Fresh eggs and a view

Many would love to wake up each morning to the view outside Steve Dix and Marnie Vail's guest house.

And don't forget the sound of the chickens.

The small, one-bedroom guest house is just a few hundred yards from the walking trails at the foot of Mount Elden, and the dense thicket of trees backing up to their property regularly provides glimpses of deer, elk, foxes, raccoons and other wildlife.

Coupled with Vail's massive inventory of healthy, home-cooked meals sourced from their backyard garden and chicken coop, it is a ready-made vacation.

The retired pilot and doctor are both betting that ecotourists will be willing to spend a little more to stay in their new bed and breakfast after a long day of hiking and biking rather than a hotel.

The couple have spent several months and roughly $2,000 converting the former den in Elden Trails Bed and Breakfast.

The decision to turn their home into A bed and breakfast was in part a financial decision, Dix said.

"When you are over 60, there are not an abundance of jobs out there in the job market," Dix said. "So if you decide you want some income, well then you need to create a job."

Not that either are new to the industry.

"We lived in Vermont for three years and we have good friends there that had a B & B and we started taking overflow from their B & B," Vail said.

Still there were challenges to opening the business.

A massive 11-foot climbing wall behind the main house had to be torn down, primarily out of liability concerns. Vail had a hard time seeing it go.

"I loved the climbing wall. It was one of the perks of buying this place," Vail said.

Despite having the chickens as well as two dogs and a cat, the B&B allows their guests to bring their dogs. Dix said it just made good business sense.

"It is best to be pet-friendly rather than turning business away," Dix said.

In their backyard is a greenhouse and chicken coop where roughly a dozen chickens provide fresh eggs, along with a small outdoor garden.

"It doesn't look like much now, but this summer we'll have a ton of things growing here," Dix said.

A partial list includes: Carrots, kale, lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, squash, zucchini, peas, green beans and some types of herbs.

Using foods from their "mountain micro-farm" is important to Vail.

"One of my big issues is food. What people are eating is not really helping them these days," the retired physician says. "What they sell in the grocery stores isn't very healthy."

She picks a piece of home-baked dessert bread on the kitchen table. The soft bread is coated in powdered sugar, but Vail has baked the bread from scratch, using locally sourced ingredients whenever possible.

"This might not be very healthy, but it won't hurt you," she adds.

Vail is still looking for local food growers in order to cut back even further on trips to the grocery store.

She concedes she has had trouble finding local sources of organic cow milk, pork and handmade soaps.