The Creation of My French Farm

Welcome to the first posting of My French Farm. On August 29, 2006 a devastating California wildfire came roaring up the canyon below my home and destroyed pretty much everything my husband John and I had. We had labored for thirty two years and had for the last eighteen of them had the good fortune to raise our three boys in the rural openness of the Southern California foothills. We had built our home in 1988 and had to bring in electricity, have a well dug to supply our water, plant every tree,shrub, and blade of grass and constantly battle the elements of mother nature. It was a lot of work, cost a fair amount of money and took quite a while to finish it all. The boys helped, grew up, one got married, the two eldest moved away and the baby had just entered college. Life was good, the house was finally finished inside and out, our married son had blessed us with two grandsons, we were finally beginning to save for our retirement and we had just celebrated our anniversary in Paris! It seemed too good to be true and for a very brief time it was. But as the saying goes "life happens" and within thirty minutes of an arsonist's match strike our entire home, all its contents, our treasured pets, my son's car, our farm animals, barn, boat and everything else was gone.