Vic Ceder -- Square Dance Caller -- Family

Our Residence

Vic and Debbie Ceder live in the town of Los Olivos, California www.losolivosca.com (population 900, elevation 825 feet).
Los Olivos is an old-style western town located in the Santa Ynez valley in Santa Barbara County (in fact, Los Olivos is so old and western that it was used several times in the Andy Griffith television series as the town of Mayberry). Return to Mayberry en.wikipedia.org
Los Olivos is about 150 miles north of Los Angeles, and 290 miles south of San Franciso. Our quaint little town has one hotel, a couple of restaurants, and several antique shops, wineries, and art galleries. We moved from Santa Barbara to Los Olivos in 1987.
We have a 2000-square-foot ranch-style house on a 1/2 acre, located approximately two blocks from the flagpole center of town. Yes, there really is a flagpole www.losolivosca.com located right smack dab in the middle of our town's main intersection.

Our History

Vic and Debbie are native Californians, both born in the same hospital. (Vic on 3 August 1960; Debbie on 2 February 1962). Many years later, Caitlyn was born in the same hospital in the exact same room (7 January 1995).
Vic and Debbie met at a teen square dance group in Santa Barbara (while we were both Junior High students).
We were married on 14 October 1989.

Our Hobbies (other than Square Dancing)

We have one cat (Pelli) and about 40 chickens (one rooster).
Indoors, we have five 55-gallon freshwater tropical fish tanks.

We also take care of several bee hives in the area.
Most of our backyard is devoted to a fruit and vegetable garden (the rest is an aviary).
Fruit-wise, we grow
- Grapes (Thompson Seedless)
- Raspberries (red and yellow)
- Blackberries (Boysen, Tay, Ollalie)
- Blueberries
- Apples (our favorite: Grannie Smith)
- Oranges (Washington Navel and Valencia)
- Lemons
- Peaches and Nectaries (4 varieties grafted on one tree)
- Apriums
- Pluots
- Persimmons (Giant Fuyu)
- Fig (Black Mission)
- Loquat
- Plum (Howard Miracle)
- Almond
- Pomegranate
Vegetable-wise, we grow
- Asparagus (every spring we're inundated with it)
- Garlic (lots of garlic, several varieties)
- Onions
- Corn (we avoid the supersweet varieties)
- Tomatoes (our favorite: Yellow Plum)
- Peppers (our favorites: Pepperoncini, Ancho, Anaheim, Pasilla)
- Watermelons (our favorite: Desert King)
- Muskmelons (our favorite: Rocky Sweet)
- Beets (our favorite: Chioggia)
- Basil (yes Basil is a necessary staple vegetable, and not just a plain old herb) (we grow many varieties including Mrs. Burns Lemon, and Genovese)
- Carrots
- Radishes
- Peas (our favorite: Maestro)
- Beans
- More garlic (in case I didn't mention it earlier)
Herb-wise, we grow mostly culinary herbs such as
- Basil (essential for pesto)
- Oreganos (Silician, Sweet Marjoram)
- Rosemary
- Tarragon (French, of course)
- Thyme (English and French)
- Lemon Verbena (a wonderful scent)
- Red Shiso (practically a weed now)
- and a few others (Sage, Bay, Fennel, Cilantro, Dill, Lemon Grass, Lemon Balm, Garlic Chives (Nira), Anise Hyssop, Lavender, Spearmint, Pineapple Sage)

Our Careers

In 2019, Vic retired from a software systems engineer at Northrop Grumman www.northropgrumman.com.
Debbie is a clerical support staff in the High Energy Physics Department hep.ucsb.edu at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) www.ucsb.edu.
Caitlyn graduated from UCSB in 2017 with a Zoology degree, and four months later landed a full-time job as an Animal Technician in their Animal Resource Center (ARC) www.research.ucsb.edu.