Still dizzy from 2024, (really still dizzy from the time of Covid!), shaking head, clearing brain ~ for us, it’s just like starting OVER! Are we ready? YES! MUSICA!

ALREADY??? Oh my goodness! Whew. I’m not really quite over 2024 . . . what a year!🤪 Not all that sorry to see it go despite the fact that life’s too short to be hurrying things up! I’m tiptoeing into 2025 . . . on little “please don’t notice me” cat feet. Our year was filled with change… trying to make the best decisions causes, as you know, forehead wrinkles and anxiety overload . . . but we are the lucky ones. Our house didn’t burn down, we weren’t flooded out, and we’re still healthy. And as it turns out, it seems like we planned for this time of our lives without knowing it! Silly me, worried about it for years, and there it was, right in front of our noses.💖

This was the view from our train window as we pulled into Los Angeles Union Station on January 9, 2025. Christmas on Martha’s Vineyard was heaven but FREEZING, and we were sad to see the California sun almost blocked by the smoke. The meaning of it blew away any sad thought for ourselves. So many, losing everything.

Look at that … a hard thing see knowing the cause, and realizing so many were choking to breathe as our train pulled away. 

We were in LA only a short time …our train from the east was 3 hours late, it got in almost the exact same time that our connection was supposed to leave to take us up the coast to San Luis Obispo . . . we thought we’d missed it! But they held the train for us (and the other passengers!🤣) ~ another reason to love the train, it’s so human and dear, it waits for people. And as we chugged away, we saw that under the smoke was the blue sky . . . 

It’s such a gorgeous ride along the Pacific Ocean . . . going north along the blue Pacific, then through the miles and miles of green California growing fields . . . what richness. We can never be grateful enough.

And here we are, heading down our driveway to begin again! We still haven’t sold our house in Martha’s Vineyard. It’s been below freezing for most of January, before that was Christmas, who goes house-hunting at Christmas? We are trying to be patient, but we had to cancel our trip to England in May😔… we’d love to just DO it, but I would worry the whole time about the money situation, it’s been an expensive year, so we asked our ship person, Susan, to call anyone who’d made reservations for May and let them know we can’t go.😟 Hey. Our house didn’t burn down! There are much worse things than having to cancel a trip, even if it’s as special as this one.♥️Change is something my mom didn’t tell me about. She never mentioned I should get ready for change. She was young when I moved away from home ~ she gave birth to me when she was 17, so probably she didn’t know yet … She was only 35 when I moved away. Ever since I found out about it, I haven’t liked it. Everything seemed normal until they invented the answering machine. The beginning of the invasion. I was the last one on my block to let it into my house. Like having something foreign, like a lizard, living with you. And since then, it hasn’t stopped. There is always something. So far, despite how easy it would be, I refuse to turn to a machine and say “Siri, play Frank Sinatra.” Anyway . . .

THIS change has turned out to be a sort of wonderful miracle! Especially since, when we finally made up our minds to move to California, we wasted no time, and, although it felt like a slog, it’s DONE, behind us, and over! By a fortunate set of circumstances, which, looking back now, feel accidental and lucky, we find ourselves living in this reality ~ with the constant healing powers of nature. It’s hard to be anxious here. See that photo? That’s my long, end-of-day shadow ⤴️ going across the dirt path where I take my walks, across to the farm fields next door. That is my green and that is my blue. Everything I see is mine. As a huge proponent of domestic bliss, I have to say, anyone can do that. Just look at the sky, say, Thank you God, and voila! It’s yours. And now you have to take good care of it! Apparently everything that happened to put us here now was all about timing. Joe wasn’t even in California when I bought this old goat farm almost 24 years ago, 8 flat acres of weeds and gopher holes in the middle of the growing fields of the Central Coast, a run-down 1970s double-wide with lots of windows, a metal garage, and an open-sided goat barn, all situated in an ancient river bed.

The heart wants what the heart wants.

I was just driving around outside San Luis Obispo, in the countryside, and saw a for-sale sign on a driveway … something about it called my name. It was the land. I slowly drove down the long driveway to the back of the property, and by the time I got back on the road, I was in love. It was something I knew my dad would love too, very Stewart-ish type of land. Joe looked at me like I was crazy. If he’d been here, I might not have bought it! But it had an orange tree, and in the way-back of the property, it had a year-round running creek.😍

OMG, is what Joe is thinking as he looks at the angel in the marble and began to carve to build us a picket fence garden.

Just like my dad, always making things from nothing . . . building his garden when I was little. (This photo was pre-bomb shelter ~ if you read Fairy Tale Girl, you remember the bomb shelter!🤣).

It cheered Joe immensely when we got the tractor. He LOVES it.

A little tractor, a little hard work, some white paint, a picket fence, and grass seed gave us a sense of purpose and made all the difference. Was just the beginning. Every time we visited from the Island, we did a little more, and Joe liked it a little better. When we came home from our 2004 garden tours of England, we were so excited to build an English Garden of our own, with the plants and designs we’d learned about on our visit. Because of the California weather, despite the fact that we didn’t live here, we decided to build it in California. Didn’t necessarily make sense at the time (Makes PERFECT sense now!), in California you can garden year-round, and it was the creating of it we were into… we had seen it and we wanted it. Our Vineyard house had a garden. It was happy . . . but this place was desperate. Practically begging us, do me, do me!  We laid down the basic bones, mostly hedges, paths, and trees, and now, all these years later, just when we need it, seemingly accidentally, our English Garden is grown and is ready for us to fill in the bones. So in a nutshell, that’s where we are now! Still lots of projects ahead.👏 IMAGINE IT, LOOK INTO IT, HAVE IT.

Quotes ALWAYS tell it all! Look at this one, Rumi, probably around the year 1265, and it’s still totally alive! So impressive! . . . you really never have to look anywhere else for advice on how to find your dreams, just reach back in time, it’s ALL there!

Before I answer that question . . . I’m happy because I was just told that this week we had over 800 newbies sign up to have this WILLARD blog delivered to their email boxes! Makes me proud. I think maybe people enrolled their girlfriends, moms, and kids over the holidays. (If that isn’t you, you can sign up at the top of the page, in the column on the right.) So, I don’t want to be repetitive, but a wee welcoming blog tour is definitely in order.

First off, if you look at the bottom of the column on the right, you’ll see archive blog posts “Willards” going all the way back to 2010. You will never run out of something to read here!💝 It’s gone on so long it’s turned out to be another diary for me! Also, click on those icons at the top of the page, because there are drop-downs filled with stories, recipes, decorating ideas, and inspirations of all sorts. To you from me with love . . .

Since my very first snail-mail Willard back in the early 1990’s, I’ve always loved including little treats with my newsletters … like maybe a page of stickers and some little cards ~ because who doesn’t love Free Stuff? Who doesn’t like a surprise, for no reason, just because, and that tradition continues … Here’s a LINK for Free Stuff I think you’ll love!

Like this lovely bookmark you can print out as gifts for friends. Or, cute little heart-shaped Valentines ⤵️, with envelopes for you to print on card stock, cut-out, and make yourself. There’s more, just click on that link. 

We also have things in our webstore, simple little “thinking-of-you” gifts to tuck into your Valentine’s. Maybe a few of these Kiss Stickers!

Or, these Heart-shaped stickers, filled with gratitude . . .

We also have these blank 4 x 6 recipe cards . . . include your favorite recipe in your own handwriting . . . and it’s a keeper.♥️

And this darling little zipper bag . . . good both to celebrate Rabbit-Rabbit, AND Valentine girlfriends, AND spring!

This is the perfect Valentine card for me this year ~ it says “missing you” inside.💌 I thought a little packet of forget-me-not seeds would be a good addition ~ such a long cold winter, and seeds are all about hope.🌱 Along with these wooden trivets we just got in … they don’t weigh too much for shipping, and you know I have far-away girlfriends who will love them! They have ridges on one side, but they’re smooth on the other, perfect for trivet, and perfect as small cutting boards! A win-win!💞I have to show you something! The GOOD part about moving are the memories you are reminded of while putting away your treasures ~ like this, the reply I got from a letter I wrote to the Queen of England (“just because”) when I was 11 . . .

How I ever saved it this long is beyond me! I guess you don’t get a letter from the Queen of England every day! You should have seen my mom and me when this came in the mail!!! We were “floored!”💖 (That’s one of my mom’s Iowa words.)Of course, I got to thumb through my old diaries . . . filled to the brim with minute details of the moment . . .

Precious old letters, some from children, who, over the years, have made me feel sooooo good about my job . . .💌

Old letters from my grandma, my mom and dad, sisters, dearest friends, old boyfriends and even husbands… keepers all . . .

Valentines and other bits of “art” I made for my mom as a child, that SHE put in my baby book and saved for me . . . and SO MUCH MORE!🌷🌷🌷🌷

Including THIS old video I made in 1988! I hadn’t seen it in years. Joe just hooked up our CD player, and I took a short video of the beginning of it with my camera while it played on our TV. It’s long, maybe 45 minutes … I have to figure out how to get this whole thing on my website! I made it (with my friend Bob who ran the local TV station on the island) when I lived at Holly Oak, after I’d finished all the construction, because I knew my grandma would never be traveling to the island 😢 to see my house in person . . . so I made it for her birthday… you hear me talking to her and my mom. I also told Joe “I’m wearing my Grandma’s ring.” Because that ring was stolen 😫 in the middle 1990s. I’m working on my Christmas Book and I hold up some of the pages! See? Moving isn’t so bad, you get to relive sad/wonderful/meaningful memories! FUN! The full video shows everything I wrote about in Martha’s Vineyard Isle of Dreams!

Right now, in rapture I say to you, happiness is making our dream of having an orchard, fragrant with apple, peach, and citrus blossoms, underplanted with a wildflower garden, mowed down the center to make a path, a reality.

Something like this♥️♥️♥️, only better… 🤣

We’ll move the picnic table and walk onto the orchard path mowed between the lollypop trees, and through the wildflowers…🌸🌸🌸

Something like this . . . but not such a straight path, 

and with more flowers like these . . .👏

I love that it doesn’t actually exist yet, but we are finding the angel in the marble. We’re lucky because we have the marble! These last months, since before we went to Martha’s Vineyard for Christmas, I’ve been studying how best to make this garden a reality. Been reading everything I can about soil preparation, seeds, trees, seed collections, why it’s important to include grasses. Slowly I began to gather bags and packets of seeds from nurseries, farm supply, and from on-line. Full pound, half pound, quarter pound. I added more of my favorites, more poppies, more baby blue eyes, more forget-me-nots, and I definitely bought the package that said “Fairy Meadow” on it!

My wildflower seeds are now all mixed with clean sandbox sand . . . You can buy it! Eight cups of sand to one cup of seed makes it easier to spread them, so they say. I put the mixture into several buckets, so they aren’t so full that I can’t lift them, so I can broadcast handfuls of seeds and sand, walking back and forth, first one way, and then the other . . .All the flowers of all the tomorrows are in the seeds of today!

This is the spot for our orchard. . . We needed to weed, rake, soften and loosen the soil with water and compost, turn it all over, weed some more, rake again . . .

and make it clean of weeds, rocks, and other unwanted things; smoothing it for the seeds. Then it needed to rain. The reason it’s worth all this trouble is because, if we do it right, it will come back all by itself year after year after year, flowering under blue skies, along with the blooms of fruit trees, causing springtime squealing and joyful heart swelling, and a whole lot of busy bees!We cleared a spot 40′ wide and 120′ long . . . won’t it be beautiful against the farm fields of vegetables growing on the land next door? We actually got to this place last week. It’s seeded, and about to rain. All is perfection. See the footprints? They are mine. After we seeded, I went out until after dark to walk on as many seeds as possible to press them down into the soil, like I learned I should do. But, in all my research and care, there was one thing no one mentioned, NO ONE MENTIONED ~ No one ever said,”Plan to do something so the birds won’t eat your seeds.”😳 We came in cold and muddy, I texted my girlfriend Elizabeth, gave her the joyous news, and she said, “You better watch out for birds.They’ll eat your seeds.” WHAT? EAT? My seeds? My MEADOW? Was I supposed to know that? (When I think about it, the answer is probably yes!) Why did no one tell me?😛

As predicted, the next day our Orchard-to-be was blanketed in grazing birds. Thwarted, frustrated, I retired to the picket-fence garden to plant lettuce. I continued to water whatever seeds might have survived, but I couldn’t see very many, so I started buying seeds again. Looks like rain is coming, so we’re about to reseed. I feel like Ma Kettle. We have the hay ready this time. To be spread lightly over the seeds to flummox the miserable selfish little birds. They have this whole valley, go find another restaurant. These are MY seeds. 

I put on my jacket in the early morning to set up the sprinkler, that’s my big handsome barn cat, Simon, next to me, two living scarecrows. I brought him as a warning.☠️

We went looking for trees yesterday . . . we bought two apple trees, one Bearss lime, and

this tiny orange . . . only about 1″, very juicy and tastes like a lime, and is often used as a garnish for summer drinks. I want to plant it near our garden table so we can just pick one and toss it into our iced drinks in the summer. We also got another avocado tree, and something big, with orange flowers, that didn’t have a name on it for our butterfly garden, and a white Queen Elizabeth II rose. No way to say no to that! I love roses with strong fragrance with names that match things we relate to in our life, like Just Joey, Julia Child, April Love, Mr. Lincoln, Miss Dior (sister of the designer who was in the French Resistance). That way I’ll be able to remember them! I want to be like a bee, flit from rose to rose for big deep breaths of manna from heaven.💝It might take a little time, but worth it. My favorite thing to say is, “I made that.”

Well darling people. That catches us up . . . somewhat. But I still have lots to tell you, Jack is good … I’ll tell you lots about him next time! And I also have a new farm friend . . . the neighbor’s dog

I met while out on my walk (on the new path I asked Alfredo to make while we were away) . . . I’ll tell you about that, about the dog “Freckles,” and other new surprises, next time. Take care girlfriends, old and new, be good to yourselves. Come and find your happiness!💝