Everyday Life at the Ranch

Everyday Life at the Ranch. . The main house was built in 1886 and was the primary home for four generations of the Picchetti family over the next 90 years. The house served as a social hub at the ranch, with family parties and frequent guests filling the space., The area was also crucial to the ranch’s operation. The washhouse located behind the main house contained a brick oven for baking bread and a stove for processing fruit. The area to the west of the house held sheds for processing fruits and rows of drying racks where prunes and apricots would dry in the sun., The aviary in front of the main house is one of several which John Picchetti, the son of Vincenzo, built to keep his pet birds. He also screened in the front porch of the homestead house for his birds. According to his grandchildren, he bred canaries and was trying to breed a blue canary. Although he never succeeded, he did breed a green one. The peacocks you see here today are part of John’s legacy of keeping birds at the ranch.