Im often asked why California? You can buy more land somewhere else. The taxes are too high, the laws are too strict. Why don't you move? Well I'm going to give you our top reasons why we homestead in California, and why we love it so much.

1.) Weather

        Now before I go any further, do not think of coastal beaches, or grassy Sonoma mountains. Think dry hot desert. Yup that's us, we live in the dry desert of southern California. Why is that a good thing? Well to each is own. We get hot dry summers and cold sometimes snowy winters. But let's focus more on no humidity. We don't get much rain here which can be challenging, but it means no humidity, so we don't deal with certain creepy crawlers that infest our gardens or fleas that attack our pets. Not having to deal with ticks is a plus in our book. And i just hate humidity, felling sticky all the time is not what i call fun. And if i t snows one year in the winter, it's actually very fun and enjoyable, like a gift from the skies saying "here you go, you deserve to have a play day!" I'm sure people up north get tired of their feet of snow where blizzards are almost a for sure thing. I'm sorry, but California can't he beat for it's beautiful weather.

2.) Amenities

        Now let's talk about beaches. Yes we have those, we visit them often in the summer, we're just a couple hours away so it's not like we never leave our dirt castle. We rather enjoy beach days. We can visit the mountains and go skiing in the winter , or just go tubing down a hill, just a quick 45 minute drive. Want to see the Golden gate bridge, let's take a trip up North for the weekend, and will take the scenic route through the Sequoias. 

         Camping is something my family loves to do, even though it's harder to leave the farm now and days we try to do it atleast once a year. And we've camped at the beach, by the river or lake, and even up in the forest by Yosemite. California offers so much outdoor activities. 

    There's a lot of  entertaining actives as well. Go to Hollywood and see Grummans Chinese theatre and see the walk of Fame, then take a celebrity house tour.  Or visit one of the many museums. One of our funnest times was a last minute , let's get out of town for the day things. We hopped on the metro train to downtown Los Angeles, stopped at Gran central station and walked to Olvera street , shopped , ate and walked down to China town. It was fun to get out and see La. We have a ton of amusement parks too, and some of the best restaurants you can find. Long story short there's so much to do here, and we still haven't seen it all. 

3.) Natural Disasters

        Did someone say Earthquake?  Ok, maybe not a reason to choose California but definitely not as scary as one would think. I'm sure people that have had a conversation of California, im sure have said, "but they got earthquakes!"

      Yes we do get them, all the time apparently, but honestly half the time we don't even feel them, "did you feel that?" "Nope!" All areas of California are not created equal, some areas feel it way more than others, we've had some huge ones in the past that have had some major distruction, but that's why we do have earthquake building codes on any new structures bring built. But what I'm trying to say is that big ones don't happen that often, infact it's been years since we had anything that huge. 

      What we are actually more concerned with here in California is our wild fires. As mentioned earlier California is very dry, so fires happen, every year actually. They do way more damage and destruction each year than a small earthquake. Don't worry though, I'm not saying that if you live here you automatically will have to fight off your own fires. Remember not all California is created equal. If you live in a high fire zone than you pretty much knew that when you bought your home or land. Same with mudslides. If you bought a house on a hillside coastal area, most likely you knew what you were getting yourself into. Yes natural disasters happen but some can be avoided. 

4.) Roots.             

       Now this can be said for anywhere, but it's true. My husband and I we're both born and raised here, it's all we know. We had our 3 sons here and started our little farm here. We both have most of our family here and it's very important to us that our kids know their grandparents and cousins. I believe you make your own happiness no matter where you are, and so that's why we love California so much, it's home. 

        I've been asked before, "would you ever leave California?" And I'll admit there were times when my husband and I were burnt out with just life in general, being young parents, working our butts off to make ends meat, that I thought, let's just leave it all. Let's pack up and head to Texas where we can get a mansion for what we get here. Yes I use to sit Infront of the computer for hous searching through homes for sale. "" Oh my gosh, look at this one!"  Even my husband would take a minute to entertain my crazy thoughts. But in the end we decided to just take a risk and build a home with a little more land here and have never looked back. I'm not saying I will never leave California, because I never say never anymore, but it definitely isn't in the cards anytime soon.