My sister and brother-in-law bought a beautiful 10 acre parcel in the Sierra Foothills over 15 years ago. It had always been their dream to live in the country. I remember that the whole family loved that land even before their house was built. We used to go up for picnics. Our dad pulled his camping trailer up there and parked it under a lovely stand of oaks right on the edge of the creek and for the first few years, Chris, my sister and her husband Ed, would camp out there. We all had dreams of eventually building cabins on the property and having a place where we could "get away from it all". Chris and Ed did build their house and moved up there a few years later. But we are all getting older and this year they decided to leave the ranch and move back into a smaller, more manageable home. So I took one last trip up to the ranch to visit it the last time and say "goodbye".
The photo on the left is their driveway. It curves up to the left and if you look carefully you can see the cars parked in front of the garage. A six car garage, by the way, that housed Ed's shop and tractors as well as Chris' framing business. The photo on the right side gives you an idea of the view from their kitchen windows. They wisely built a kitchen that was all windows and a view all the way to the Sierras in the distance.
Our dad liked to sit under this big black oak tree. The land has many live oaks and a lot of almond trees from an old orchard. But only a few black oaks. This big old tree is next to the creek on one side and a large blackberry thicket on the other side. All kinds of birds and other critters (some might call them varmints) live in that thicket. At one point, Chris and Ed had a picnic table sitting under that tree. In the summer, when the weather is hot, hot, hot, that is the coolest place on the ranch. The deep shade, along with the gentle sound of the creek bubbling by, just made you feel cooler. When I took this picture, yesterday, I could still see Daddy sitting there. And then a family of quails scurried out of the thicket and added to the happy memories.
Sometime after Dad died, Mom's health started failing. Toward the end, she dreamed of building a house up on this hill. From up on top, you can see for miles in all directions. She never lived to see the house built, but the dream kept her going for many months.
This is a really special place and I will truly miss it. The land is beautiful, the wildlife plentiful. Deer, turkeys, skunks, squirrels, hundreds of species of birds. The neighbors have horses and cattle that you can see from Chris' kitchen window. We always loved watching the new calves' first adventure into the fields in the spring. Melissa, my niece, used to name them. Last night, my last night ever on the ranch, we heard a coyote that couldn't have been more than thirty or forty yards from the house. I took a ton of pictures and will share in future posts some of the other memories and stories about the ranch, including the most recent one, which happened yesterday, when Ed saved a trapped bird. Stay tuned!!
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