My sister, Debbie, and brother-in-law, Bill, bought 25 acres of rural Ohio back in 2002. Since then, they have spent vacations and weekends taming parts of it. They built a weekend home, dug a pond and stocked it with fish, built outbuildings, carved out roads, and created an ever-expanding garden.
I am truly amazed at all they have accomplished in a decade. They made friends with their young neighbor and he cuts and bales the hay on about half the property in exchange for hay to feed his growing herd.
The garden is where most of their attention is focused. Bill, a PhD chemist for Procter & Gamble by day, has always had a green thumb. He has a wealth of knowledge about how to grow plants and what nutrients need to be in the soil for optimum production.
In addition to the farm, Bill and Debbie have a gigantic garden in the backyard of their city home. The produce they raise in these two gardents feeds their own family, friends, clients at a farmer’s market, and a church-sponsored food pantry. Many of the plants are started in a greenhouse Debbie and Bill constructed, and Bill also uses damp paper towels in a Ziplock bag to start soybeans and cucumbers. Apparently, Ohio soil can get saturated with heavy springtime rains, so Bill prefers to give his seeds a fighting chance with a Head Start program.
Back on the farm, Debbie, son Logan, and Bill planted several varieties of beans as well as beets. They weeded around potato plants and tomatoes that were bushy and blooming. Blueberries and blackberries were already showing promise for a banner year.
There’s always plenty to do on the farm, and after Cincinnati Chili for lunch, Larry used the bush-hog attached to a tractor to mow nearly 10 acres of property that couldn’t be bailed because it contained low, wet areas and turtle ponds.
One of my favorite things about Bill, whom I have known since I was 13, is that he is a very creative inventor. For example, Bill made a coffee roaster from an air popcorn maker, and he used a washing machine motor to convert an old gas-operated cement mixer to electric. He said the washing machine motor was tricky at to use at first...making cement using a fast spin cycle isn’t ideal. He managed to make it work, and with the flip of a light switch mounted to the motor, he can mix away on the slower wash cycle.
Perhaps the happiest creature on the farm is Rocky, the part-beagle who ran away from a hunter years ago and adopted Debbie and Bill. Rocky is afraid of loud noises (thus her decision to change careers) and isn’t too keen on cameras, either. I managed to capture her in action checking out the perimeter of her farm. This dog, and this family, seem to have discovered the secrets to a good life.
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