Great thread! And I'm curious about how some of you are fairing now in contrast to the earlier entries. Roberta - sounds like you've learned a lot in the first year! How about the rest? I guess I've been fortunate to live in a rural area most of my life. My parents left "suburbia" when I was 7 to move to a rural farm area. We never farmed ourselves, but I had plenty of opportunity to work on farms growning up. Some of my best friends were farmers! I loved it so much I studied agriculture in college, but didn't really have opportunity to put any of it to personal use until just the past few years. We live on 50+/- acres, of which 40 is woodlot. We have an acre of pasture, an acre of "something between the pasture and the yard", and about three acres of yard cleared. DH likes self-sufficiency and while he is employed full-time elsewhere, in his heart he's a farmer. I started growing gardens here as soon as I arrived in 1992. The first year DH "tilled" me a plot with his bulldozer and dug a flower bed using an excavator. Yep - he's pretty inventive :) Now I have a huge vegetable garden and many, many flower/herb/whatever gardens. We built an unheated greenhouse about 5 years ago and it's been great! We will have to replace the plastic this summer and we are thinking glass instead, and heat. It's big though, so I'm not sure if we can do it all glass or just the roof (14'x28'). I grow a lot of our veggies and have been canning/freezing for years, but since returning to work and then school myself three years ago, I have scaled back considerably. We've tried our hand at raising pigs outdoors - mostly successful, except for one lost piglet to pneumonia and a "loose pig" incident that people are still laughing about. The pork was fabulous! Three years ago we started raising our own beef. We pastured three smaller (500lbs) calves in 2006 from May to October. We've raised herefords in the past, but this year we got two Charolais and a Belted Galloway. I think we'll definately be doing Charolais again - good weight gain. They are fed about a litre of grain daily "to keep them tame", DH says. We buy a little hay in October when the pasture goes down. It's truly the best beef I've ever had! I cannot bring myself to buy beef at the grocers anymore. I will buy from other local farmers, but when you have 500 lbs of beef in your freezer it lasts awhile! We don't sell beef, but have family and friends who "go in" on the cattle and split the costs of raising/butchering them. Three preteen/teen kids help devour our portion in less than a year. I have a friend who started doing meat birds so I got in on it with him. We did 40 birds between three families this year. We aren't very orthodox about it, that's for sure. I can't remember how old the birds were exactly, but the average weight was 7-8 lbs - they were a tad over 8 weeks, I think :) Only two lost - raccoons. I also acquired layers in May 2005 as day-olds from another friend. My flock is currently 6 hens and a roo, mostly Barred Rock, but with a Silkie, and a couple of crosses. I've lost 4 layers since I started, but not to predators. One eggbound, two were sickly upon arrival, and a Silkie for unexplained reasons - she just died (age maybe, though she was supposed to be a "year old"). The woodlot is a new addition to our "farm" and DH cuts our firewood every winter. He's actually out there now clearing a spot for our future barn - yippee! We hope to have horses in a couple of years - DH wants drafts for working in the woods, the kids and I just want horses to ride and play with. We love this life and I really can't see us ever leaving here. I feel pretty fortunate to be able to be at least partly self-sufficient.

Summer is here! It was down right hot the last 2 days. I'm shot but survived yesterday. We had about the number of people that we hoped for and made about 1/3 more in donations than what I had for a goal. So all was a success. I will post a few pictures after I upload them. I tried once and got some weird error message that the picture couldn't be copied to my computer. I gave up. We had a busy "family" day today and so the weekend is over. I did get in about 4 hours on Friday and about 5 hours of gardening on Sat. so all wasn't lost. So much to comment on that I won't attempt it tonight. I did think of this email I got recently when I read about Chelone's mum. Sorry things aren't up to snuff. No Nursing Homes for Us No nursing home for us. We are checking into the Holiday Inn! With the average cost for a nursing home care costing $188.00 per day, there is a better way when we get old & feeble. We have already checked on reservations at the Holiday Inn. For a combined long term stay discount and senior discount, it's $49.23 per night. That leaves $138.77 a day for: breakfast, lunch and dinner in any restaurant we want, or room service. Laundry, gratuities and special TV movies. Plus, they provide a swimming pool, a workout room, a lounge and washer-dryer, etc. Most have free toothpaste and razors, and all have free shampoo and soap. $5 worth of tips a day will have the entire staff scrambling to help you. They treat you like a customer, not a patient. There is a city bus stop out front, and seniors ride free. The handicap bus will also pick you up (if you fake a decent limp). To meet other nice people, call a church bus on Sundays. For a change of scenery, take the airport shuttle bus and eat at one of the nice restaurants there. While you're at the airport, fly somewhere. Otherwise, the cash keeps building up. It takes months to get into decent nursing homes. Holiday Inn will take your reservation today. And you are not stuck in one place forever, you can move from Inn to Inn, or even from city to city. Want to see Hawaii? They have a Holiday Inn there too. TV broken? Light bulbs need changing? Need a mattress replaced? No problem. They fix everything, and apologize for the inconvenience. The Inn has a night security person and daily room service. The maid checks to see if you are ok. If not, they will call the undertaker or an ambulance. If you fall and break a hip, Medicare will pay for the hip, and Holiday Inn will upgrade you to a suite for the rest of your life. And no worries about visits from family. They will always be glad to find you, and probably check in for a few days mini-vacation. The grand kids can use the pool. What more can you ask for? So, when we reach that golden age, we'll face it with a grin. Just forward all our email to: us@Holiday.Inn Night all Michelle

As a 9 year old kid in Elk City, OK in 1950, I met Tim Holt, Fuzzy Knight & Randolph Scott who were some of my favorite cowboy movie stars that made personal appearances at a local movie theatre. And, during our town's 50th. anniversary in 1951 I met & shook hands with Jess Willard who had been the Heavyweight Boxing Champion of the World, 1915-1919. He lived in my hometown during the early days & helped lay the bricks that paved Broadway St. and are still there and "in use" now in 2006! Moving ahead several years and after I had moved to PA...my wife & I saw Richard M. Nixon as he arrived by helicopter and dined at the then-famous Bookbinder's Restaurant in Philadelphia one evening while we were eating dinner there also. Then later, during the mid-1970's, we saw "The Duke" John Wayne in New York City getting out of his limousine and greeting the gathering crowd at Rockefeller Center. Guess that's about it... LarryD

I'm back please excuse some of my spelling. I have not been on the computer for a couple of years. My son is helping with the basics. Now to get back to my notes. when I took my husband to v.a. nose,ear and throat doctor. doctor checked his death ear, doctor asked him was he around any loud noises. It was not a silence war. HIS EAR WAS ALL scar tissue,they gave him hearing aids, It didn't work at all for his death ear. and my husband's cartilage in his nose was disconnected years later,they took his cartilage out, and put it back in to reconnect it.when it was time to take him home the nurse pulled the packing out. I came home from work around 1am went and checked on my husband, he was laying in a pool of blood.I called 911,they could not stop blood,coming out of his nose and throat,they got him to hospital. they had to repack his nose.he was very weak. Now when came to his front blown out teeth,my husband told me back then there was a argument whether it was dental or medical problem. He was emotionally discussed. My husband said he went to a outside dentist. got part upper top plate. then he told me his nose was bleeding,he went back to v.a. they found there were fragments from the Bullet in sinus area,they took them out. When he starter getting a toothache. the v.a. told me,my husband didn't have enough % to see dentist there, only if he was already in hospital. a week later he was in hospital. I rolled him down to dental, they took xrays, the dentist told me to bring him back and will pull out his bad teeth. so I did. when I brought my husband back to dental, there was a different dentist,he took out teeth, found out he took out the wrong teeth,he made a mistake,so now he pulled the rest of his teeth.they had to make upper and lower dentures! The dentist looked at the xray before he pulled my husband's teeth and though the x's on teeth were suppose to stay. none of this mistakes was put in his records. now he has 100% dental with no teeth. got to take a break. work at all for his death ear.and his cartilage was disconnected in his nose.years later the v.a. did take it out and put it back and reconnected it.