Guest Blog Outdoor Garden
Welcome to our Outdoor Garden Guest Blog Post
Gordon and I are very interested in gardening and landscaping projects. We grow lots of herbs and fruit trees in our backyard that we use to help keep us healthy into our senior years. They also help to save us a little bit of money as well. We are also interested in hopefully starting a vegetable garden next year. Having said that, we are interested in what we can learn from other people, other countries and other cultures. When you are open to new ways of doing things then it only benefits you. We started this ‘Outdoor Garden Guest Blog’ to showcase what other people can bring to our website to help make it better, and to help educate all of us about things that we are unfamiliar with.
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I’d like to introduce you to Sue and Gary from the U.K. I met them a few years ago when they first rented our condo. They have come back to Florida a few times, and in our correspondences I learned of their backyard rescue hens. I think they are beautiful and interesting and I wish we could have hens in our backyard but our Home Owner’s Association would never allow it. Nonetheless I think it would be ideal to those that can house them.
Meet Sue and Gary from Birmingham, U.K.
My name is Sue, I am 50 years young! I live with my husband, Gary, of 8 years and my disabled sister, Jean. I suppose you could call me her ‘carer’ but I like to say we care for each other. I am the youngest of 7 children. My parents are no longer with us, nor my oldest sister Pam. We are a close family, although not all geographically, I have a brother who lives in Perth, Australia.
We live in Birmingham, UK. If any of you are into English Football (some call it soccer), we live very close to the Aston Villa Football Club.
Aston Villa
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We also have the Jacobean Mansion, Aston Hall, built between 1618 and 1635. It sits in Aston Park and has some lovely gardens, well worth a visit if you are in the area.
Jacobean Mansion, Aston Hall
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Gary is a Cub Scout Leader, known as Akela to his Cubs. He has grown up in the ‘movement’, his father being a Scout Leader before him.
At the moment I am not working, I had a breakdown a few years ago, and unfortunately, I have not been able to work since. That doesn’t mean I’m not busy, I was referred to a local Mental Health Charity, which was the best thing that could have happened. I have been introduced to so many things. ‘Therapy’ can come in many ‘guises’. I had always been a sewer and a knitter, but crafts such as card making, floristry, soft furnishing, spinning my own wool, crocheting, candle making, woodwork, I have had a taste of all these activities and they have been as good, if not better, than any ‘professional therapy’. I know it has been good for me and I can see it being helpful to others who have joined our groups.
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NOTE FROM JULIE: I want to commend Sue for speaking about a subject that many see as taboo. Mental illness should be discussed. Until we are open about it, it remains in the closet. Mental illness runs in my family and I think it runs in many family’s. Some of my most admired talents were mentally ill.
You know, if a person’s body gets ill from a cancer we don’t stand around pointing at them and calling them names. But if a person’s mind gets sick, then we do. We need to change that. And we make change by talking about it.
So thank you very much Sue for being very open and honest. 🙂
Julie
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We don’t have any pets; unfortunately, I am allergic to pet hair. But we keep chickens in our garden. At the moment (Aug 2015) we have 10 hens, they don’t all lay every day, but as the days are getting longer (the egg cycle is about 23/25 hours but that is only in daylight hours. That is why some are kept in artificial light so they lay daily), we are getting more every day. Today, we have had 7 eggs. Our family and friends welcome the odd half a dozen! Again, these have been good therapy for me. When I am having a dark day, I just go outside and see to their needs and I am cheered up as they take my mind off my problems. They are funny little creatures and I love them.
This was our very first egg laid within an hour of arrival. These hens were rescued from their battery cages and it was their first taste of fresh air and the sun on their backs.
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Our love of all things Florida came unexpected. I had never been interested in going ‘west’ from the UK until a friend let me down at the last minute. I had already booked my annual leave with work, so I looked for flights that would be leaving Birmingham International Airport on a certain day, and low and behold a flight to Orlando, Florida was booked. That was 1999. We have never looked back. A trip to Orlando was taken every year since, and a couple of years, I must confess, we did 2 trips!
Every visit to Orlando included a few days to the Clearwater area, and we fell in love with the place, so much so, that in Feb 2008, Gary and I got married there.
It was a lovely day, not too hot, but the sky and sea were blue and the sun was shining. It was just the 2 of us. We hadn’t intended it to be a secret, but as the days and weeks of planning crept by, it became exciting. The first our family and friends knew about it was an email from Florida with an announcement and a couple of photos attached.
Every trip now, we have more days in the Clearwater area than Orlando. A few years ago, we came across Julie at Quiet Waters, Indian Shores, and we fell in love with the Condo and the whole area. The Condo is home from home but much better. We don’t have many dolphins swimming out the back of our property in Birmingham! This year will be our third year staying here, 2 weeks in September, absolute bliss.
NOTE FROM JULIE: YOU ARE ALWAYS WELCOME BACK!
The weeks speed by so quickly, before you know it we’ll be there again, Can’t wait. I will take lots of photographs and fill you in on our return (If Julie allows me to do so!)
See you soon Florida!!
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