Author: Julia

I am a retired software solutions architect. I have been married to my husband, Bruce, for over forty years. We went full-time RVing for 3.5 years and saw much of the United States. After deciding to stop RVing, we bought a ranch house halfway up a hill on five acres. After Bruce and I talked about names for our five acres, we settled on Blackberry Homestead as a homage to the wild blackberries on the hill. We are working on creating our homestead. I love cooking and enjoy sharing recipes. I am also an artist, and I’ll share my current projects. Gardening and reading are my favorite hobbies.

National Stand Up to Cancer Day

September 10, 2021 Today is National Stand Up to Cancer Day, sponsored by the organization, Stand Up to Cancer. Bruce was diagnosed with stage three colon cancer at the age of 41. It took his doctors over six months to diagnose him, as they just didn’t believe someone that young would have colon cancer. Since […]

Havana Ponds Trail at the RMANWR

September 8, 2021 On Sunday, September 5th, Bruce and I went back to the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge (RMANWFR) to try another hiking trail. The map showed a trail by another pond and since both Lake Mary and Lake Ladora have such beautiful trails around them, I was hoping for another beautiful hike. […]

Aurora History Museum

September 5, 2021 I took Friday off as I was told my PTO was about to cap. This a four day weekend and I can see how much fun being retired will be. Since we got rained out of our walk on Friday, Bruce and I stopped in at the Aurora History Museum last Friday. […]

Walking Around Sand Creek Park in Aurora, Colorado

September 4, 2021 Yesterday, we drove the 2 miles from the Denver Meadows RV Park to the Sand Creek Park with Nox. We started walking around the park on the wide concrete trails, when we started to get sprinkled on. This put a halt to the planned walk. We headed back to the parking lot […]

Nox Modeling at Sand Creek Park

September 4, 2021 Yesterday, we took Nox on a walk at Sand Creek Park. At the picnic pavilion, there were some large rectangle stones. We put Nox on one and let her model for us. This is a behind the scenes look at the model Nox! She has to recover from all that walking!

Nox with One Ear!

September 4, 2021 Earlier this week, while I was working out of the house, Nox was rolling about in her bed and folded one ear down. She looked like she was missing an ear. I told her to “shake” and she shook her head. The ear popped up and Nox had two ears again. We […]

Leftover Fajita Quesadillas

I had a lot of fajita leftovers from a steak fajita dinner I made. While the fajitas were good, I wanted to try to do something different. I love quesadillas and thought the leftovers from the fajita dinner would make a great filling. I was very pleased with how well this turned out. I love […]

Instant Pot Southwestern Polenta

This recipe is my own invention. I was trying to figure out what to make for supper when I saw the polenta in the pantry at the RV. I also had tomatoes, roasted poblano peppers, lemons, and a bunch of cilantro. In the freezer, I had Costco Mexican Style Street Corn. This came together quickly […]

Westerly Creek Park

August 29, 2021 Today, we headed over to Westerly Creek Park in the Central Park neighborhood. It is about 4 miles from the Denver Meadows RV park. This park has mostly wide concrete paths that are in good shape. There are some ponds, as well as Westerly Creek. We took Nox with us. She enjoyed […]

Weekend Explorations

August 23, 2021 This weekend, Bruce and I meet Jeanne from a ajeanneinthekitchen.com and her husband Larry at InVINtions, a Creative Winery Club in Greenwood Village https://www.invintionswinery.com/. We went as their guest. Jeanne brought a beautiful charcuterie board that she had put together. Bruce and Larry enjoyed sampling wine, while Jeanne had a couple of […]