First Post to the new blog...

Here we go! I decided that we need a real Blog, devoted to our travels (when we have them) and our 'down times', which seem to take up half our lives! So, here goes:

Around the turn of the Century, after nearly 30 years of running a farming operation, we were downsized right out of business. What does that mean? It means that more than half of the acreage we farmed was rented from someone else--and they sold it all to another farmer! This left us with roughly 300 acres, including the house, pond, woods and outbuildings--not even close to enough to support ourselves!

Unlike so many farm couples, Keith and I had chosen for me to stay home, raise the kids and help him all that I could. Most couples have had to opt for the wife to work a full-time job and farm out the kids and hubby hires help, if it's not a 'family' operation. We don't regret our choices! Our kids turned out great! We were able to give them a 'church school' education, through the 8th grade, one went on to college and got a Masters Degree in Math and the other went into an Apprenticeship program and learned a Trade.

Meanwhile, we got busy and re-invented our life! Keith's other passion (besides farming) was to operate a bulldozer and other heavy equipment-=still working with dirt! But first he got into the carpenters union and gave that a try--and decided that wasn't what he wanted to do for the rest of his life!

Now, unless you are young and get into the Operating Engineers' Apprentice Program, you have to have enough experience that the Union will let you in as a Journeyman. So we set off for non-union States to get him some experience!

And so it went! SD, then FL, then SD, then FL and now he's in the Union--which means he makes about the same money--he just makes it all in 6 or 7 months and then tries to find something to do the rest of the year, to keep from driving us both crazy!

Details to follow in the next post, with pics of our various 5th wheel set ups and where we've been and what has happened to get us where we are today!