October 2000 The Journey begins…we buy property
“Come to the mountains and get their good tidings, Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. ~~John Muir”
2000-10-14 Peckinpah Ridge
In October 2000, my husband Larry and I bought seven acres in the Sierra Foothills close to Yosemite. The family has vacationed at the nearby Bass Lake for many years and long before that, I had come here with my family for vacations when I was a child. Our friends met us at the property and advise us that building a home here was feasible, but would take a lot of work. They would help us, they said.
So,… we could scarcely believe what we had done! This would start us off on an adventure that we never dreamed we’d be doing. Larry and I were not ready to retire yet but we figured we’d plan and dream and camp on the property while we waited. On the trip home, we started a notebook page called “Five Year Plan”.
Back home in Fullerton, California, we lived in a small suburb and had for the past 30 years. The house was always too small for us, a family of five, and the noise and congestion of the city was starting to wear on us. Now the kids were about to launch into the world, and we weren’t the focus of their lives any longer. As soon as we got back home, we began work to spiff up the house for a future sale. We had the roof replaced, woodwork repaired and the house painted. We were excited! I immediately started shifting my focus to a ‘mountain’ house, instead of a little cottage, and started a file for magazine ideas.
I started researching ‘deer proof’ plants, something I thought existed.
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