Welcome to According To Jean
   Sugar Cabane | Transition Into Early Retirement

Our Story -- Also See our Welcome Video

Hello and welcome to our blog. This blog is about our journey from technolgist and teacher through our pending transition into early retirement. In 2023, I will be 60 and Charla will be as young and beautiful as the day I met her.  We are going to build a maple sugarhouse in Vermont and make maple syrup. We expect the process to take a couple of years. Our current plans are to be making maple syrup in the spring of 2025.

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A little background. I grew up in Northern Vermont within a mile of Canada, on a Dairy farm. It was hard working a farm with my father, and grandfather. At the age of 18, I left for college and have been working in technology since then. Multiple jobs required that I travel domestically and overseas. I have fond memories of my travels to many different cities of the Western world.  My final move brought me to Pennsylvania.

Charla grew up in a small South Central Kentucky town.  Both sets of Charla's grandparents were tobacco farmers. Charla is familiar with country living and loves being outdoors. After college Charla became a teacher  and moved to Pennsylvania. 

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Charla and I are married with children and grandchildren. Neither of us have forgotten our roots and we miss the peace and solitude that rural farms provide.

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I’m grateful for my parents giving me a part of the farm called the “sugarbush” that I have held onto for 30 years hoping someday I could return to the space. The sugarbush is a 17 acre parcel of land that now contains many young maple trees.

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As stated above, this blog’s primary purpose is to document our transition into early retirement from a technologist and teacher to building a sugarhouse and becoming  maple syrup producers. However, we may take tangents periodically to tell stories about growing up on each of the farm (confrontation with bears), traveling for my technology jobs (emergency landings), and an attempted mugging in Ireland.