Adventures in Enumcluw

Yesterday, i headed out toward Mt. Rainier to a little town called Enumclaw. It's almost like one of those towns near our coast here, where at some time not too long after the 1940's, time stopped. Like with this Mutual of Enumclaw building. It's the kinds that the facade is made of pebbles. Brought back a childhood memory of a bank we used to go to Tucson. This building here is by far the tallest building in the area. This town is already my kinda town. :o)

Initially, i headed out this way to assess the local meat shop out there. They're said to have great bangers (British sausages), so we wanted to test them out for the meal at Hubbie's b/d party. Of course, if i'm gonna drive 30 miles out of my way for bangers, especially on Earth Day, i need to make the trip worth my while. So i looked up some homes for sale out there that we had been looking at and i took a little tour of the city. Unfortunately, yesterday's weather wasn't the best, so i couldn't get a lot of nice pictures--not even one of Mt. Rainier because she was shrouded in cloud cover.

With bangers purchased and not needing to be anywhere for a good 3 hours, i explored. In between Auburn, Enumclaw, and Black Diamond. LOTS of farmland out there. And let me tell you, LOTS OF COWS and of course that means LOTS of Moo Doo. It's beautiful though! Rolling green hills of fir trees, cows, and sheep. Unfortunately bordered by the Muckleshoot Tribe, which would normally be a good thing, but they're allowed to sell fireworks twice a year. I couldn't even keep track of the number of fireworks huts erected in the yards of the people along the highway. It was crazy!

Here's one of the houses i did see that interested me:


Now, if only it would go on the market. :o) Being out there made me realise how much we lost to this last housing boom. There are so many new Gargantuan McMansions (you know the ones that would take up all the lots of a new neighbourhood full of the regular sized McMansions? And then they add a two story garage to boot!) Sadly, the land is being sold off, chunk by chunk. Here and there are dotted this sweet and charming old craftsmen or even the few and far between Victorian farmhouses, separated by the horrid modular homes of the 80's and 90's and the GMM's of this century.

And the cost of the GMM's has really pushed up the prices of the nostalgic old houses--which can't even compete in size. There is no way a family can afford $550K-7ooK for a house. And the ones that do, their children suffer for it because usually it takes 2 incomes to pay for those kinds of bills.

And lastly, the thing that is area had going against it was the distance from Hubbie's work. It's one thing to make a trip out there once a year or so, but entirely different to have to drive it everyday.

I did see some interesting things though: like rows and rows of these?

Wondering what they were, i had to double and triple back a few times. Upon repeated viewing i noticed a few eyes popping out....

But of course they couldn't pop out when i tried taking their pictures 3 times. :o) The entire row of them was full of baby cows!! Brown ones (see that snout up there?), black ones, black and white ones. So adorable!! Anyone know the what these housing things are called? Cow-gloos? Moo-gloos? I am presuming they are to keep the babies warm on chilly days?

Here's a picture of some of the dairy cows nearby.

This just makes me want to have a farm of our own even more now. So many signs littering the roadways with "Fresh Raw Milk" or "Eggs" or "Lavender", what have you. So cool!