Armed with my trusty pruning shears and humming my little made-up ditty to the tune of that holiday classic "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year,"my leaping, cavorting dogs and I make our way to our fruit trees. We have persimmons, nectarines and pomegranates. The trees need pruning and ...
When we bought this place we loved that it had a lot of mature trees. Trees give beauty and shade, fruit and firewood. Shel Silverstein wrote a great book years ago called "The Giving Tree," and it's true. Trees give a lot. In our back yard we have a gigantic fruitless mulberry tree ...
I live in the Central Valley of California and it’s been over 100 degrees for days now. Yesterday the high was 106. I went outside at 9 a.m. and it was already 90 degrees so when I came back from my errand I went inside and stayed there until 8 p.m. that night. Sometimes I feel like I’m ...
Gramma sent us something! We kids can’t wait to find out what she sent! We’re jumping up and down because Mom can’t rip off the tape and open the box fast enough! Out comes the homemade fudge. That’s good. Dark chocolate, caramel, and vanilla all loaded with hickory nuts or black ...
When I was a little kid my mom gave me a Kodak Brownie camera all loaded up with a roll of film and ready to go. You can’t imagine (or maybe you can) the excitement in a young child’s heart to be given such a special gift but my mom was that kind of person and very interested in the ...
When I was 16 my mother gave me one of the most precious things she’s ever given me. I got some of her artwork, a beautiful head she carved out of stone, an original Joy of Cooking cookbook, her gray serge wedding suit. I have enjoyed owning all these things but the one thing she gave ...
Our Fair Field By Renée-Lucie Benoit Renée L. Benoit and her better half, Martin, realized a long standing dream when they bought their own acreage outside of Madera, California. Now they embark on the interesting task of developing it into a self sufficient homestead where they grow most ...
Every Christmas or New Year’s my dad would make oyster stew. It was a yearly ritual, and it was my dad who made it. My mom was not involved. This was his baby and he only made it at Christmas or the days between Christmas and New Year’s. Whenever he had time. We’d troop over to the ...
I live in a predominately Mexican town in the middle of the Central Valley of California. Roughly 75% of the people here are from Mexico or are one or two generations away. Parts of the town have signs in Spanish and every where you go the people are bilingual or only speak Spanish.As a ...
I always struggle with trying to figure out ways to use all my garden bounty. I’m a real estate agent and I wish I had time to can, pickle and preserve. I even wish I had time to beg, plead and cajole my husband into digging me a root cellar but, alas, he works at Tractor Supply and only has ...
I love going around barefoot. It’s an issue with me. I love the feel of the earth beneath my feet but it makes my feet so very dry to the point that I had to invent a salve that helps and sometimes heals if I remember to apply it nightly. With socks. The other issue is that during this time ...
We often hear the phrase “a house is more than a collection of bricks”. I don’t know what that might mean to you, but I can tell you what it means to me. I’m going to talk about my Gramma’s home. For me it’s a symbol for home and family.When I was a kid we would visit my mom’s ...
I touched on this topic when I wrote about my advice for getting into your first country home. Now I want to go deeper: back-up supplies and systems. I’m simply going to share with you what we’ve done, and maybe it will give you some ideas about how to run your little homestead so it ...
It’s Cheaper to Live in the Country… or Is It?I have heard this so often I could gag. No! It is not cheaper to live in the country! If you are extremely handy and good at repairing things, if you have a double, triple green thumb and everything you plant grows in leaps and bounds, if you ...
In this part I want to talk about how to evaluate your property once you find it. Here’s where my real estate and personal experience comes into play: there are no 100% perfect properties. Let’s say that again for emphasis: there are no 100% perfect properties. If you have your list of ...
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