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Our Move to Sonora, California

Our American Eskimo, Stoli (newly trimmed for summer), by the lake.
One of the reasons I have been so silent on this blog for so long is that our family has made a fairly radical move north in California, from Topanga Canyon in Los Angeles to Sonora, an historical former gold rush town situated between Yosemite National Park and San Francisco (closer to Yosemite).

Prompted in part by our young children's wish to live somewhere even more rural than Topanga - and somewhere with snow in winter and more horses close by - we chose Sonora for its stunning natural beauty, its proximity to Yosemite, its warm and welcoming local community, its fascinating gold rush history, and the fact that there is an excellent Waldorf/Steiner school nearby.
19th Century gold mining equipment at neighboring Columbia.

We found a house by a lake that offers a beautiful setting, plentiful ducks and geese (we already have our own baby duckling), hopefully the occasional loon (I am pretty certain that I heard one calling last night, there is no other bird that sounds quite the same) and the opportunity for long walks, bike rides and lazy afternoons messing about on the water.

Los Angeles is great, and I have a particular fondness for Topanga Canyon, Laurel Canyon, Zuma Beach and Point Dume in Malibu, but Sonora and surrounding Jamestown, Columbia and Twain Harte all offer a pace of life and a healthy and natural lifestyle that we have already come to love.

Sunset on the lake. All photos: Alexander Chow-Stuart.
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Comments

  1. Brian RochlinJune 23, 2011

    Congratulations on the move, on the peace and beauty topography can endow on the soul. It's nice to hear your voice (written voice) express itself with a sense of its own serenity.

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  2. Alexander StuartJune 24, 2011

    Thanks, Brian, yes it's really serene up here. Hudson and I spent four hours gardening yesterday at his school, helping create a pumpkin patch to grow pumpkins and other plants for the fall. It's a big garden with an herb spiral and chickens and all kinds of things. Hope you are well, email me and bring me up to date!

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