Hi all, joining from Santa Fe, NM!

Hi all,

We are very excited to be joining this community. My husband and I have a 12.5 acre property about 25 minutes north of Santa Fe in a beautiful area called Nambe. Our property is at the end the road, so we have neighbors around but we also have the benefit of having open lands that abut the south side of the property. Nambe is right at the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, so the views are pretty amazing! Every morning we wake up to the sound of happy birds and amazing sun rises over the mountains.

We have two pups who live a ranch life style, sleep inside but roam all day. We actually only recently moved here (officially moved in July 2021) from Portland, Oregon. We have BIG dreams for this property, including a thriving mini farm, an artist retreat, and maybe even one day a bed and breakfast with fresh sourdough bread and pizza made daily! We have a main house that is a beautiful large traditional adobe home, and then we have a Casita up the hill (with the best views by far on the property).

We’ve been doing a TON of work upgrading/updating the buildings since moving in, and we’re finishing up putting in a very big water catchment and reuse system. It’s a work in progress, but we love it and we really look forward to sharing it with others.

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Welcome - your property sounds great and I look forward to seeing a listing sometime soon. One of my first sits was in Santa Fe with a pair of delightful dogs and a trio of very bashful cats. And I have old friends I got to catch up with while there. And had some great food!
A suggestion - if you might make a car available to the sitter - rentals have become so expensive now.
Take care.
tom

Thanks @toml for the feedback. I was actually really curious about the car sharing thing… I totally hear you on prices, I think I was just a little confused about how it all works to share our car in terms of insurance, etc. Do you have any experience with this? Would love to hear how to go about it. I want to make sure it is as easy as possible for anyone staying here since rural living definitely requires driving, unfortunately.

In the US, most auto insurance is tied to the car - and anyone who has the owners permission to drive the car is covered. Of course, if something goes wrong, the owner’s insurance will get hit, deductibles, etc will apply… I think that is the situation in much of Europe, Australia, etc. But the owner needs to check.
For example, I’m looking at a sit in Ireland over Christmas/New Year for which a car is necessary - the owner checked and I can be added to the policy for EU 60 for 3 weeks.
But the UK is a different story - 3 years ago, I was added to the owner’s insurance for 2 different sits with no issues. More recent UK sits, either the insurance company have refused to add me or wanted an unreasonable surcharge. That may be because I am 71 years old now? In my recent UK sits, I’ve rented a car and the HO has shared in the cost of the car rental. And I’ve looked to buy UK auto insurance for myself but have been unable to find anything for a visitor.
tom

Welcome. All of your plans sound so exciting! My husband and I are heading west on a road trip and have a sit scheduled in Santa Fe, October 22-29, if you want to get together for a visit/beverage we can bore you with our housesit-travel-work away stories. We’ve been with THS since 2013. I can even bring you some of my sourdough starter, her name is Jane Dough and I’m sure she’d love to go on a road trip!

If you need a quick break we’ve got a few free days prior to the start of our Santa Fe housesit.

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Hi @zflanagan13,
On behalf of the forum team, a warm welcome to the TrustedHousesitter’s community. I am originally from Santa Fe myself and as we locals like to say “born here all my life.” The Nambe area is lovely and I can’t wait to see your dreams for your property realized and how it contributes to the community. So glad you all finally got some much needed rain! I am sure the pups love their new ranch life and Santa Fe has so many wonderful dog friendly hikes, shops and eateries.

As you cannot share a link to your listing in this post, do share a link to your listing on your forum profile for a bit of extra exposure. But the main website is where ALL our members will see your opportunity and be able to apply and message with you.

If at any time you need any help don’t hesitate to reach out to our community here which is full of helpful members who have been through the process themselves and will happily give advice and guidance. And don’t forget our membership support team are always on hand to give assistance.

All the very best,
Kelly & the Forum Team

Hi!

AnaRose here, thanks for checking in with me. Yes! I am on my way to the Southwest in October. My son is in Chandler Az, so I plan to arrange sits in the area including: New Mexico and Arizona. Hope to find something near the Grand Canyon as well. Who knows, if I get enough sits, I may stay until Christmas with my son…as we plan to spend it in Chandler!

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Thank you @toml This is VERY helpful!

I’d love to meet up! I believe our dates away are the 19th-25th. So maybe right before we leave :slight_smile:

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Hello @Alice and @zflanagan13 and lovely to see you trying to organise a meetup! So many of our members get enjoyment from connecting with other sitters or owners when on the road and it’s something we want to encourage and help with using this community space.

Have you seen the meetup category here on the forum?

I’ll pop a link here as you may want to add your dates to the USA meetups thread to see if there’s anyone else you can connect with while on the road!

Meetup Opportunities - USA

And please don’t forget to come back and share some pix if you do manage to get together!

All the best
Vanessa

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