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WELCOME TO ___________________________________________________________________________  "Where did our name come from?" I indulge the love of working with living plants and animals that I learned from my father. On our small plot of land, I raise Heirloom plants that have unique histories or characteristics. I have spent many years trialing over 1000 varieties and taking many pictures of these rare plants. Tomatoes are not just round and red, as you will be able to see in my photographs. I collect and maintain over 600+ rare varieties of tomatoes, peppers, lettuces, beans, peas, hollyhocks, etc. I try to provide lots of information, such as HOW TO START SEEDS, so that others can participate in the effort to save our biogenetic heritage. As a certified Master Gardener in Georgia, I have presented lectures to various local groups about Heirloom Seeds and their place in history. I am a Journeyman Beekeeper and three of my children are certified Bee Keepers. We raise pure local honey, and give presentations to the public about the Bee Hive and the importance of protecting America's bee population from mites and diseases. I am now the representative Bee Keeper at Hagood Mill and working on my Master in Bee Keeping. I am constructing a web section on Bee Keeping which I hope to finish soon. I have tried to learn many of the artforms, handicrafts, and skills that my homesteading pioneer ancestors practiced in order to survive as they migrated westward from 1756 onwards. As I was growing up, I heard many stories of the 800-acre homestead in South Dakota where my father was raised. I loved the tales about grandma and my father hunting and fishing together. It appears that Grandma was a very keen outdoorswoman and a crack shot. Father told us stories of the snow blowing in between the boards of the bedroom walls upstairs and how fortunate we were to have nice cozy central heating. My mother actually visited the house and witnessed the unfinished condition of the upstairs bedrooms. Otherwise, I would have considered it another one of those stories similar to when the child had to tramp miles and miles to school. Life was difficult on those old homesteading farms. My father really did attend a one-house schoolroom, and they used the dictionary to learn vocabulary and spelling. One of our favorite games as a child was to try to find a word in the dictionary that our father could not spell. I do not think we ever found one that he did not know. My father taught me to fish, skin a rabbit, fry a frog, protect myself from catfish while cleaning them, and generally how to appreciate doing things himself. He withdrew from his Electrical Engineering degree at Stanford to become a ship's carpenter during WWII, so our home had every kind of hand held non-electric tool, and we all knew how to use them. In California, he babied his fruit trees of Peaches, Apricots, Lemons, and Plums. He always had a vegetable garden and he showed us the intricacies of working with nature. He taught us to plant hills of squash, rows of corn, and the best way to deal with tomatoes. One year he learned that he would never touch my herb gardens again, when he put the coriander through the chipper shredder. The pungent fumes were so strong that he had to wait several hours before resuming his cleaning up of the fall garden. I learned the names of snapdragons and pansies and to adore the earthy smells of warm dirt. I hope you enjoy your visit to my website! |
