A very fun Historical Society annual picnic yesterday in the redwood forest (photo-essay)

Once a year -- usually in June -- the Western Sonoma County Historical Society holds a potluck picnic for its members. We usually hold the picnic at Luther Burbank's Farm but, this year, we decided to have it at "Sturgeon's Lumber Mill" -- a local steam-powered sawmill that started business in 1914 -- which has recently turned non-profit and become an historic site.

Yours truly is the currently serving as President of WSCHS, so Hubby and I -- along with a couple of other Board members -- got to the site near the town of Occidental here in Sonoma County pretty early to help set up the tables with the lady from our Board of Directors who had made all of the arrangements.

Once the table cloths had been laid out with the flower arrangements made from the flowers we'd brought with us from our own gardens on top, I had some time before most of the other attendees arrived to wander around and take photos...

The area where the mill is located is in the midst of a thick redwood forest:

In addition to the mill which has been newly restored, the site is honeycombed with a general antique ambience consisting of vintage buildings, vehicles, tools and secluded, intriquing little corners that lie -- seemingly untouched for decades -- around every twist and turn. 

(Above: A little creek meanders through the Sturgeon's Lumber Mill site.)

(Above: A collection of old "stump pullers" alongside the driveway.)

(Above: The large smokestack where, for almost a century, the sawdust from the milling process was burned off.)

(Above: One of two pygmy goats that live at the mill.)

(Above: A 1927 "Federal" truck now retired from its days as a workhorse at the sawmill.)

(Above: One of the steam boilers where the "work whistle" called the employees to work, lunch and quitting times.)

(Above: The old mill "office" looks like a playhouse set among the redwood trees...)

At one point in the mill's history -- after full operation of the business as a working mill no longer made economic sense -- the previous generation of the Sturgeon family began landscaping gardens into the setting. Most of the ornamental plants, ponds and other features are still there -- some of them beneath decades of overgrowth by brush and vines:

(Above two photos: Aquatic plants in one of the ponds at Sturgeon's Lumber Mill.)

(Above: Digitalis [foxglove] and ferns growing beneath the redwood trees at the mill.)

(Above: The blossoms of a "mock orange" at Sturgeon's Lumber Mill.)

After awhile, other Society members began arriving -- putting each of the dishes they'd brought to share on a long table at the rear of the grove and setting their places at the dining tables provided by the Sturgeon family.

(The sign boards you see in the background were provided by Sturgeon's and contained a wonderful collection of old photographs of the mill over the years and newspaper clippings about the restoration.)

I'll be posting a tour of the actual mill (led by the senior member of the Sturgeon family) soon! Look for it!

STAY TUNED FOR PART II -- THE STURGEON MILL TOUR...

From the ole singlewide here in the wild hinterlands of Northern California --

luv,

jean