Love's Real Stories

There is a new phrase in our Real Estate contracts, “Force Majeure,” meaning an Irresistible Force or Act of God or Uncontrollable Event. “Force Majeure” was added to our contracts to specifically address the Coronavirus Pandemic. A Buyer or Seller may now cancel a contract, if they are negatively impacted by the Coronavirus, such as losing a job, or the inability to move, or they become ill.

We must travel cautiously through this Coronavirus-stricken world. 

My wife and I certainly did, as we ventured out to look at a piece of Real Estate. We packed our face masks and rubber gloves, the newly required gear for touring homes. Our mission was to preview a certain property on behalf our friends, Tom and Gahlia, who live in Sonoma County wine country. 

Tom and Gahlia, for years now, have been talking about retiring and moving onto country property up here in the Northstate foothills, hence the reason for our preview. The property in question is off Highway 70 past Concow, about a 45-minute drive out of the Valley from Chico. You hang a right onto Big Bend Road and wind out into the hills, catching glimpses now and then of the North Fork of the Feather River a thousand feet below. Somewhere down there is Pulga, the origin of the Camp Fire, 20 miles or more from the town of Paradise, which burned down in the Camp Fire.

We were excited to take a drive, an adventure it seemed, our first of any distance other than to the grocery store since the beginning of the Pandemic. The dogs were excited, too, wagging their tails and smiling in the back of the truck. We pulled into a fast food joint and treated ourselves and the dogs to a meal on the road.

We took the long way and climbed up the Skyway through Paradise to get a look at the progress of the rebuild of that beautiful foothill town. It’s coming along. Houses are going up. But it was Sunday during a Pandemic, so the place was quiet. We talked about the Camp Fire, the lost homes, the destruction of Paradise. 

The Camp Fire, like the Coronavirus, is an example of “Force Majeure.” An Irresistible Force. An Uncontrollable Event.

I could see that our twisting and winding drive, uphill, downhill, swerving through the foothills was not agreeing with my wife. She was smiling no more. By the time we pulled off Highway 70 onto Big Bend Road she was writhing and groaning. The fast-food was the culprit. It hit her hard. In the gut.

We pulled off onto a side road marked with a “Road Closed” sign. I’m sorry to say I left my wife at the truck to deal with her sickness, and I took the dogs for a walk along this empty country road. Hey, it was at her request, okay?

The dogs—Dodge, Bear, and Mesa—were in heaven. A clear, gurgling stream ran down below the roadside. Mesa, the floppy young Pyrenees/Lab, slid and rolled down the steep embankment into the water. Dodge, the Pointer, and Bear, the Lab/Pitt, watched skeptically from the road.

We came to a curve in the road where the stream was more easily accessible. The dogs splashed in the water. My wife arrived, feeling better, and we sat beside the stream, surrounded by lush, leafy, fresh growth. Ferns and berries and stands of young trees covered the landscape like a thick blanket, all green and new. Flowers of blue, yellow, orange, and white shone through the underbrush and covered the hillsides. Looming above this lushness were huge, scorched, dead skeletons of trees, the remnants of a destroyed mature forest, recent victims of the Camp Fire. The scorch marks, reaching twenty to thirty feet up the trunks of these lifeless poles, were clear evidence that we now sat in a former inferno of raging, boiling flames of the Camp Fire that had destroyed this entire ravine.

My wife and I and our three dogs rest quietly here beside this stream as our world is struggling with the “Force Majeure” of the Coronavirus pandemic. At the same time, we are observing the signs of another example of “Force Majeure,” the Camp Fire. 

As we observe the growth of the fresh new trees, flowers, ferns, and grasses bursting forth on this former burn scar, we realize we are witnessing a rebirth, new life, another example of an Irresistible Force, an Uncontrollable Event, an Act of God. It is the “Force Majeure” of Mother Nature.

By the way, the preview of the property was great. A well-built log home on beautiful acreage, beside another gurgling stream. I hope our dear friends Tom and Gahlia get here in time to buy it. But like I say, they’ve been talking about moving for years.

It may take another example of “Force Majeure.”