Kathy Judy

I have just listed 10 S 20th Street in Payette Idaho. Payette is on the Idaho/Oregon border and is an hour from Boise - it has a population of 7400. Payette was the "big " town when I was growing up - there are beautiful parks and the Payette River goes through town and joins the Snake at the NW edge. "Above the ditch" east of Highway 95 is the traditional nicest area and this home is surrounded by nice older homes.

The sellers are both ill and one is elderly, there are some financial issues and the property needs some repairs and updating or restoring.

This is reflected in the price. It is a short sale at $80000 or a normal sale at $92000. For that you get .61 of an acre with a 2600 square foot home, a double car detached garage, and a nice 600 square foot shop/studio.

We fished the Columbia at Boardman (I'm sure all teenagers call it Bored -man) Oregon over Labor Day.

I'll have to admit from the freeway Boardman does look boring. The very active Port of Morrow port district has various industries with the facilities going full blast and the town looks small, nothing much to leave the freeway for except gas and a bozoburger at C & D Drivein (actually very good).

But that's wrong and I don't know why they don't captialize on it more. You go over the railroad and there's beautiful Marina Park! About a half mile of river frontage with a wonderful protected boat launch, mooring, camping picnic and sports areas with a paved greenbelt to cap it off.

Having access to multiple recreational activities and locations is one reason people choose to live in the Intermountain West. We have wide-open spaces lots of public land and we love the outdoors!

Here in farming country the harvest is beginning. Soon trucks hauling wheat potatoes onions and other crops will be everywhere on the roads. Big hay swathers are moving around now, the hay market is great the weather is perfect finally and they're "making hay while the sun shines".

Like onions? Chances are they are grown here in the Treasure Valley, the border area of Oregon and Idaho.

Eat french frys? Ore-Ida foods started here in Ontrario Oregon, Simplot is in Caldwell Idaho, one packs for McD's one for Burger King.

Back to hay, like cheese? A lot of area hay is "dairy quality" sold to local dairys (and shipped EVERYWHERE) the cows make the milk and it's shipped to the cheese plants.

A good farm economy is good for everyone. For me personally, I have an accepted offer on a small farm I've had listed!

Today I get to help with the Global Village Festival in Ontario Oregon. I'v e done this most years since it was started, I really enjoy it.

Our area celebrated diversity before it was cool and before we even knew what diversity was.

It's not that prejudice doesn't exist here, it does, but tolerance is the most prevalent.

Our area first had Native Americans, then some French, Spanish and Northern European people, then lots of Basque people some Chinese then Mexicans, then Japanese because we were a free zone in WWII. Of course there is a smattering of every type of person. All this is a county with less than 40000 people.

The festival features booths with different nationalities sellling their typical foods and each booth features a craft that the kids can do for free, the kids collect stamps from each booth on their "passports" and then they are elegible to win a mountain bike.

There is constant musical entertainment, a newer addition are the Hula dancers from Boise, they are fantastic. I always enjoy the bagpipes, the Mexican and Basque childrens dancers and like to top it off with the Taiko drumming.

The food costs, but everything else is free! Families can have a whole day of fun for the cost of a lunch.

We here in the Intermountain West take beautiful scenery as our normal. We are used to and expect wonderous views everywhere we go.

THis last weekend I was able to add a new area to my experience. We went through Washington State diagonally, I had been to and love the Tri-Cites with the Columbia River and the vinyards. Spokane is pretty with the mountains in the background and green without being soggy, The I-5 corridor is well.... it's I-5.

I'd been to the Olympic Rain Forest many years ago, Coast pretty, forest too soggy. (I am a desert person).

We drove from Tri-Cities to Yakima, lot s of vinyards and other farms, then you go through a desert then hit Ellensburg and start the mountains. It just gets prettier - Cle Elum (Washington has lots of oddly named towns) is gorgeous , then you're up and over Snoqualmie Pass and down toward Seattle, but we went further North and West.

The Skagit Valley and Whidbey Island are farming areas I didn't know existed = I always thought the whole area was greater Seattle.

We delivered a piece of farm equipment to Coupeville on Whidbey Island - farms and lovely homes (planning and zoning meetings ought to be interesting there) with lovely water views EVERYWHERE.

The weekend of May 21 and 22, rural Washington State was wonderful, we didn't hit rain till we came back home to our Eastern Oregon desert!