Look out world, here comes Becca!!!

I couldn't have been any prouder than I was this Saturday as Becca crossed the stage to receive her diploma. Our baby graduated. What will she make of her life? She had just dashed home from the island where she works the night before to receive her diploma. A whirlwind shopping trip with Mom to celebrate Moms birthday, a quick trip to Sandusky to see her boyfriend at Bike Week and right back to work Sunday morning. No time for a graduation party for this one, she is too busy living life, working towards her goals. Will she make it to school this fall? Will it be here or in Calfornia? She is standing at the edge of the nest weighing her options. When she does spread her wings and jump I am sure she will soar. Will she be a scientist, an astronomer, an artist or a housewife. Whatever she does she will do it with her own Becca flair and will be succesfull at it.

New raised bed 19 roma tomatoes and 64 peppers

Rasberry bramble

zuccini I'm doing them in containers this year. I will scatter them around the yard and use them as ornimentals.

Cherries are coming on great!

Chives

We got grapes!!! ...Well we have grape vines

We started out with a standard raised bed 24 feet long and 24" wide. I bought 6' tee posts to support the grape vines but thought they were pretty industrial after we had driven them into the ground. I had recently trimmed a big pine tree at the rear of the lot so I dug out the branches and tried to get some of the ugly off of those t posts.

I cut the limbs 4 feet long and tied them to the t posts with sisal twine. Next I tied the horizontals up to allow the grapes something to grow on.

And this is what we wound up with. I planted 9 cabages and 6 cucumbers between the grapes as I don't suspect we will be getting any grapes this year but there is no sense in wasting the space in between.

Planted 24 slicemaster cucumbers and 6 rosebushes for Stacie today. I have never had any luck with cucumbers in the past. As soon as they set fruit it seems the leaves turn kind of a lime green and they just wither away. I am planting them where I normally plant the zuccini this year. The zuccini normally thrive there so I know the soil is good. I put about 6" of 2 year old composted leaves and grass clippings there last fall so hopefully we have a bumper crop this year. I will post a picture tomorrow of the new plantings because I have to get ready for work now.

Meet brother Steve. He came to stay with us for 6 weeks or so until he could "get on his feet", that was 3 years ago. Without his help I probably would have never been able to financially make it through nursing school. He pays the electric and the water bill in exchange for free room and board. He is a process conrol technician in the automotive industry. He sets up processes for paint lines. He helps out around our homestead as needed. His daughter Sammy is my niece and her picture is in my last post. You couldn't ask to meet a nicer guy than Steve. He has his own ways and I frequently use him as a sounding board as he does have a talent for thinking abstractly.

Well you have now met all the players so I guess it is time for me to get on to the point of this blog which is to journal the progress we make around the homestead and share our experiences with the world. My next post will be about how we came to aquire our homestead, brag a little about the improvements we have made and share out to do list with you. My daughter Vicky is allowing me to use her digital camera to share our progress with you.

This is Stacie monkeying around with my neice Sammy. Stacie is the love of my life. We will be married 30 years this December. She has been plauged with alcholism for the entire time we have been together. When she is good she is very good, and when she is bad it is just terrible. This last week has been bad. There does not seem to be any rhyme or reason to what sets her off and sends her on a bender. They last anywhere from a few days to weeks. She mostly drinks that cheap liquor you buy at drug stores. I left her for a few months last year and she went to treatment for 28 days. She came out and went right back to drinking again. I wound up coming back home after she had sobered up for a few weeks and it has been on and off since then. Being a nurse I understand the disease process I learned in school and at countless family counseling sessions I have been to when she is conducive to getting treatment. No matter what training or counseling you have been through it does not lessen the hurt of knowing that once again someone has but more value on drinking than your relationship. We have been together to long for me to leave her again, I guess I hang on and hope for the best.

My daughters Becca and Victoria. Both had birthdays this month. They are hellbent on moving to Los Angeles soon. Scares me having them so far away in economic times like these but I guess they have to spread their wings. I'm a little too conservative for the California lifestyle. But to each thier own. They take great delight in poking fun at me as I am making laundry soap or fantisizing over a new solar setup I saw in a magazine. Becca did a report on me once for a class project and told everyone about our pantry and gardening projects. I will miss them terribly when they move. Vicky has always been my confidant and Becca has always been my co-conspirator.