At the beginning of October, we made a visit to see Casey’s Nana. She lives in Winters California and owns a beautiful ranch that she and her husband built with their five kids in the 60’s.  The ranch spreads across 50 acres of oak covered hills, where their horses freely graze. She is now the only one on the ranch and still runs it beautifully.

Casey has many memories of visiting the ranch growing up. He and his brother would spend hours exploring the grounds, tilling the land, building forts in the barn, and riding the horses. We love visiting the ranch. Each time we do, Casey gets to relive some of his favorite memories, and we get to make memories of our own.

We drove up on a rainy saturday and spent the day exploring the land in much the same way of his childhood. He was eager to show me all of his favorite spots, and tell me about all of the adventures he’d had. He showed me the the arrowheads they collected in the creek that runs through her property. Next to it was a jar full of rattlers. When I asked why they were there, he said his Nana collected each one as a trophy, that signified the meeting of the snake to the end of her shovel. She’s pretty amazing.

We walked through the barn and up to the attic that was filled with old furniture, broken chairs, and boxes of treasures just waiting to be discovered. Everything was covered in blankets of dust from the last 30 years. Cobwebs hung from the rafters like crape paper at a birthday party. Everything in the barn was in a state of arrested decay. And it was beautiful.

Fall was just coming to Winters. The trees were covered with bright colored leaves of red, orange and yellow. The air was crisp and cool. And the sky was gray, threatening rain . The colors were gorgeous and the scenery was breathtaking.