CHINO VALLEY CHANGES

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A former Californian adapts to life in Yavapai.

By Gary Beverly

Molly and I had gotten the organic-homestead bug in Santa Barbara, and we wanted to live on some beautiful, remote acreage as self sufficient potters and gardeners. We knew we'd need money and more skills to make it, so we looked for jobs and were lucky enough to find one at a community college in Prescott. We put our savings into a house on an acre in Chino Valley, a tiny farm town 16 miles north of the college, and settled in to learn the area.

Initially, we didn't like what we found: The growing season was short, the wind was incessant, salaries were low (especially for women), and the whole place seemed to be about 15 years behind progressive, innovative, youthful Santa Barbara.

We quickly returned to the West Coast, bought 16 acres in Northern California, and began commuting 1,000 miles, one way, for two years to do basic development work on our beautiful, remote, little hollow. We came to know the problems there, too: the cold, the distance from urban markets, the heavy competition, and the high costs. This taught us a valuable lesson: No place is perfect! It's where your head and heart (not your body) are that counts. In the end, we sold the California place and made our stand on five acres in Arizona, determined to create our own environment.

"No Place is perfect; it's where your head and heart are that counts."

Our place is not remote, green, and spectacular in the same way we'd dreamed it would be, but it's plenty good enough. We've built a nice solar homestead/minifarm surrounded by dense evergreens and good neighbors. I've graduated from the college job, and we are now reasonably self-reliant. We're close to a good school, a small town, and growing markets for our pottery, garlic, and solar businesses.

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