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Past or Present… This Community Still Shines

[00:00:00] Well, I had the pleasure of chatting with a friend of mine, um, that is also a local resident, like she's lived here her whole life, and we had to talk about what it was like living here in the Verde Valley from the time she was a young child until now. So over the last 60 years, what's changed?

All right, so today I am doing an interview with my dear friend, Ms. Phyllis McDaniel. I've known her for a number of years. We met doing a transaction. She's gonna talk about that 'cause I can't remember how exactly we met. And we are here in Cornville and we're gonna talk about living in Cornville and the benefits of being here.

She's a lifelong resident. That's right. So that's part of why I want her also to be an interviewer, interviewee because, and yes, I will admit we've been drinking wine. Cheers. Cheers. Absolutely. Okay. [00:01:00] So Phyllis, tell us a little bit about, what you do, how long you've been doing it, company you're with, and then we'll talk about Cornville 'cause that's much more fun about it.

Well, I grew up in this area. I have been a loan originator in the Verde Valley for 26 years, and I started out as a realtor. You might not know that. I did not know that. I love it. But I went to see about getting a loan and she told me that she would see me in two years because I had just become self-employed.

But she said, oh, by the way, I need help. So this is how I got into the mortgage business. I started by answering phones and it just was something that I took a liking to. I love helping people and 26 years later, I can't imagine doing anything else. So I, do all types of financing.

We do purchase, refinance, construction loans, home equity lane of credit lot loans, you name it, we finance it. All [00:02:00] right. Well and that's, and that's part of what makes, you know, knowing Phyllis wonderful because whatever client I'm working with, there's a possibility that you may be able to help them with their loan situation, and that would be commercial investors.

Regular people buying their homes, that type of thing. So all over, and I remember she loves working with first time home buyers. That is her favorite thing. And she has helped me with several first time home buyers. And they loved her. We do first time home buyers are very satisfying, just so appreciative and being able to help someone turn the key on that first home just makes my heart fall.

It does, it does. It's a wonderful feeling. And yes, I'm drinking wine. She already had hers. she's got water. so don't mind me if I get a little slushy, I'll just deal with it. I don't drink very often. Interest. It just makes it that much more spicy. Should be. [00:03:00] So just before we move on, so we are currently at Cove Mesa.

I don't know if you can see it. Cove Mesa here in Cornville. They've been here three years. That's nice. They do food. So we did eat, we had the brief platter and the Cindy salad. Both were very good. And then we both had a flight of wine. Yes. She had the whites she could speak to that. I had a flight of blended reds.

This is one that I really like. So I decided to have an actual glass of the wine. And then I will be driving home. Yeah. But I think I can add that the service has been amazing here. Yes, it's a lovely setting. The weather in November is perfect. It is. It's not too hot, it's not too cold. The leaves are changing color and there's no other place I think that I would rather be right now than drinking wine with two cornet friend.

I love. I love it. I love it. Okay, so part of the reason that I also wanted to talk with you, [00:04:00] Phyllis, is because you are an original Arizonian. That's true. That's a rare beast. That is true, especially around here. And part of the thing that obviously what my videos are about is living in the Verde Valley, why would you wanna live here?

You know, the people that are selling, I want their buyers, their potential buyers to know how awesome it is to live here. So I help sellers obviously, but this is my way of getting the word out that it's a great place to live. Phyllis has lived here her whole life, so. How do you think, what is like the biggest change that you've noticed from when you were younger to now?

Let's talk about the good stuff first. The biggest changes. Well, it would be traffic we're talking about the good stuff. I just think more variety. I mean, as far as grocery stores go, there's more diversity now. I mean, when we were growing up. [00:05:00] There were so few people, there were probably 300 people in Cornville and that included pig graves.

So with more people coming in, there's just, it adds more color and flavor to the Verde Valley. You learn more right. From different types of people. Right, right. Exactly. Exactly. And it's not, it's, when you say diversity, are we talking about. Just because they're different people or are you talking about different cultures, different ethnicities, different religions, all of that?

I would say all of the above, yes. I mean, the original families were, well, there were Yavapai Apache Indians and there were Hispanics, and then there were white folks. I mean, we just didn't have a lot of other cultures back in the day. So to have all different types of people living in. It's been a great thing.

Okay, cool. I like that. I like that. And what are some of the things that you love about living in the Verde Valley? [00:06:00] Because you've lived here your whole life and could have moved anytime. A lot of people do, but you have chosen to stay here. You got some pretty deep roots here. Well, and I did. I mean, my family were pioneers.

They came before Arizona was a state in 1876, and on my dad's side in probably 1880s.

What was the question? What, being here, what do I love about being here? What do you love living here? I mean, just talk a little bit more about your parents being pioneers. That's freaking your grandparents or your parents.

It was my great grandparents, so my great, great grandfather jumped a steamer. In 1876 from Ireland and worked his way across the United States and settled in Oakland Canyon. So what was impactful about that is in 1876, they rounded up the Native Americans and took them to a reservation in San Carlos and literally left the [00:07:00] fires garden in Indian Gardens.

So that's where the history began, but. What of the not a good history about unfortunately sad history, A sad history, sad history. I mean, growing up here was idyllic. We were not tethered to anything. There were no cell phones. We were out playing from the time the sun came up to after dark riding our horses, swimming in the creek, walking everywhere.

It was perfect. We had one set of grandparents on one side of our house and the other, you know, down the road. So it was a very tight knit family. Okay. Oh, that's, that's part of what I like about living here. Honestly, I don't have kids or anything, but I do see very much family is like, really important here in the Verde Valley.

It's, it's not just the place for old people to retire. It's family's very important. They have a lot of family activities, a lot of family focus. Everything. And we were just in an event earlier, you [00:08:00] probably saw the video, at the Pottery Festival and everybody was there and it was a great experience to just bring your kids to your dogs to, and just enjoy being outside in this absolutely gorgeous fall weather.

I mean, it's so beautiful right now. Well, and that's a really good point, Judith, but I think what I would also add in addition to family is that you have a real sense of community here in the Verde Valley. I mean, when I am working with clients and they're asking me what it's like to live here, I always tell them that I'm a little bit prejudiced because I did grow up here.

But it's a little bit like Mayberry. People are polite, they're courteous to each other, they're helpful, and you just don't, you don't always get that feeling. In a big city, it's a little bit impersonal. You don't really wanna make eye contact with people, and that's not what you have here. This is really a down home, wonderful, wonderful jam of a place.

Right, right. I would agree with that. And we were talking about that in [00:09:00] my interview with Kirsten, is that I grew up in a small town of 700 people. And I worked in many small towns as part of my career as a psychologist. And one of the problems with some small towns is that they're not very welcoming.

It's like if you haven't grown up here and lived here for multiple generations, no matter how long you lived there, you're a stranger. You're an outsider, and that's not fun. So here it doesn't feel like that at all. People are welcoming. People are very. You know, if you need help, they'll help. I mean, okay, I have to tell the story and Phyllis can fill in because I was in Mexico and Phyllis, this is how I had never met Phyllis in person and I was in Mexico, and this is what I, we mean by small town people stepping in and helping.

I was in Mexico and Dennis, my partner was not feeling well. And he actually had [00:10:00] collapsed on the doorstep of our home. And I was like, I don't know who to call. I don't know what to do. And he had talked to Phyllis for some reason about a mortgage probably, and she were, we were doing a loan together and I had called him to check in and he told me that he was prone on his front porch.

Yes. And so then Phyllis is like. Calling me in Mexico going, is Dennis okay? Because I just talked to him and he didn't sound very good. No. And I'm like doing well. No, he's not. And you immediately, you immediately jumped to help and I dropped everything. She dropped. I canceled all my appointments the afternoon.

This whatever time of day it was, I don't even remember. It was like, oh my God. What am I gonna do? And we had just moved over here, so I didn't really know anybody yet. That's right. And so you had a daughter who's a nurse and a son or somebody who's an EMT. He's a fire he's a firefighter [00:11:00] paramedic. Okay.

Okay. So she took care of it. She called 9 1 1, got the ambulance there, went to the hospital. Oh, and Mac went to her husband to the hospital. And stayed with him at the hospital for quite a long time. We did For hours. For hours. Oh yeah, for hours. You know how the emergency works? It's a three hour cover charge at the hospital.

Sometimes it's an ed. Yeah. Unless, unless you are like, something's broken, you're having a heart attack or a stroke or bleeding out, you're gonna wait. It's away. And that's just the way it is at at any emergency room. 'cause pain is not an emergency in their opinion. So anyway, that is how I met Phyllis.

Like then we became close friends because then we had lunch with Phyllis and Mac, her husband, and it's just been like, come from there. That was pretty awesome. Yeah. So that tells you that was easy to do. Yeah. See, I mean, I love that and that is truly what I've experienced living here. Living here every day.

[00:12:00] I honestly, and I don't know if you do this 'cause you live here all life, but every day I walk out and I say, God, thank you that I get to live here. I do. I'm very grateful for where I live and I have traveled a lot in my life and I've always come back here. This is where my network is all my childhood friends, my family.

And you know, as it's grown, you asked me about what has changed. I mean, we've gotten so many good restaurants. Yes. Phyllis likes to her. She is a food, what do they call that? A food? A foodie. A foodie. She's a foodie. So I'm a food forward. Yes. So any, any, if you wanna know about all places to eat here, Phyllis is the one to go to.

She knows. She's like, have you been here? You've been there. That's what she was asking me today. And I'm like, no, I didn't even know that existed. She's like, well, you gotta try this. And so that's part of living years. Yes. All of that influx of people has brought a lot of restaurants, a lot of variety of restaurants.

Like I said, the food here today was [00:13:00] really good. the food at the, , pottery. Yes, it was, we had this amazing, I, did I take a picture? I don't think I took a picture. I don't think so. It was like the, it was a veggie sandwich that was this big. She said, she asked me, am I gonna get how am gonna eat it?

So you're gonna retract your jaw. Yeah. And it was amazing. But the food was fun there and just in general, the food is great. so what do you do for fun here? Besides eat being a tourist in my own area. So the great thing about the Verde Valley is that encompasses Jerome, Clarkdale, Cottonwood, Cornville, Sedona, Camp Verde, and all of these places have a rich history, and they all have.

Things that you can go and learn. The Camp Verde was actually an old Army camp, Jerome, with the mine. [00:14:00] Yeah. There's so many things to do and explore. I mean, Sedona with just its natural beauty, so many amazing hikes, even in and around Cornville. There's just so many things like the Paige Springs. Fish hatchery that we passed today.

Oh yeah. Yeah. This is a remarkable place to take your kids and feed the little, little trout, feed the fish, let's go feed the fish. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And I noticed driving along there, there was a lot of different, like places like not just wine tasting, like you said, the fish hatchery and there was something else, I can't remember what it was, but it's like there's a lot of really just fun places.

To go and do things, discover and, exactly, and I love what you just said, vacationing in my own backyard. Right? I, I feel like that all the time. Like today we did the pottery festival right. And remember, which was so fun. You spotted deer, so, oh, lots of wildlife. There's tons, tons of wildlife. And we're sitting there and just like, what's that [00:15:00] antelope, sorry, I look like an antelope.

My glasses on, on the side of the hill. But it was. Actually a little group of mule deer Mule deer. Yeah. Right in the midst of everything else. Yeah. And there's a lot of activities. So if you wanna know about that, you can go back and watch the pottery video. The pottery festival video. But yeah, it's nature here.

There's a lot of it. A lot of it I have Javelinas everywhere. Like there you, you can float the river. You can float the river. Yes. On that. The river. Oh, you need to kayak. Well you should go kayaking together. Okay. Alright. I'm game. Sign me up to do, I'll do that. I'm game. Take the Verde Canyon train. Always a good time.

You can ride the train or you can do the the Midnight train or the Moonlight train. They have a Halloween train, a Christmas train. We went, Dennis and I went for his birthday one year in October. It was gorgeous. It was gorgeous. Love it. That was fun. And yeah, so the Verde Valley train. We would definitely have to go kayaking.

Oh, I would totally wonder. I would love to do that's, I was like, where do you do that? Around here you [00:16:00] start at, it's Tapco Tuzigoot, so there's a beautiful Anasazi Indian ruin and you start at tapco, which is the old part of the old mining operations. Where is that? It's in Clarkdale. He's starting in Clarkdale.

Oh, I did not know that. But the other great thing about the Verde Valley, it really is at the heart of Arizona. So we are so close to, it's a day trip to Canyon De Chelly. It's a day trip to Monument Valley. It's less than a day trip to the Grand Canyon troops. I've done that in a day. Easy. So many natural, beautiful sites.

Exactly, exactly. You don't have to go down to Phoenix. You can go up north. And there's just, yeah, I'm just starting to tap into some of that stuff and like, you know, when I first moved up here, or before we even moved up here, a hundred percent we were riding our motorcycles. Oh. Up to Payson. Something to do up, to flag, up to, you know, Sedona over the mountains.

So it was kind of one of those things that was [00:17:00] more motorcycle riding, and this is the perfect time of year to do motorcycle riding if you're a motorcyclist, and or a bicyclist. This is a beautiful time of year to be doing all of that. But yeah, that's, that's true. Everything. There's so, that's so close.

A lot of really great hikes. So there's a really great hike, and maybe you can do this one with me. It starts at Dead Horse State Park, which is another just stunning place that you can go with your kids or camp out for the weekend or take your rv. But the Lime Kiln trail starts at Dead Horse, and then you walk through the flats all the way up to road lower Red Rock Loop Road.

It's about a 21 mile hike. Really, it's all flat. It this time of year is perfect to go. Okay. Have you done it? I have. And how long did it take you? All day. Okay. Well, yeah, I mean, I did seven miles in three hours, so Okay. We're gonna start really early. Somebody put water along the trail. Trail along the trail.

Like there's gotta be water because there's be [00:18:00] water and you gotta that much, you gotta have some acid meine. Yeah. And food. You gotta bring food besides just electrolyte gummies. But it's a great walk to take your dog. I mean, there's lots of, there's lots of places in the Verde Valley that you can bring your pet.

Yeah, that's true. Pet. Stay on the patio. I mean, it's, we're, we're dog friendly. Exactly. We're animal friendly. We're very, we're animal friendly. But most, you're gonna see a lot of people out here with their dogs everywhere. Dogs, any event, any restaurant. There's dogs everywhere. And it's a very dog friendly community.

I like that. When we moved here, we had five dogs, but now we have one. But yeah, it's, it's kind of one of those things. Not all communities are real dog friendly. When I say like wine tasting places have places outside where you can have your dogs. They have patios at restaurants. But yeah, hiking.

You're gonna see people out hiking with their dogs all the time. That's right. All the time. Tons of Indian ruins. I mean, when we were kids. Oh yeah. Riding in and around Cornville. There's all sorts of [00:19:00] pottery, shards and arrowheads. I can remember finding just the coolest arrowheads when we were kids.

And it's just, I love that. Yes. It's a great experience. I mean, there's a, there's a few places in the Verde Valley where you'll find old gravestones, like a piece of sandstone where they have, you know, etched, terrorized, John, John, whoever, a 18 21, 76. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, okay. Died on the trail. Yeah. Which, yeah, that's kind of a cool thing because this is definitely built by the pioneers.

Well, it was, I mean, and it was cattle punk. Country. So on my dad's side, my grandpa was a cowboy and his That's so cool. His dad and his dad's brother helped build the Schenebly trail. So, oh, we had cattle in Cornville and then they would run off that trail. And then we had another, uh, ranch in mums park. So, you know, back in the day with the pick [00:20:00] pickax and just.

Hard labor if the cattle could, oh, back breaking labor to get the cattle from. But those trail still exists and that is a trail that you can hike. I mean, there's just, there's so much interesting history here. I mean, back in the day when my dad was a teenager, everybody heard of robbers Rus. This is a very cool place up near Sedona where you can hike and there's a round hole in the canyon wall.

But my dad was up there as a kid just. Diddling around and found a horse. Well, the horse didn't have a brand on it, so, and we're talking, this is probably the 1930s, 1935. So he got to take that horse home and that became his horse. I love it. Found a horse. He found a horse. It was a brand that was his horse.

I love it. I love it. See, it's lot of cowboy history. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and that's true. And I haven't even touched on the fact that there's a lot of cowboy history here, that [00:21:00] it was about the ranchers, the cowboys, running the cattle, open range. I mean open range. And so that's a good topic to kind of maybe do a little more talking on, because I don't really know a lot about that.

I grew up on a farm, but we had everything all contained. There was no open range, no cowboys. Well, I mean, it's just, you know, it's an interesting thing to be from one place, not to have moved around a whole lot with a landscape that you understand. I mean, I, I know the names of all the mountains. When we were looking at House Mountain as Cash Mountain, black Mountain, my Grandma Lloyd used to ride her horse from Cornville to Beaver Creek to teach school.

I mean, we take that for granted because that car trip is probably 30 minutes. But to get up every morning. Every morning and ride a horse. Ride a horse to go teach school, which was what, 30 miles away? Yeah. At least. At least. Yeah. Wow. [00:22:00] Thank God there's no snow storms here. At least not very many. And if it comes, it doesn't stay, you know?

But thank goodness for people like her. I mean, she was so into education and that's really vocabulary. And I think it propelled my father who. You know, they grew up dirt poor. But my dad went into the Army and after he got out of the army, he fought in the Korean War. He came back and went to school at ASU on the GI Bill, but for him ended up getting his PhD.

But I think that, you know, you can. Put that back to my grandma who taught school. I mean, education was, education is important. Exactly. And even though they really had, they didn't really have a lot to, but, you know, education, especially taking advantage of that on the GI Bill was the way to go. I mean, that's awesome.

That's, that's so amazing. Amazing. Well just think about that in the wild, wild West. I mean, you think about comparing that [00:23:00] to. The Gilded Age in New York, you know, in the 18 hundreds, how they were living and conversely how they were living out in the west. It truly was the wild, wild west. Yeah. And that was this.

And you know that's a funny story. Everybody laughs about Cornville. So I could remember when I went down to school at the U of A and I told people that I was from Cornville. And I had been living in Lexington, Kentucky, and that's where my dad taught school. It's not a bit of a twang. So when I went down to Tucson and I would tell people from that, I was from Cornville, that's what they would wanna know.

Where's Cornville? In Iowa, it's, it's in Arizona. It's in Arizona. It's a tiny town, but it's big now. But the reason that it got that name is, it was a mistake they sent in to the US Postal Service. It was supposed to be Cohnville, like somebody's last name. Cohn. COHN. Oh. But whoever was on the receiving end thought it was [00:24:00] Cornville, and so here we are.

Oh, that is so funny. Now they do take advantage of that in the fall. They have a corn fest. That's a Camp Verde though. Oh, is it? I thought it was here in Cornville. Oh, sorry. You know, that's one thing, a memory, who knows from growing up here, is that we all had huge gardens. Everybody had a garden and we grew everything.

We corn, squash, watermelons, you name it, we grew it. Oh, we had chickens. I love it. We raised cows. It just was the bucolic life. It was a idyllic childhood. So do you think that people coming now would be able to find some of that same idyllic? Childhood or, or idyllic kind of life. Oh geez. I think people are craving that.

They want a little piece of land. Yeah. I mean, people that are coming to Cornville, they're coming because they want a little, you know, they want an acre, they want two acres. Mm-hmm. And we've got a couple of acres now, but we [00:25:00] have cows next door. We have, we have a little potbelly pigs, we've got goats, we've got chickens.

I mean, everybody in the neighborhood has chickens. Everybody in the neighborhood is friendly though. I just, I love that community. I love that small town America. Yeah. And it's the small town America that's a friendly small town America, because not all small towns are friendly. But yeah, I do find that, that a lot of my clients coming here looking to buy here are looking for like an acre.

They wanna have chickens. They wanna have. Goats a lot. I don't know mine, it's goats. But I love baby, I love goats. I love baby goats and they want small animals so they can have like a little mini farm and they want room for their kids to play and they want some, I call it elbow room from their neighbor.

They don't want goats stacked on top of each other. You can have a small business. Yeah. There make go. You can. You can. You can make a go of it. Here. There you go. I have had people move here that have [00:26:00] started microgreen companies. And ended up selling the company for hundreds of thousands of dollars, but it started small.

So to be able to build something like that, this is. It's very open to that. Yes, absolutely. Sorry, I'm sweating here. It's all the wine. I ain't dressed for the wedding. It's all that goat talk. Yes, my goats making all hot over the goats. Please get that out. Or not. Oh my God. We dig grass. We dig grass. So anything else that you would like people to know that are considering living here?

Obviously the weather's phenomenal. We have four seasons. Yes, it does get hot in the summer, but I'd rather be here and hot than in Phoenix and Hot or in Florida and hot where it's sweaty. It's dry and no stop. It's a dry heat. Yes. We're not all [00:27:00] skeletons, but. Yes, I have air conditioning. I just, like, it's the dry heat.

No, it's hot. I'm telling you it's hot, but it cools off in the evening, which is nice. So we have the four seasons. We have acreage easily available to people, honestly. Absolutely. An acreage. And we're not talking. You have to spend a million dollars to buy a house that has acreage. No, you know, it, it, it's, you know, maybe four 50 loud car.

Okay. So, you know, maybe 4 50, 500, maybe a little more. But it depends on the house, of course. But if you want land and you want elbow room to do some things, raise a great garden. Be organic. Have horses. Horses. You only have to have an acre to have a horse. One acre per horse. I can teach you how to ride, teach you how to ride.

I do not know how to ride. Maybe I teach you how to ride a motorcycle. That's good too. That's good to, that's know, know too. It's good to know. But yeah, [00:28:00] that's, that's, I have loved every minute of living here and I've loved people. I love the diversity in the landscape. It's not all the same everywhere either, but there's a lot of mountains and I'm gonna have to have you take me out and give me all the names because I am like, I gotta learn the names of these mountains.

People ask me all the time. I'm like. I don't know. It's a mountain. I haven't lived there like a while. You gotta know your flora and fauna. Flora and fauna. Explain. So your flora are all the native trees and flowers and your fauna. That's all the native animals. Like the, like the mule deer you saw today. Okay. Okay.

Well I didn't have my glasses on, but I thought I knew it was something, I knew it was a Deerish thing, but we also have Javelina and pronghorn don't have any antelope. They're pronghorn. I call it antelope. Lots of deer. Never let me let that down. We've got bears. Yes, we have bears. We do have rattlesnakes.

And people always ask about that, but you know, I haven't seen a rattlesnake in years. And you know, [00:29:00] when we were in high school I ran track. We literally would run over the top of a rattlesnake. They're not gonna come and they're not aggressive unless you're poking at them or trying to pick 'em up. Well that's good to know.

That makes me feel better. 'cause I do go out and hike a lot and I'm like, yeah, I'm so afraid. So I try to like not go out when I think they might be out and I try to stay really on the trail and don't go off. They will leave you alone. I mean, most people get bitten by rattlesnakes because they're trying to pick 'em up.

Oh. Or, and that makes you, maybe they've had too much beer or wine or, or the dogs are trying to bite them. That's why the dog gets bit, yeah. It's like, well stop messing with the dog on snake. The dog is, the dog is poking at them. Yeah. Yeah. That's good to know. That makes that, that's a huge relief actually.

You should, that should be a huge relief to you to know that. That makes me feel much better. 'cause people do ask about that. I don't run across it. I mean, people worry about things like tarantulas and scorpions and snakes and. I have a tarantula story. It's uncommon. Oh, no it's not. Well, tarantulas make tarantula.

They won't hurt you. Oh, they won't hurt you. But [00:30:00] I have a horror. I have like a, a total phobia about spider. Lots of people do arachnophobia. Yeah, I have arachnophobia. I mean, it's really bad. It's better than it used to be, but when it really rains. They come out. They do because they're underground. That's right.

And it gets wet and they come out so they can like be breathing and whatever. And not drown And breathing. Yeah, breathing and breathing. Breathing. And so there was a season where it was really raining a lot and it was so funny. There were freaking tarantulas everywhere I went, there was a damn tarantula.

And I was at a client's house over in Rim Rock and it was. He, if I hadn't said anything, he would've pulled one on because he had no boundaries about that stuff. He, he, he's the only brother of like four sisters and he would always tease them about

stuff. And so we stepped out of his house. It had been really raining, and he goes, oh, there's a [00:31:00] tarantula.

And I'm like, oh. And I totally freaked out. And yes, there was a tarantula and he would've like taken it and. You know, 'cause they're not poisonous. And he would've come at me with that thing and I'm like, no. But they're, no, they're furry. They're fuzzy. If they're furry and they're big. And they're big, they're really big.

They most intimidating. Yes they are. They are intimidating. So I whenever see them and they do come out quite a bit, yeah, I kind of like. Stay over there. Good advice. Stay over there. I know you're not poisonous, but I don't wanna have anything to do with you. You wanna know where they are? Yes. And not in my house.

I've never seen one in.

God. God, I'm sorry, but the thought of having send me, it's grossing her out. I couldn't, I couldn't do it. I would've lost it. Oh, totally. I'm so sorry. Yes. So [00:32:00] Flora and fauna, is that what you said? Flora and fauna. Flora and fauna. That's it. Okay. I am still learning the flora and fauna of Arizona. But there's a lot of.

Thank God for Google where you can take a picture and it'll tell you what the plan. That's right. It will tell you what it is, which is very helpful for those of us that don't know. So yes, that is my friend Phyllis. She is a wonderful mortgage broker as well. I've worked with her many, many times. So if you are looking for someone who knows the Verde Valley and she does more than the Verde Valley, you do, where, where do you all observe?

Right now I'm licensed in Arizona. Okay. I used to be able to cross state lines, and I will again soon because you're just in the new broker agency or whatever. I just changed companies and our owner just bought a bank, so that's the key. When you're backed by a bank, it's easier for us to cross state lines, so it's coming.

Ah, okay. It's coming. Okay. So anywhere in Arizona, but in particular, I work with Verde Valley, [00:33:00] so that's when I would be bringing buyers. And recommending them to Ms. Phyllis, for your loans. Again, she works with commercial right? Or somebody in your CMG does? In our company, they, we do. Mm-hmm. And investors You work with?

Investors. Investors do. And buyers. So yes, she will take care of you refinancing, USDA, FHA, non QM, which is all your outside the box debt service coverage ratio, and. All the good stuff. So if you don't have tax returns, it's not a deal breaker, right? To self-employed. Sometimes that can be a deal breaker.

When we're looking at tax returns, we've got other ways to finance, you know? Cool. And that's the non QM world. Very cool. And I will say that Phyllis is really excellent at communicating, staying in touch by phone, email, text. She keeps you updated on everything. She's a great problem solver. So if there's any way to make something come together, she knows she will stay with it until she [00:34:00] figures it out.

Well, that is a fact, and I'll be your new best friend for the next. 30 days while you're in that transaction. It's true. You'll talk to, I'm a ho, I'm a hand holder. We like handholding. We love handholding. So if you have any questions, about buying, buying a whole mortgage, uh, it's the wine. If you have any questions about the loans here in the Verde Valley.

I would recommend giving Ms. Phyllis a call. Her information will be below, so you can contact her by email, phone, text, smoke signal. Yeah, you do live in the west.

Thank you Phyllis McDaniel, thank you so much for taking the time and sharing your childhood, your family history, um, what it was like for you growing up in the Verde Valley and that you still, even with all the changes and how much busier it's gotten here, that [00:35:00] you still encourage families to live here, that it's still a great idyllic type of place to live.

So. Comment, subscribe. Let me know what other information you might like to know about this beautiful Verde Valley and how I can maybe help you as a buyer or a seller, make things happen for you here in the Verde Valley.