The Discipline of Simplicity at Lonely Palm Ranch
In this perspective essay, Christa Renee of Lonely Palm Ranch discusses her family’s shift to life on a homestead, restoring the old buildings and land to make them vital again. Prior to the move, her background was very much NOT in ranch life — Christa is a professional photographer, having shot high-profile campaigns for brands such as Apple, Roxy, Subaru and Nike. She and her family have dug their heels in to transform their space, along the way seeking advice from those who have the experience, such as Wes Cooke, permaculture expert and owner of 7th Generation Design in San Luis Obispo. “It became apparent to us in early conversations that when Christa and Eric — and their kids, for that matter — dive into something, they see it through. They have a desire to create a homestead that is productive, beautiful and regenerative — the landscape’s capacity for life expression increases year over year as a direct result of the systems on site and the manner in which they are stewarded.”
We always wanted to raise our kids on the Central Coast. I grew up here — in Nipomo, Halcyon, Shell Beach, Arroyo Grande — and then moved away after high school to L.A., then New York, then back to L.A. I have been trying to figure out a way to move back here ever since having kids, but it always seemed so daunting to work and travel from here since most of my work is in L.A., Asia or New York. Three years ago, we began looking and figured we would try and make it work with my job. Before we knew it, this small family homestead from an old family friend just kind of fell in our
laps.
The goal was always to live more simply, with more space to give the kids and the kind of life we hope they will appreciate when they are grown — and to teach them how to work hard. This place needed a lot of work, and still does. I’m kind of a serial project person; I always have a zillion projects going on, so it didn’t scare me. My husband wasn’t sold on it, and my son Oscar actually cried and was like, “We can’t live in that house.” My husband luckily tends to go along with most of my crazy ideas and so though we knew nothing about anything, we jumped right in and figured it out. We are still figuring it out.
The property and house were in terrible shape and we have been slowly putting it back together while learning to do it all ourselves. We have had a crash course in everything from growing our own food to castrating baby lambs. It is an adventure, to say the least. Our property has a ton of great opportunity; we have a home that we are constantly working on, a garden we are always in, sheep, chickens, dirt bikes, a pool, a beautiful old barn, a tiny house that serves as a guesthouse, an Airstream a friend gave us that needs an overhaul, tractors, tools and all the things you can imagine a family ranch would have. We are not experts in this lifestyle, by any means, but we are learning as a family … with lots of help from YouTube.
We have a pretty simple life here on the ranch. We homeschool, we cook, we do chores, lots of art, lots of home and ranch projects and lots of photography. The kids each have things they are into … Wesley is an excellent archer and is on a couple teams. She practices daily in the barn. She is studying to get her falconry license and will be capturing her first hawk this October if all goes well. She studied taxidermy for years; as a small child she was obsessed. And we still don’t know how or why, but she has a shop here on the ranch and will take small orders from people. Oscar is nine and super into Legos, space and supercars. He was also diagnosed with type 1 diabetes four days after his second birthday while we were on vacation in Kauai, and a lot of our life revolves around his daily care and devices. I read a quote once that a parent of a type 1 kid or a type 1 kid themself makes something like 500 more decisions in a day than a person without diabetes. At this point, Oscar is 10 and it’s just part of our natural rhythm, but there is no rhyme or reason to diabetes. We have to be able to roll with whatever that day brings. Sometimes he’s low for no reason and sometimes he’s high — it just means he and we are flexible and always prepared.
We currently have kunekune pigs, Navajo-Churro sheep, two Rocky Mountain gaited horses, a lot of chickens, an annoying rooster, a mastiff dog, a barn cat, my son’s diabetic alert dog Boots and two bottle-fed baby lambs that think they are dogs. I’m constantly calling my friend Mary from Five Marys Farms, asking all kinds of questions about the animals, and also from an amazing local couple in Templeton at Outlaw Valley Ranch. Before we moved here, we had never castrated lambs or dealt with mountain lions killing our animals, so it’s all been new to us. The first time we do something there is obviously lots of mistakes, but I can say for certain that we learn and get better each day.
And as for our bounty, we use most of it all ourselves and give excess to family. We also trade with the neighbors for things we don’t have. The kids sell eggs on the weekends. I love growing flowers and would love to do a cut flower stand. We decided to rent more space from some neighbors to run more sheep, so we plan on selling lamb in the near future and would love to partner with someone to do something fun with the wool.
We are learning as we go. We hired an amazing team called 7th Generation Design to help us figure out the master plan for our property. They set us up with a plan for permaculture and ways to save all the water that was running off our property. Our goal is to be as self-sufficient as possible and as light on the land.
