About Me

Hi, I’m Julia, and in January of 2022, I retired after 20 years and 10 months from FirstBank in Colorado. My husband of over 40 years, Bruce, was already retired. We went full-time RVing after I retired. We enjoyed full-time RVing with our tiny dog, Nox, for 3 1/2 years.

We found a great place to settle down again after deciding we were ready to stop full-time traveling. We bought 5 acres of land with a three-bedroom, two-bathroom ranch house halfway up a hill near Muscle Shoals, AL, and the beautiful Tennessee River. We named our new home Blackberry Homestead due to the amount of blackberries growing on the top of the hill.

Our neighbors have cows, donkeys, chickens, and sheep. Nox loved visiting with the animals over the fence. She didn’t bark at them; she just wanted to play with them. She enjoyed living on Blackberry Homestead during her last years.

My blog is mostly a diary of our adventures, places we go, and things we do.

Hobbies

Currently, my biggest hobby is gardening. My next biggest hobby is reading. I read various types of books, blogs, and cooking magazines.

I enjoy cooking and entertaining. There is a section of the blog devoted to my recipes and party menus. For the recipes, I include a picture of the recipe results. For entertaining, I generally include a picture of the tablescape as well.

I find traveling to be fun. Most of our trips are car trips. I enjoy learning about history by visiting historic locations.

I enjoy drawing and share the projects I do.

Bruce writes code, enjoys mowing, and helps me build raised garden beds. He is great at shoveling dirt! He enjoys repairing things.

He loves to read different types of books. He laughs out loud while watching YouTube comedy channels. He finds watching how-to YouTube channels useful and entertaining.

He still gets a thrill riding his motorcycle for trips and local travel. He is also happy to take car trips

Bruce plays games on his computer and phone.

We find it very satisfying working on projects together.

We both enjoy trying new restaurants and eatng at favorite restaurants.

Limited Homesteading

We are practicing limited homesteading by planting vegetable gardens, blueberries, raspberries, and fruit trees. The blackberries grow wild on the hilltop. Because the red clay soil is hard to dig, we are building raised beds for the garden. I hope to eventually preserve the produce from the gardens, fruit bushes, and fruit trees.

Contact Me

If you want contact me, you can contact me from the Contact Me page. It can be found at the bottom of the main menu or by clicking on this link.