Postcard from France
🇫🇷 bonjour from croissant-land!
I lost track of how many pain au chocolat I ate. I’m on vacation, it doesn’t count.
Hello from a week-long digital detox holiday to visit my friend Tara, who invited me to visit and celebrate her 60th birthday at a chateau in the French countryside.
Keep reading to see postcards from the trip and learn how you can visit this magical place.
Mill on the Rock
Château de la Citardière
Getting There + Travel Tips
🤔 If you're wondering, T*C is illegal but C*D is legal in France. Traveling with 🌱 is not advised and at your own risk.
Meet Tara
Tara Kolla (pictured on the left) is a fierce, badass, determined woman who taught me about urban farming, slow food and flowers, foraging, jam-making, soil microbiology, composting, and the art of community building over a decade ago.
She was famous for her organic flowers and the Food and Flowers Freedom Act in Los Angeles — which allows for an expanded list of products to be grown and sold in residential properties, including fruits, flowers, mushrooms, and other products — after a stupidly long fight with a cantankerous neighbor who didn't like having an organic flower farm next door.
From 2009 to 2015 I was a member of her Silver Lake Farms CSA (community supported agriculture) program. Every 2 weeks I picked up a box of locally-grown fruits and vegetables, flowers, homemade bread, honey, jam, and meats.
Back then there was no online CSA where one could conveniently order online to be delivered to your doorstep. We met at a church behind the 7-Eleven in Silver Lake and accepted our bounty from the hands of the farmers, artisans, and volunteers.
Many of the guests at her birthday party were familiar faces from those days, seemingly untouched by the wrinkles of time.
About Mill on the Rock
In 2016, she left Los Angeles and moved to France to start a new life restoring Moulin de la Roche (Mill on the Rock), an ancient watermill and sheep farm that once milled wheat into flour — powered by a wood water wheel and river that flows thru the property.
Now fully restored with modern amenities, guest rooms, workshop space, and brimming with delightful creatures and wild animals the moulin is full of life again and ready for guests who want to learn about the crafts and arts of the region.
This trip was not about sight-seeing, this was about disconnecting, letting go, enjoying the tranquility of nature, and slowing down to do nothing.
Château de la Citardière
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