Running a home-based business makes it hard to step away. For more than 40 years, I have worked as a Registered Nurse, and for just as long I have been a farmer alongside my husband Ray. His family has farmed in our beloved Suisun Valley for over a century, and when you marry into farming, you become a farmer yourself. I wear that title with pride.
Our family recently made our way back to Dillon Beach, tucked along the northern California coast. Dillon has been our family retreat since our children were babies. Each year we would rent a small house there, and those trips gave us memories we carry to this day. The Pacific Ocean has a way of anchoring you, its tides moving through the morning and into the evening, endlessly and without apology.
Time moves forward, as it does, and now we return to those same shores with a new generation. Our grandchildren have discovered the beach and the old beach house and watching them fall in love with it has brought everything full circle. This trip was as restorative as any we had taken, a reminder that the places that shaped us have a long life ahead of them.
But every vacation ends. Coming home to the ranch, I remembered quickly that life here is not so bad after all. The garden is in full spring bloom, filled with the scents and colors that nature quietly prepares while we are away. I sometimes lose sight of the beauty around me until it announces itself.
Back to the grind, as people say. And yes, some days it is exactly that. But I am grateful we can return to Dillon Beach when we need it, and equally grateful to come home.