It is the relaxed, unstructured pace of summer that has me crazy enough to think that I can maintain a blog.  I live in a log home in the middle of the woods right by a highway in the Hereford Zone of Baltimore County, Maryland with my husband John, a 17 year old cat Peaches, and a 14 year old dog Hershey.  (Do not mistake me for an animal lover–these animals are just determined to outlive me.)  And oh yeah, thousands and thousands of honey bees.  I type to the background buzz of the tractor–John is prepping an area for his sawmill that is out of sight.  I mean that literally.  His prior workspace was smack dab in the middle of the backyard, right where daughter Julie’s wedding reception was to be held.  Wedding is over and he promised me that I will not have to look at the sawmill.   So far, so good–I can’t see it from the house.

The impetus to start this particular project came by accident.  I was looking for a recipe using fennel bulb and stumbled upon a very charming blog: myfrenchkitchen.wordpress.com. This woman seems like a French version of me and my friend Pat, without perhaps the attitude.  ; )  And she lives in the Loire Valley which is where John, Pat, and I took a group of students just 2 weeks ago.  So how cool is that?

Where does “Maywood Living” come from?  Maywood is the property on which we live, bought by John’s grandfather in 1940.  The name is derived from his grandfather’s name, Maynard, and his father’s name, Markwood, but captures the beauty of this place in the spring when dogwoods and tulip poplars bloom and fragrance the air with an aroma I’ve found nowhere else.  It is the family homestead.  John spent his boyhood summers here (often sent off with his sister by his grandmother to locate the non-existent Indian caves!).  He proposed to me here.  Two of our three daughters had summer weddings here.  And now our four year old grandson zips along on a little John Deere tractor just like PopPop.  We are part Country Living, part Log Home Living, with a smattering of Martha Stewart Living (just a smattering).  And a lot of Beltway driving, too.

So, we’ll see where this goes.  The picture, by the way, is a default picture from wordpress.  But it evokes where we are.  I’ll post real pictures once I figure out how to do that!