Boy did Christmas get away with me. I'm not suprised, it always does. O.K. here it is ...My new years resolution. To spend 1/2 to 1 hour everyday on the web site and to start treating my body as a temple. I thought I would start at the beginning with the Oakton blog.

Oakton has been in my husbands family since 1938. It was purchased by his Grandparents and passed on to his parents in the late 70's. We purchased the house from the estate after his parents passed in 2002. This will be our 10th year.

When we moved into the house our (3) children lived at home. They are now 24, 20 and 19. I started working on the childrens bedrooms and bath upstaires in Oct.2001 and we moved in Feb 2002. I wanted their rooms finished before we moved in so the house wouldnt seem so scairy.
We also remodeled the kitchen to incorporate a big family room and eat-in.
The kitchen took about (6) months with construction workers here most every day. I used the laundry room to fix meals in the microwave or toster oven. What a mess.

After the kitchen was complete we started on the rest of the house. Room by room till it was complete. All the while restoring the historic gardens on the property. My husband is a fabulous Landscape Architect and his office is run out of our barn(a dream come true for him).

As the gardens were restored we started planting. First the apple trees. (2) of the (6) origional boxwood kitchen gardens were planted with (26) heirloom apple trees producing starting in June and ending in Nov.Than came the pears, muscadines, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, figs, veggies and herbs. This became a tremendous amount of work ontop of our paying jobs, so we started selling Oakton produce at the Marietta Square farmers market on Saturdays.

The house and gardens have become an entity on there own. We have developed a simple lifestyle that revolves around the seasons and what is freshest for supper and what is blooming for the table. Times are tough but when they are, people come back to their roots and what worked in the past. This is a grand adventure and I cant wait to share it with you.