Axton Road Bed and Breakfast lies on twenty acres with panoramic views of both the Canadian Rockies to the north and the American Cascades to the east. It is situated on rolling agricultural land in an area called Laurel Hill, several miles north of Bellingham, the "city of subdued excitement." The city is actually an interesting amalgam historically of four settlements along the east side of Puget Sound, lying 90 miles north of Seattle and 55 miles southeast of Vancouver, BC.

Within view of our home is Mount Baker, famous both for its annual Banked Slalom snowboarding competition and also in 1999 a world record snowfall cumulatively of over 110 feet. Several hours north of Vancouver is Whistler, feverishly preparing for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Bellingham has a growing population of some 75,000, including about 10,000 students, staff and faculty at Western Washington University. The southern terminus of the Inland Passageway ferry to Alaska is located in the part of town called Fairhaven, adjacent to the University. Other ferries reach the archipelago of the San Juan Islands. Resident lakes within Whatcom County include Whatcom, Samish and Padden.

The front ten of our twenty acres include two small rental homes and a native tree nursery. The back ten acres incorporate our home, an orchard, a vineyard, goat pasture, greenhouse, gazebo, art studio, carpentry shop and exercise room (elliptical trainer and rowing machine and weight bench), other farm buildings, extensive gardens, a couple of hiking trails, and a photovoltaic system providing about two-thirds of the electricity both for the bed and breakfast operation as well as the two rental houses. An article about the energy system authored by Sandy is in the July 2008 issue of Home Power Magazine.

In the summer and fall Barb's vegetable gardens are bountiful enough to provide much of the produce for our meals and our guests. Ornamental gardens distinguish many parts of the property as well. The rhododendron is our state plant, and we have many sited about the property.

While we cannot yet consider ourselves serious birders, there is an incredible amount of wildlife on the property. We have four barn owl boxes spaced around the property and usually there is nesting taking place in at least two in a given year. There are thirty swallow boxes mounted on various buildings. Even a partial listing of other species seen would include grosbeaks, ravens, red-tailed hawks, northern harriers, bald eagles, flickers, pileated woodpeckers, and a number of finches, including our state bird the goldfinch. South of here in the Skagit flats is one of the premier hawk-watching areas in North America in the winter, with prairie falcons, peregrine falcons, gyrfalcons, kestrels and others.