And... we're back!!

Our new home, nestled between prairie and forest.

This is it! I crossed the border upon receipt of my US visa on Thursday, and on Friday was welcomed into our new home, the homestead at a nature preserve in the Willamette Valley, OR. Now begins a whole new chapter in both of our lives, filled with a multitude of adventures which we shall chronicle here. For now, time is to settling in, getting acquainted with the neighbors (tender prairie flowers, melodious feathered dryads, elusive creatures of fur and claw), seeking the Earth's bounty in our garden-in-progress, working with our goats (soon to be acquired) and chickens to manage brush, etc.

The garden into which we pour labor and love!

"Welcome to the USA": the Long-Awaited Bureaucratic Catharsis

Phewww... I just got back from clearing the last immigration hurdle: the interview at the US Consulate in Montreal. It was a quick business, I was in and out in one hour and a half. "Interview" is really a big word; I had been imagining being ushered into an impressive office and scrutinized by a representative of the state with more power than you'd want to shake a stick at for fear of legal repercussions for the next seven generations. In the end I turned in my original documents at one booth, talked to someone in a slightly more private booth about my accent and other niceties and then received my "welcome to the USA" letter. Didn't even have to talk about how we met, what I planned on doing in the US, etc. Great!

Now I will travel back to Vancouver and wait for a package containing my visa documents and passport (which they kept) to be sent by mail. They say I can expect it in less than 2 weeks. Which means I probably won't make it for our anniversary, on the 21st. But soon I shall be on my southward journey, and then on to more thrilling adventures! I hear rumours of bird surveys and natural building and planting hardy kiwis and goumis and other fantastical things... Not long now...