History

“Lion Springs Lavender Farm Story” …(find the more exciting faux history at bottom of page farther below, lol).

In 2014, as a single mother, I bought an empty field and built a farm from scratch. I wanted to create a beautiful lavender farm to inspire people to be happy by learning to create beauty via painting en Plein aire at a serene organic lavender farm. I aim to preserve the precious natural world around as a steward of nature; to teach others about healthful & therapeutic benefits of lavender; and help our natural environment, people, and local wildlife by using organic farm practices. So, I built a farm house; planted 1500 lavender plants; organically certified the lavender; and started an apiary of 20 bee hives to pollinate lavender, make honey, and help increase the dwindling bee population. I created a lavender business making delicious Carmel Caramels from organic culinary lavender and sweet honey from my bees that I sell at local farmers markets. Plus, I bought a 1938 9N Ford tractor… but couldn’t get it to work. 

In 2022, a terrible drought brought a thirsty herd of starving wild boars to the farm. Since I run an organic farm, I use no pesticides or herbicides so lots of wild animals and mustard flowers flourished at the farm. The wild pigs tore up irrigation lines to drink water and rooted up lavender plants to find grubs to eat. As a result, my bees had no flowers to pollinate for food so they struggled to survive. I felt sad to see my hard work, crops, bees, and farm business decimated.

During all this, I put my son and daughter through school. My son loves anything with wheels and an engine. He did so well at school, at the top of his class, that Mercedes Benz National Headquarters gave him a scholarship to train him in their renowned “Drive” program as a master technician. When Greg came home and saw what happened to the farm, he wanted to figure out a way to help. So, he did what he does best. For Mother’s Day, my son surprised me by buying parts and fixed the old 1938 9N Ford Tractor!  But Greg didn’t stop there…he plowed the field, plus, plowed a new back field too. He replaced, fixed and designed a new system of irrigation lines that the wiley boars had torn up. His lovely fiancé, Madison, helped as well. So, then I was able to replant my certified organic lavender farm. We saved our farm and subsequently saved the bees! Thank you to my wonderful son for his loving, kind, generous and ingenious nature❣️😇 Thank you , Madison❣️ I love you both❣️xo

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“The Faux History of Lion Springs Lavender Farm”

Long before I built my house, and before I planted any lavender, there was not even a street address to dignify my forsaken property. There was zilch, nary a nothing, not a shred of civilization found there, only an empty field. My lovely meadow was natural virgin land with no historical records that anyone ever lived or farmed there.  I just could not stand the suspense…I thought to myself, “Surely something must have happened on my five and a half acres of land with all those lawless California cowboys, Native Americans, Conquistadors, grizzly bears, wolves, cougars, ancient spirits, gold rush miners, and flirtatious, wooly saloon girls running around town on the outskirts of the wild west. So, I decided to change all that and write my very own embellished, fancy, fake adventure thriller story called, “The History of Lion Springs Lavender Farm”. None of this tale is true, by the way…not one word of it…just pure historical fiction, to fill in the gaps, lol.

I now clear my throat, “ahem”, and off I go…

Lion Springs Lavender Farm was built in 1833, long before the California Gold Rush, (just one year before the secularization of the California Missions) by a brave pioneer named Graeme Harry Wynne. Wynne was a galant hunter who protected Catholic friars from malicious road bandits along the old Carmel Valley Road on their asses (ahem, donkeys) from the Mission Soledad to the Carmel Mission. The mission trail on Carmel Valley Road was originally created by Rumsen and Esalen natives as a trade route between numerous neighboring tribes. One day, when Wynne cooled off with a swim in the Carmel River after a hard day of hunting fierce wild boar, a young Esalen maiden showed him a shiny rock that glistened in the water….a golden nugget. Wynne struck it rich in the Carmel River, earned his fortune, and built a farm near the same spot on the river where he found the gold, hence, he painted the farm house yellow. He then married the beautiful Eselan woman, named Marisa, daughter of the high chief, who spared Graeme’s life after Graeme saved his only daughter from a starving mountain lion who sprang at her (hence the name “Lion Springs”). Wynne tossed away his Winchester gun into the poison oak bushes and wrestled off the untamed beast. So taken by his impressive bravery, Marisa bore him twelve children with six sets of twins named Methousala, Bazooka, Eureka, Victoria, Alexander, Jesus, Ghandi, Mohammed, Madonna, Larry, Mo, and Curly. Just kidding, that never happened.

There. That’s it. That’s my story. That’s the illustrious faux history of Lion Springs Lavender Farm.

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Actually, I saved my money my whole life and I built the house myself. But I thought you’d be more apt to believe the faux history than to learn that a boring single woman built the house by herself…me. I know that sounds ridiculous in this day and age but you wouldn’t believe how many folks and contractors kept looking past me and asked “where’s your husband” and ” you’re building this house by yourself, little lady?” (However, my final chosen contractor, Anthony, was very cool and did a great job building the house!)  Plus, even more people said, “You’ll never be able to build a house…much less one here in Carmel…Monterey County permits are a bitch.”  Well, I don’t know how, but somehow, I kept trying, and did it.  They say perseverance is genius…I’m not a genius but if you want to think I am that’s ok with me.

And finally, no mountain lion sprang on anyone…I call my farm “Lion Springs” because I was so impressed that I saw a mountain lion on the farm. From my kitchen window, I beheld the giant stately muscle-bound feline sit in the grass under an oak tree eating a small animal. Plus, there’s an underground spring here…how original…now you know why its called Lion Springs Lavender Farm (besides, I couldn’t think of any other name, not already used, that starts with the letter”L” for an alliteration with “Lavender”.) Plus, lions are cool, they are the kings of the jungle, err… or mountain, lions are royal, the royal color is purple, lavender is purple, I love purple…voila!

I tried to make the house look like a California country farm house with a wrap around porch to face all the cardinal directions. To the south, Chews Ridge, 5,862 feet altitude, of the Santa Lucia Mountains, stands majestic in the distance. At night, the Milky Way crosses the clear, dark night sky above. Do you know Chews Ridge is the best spot in the entire Northern Hemisphere to view the Milky Way? Yep, that’s why Princeton University lent students a 36″ mirror lens telescope to astronomy students who earned their own money to buy land and build the Oliver Observing Station at the Chew’s Ridge Lookout, built in 1929. Today, the Monterey Astronomical Society volunteers run the Oliver Observatory with the US Forest Service.

To the north, at my house, I included an art studio with north-facing windows to supply adequate north light to paint realistic still-life oil paintings. I love to paint. North light provides constant shadows all day in the same spot as opposed to painting outside where the shadows move all day like a sun dial shadow, although I do also enjoy painting outside en plein aire (that’s as far as my French goes besides saying “oui oui”). There’s lots of things to consider when building a house, you see.

Most of all, I want to do something positive for humanity like have a business that does some good in this world to save an endangered species after all the bad things we humans do. I love mountain lions and would love to help them survive. I wish to help people survive too…maybe we can all live in peace together… a novel idea. It would be terrible if mountain lions became extinct in our life times when we could have done something about it. Plus, I love lavender and wanted to share it’s calming health benefits with others. Peace and beauty uplifts the soul, so painting on a lavender farm will raise the world’s vibration. Let’s try it!

Thus, I combined all my loves. Maybe one day, we can all set up our easels in the lavender field to observe beauty together, with mountain lions relaxing nearby with their cubs, to peacefully paint the view of Chews Ridge, admire the Milky Way above, and wave at Elon Musk as he flies by to Mars. Maybe he’ll wave back! …do you think he will? 😀