Snow storm came during the night and decided to have a seat.

Friday night, November 19 2010, it started snowing and by Saturday morning I had about six to eight inches of snow.  Just as I started to go to work on my computer, the power went out.  With no power, I have no heat so I figured…  I’d better leave for the weekend.  On the way out, there was a pretty good size tree branch in the road.  I managed to drive around it but I could tell this was going to be a bad storm.

The leaves are still on the trees and the snow is very wet, resulting in trees and tree limbs coming down all over the forest.

Looking up the road away from my house Saturday morning

Checking on my house Monday, November 22, 2010, there still was no power.  The road I live on loops, and I came up the first turn to my road and went up to my house. Everything was fine until I decided to continue out the other end of my road. Guess what? There is a tree lying across the road. One wire has fallen off the power pole and is lying across the road also. If you look closely at the picture I took, looking up the hill, you will notice the wire on the right hand side of the pole is not there.

Look at the right upper side of pole, wire has fallen off

Notice the tree and power line across the road - Monday evening

PG & E called me on my cell last night and informed me that there would be no power until Tuesday.  At this point there are about 7,000 homes without power.  Tonight, I received another friendly call from PG & E and they said there would be no power until Wednesday. (my house is at 3,700 foot elevation)

Well another night not at my house!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GxoO74Mu3o

John J. O’Dell
Real Estate Broker
530-263-1091

Angel, she does not like her picture taken.

Angel asked me the other day why I liked Nevada County so much. She said she’s 49 now and we have always lived here. (Angel’s seven, but dogs age seven times faster then humans, although some times I think I’m keeping up with her)

I said Angel, it’s like this, to give you an example, I was a construction project manager for a large land development company that developed subdivisions in Truckee and North Shore. Once a month I had to go to San Francisco and attend a committee meeting. Thats where a bunch of people get together for hours to talk about nothing and what a single line text message could have taken care without all that waste of time.

Anyhow, I would get to the company’s office right in the heart of the financial business district on California Street. I’d stand outside and watch people who would seem to be in high gear, walking like they were all late for a committee meeting or something. You can’t believe the traffic there either, I think they have more cars in one block then all the cars we have in Nevada County and the buildings are so tall, they had to calculate the orbit of the moon before they built them.

Coming back from all the hustle and bustle of the Bay Area, I would come up Highway 49 and as soon as I crossed the county line at Bear River, I would start getting calm, a feeling of coming back to nature. Driving along the highway, first there were and still are the large oaks to greet you, then continuing on you are surrounded by large pines on both sides of the highway, tall sentinels welcoming you back, bringing you back to a true reality of life.

That’s the way Nevada County is, an abundance of forest and terrain, having different eco-systems, from Penn Valley where you can raise horses and is more open, fewer trees, to areas around Nevada City higher in elevation, where you are surrounded by a canopy of trees and forest environment. You can live below the snow belt or above it. It’s an amazing County, where in just a few minutes you can be in completely different worlds. It’s a much slower pace here, more peaceful and more like life should be.

So Angel, that’s why I like Nevada County, the pace of life is much slower, more real and people are not in a rush to go to committee meetings.

Do you understand Angel? Angel; yes and now can I have a cookie?

Snow scene December 2008 from my deck looking at Scotts Flat Lake and towards the Coast Range Mountains

Another snow scene December 2009 Banner Quaker Hill Road.

I was wandering around on the Internet the other day and what a surprise when I stumbled unto the fact that the county of Nevada County has a free prescription card. On reading further on the Nevada County website, it states that the card may be used by all county residents, regardless of age, income or existing health coverage. The National Association of Counties has made this available to all counties that want this discount prescription card and to our good fortune, the Nevada County Public Health Department decided to make this card available to us living in Nevada County. (The formal name of the card is “The National Association of Counties NACo Drug Discount Card or simply NACo discount card”)

There is no enrollment form, no membership fee and no restrictions or limits on frequency of use. Cardholders and their family members may use the card anytime their prescriptions are not covered by insurance. According to the County, savings average 20 percent, some discounts may be more, and some less, depending on the drug and quantity purchased. Cardholders are eligible for higher discounts on a three-month supply of some medications through mail service. If you have a pet, believe it or not, you can save on pet prescriptions at participating retail pharmacies. By the way, this is not an insurance card.
The card may be used at over 57,000 pharmacies nationwide, including most chain pharmacies and many independents. Wal-Mart participates in the program. In addition the program has a safety feature that alerts pharmacists when one drug may conflict with another medication the card holder is taking, if the prescriptions were obtained with the NACo discount card. The card program remains a useful option now that Medicare Part D has been implemented. For example, the card can be used when a Medicare Part D plan doesn’t cover a drug.

For information on obtaining a NACo discount card call 530-265-140 or go to 500 Crown Point Circle, Grass Valley, CA, If you do not live in Nevada County, check with your County Health Department and see if they have enrolled in this program.

Pasquale Road Winter of 2007

Pasquale Road is icy and a little narrow in some areas, but it’s a beautiful drive. The County does a great job of snow removal to make it easy to get to town. The picture above shows some of the natural beauty of our area. I enjoy our area so much because we are lucky to have the four seasons here, with a little snow, not too hot a summer and beautiful spring and fall.

By the way, real estate in Nevada County is not too bad. In 2006, 983 homes were sold in Nevada County. In 2007, 862 homes were sold. That’s 121 fewer homes, but real estate has not died. The hardest hit areas, such as Fresno and Lincoln are areas in which developers over built large tracts of homes.

In our area, we do not have that problem. We live in a very desirable County, with no excess of inventory. We have very restrictive land use ordinances limiting new growth to almost no growth at all.

On the 11th of January I’m off to Buenos Aires for a month. I was born there and have duel citizenship. Buenos Aires is known as the Paris of South America and is a beautiful city. The first week I will be in a Spanish immersion class, living with a family so that I can regain my native language. I came to the United States when I was six and quickly learned English and lost my Spanish. My mother always said I would be sorry for not keeping up on my Spanish and of course like all mothers she was right. I’ll be posting pictures of my travels, so stay tuned.

John O’Dell is a licensed civil engineer, land surveyor, general contractor and real estate broker