Settling in.

We moved into a shotgun house on Laughlin Way in the country in Redwood Valley. It truly was a valley. It was about 2 miles wide and the bottom was almost flat with the mountains rising sharply on the sides. Laughlin Way was a mostly gravel road at the west side of the valley that connected to West Road that looped into the valley before becoming East Road on exiting the other side.

Our landlords were from Missouri and he was a sheep rancher. The shotgun house had been their home until they built their house on the other side of the yard. The front of the house was long room that was a living room and a bedroom with small kitchen in a separate room. A front and back porch. The steps were on the left side of the back porch and then there was another building that housed the bath and another bedroom. Sort of like a "double wide trailer" only back to front instead of side to side. My brother Bob ( about 18 ) and my brother George ( about 12 ) used the "outside " bedroom.
Later my sister Juanita and her two daughters came to live with us and we added another bed in the living room.
Our water was piped off the mountain into a open top wooden water tower. Yes, just like on Petticoat Junction.
My brother Wilson and his wife lived about a mile and a half away. They lived in a converted barn that was very nice on the inside.