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2 - Friday, October 19, 2018 - Women In Business - Red Bluff Daily News Gratitude is By Julie Zeeb jzeeb@redbluffdailynews.com @DN_Zeeb on Twitter If you asked Los Molinos resi- dent Annie Bianchi, having a walnut shop, winery and wedding venue is a dream come true, both for her and now her children. Bianchi was the seventh of 10 children in her family and grew up in Orange County where her family had oranges to start with, but even- tually they began to raise chickens, she said. "I wanted a similar lifestyle to the one I had growing up in Orange County," Bianchi said. " I wanted a balance for our kids. For them to know hard work is good, but hard play is also good." Growing up, her five children, Rob- bie, Becky, Eddie, Julie and Katie, helped with the farming operations in Los Molinos, but it was important to Bianchi to make it fun as well as work, she said. "All five helped with the ranch growing up," Bianchi said. "When shaking the prune trees, we made it fun by having the kids jump in the branches like monkeys and when came time to pick (prunes) up, we made it like an Easter egg hunt. You have to enjoy life and (people) learn more when there's a fun environ- ment." She and her husband Ray met in college at the bottom of a canyon when he was a senior and chairman of a school hiking trip and she was just a freshman at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Bianchi said. The couple got married at the end of her sophomore year and Bianchi completed her Bachelors of Science in Recreation Administration at San Jose State. Every year on Sept. 18, the cou- ple takes an anniversary trip and the first year it was a hike on Mt. Whitney with the second being a trip to Chico, which she had heard was a sister city to San Luis Obispo, Bianchi said. She fell in love with Chico and decided she wanted to live in northern California. "I wanted to live somewhere where there was good water, good weather and good soil," Bianchi said. Ray Bianchi got his teaching cre- dential and landed a job as the ag teacher at Los Molinos High School and the couple moved to Los Moli- nos in 1976. "We had heard how beautiful Los Molinos was while I was working in recreation in Gilroy," Bianchi said. "(State Route) 99E was really a country road back then and it was just beautiful." Arriving in town to look for a place, Bianchi called upon the mail lady she encountered in Dairyville as to where there might be a place for rent and was told about the house on the hill on 61st Avenue that was avail- able. "We rented it and I told Ray some- day we would own it," Bianchi said. "I am the biggest dreamer in the world, but you have to have big dreams. We rented it for a year and the fol- lowing year we bought it." The couple later remodeled it themselves and their daughter Becky who is a landscape designer re-did the yard, turning their former residence into a perfect place for brides using the venue to get ready for their day, she said. "I had to learn how to farm so I became a farmer and my husband became an ag teacher," Bianchi said. "We started with 20 acres then 40, 60, 80 and now 85 acres. Now I have all five kids involved and com- ing home for the harvest. Four out Law Office of CHERYL A. FORBES Estate Planning, Wills and Trusts Probate and Trust Administration 349 Pine Street P.O. Box 1009 Red Bluff, California, 96080 TEL (530) 527-7500 Cheryl@AttorneyCherylForbes.com Estate Planning For Future Generations

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