WARNING: LONG POST, please feel free to skip!

Hi everyone,

Thanks for the answers. I'm Pat Meadows, Brian's wife.

To bring you all up to date, we (contingently) bought a house in Washington County, Maine, about 20 miles west of Calais and the border with Canada. St. Stephen, NB is just a river from Calais.

(The only remaining contingency is that the buyer of our house gets her mortgage.)

We selected this particular house because all the other possibilities in our price range which we had identified (in a few counties) had one 'Fatal Flaw' or another *Fatal Flaw*, such as:

* being in a state of extreme dilapidation such that we could not afford to make necessary repairs
* being near a paper mill (the sole reason that we are moving is to get me away from things which aggravate my serious respiratory allergies and asthma)
* being 20 feet from a major highway
* etc. etc.

One of our requirements was sufficient land to ensure at least a modest degree of separation from the wood stoves of neighbors, and so on. We construed this as a minimum of one acre, which really limited our choices in the price range we can afford.

The house we bought is nice, I think - a five-year old, one story house, which we wanted (I'm 66 years old now, I don't want stairs).   It's small, but large enough for us (and considerably larger than the house we live in now, which is a sweet little house but smaller than a shoebox).

It's not on a major road and in fact is on a dead end street. The house has two acres of land and a large lake is about 1/2 mile away.

The house is entirely pine-paneled inside; that nice warm honey-colored pine (low maintenance). The outside is vinyl, which I wouldn't choose for looks but again it is low maintenance.... etc.

It has an open floor plan - kitchen, dining area, living room - which I like, that's a plus. Kitchen is tiny, I cook rather extensively, and this is a problem; however, I will appropriate part of the living room for kitchen storage. That's OK and will work out.

The property is nice, partly open, partly treed, and there are three large sheds.

Brian, bought and brought up on an island, much preferred Washington County to the more inland areas, very much so in fact. I don't think we will have the extremes of cold which upper Arostook experiences.

And we will both be glad to be in day-trip range of the shore - in fact, we will be about 35 miles from the shore. We would have preferred to be somewhat nearer the shore but it was not to be.

The two acres is a big plus for us, also. There's plenty of room for my daughter to buy or build a trailer or yurt or cabin for a vacation home someday. She is VERY enthusiastic about this. She can visit us by driving to the Philly Airport (she lives in NJ), flying non-stop to Bangor, where we can meet her at the airport. Door-to-door her trip to the new house will take her less time than her (car) trip from her home to our old home. She prefers flying to driving (unlike her mother!), so that's fine.

We will be 78 miles from Bangor (major medical stuff, etc.). Calais has a small hospital.

NOW, the disadvantages - the 21 mile drive to a supermarket is a real PITA. There's a smaller store about 15 miles away, and a convenience store and diner about 1/2 mile away.

But basically, we'll have to drive 42 miles round trip for doctor visits, dentist, vet, supermarket, etc. We do have a Subaru with all-wheel drive, which is good in snow, and another car which is a real dog in snow!   We will need to be very organized about grocery lists and so on.

21 miles from a hospital could be a worry, but you know - when we lived in a suburb of Baltimore, we were about 21 miles from a hospital and through heavy traffic much of the time. When we lived in Delaware, we were almost that far from a hospital, again with traffic.... And no one worried about it in those places.

The house has no garage for storage, which is a negative, although the large shed helps in this respect. We can probably manage to build a carport for the cars, at least, to keep the snow off - we can make sides from clear plastic if it has a solid roof. That would be a help.

We are still sweating our buyer getting her mortgage... We have our mortgage commitment. Our Pennsylvania house has been inspected and found to be a 'nice sound little house' by the inspector with no big problems at all. (Phew!).

So that's the story.

We did not want to move, but the natural gas industry is absolutely spoiling this area and (already) making problems for people (like me) with severe allergies -- and they are just getting started on drilling, it is going to be a whole lot worse very quickly. And I really, really NEED to be able to breathe.....

Most of you probably don't have reason to know this, but Bush, Cheney and a cooperative Congress removed all clean air and clean water restrictions on the oil, gas and mineral extraction industries. The Pennsylvania legislature, far from protecting its citizens and constituents, has made the situation even worse.... NY State has put a moratorium on drilling until it can pass regulations protecting its citizens and the environment. Pennsylvania is now frequently described as a 'basket case', and I believe this to be true. (Naturally, before we even considered moving, we did considerable research.)

In fact, it even looks like the PA Legislature is going to pass a law which *forces* homeowners to allow drilling under their land if a majority of their neighbors allow drilling. Wow! I can barely think of anything more contrary to our much hyped 'freedom'. The Land of the What and the Brave?.....

We will be *very* fortunate if we succeed in escaping. Many people here (probably most) are tied to this area either by job, family, or both.

I've spoken to quite a few local people: every single one of them is *absolutely appalled* at what is happening. It doesn't even bring jobs to local residents, because the drilling firms (naturally) bring their experienced workers from Texas and other distant states.

So please keep good thoughts for us that our buyer gets her mortgage and that we can in fact escape.... Thanks!

Cheers,
Pat