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.

Downsizing (4) First Big Item Gone

December 15, 2019 A co-worker was interested in our wine fridge and came by with his wife today to pick it up. This is the first large item we’ve gotten rid of and all I can think is, we are really doing this! We still have the kegerator to get rid of at some point.

Finding the Truck (4)

We lucked out this morning, the weather was really nice for test driving the truck. It was a little cold, but the predicted snow didn’t happen. At 8:45 AM, we test drove a RAM 3500 dually with the Max Tow Package, with a crew cab and the 8 foot bed. It is a big truck, […]

Downsizing (3)…Books Still Left

After the last round of giving away books, I’ve still got a lot of books to give away. I’ve got to figure out which ones I want as e-books and hope I can get them as e-books. I find it sad that not all books are available as e-books. The empty spots make me feel […]

Finding the Truck (3)

December 13, 2019 Bruce called the dealer and got an appointment to get the test drive set up on December 14, 2019. I’m super interested in trying out the truck tomorrow.

Aunt Hazel’s Molasses Cookies

This is a recipe from my Great Aunt Hazel who was born in 1902. My sister found a card with the molasses cookie recipe and took pictures for us. I loved these cookies when I was a child. She made them any time we came to visit. It was magic to see the syrup foam […]

Banana Whip (Vegetarian)

I serve this a dinner parties very often, as it makes a very elegant and light tasting dessert. I like to serve it in my inherited old style champagne glasses or my martini glasses. I make this 1 to 2 hours ahead of time and refrigerate until dessert time. This is a heavily modified recipe […]

Lemon and Poppy Seed Sourdough Discard Crackers

My favorite use of sourdough discard is making crackers.

Finding the Truck (2)

I understood that the week of Thanksgiving might delay the truck’s body work being finished. However, the week after, we expected the salesman to call. He didn’t. I suggested that we give the salesman a call to find out if the truck was fixed or not. Or since he hadn’t bothered to call us, maybe […]

Sourdough Discard Biscuits

December 7, 2019 This is recipe is almost straight off the King Arther site, and oh these are good! I love that King Arther has all these recipes for using up the sourdough discard that are just so tasty. I made these for the first time today, and there was only one biscuit left. Makes […]

Downsizing (2)…Giving Away Books

I’m bring in books to the office so they can go to good homes. As the books leave my possession, I feel closer to the reality of the retirement RV dream happening.