I'll bite:
I am Jan, a mid 50's, mother of 3 adult kids - and the new addition of a wonderful daughter in law. I am a state employee, and commute an hour in each direction for work. But the flexibility the job gives me, makes the drive all worthwhile. I have lived all over the Midwest, including raising sheep and cattle on a small farm - and am still deeply involved in the agriculture community, including local & county 4H. Now I just have a couple of monster Maine Coon cats, plus a germadore (fancy name for a german shorthair X lab cross mutt) named Molly, and my sons lab, that visits for periods of time.
My town is a small village of 1100, 20+ minutes from anything larger where I live in a dated 70's house (and all that entails) with 1/2 acre of land.
I grew up with some daylilies - at my grandparents cottage in western PA, was a daylily farm directly behind their place. I loved those cultivated rows of dayliles in the 60's when I was a kid. Since then, my family purchased a small portion of that property, and many of those daylilies, 50+ years later are growing semi-wild there, in the brushy woods that has grown up around them.
After my marriage imploded several years ago, I brought back some of those daylilies, and planted them at my house - and the rest, as they say, is history.
As for the TB Iris, my other love - I grew up with a large single clump of iris in my parents yard. Recently I discovered that clump was actually hybridized by my other grandfather in North Dakota (he hybridized DL & TB's apparently) - but never registered. His green house in the late 40's - early 50's caught fire (suspected arson) and this clump, was all he could manage to save. Last summer I was able to transplant a couple of fans of that iris, and hopefully in the future, I can register it in my grandfather's name.
So I am addicted to both DL & TB iris. From having no flowers in my yard 5 years ago, I now have a bunch of beds, 100 DL and 50 TB iris - and seeds sprouting in my upstairs bedroom. I have found I love color in my life.
I also started at DG, and transferred to ATP when it was time to renew my membership. I have discovered a wonderful community of gardening "friends" here on the internet, and love it ~Jan
