur into the lives of her clients. "Voyeurism, she knew, was a means by which she tried to discover and comprehend the nature of intimacy. She was sure that once she understood this feeling, she would understand the essence of living.... Selling real estate gave her the opportunity to meet all types of personalities and, for a short while, become intensely involved in their lives."

 

Zola Poe wants to build a "spiritual and holistic retreat" near the town of Hilt. A couple is interested in a strange house with a trapdoor in Dunsmuir. Foul-smelling Patrick meets a sad end. Ingrid imagines a fling with her client, Russian Boris Volkov. ("We're all in our sixties after all--what difference did it make?")

 

A conventional life? Perhaps--but one that will draw readers into its gentle passion.

 

So you want to go rural?

If you’re thinking of buying a hunk of land off the beaten path, consider “The Country Property Buyer’s Guide” ($19.95 in paperback from CreateSpace; also for Amazon Kindle). The subtitle says it all: “A Complete Guide For Buying, Financing, Developing And Living On Rural Property.”

“This book,” writes author Garry Cooper, a Chico State University grad and California real estate broker, “will take you for a relaxing stroll through the world of buying and developing country property.” Cooper says he’s been “developing bare land into country home sites for nearly forty years,” and it shows. Reading his work is like sitting down with a guy who knows his way around the fence posts and is not afraid to “tell it like it is.”

The longest of the three sections focuses on finding and buying country property. Cooper’s message: think it through. “Let’s say you want to move to the country so you can enjoy living on a creek where you can fish and swim from your own property, let the kids raise some hogs for 4-H.” Then you realize the bus trip to school is a long ride, the attractive creek is in an area known for illegal activities, and there’s no power.

If you still want to proceed, Cooper is a seasoned guide. In choosing the right property “probably the three most critical factors are the water availability, the sewage disposal, and the availability of electricity.” Need power? “Out here, we use a rule of thumb of about five thousand dollars per pole!”

The second section provides tips on development including what Cooper calls “macroscaping,” “the art of ‘painting a picture upon the earth, using a bulldozer, a backhoe tractor, and a chainsaw as my brushes!’” A short final section offers help in being a good neighbor. “Use your head for something other than a hat rack for that new cowboy hat you’re sporting! Get your fences in place permanently so they are built specifically for the type of livestock that you plan to get before you get them.”

The stroll is eye opening, the book a must-have for those going rural.