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Access to vet care. Veterinary care since the pandemic has been crazy... and for small animals it still is. Terrible curbside service and not taking new patients or appointments weeks out.
It's been a little better for large animal mobile vets, at least right around here. I think they continued to help people as normal during the pandemic. We have a few different and good all mobile large animal vets.
For horse surgery like colic surgery.... we have only one choice: Pilchuck. They're the only ones around here who can do that kind of surgery. https://pilchuckvet.com/
On hay: We have choice here between Eastern Washington cultivated hay, and local hay.... and local hay is all over the board in quality. There is some good local, but it's almost always much smaller bales, so not a direct comparison. I usually prefer Eastern WA hay - it's more per bale, but they're 100+ pound bales of good quality hay.... so pound for pound, better than 30 pound bales of local wild grasses and weeds.
Thank you, Taz22. That is very helpful information.
I hope you enjoy your new life in Florida! Where did you end up? I lived in Fort Lauderdale during my high school years.
I did check hay prices in Washington and there seemed to be quite a range, with less expensive bales needing to be loaded on your own from the field (those days are gone).
Good to know about the lack of availability of services, as that could cause a panicky situation for me. One of my horses was hospitalized for an intestinal displacement 4 times during a 2-month period, and I'm sure she would have died without the availability of a nearby facility that can manage that type of care.
Wow -- trash dumping in the front yard.
I think there are unfriendly people everywhere, but do you think it is more prevalent in WA? I have lived in Colorado since age 20...born in MD. There seems to be an overall resentment of people moving here and "destroying" everything, though I think the concern is really about the lack of affordable prices for homes along the Front Range. I suspect Washington has also seen a huge influx of people given its moderate climate and beauty.
Glad you could use the information, it’s a big move and you should be happy with the area you chose. Prices on hay will vary, the local feed store we used had that price. Things were spread out and it was easier to use the closest place. If you want more options like vets for your horses and feed stores, be careful where you move. Try to find an area closer in to a larger city or town, otherwise, you’ll have a sick horse and only one or two vets to call on. Take a drive around the area, if the nearest feed store is fifteen miles away, the drive might become more than you want, especially for a quick run. Mayfair and pikabike know rural Washington well, be on your guard if you move rural. Yes, people throw trash in their yards, several of my neighbors over the years even had mattresses in their front yards. Again, drive around and look for yourself, rural Washington does have a West Virginia vibe.
Thanks for the good wishes! I know Florida pretty well, when I was a kid it was a favorite family vacation spot. A lot of Florida is sleepy towns and strip malls, at least it used to be before the boom. I decided on Naples because it’s one of the prettiest areas I’ve seen in Florida. No homeless encampments or trash on the side of the roads. The area we moved to is close to the beach, Naples, and a ton of services. The house is on a quiet street and you don’t see your neighbors, there are lots of trees and a few acres that I need to get fenced before the horses can move in.
There are locals who don’t like newcomers, this is common, but Washington isn’t the friendliest state. CD has threads on the Seattle Freeze and I think it’s a combination of the months of damp, gloomy weather and maybe the isolation. Many locals are of Scandinavian decent, they can be pretty reserved. The attitudes are common to what you described about ruining the environment. IMO, homeless encampments are a lot worse than people moving in and spending their money on parks and things to keep Washington beautiful.
Please tell me about Washington in general -- the good, the bad, the ugly. I always dreamed of living on Whidbey Island, and I've belonged to a Whidbey Island Facebook group for many years, which has left me with mixed emotions if I'm to believe everything that is posted. My husband is not in love with the idea of living on an island, as he envisions a tsunami approaching while he is towing 4 horses in a trailer, waiting for a ferry or backed up on a bridge. But he's kind of a worst scenario kind of guy. So anywhere in the western part of the State is OK with me.
I know nothing about raising horses, but I did grow up in New Mexico and Colorado, and I lived for about 10 years just north of Tacoma Washington. So, on Washington in general ...
The Good
The mountains. The Olympics are the most beautiful mountains I have ever seen in the USA. Really stunning.
Largely bugless. Moving to super wet Washington, I was stunned at how few pesky bugs there were. Mosquitos were rarely a major pest, nor were flies, and I don't think I ever saw a tick the whole time I was there. Spiders? Yeah, man. Lots of spiders. In fact, the biggest spider I ever saw in my life skittered across my bathroom floor once. It was so large I could actually hear the "clickety clickety) of its legs. That said, there are very few dangerous spiders in Washington.
The weather isn't what you see on movies and TV. (More on this in "The Bad" below). It really isn't a constant downpour. Late spring and most of summer is actually pretty dry. The rest of the year is a lot of rain, but it isn't a constant downpour. It's more like living inside a really wet sneeze for 8 months of the year.
The Bad
Cost of living is outrageous. My wife and I were both working full-time jobs and made decent salaries, but we still struggled for years to get out of the crappy local apartments and into our own home. When we did, we discovered that what we thought was a nice middle class neighborhood was actually a haven for the local Crips. (More on this in "The Ugly" below.) Suffice to say, Washington State can actually be a really great place to live if you're rich. If you are middle class or struggling, it can be pretty awful.
Public schools. May not be an issue for you, but they aren't great. Lots of gangbangers and gangbanger wanna-bes in the schools, unless you are living in the really rich neighborhoods.
The weather. You really only get two seasons: Wet and dry. The dry season is late spring through summer. Mid to late summer can actually get quite hot. Very few homes have air conditioning, but you dare not sleep with your windows open because of the crime. Autumn, winter, and early spring it rains probably 85% of the time. But rarely a downpour. It's more like a heavy drizzle for weeks on end. Winter snowfall is very, very rare except in the mountains, but on the rare occasion it does snow, the cities just shut down because they are so unprepared for it.
Earthquakes and volcanoes. I think you and your husband are right to be concerned about the changing climate in the Rockies. In Washington, you'll rarely if ever have to deal with severe weather. The worst you'll see if the occasional snowstorm of 4-6 inches that shuts down the city for a week because communities have 1 snowplow to deal with 100,000 people. But the next "big one" earthquake could be really serious, especially in the wet season when mudslides can happen. We were there for the 2001 quake. It was really scary and caused over $1 billion in damages. It was only 6.8 on the Richter scale. And if Mt. Rainier ever does erupt, it will probably go down in history as the deadliest eruption in centuries. Most of Tacoma and other communities will be wiped off the map by the lahar, and if the wind is blowing in the wrong direction, millions of people are going to be covered in ash.
The Ugly
Crime. You can get away from the worst of it if you are rich and can afford to live in ritzier neighborhoods. If not, be prepared. Even what seem to be decent, middle class neighborhoods now have gang problems fueled by the drug trade, and local addicts often fund their habit with burglary and car theft. My boss had his car broken into twice and stolen once within a 5 year period, and it wasn't even a high-end car. It was a mid-class Toyota. But there are really horrific crimes as well. A guy I worked with, his daughter was abducted from the bus stop when she was 12 years old. Thankfully, the police tracked her and the kidnapper down to a local motel before she disappeared forever, but she will carry those emotional scars the rest of her life.
And at least where we lived, the cops had basically given up on trying to prevent all but the most serious crimes. They spent so much time on murders, drive-by shootings, assaults, and rapes that their only real function for your burglarized home or stolen car was to file the report for the insurance. When our neighborhood got particularly bad with the local Crips who were terrorizing the place, I asked the cop what we could do. He shrugged and said, "Move. I'm not going to waste my time trying to prove this guy is dealing drugs out of his house to attempt an arrest when a judge is just going to put him on the street tomorrow." At least when the local Russian mobsters had their party, we got to listen to drunken Yuri play his guitar while the stripper danced on the balcony. Yeah, that was an odd weekend. What wasn't so fun was when Yuri sobered up and tried to lure local girls back into his place.
Traffic. Some of the worst in the nation. I had a 17 mile commute. On a good day, I could do it in 45 minutes. But it typically took 80-90 minutes, and on particularly bad days it took well over 2 hours. To go 17 miles.
Now ...
Things probably aren't nearly this bad on Whidbey Island, and there are probably places even in the Seattle/Tacoma/Olympia metro area where things aren't this ugly --- if you can afford them. But our ten years in Washington State? My only regret is not leaving sooner.
One area OP might like is around Lord Hill Park in the Snohomish area. The park has miles of trails that allow horses, is near Pilchuck for vet emergencies and there's a lot of horse people around there and more vets, trainers, farriers, etc. to choose from than Whidbey. Property is very expensive though since it's commutable to Seattle/Everett.
I think there are unfriendly people everywhere, but do you think it is more prevalent in WA? I have lived in Colorado since age 20...born in MD. There seems to be an overall resentment of people moving here and "destroying" everything, though I think the concern is really about the lack of affordable prices for homes along the Front Range. I suspect Washington has also seen a huge influx of people given its moderate climate and beauty.
My two cents on these two issues...
My hubby and I spend a LOT of time driving rural parts of Washington. I won't try to vouch for every Washington resident or their landscaping skills, but I don't think we have MORE than our fair share of either trashy yards or grumpy people.
Oh we have some, but if you don't obsess on them, I think the vast majority of us are pretty nice people who manage our lives pretty well and keep our places up. I haven't always driven around counting trashy yards, but since hearing on this forum that we're loaded with them, I've tried to look for them more.... and they're pretty few and far between, really. I see a lot of cute little farms in my travels. - And meet a lot of really nice people.
I don't know what else to say about it.... except I lived here my whole life without realizing our area was so inherently cold and unfriendly... This Seattle Freeze. Maybe people create their own vibe and find what they're looking for. What I do know is it's an area of exponential growth in my lifetime. Something about it is making a lot of new people want to live here. Do we quibble and debate things? Sure. I am one who is probably often in the minority politically... but the whole country debates politics, that's not just here. The rest of the time, we just get along pretty well. - at least when not online. And as long as you aren't trying to tell us everything we're doing is wrong.
On the Homeless issue and crime issues in the big cities and even some of our small ones.... yeah - it's a problem. And a fairly recent one. I do hope we can come up with some better solutions for both issues than what's happening now. Until then, I don't find it too hard to limit my exposure to either one and enjoy the good parts. Thankfully I don't go to town often, I have everything I need out here.
Last edited by Diana Holbrook; 08-29-2022 at 12:36 PM..
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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For the budget and other wishes I would suggest considering Monroe, Snohomish, and Snoqualmie, all have had recent growth with new home developments, but still have older homes on Acreage. Taking a new shortcut back from Snohomish the other day we discovered an area that you might like, the road is Broadway, which runs between Highway 9/Cathcart near Snohomish to near Highway 522 in Maltby. Lots of homes on acreage.
As a compromise, you might also consider Walla Walla, WA to Dayton, WA as an alternative that won't climate shock your husband. It's a little wetter than Colorado, and has much wetter mountains to the south that hold quite a bit more snow/water in the winter, so the run off is much better, and irrigation water is more readily available. Still, very green to the south into Oregon there, and very tree covered mountains once you crest the tops, just not the thick tree cover, and extreme undergrowth, of Western WA. If you stray off the path in Western WA the cover is very, very thick... think Big Foot could hide there type of undergrowth. Very different from CO... or Eastern WA. So if you like to trail ride, I'd think it would be easier in the eastern mountains, and much more similar to CO.
If Oregon is a possibility, then I'd suggest areas around La Grande to Elgin, OR in the Grande Ronde Valley as very horse friendly areas with plenty of trees on the edges of the valley and along the river and streams. Just a thought for a mostly rural/small town area that again wouldn't shock your husband climate and natural disaster wise, but still gets plenty of fall - spring rain compared to Colorado.
So much thoughtful input here. I certainly appreciate all of it.
If I'm correct, it looks like Pilchuk Veterinary or Washington State for anything seriously surgical with a horse. Horse hay from the eastern part of the State is better, which makes sense, as it would have less water (same reason hay is good in Colorado I suppose).
Crime and homelessness are problems in the larger cities but also in some not so large ones (same here).
I have noticed that real estate taxes are rather high. Even when I compare my real estate taxes + State income tax, I still pay considerably less than real estate taxes alone on similarly priced WA properties to the one I own in CO.
Thanks for the warning on overall expensive COL, as well as volcanoes and earthquakes to add to my husband's tsunami concerns. We used to live closer to NORAD and figured we'd be one of the first to go during the nuclear apocalypse. Where we are now, it will take longer for the radiation to get us. (Just kidding here -- I'm sort of a fatalist and figure that whatever happens, happens AND there's no point in worrying about it.) But I do worry a bit about drought. Not in a fatal kind of way, but in a quality-of-life way. I'm not a huge fan of extreme dryness.
Thanks for all the tips and the website links for properties in WA and OR.
And ejisme -- my husband is a complete Bigfoot freak and has been since he saw the Patterson film at age 10ish? Has all of the books, including Ivan Sanderson's rare masterpiece on the subject. Maybe if I can confirm sasquatch sightings in an area with some horse properties, he'd be happy to relocate!
Last edited by twelvegates; 08-29-2022 at 08:27 PM..
First of all, take everything you read on the internet with a *Big* grain of salt, especially folks' opinions on where you should live. Only you will know that after doing plenty of research, visiting and dreaming your own dreams regarding where you would like to live. You'll get sour grapes folks here who have moved or are planning to move with a heavy bias toward the negative side of things. That's true on other CD state forums as well.
We've lived in both CO and WA and we much prefer it here. We have friends and family in CO including Denver, Ft. Collins, The Springs and Ridgway, some of whom have visited a number of times and would like to move here if jobs would permit. COL has increased dramatically across the nation - not just in WA & OR. I think CO saw RE inflation occurring earlier than here with the influx of people from TX, CA and other midwestern states. And home prices have shot through the roof there as well. My point is, its not all *that* different here depending on where one chooses and is coming from. Any homes near larger cities are more expensive along with the resort, touristy types towns or places with greater natural beauty and attractions (i.e., Boulder, Aspen, Telluride, Estes Park, Golden vs. Shoreline, Bainbridge Island, Gig Harbor, Mercer Island, Bellingham, Sequim). You can probably still find locations which are 'relatively' more affordable if you look around and make a few concessions.
Based upon what you've said, it sounds like you would enjoy the change in climate (less snow and cold) and greater precipitation the western side offers. Its very nice to get out of that dry, 'mile-high' desert climate on the continental divide which changes on a dime. No more fall and late spring blizzards or lighting storms with hale that break windshields, 10 degrees and 'sunny' out, etc...
Like you, I leave the natural disasters to others to dwell on and fret over in their spare time. Life is too short to spend worrying about those things. Select a property that's not sitting in a flood plain, up from a Tsunami low coastal area or lava flow zone and go on with life like most folks do here. Unless overcome by personal fears and phobias which is a different problem, its really a non-issue for the majority who live here.
Crime is very relative to where you live and also somewhat exaggerated in this thread. Its not like crazy folks are roaming around everywhere looking to rip you off and break into your home. lol Maybe in some parts, its true. But certainly not everywhere. It's not like some jail break zone or anything nutty like that unless living closer to those high crime areas. A 'crime map' will show you where those are and can be pretty easily avoided when looking for a home.
As far as horse property, folks have them and enjoy them here including friends of ours. They do not complain about finding good vets here in Clark County. But maybe that's a thing they just don't talk about much. I don't really know. They're out enjoying their horses which is apparent.
Derek
Last edited by MtnSurfer; 08-31-2022 at 08:46 PM..
OP, Derek gave a very fair and accurate post of Washington. The difference is the area. Clark county has plenty of services and crime isn’t like living in Concrete. The thing no one has spoken of, is the meth problem all over the state. It’s sad to see, but not enough has been done about it.
I switched my address on NextDoor to get an idea of what’s going on in my new neighborhood. A lady was having a heat stroke in front of Walgreens and people walked by calling her a druggie and vagrant. Attitudes on meth and drugs are very different from Washington, but people should have helped this lady. Someone else had a stranger jump in their pool, a turtle got hit and the lady who posted that was very passionate about people respecting wildlife and the encroachment of humans on their habitat.
The point is that every area will have something, no place is perfect, but you can minimize the bad by doing your due diligence and even reading NextDoor. It will give you a good idea of what’s going on in your neighborhood of interest. People and the local issues going on, can help you decide if it’s the right place for you.
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And as long as you aren't trying to tell us everything we're doing is wrong. 
Maybe in some parts, its true. But certainly not everywhere. It's not like some jail break zone or anything nutty like that unless living closer to those high crime areas. A 'crime map' will show you where those are and can be pretty easily avoided when looking for a home.
