There was no breeze, but the lavender flowers swayed to the warm hum of  a halo of bees. As each industrious insect landed on a slender stem, its weight pushed the stem down for a moment, then released it as it flew off making the purple flowers do a gentle dance of perpetual motion. I inhaled the sweet calming scent and thought about wandering through the hills of Provence. Eventually, I tore myself away from the dancing flowers and walked up the dirt drive into the  Keys Creek  Lavender Farm.

This lavender field is not in Provence. It is in Valley Center, an unromantic sounding rural area between Escondido and Temecula, north of San Diego. The dusty road to the farm ran past hills of rose gold, dotted with newly baled hay into a quiet valley. A kestrel shrieked and circled against the smooth blue sky. A row of old live oaks lined the field hiding a creek. They leaned into the fields as if trying to claim them. Everything seemed pastoral. Even the barbed wire of the fence was softened by the dust of the road.

I consider myself a city person. However, after briefly hiking through a lavender field in Provence and a section of trail lined with bee hives, I made lavender and honey bee farming in Provence one of my dream careers. My dream careers are just that: dreams. I make no effort to pursue them. They are just pleasant fantasies. However, Alicia Wolff and Chris Kurisu are different.

“Both of us left the corporate world,” Chris explained. “Alicia was in event planning and I managed some car dealerships up and down the coast. We wanted to invest in something. I thought we would buy an apartment building, have someone manage it and just get a check every month. But Alicia said, ‘Where is the joy in that?’”

So they bought a lavender farm. Chris emphasized that Alicia really connected with the land. But, it wasn’t easy. The fields hadn’t been cared for in a while and it took a lot of money and energy to fix up the fields and the buildings. They had been there for 3 and a half years and people who had seen the place before thanked them for their work. The place was very inviting. A few simple wood structures bordered a sloped lavender field. Bordering the land were flowering bushes, eucalyptus trees and 3 century plants. Chris led a group of visitors around the garden. His face was smooth and his dark tan was touched with sunburn. He wore a wide brimmed leather hat and seemed very relaxed and content.

Had I decided to make my lavender farming dream a reality, I would have been able to put all Chris told us to use. As we walked along the path, he pointed out the different varieties of lavender. They had over 2 dozen types. The plants that had hypnotized me next to the parking lot were Grosso. They also had French dentata, a variety favored by a resident squirrel, sweet lavender which had already been harvested so the plant hedge looked like a giant green caterpillar, and angustifolia, the small English variety with dramatically dark flowers. The plants ran in vertical rows up the hillside. Chris explained this was so the plants could dry out rather than collecting waters like they would have if he ran them horizontally. Lavender likes to dry out between waterings. My favorite variety was the contradictorily named yellow lavender. Its smell was deeper, a little lemony and spicy rather than intensely sweet.

Our lavender tour finished with a visit to the distillery building and a brief explanation of the process. I left the others in the group at the tea house trying lavender scones with lavender jam, banana bread, pound cake and luscious lavender lemonade. I wanted to find out about the other part of my dream career by talking to John deWild, the bee man.

John owned one of the beehives occupying a shady corner by the parking lot lavender fields. I asked him how long he had been a bee keeper. “Since I was about so high,” he replied with a gesture at about hip height. I asked if he had noticed a decrease in the number of bees.

“I don’t see them swarm like they used to. You used to see big swarms, now you just see small ones.” He said it was due to a lot of the flowers and plants disappearing. “They need a variety of pollen for their health. If they don’t get the necessary amino acids, then they become sick from the pathogens that have always been in their hives.” There was a note of sadness in his voice.

I bought a couple bars of goats milk lavender soap from the fragrant little lavender product store. The smell makes me long to chase dreams.

Towards the end of the tour, Chris had brought us to the top of the lavender gardens. We stood in the shade of a pine tree and looked out at the valley. Chris pointed out the neighboring farm where a light brown cow stood grazing among fruit trees. He admired the simple lives his neighbors lived. Another neighbor was starting a flower farm where they would grow proteas. “The protea is the national flower of South Africa, which is where Alicia is from. You notice strange things like that happen when you are around Alicia,” he said with a smile of someone who has found both love and enchantment in life.

Useful Information The Key’s Creek Lavender farm is located in Valley Center, CA. It is open 7 days a week from 10AM–3PM. There are free tours in May and June on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays at 10:30AM and 1:30PM. There is a small shop selling lavender products and on the weekends in May and June, you can purchase lavender baked goods, lemonade, and iced tea. The blooming season is generally from May through July. Visit the Key’s Creek Lavender Farm web site for more information and directions.