February, the dead of winter.........

Asleep, anesthetized, barren, buried, cold, cut off, deadened, dormant, frigid, inactive, inanimate, inert, inoperable, lifeless, lost, numbed, paralyzed, senseless, spent, spiritless, sterile, still, tired, unresponsive, unanimated, vanished, wasted, wearied, worn out, winter......

This has been an especially hard winter here in northeastern America. The burning, numbing, eye-watering cold has combined with virtually unremitting snowfall to suppress spirits, break machinery and kill the weak, the old and the ill. We have lost several cherished pets over the years during this heartless month, when graves cannot even be dug in the frozen earth.

"If death meant just leaving the stage long enough to change costume and come back as a new character....Would you slow down? Or speed up?" ~ Chuck Palahniuk.

Ask me this question in February and I am apt to choose the speedy costume change; but do not suppose that I am depressed. In so many ways I enjoy the solitude of being housebound. In early winter I anticipate the quietude of day after week of enforced rest. In Spring, Summer and Fall, I plan many diversionary wintertime projects to keep myself happily occupied. I like to cook and bake and make big cauldrons of nourishing soups for us, for friends, and for the freezer. I choose good-weather days to restock my pantry, darting from house, to car, to stores, and scurry back home again. I take my vitamin D (the sunshine vitamin!). I wait for spring. I nest. I hole up. I look out of the windows a lot. I dress warmly for my daily trek to the barn to feed the cats, and every few hours I go out to shovel away the snow from my doors. If I can keep some semblance of order in my life, the cold death of winter cannot come for me in February.

However, FOUR blizzards in one month are mentally and physically HARD to deal with. I cannot even find words to describe the last few weeks, as they have run together endlessly. So I will just share some of my favorite recent photos.....

Art doing some X-Country skiing. Winter always starts out fun!!

Mo enjoys an invigorating run. It's so beautiful outdoors and it's fun to play in the fresh snow!!

Whoa! Nor'easter dumps 31" of heavy, wet snow on 2/5 and 2/6/10. Gotta get down to the shed, fire up the big John Deere and blower and clear this mess up!

It took all day and proved too much for our old snowblower, but between shoveling, plowing, blowing and pushing, we finally got the driveway and lanes opened up to the barn.

We are cleaned up and ready for the next one!
Take a picture of us, Mom!!

New snowblower, an MK Martin Meteor made in Canada, delivered on 2/12/10. We're ready for the next blizzard...............
Bring it on, Mother Nature!!

Wow, we were just kidding around, Mother Nature!!! Can you make it stop now? It's 2/16/10 and our fences are now almost buried under 50" of snow that fell over the past 12 days.

By 2/19/10 our back roof is holding over 5' of heavy snow and another Nor'easter is predicted. We don't want to stress this roof any further, so the two of us climb out there and proceed to shovel the roof clear of approximately 22,000 pounds of snow.

The snow continues, unabated. Icicles obstruct our views. The wind howls and deep drifts form, making travel barely possible. This is our new paradigm. Nothing melts. The snow just grows deeper. We are becoming entombed. We haven't seen the sun in over 3 weeks. We discuss climate change and El Nino. We decide that, though we're much better equipped mechanically to handle severe storms than we were years ago, we are older now. And we lament that we are not as physically strong as we were when we were young. We are amazed at our resiliency. We pat ourselves on the back and keep on shoveling. We discover that by some perverse miracle, shoveling snow actually makes our aching backs feel better.

Another week of snowfall. Every day it seems we get another 4-6" of fresh powder. We have lost track of the measurements and are simply awed by the sheer dimensions of so much snow.

Meteorologists called it a Snowicane - is that even a word? On 2/25/10 we have high winds, blowing and drifting snow, and finally our roads are narrowed to one lane and are drifting shut. Winds gust over 60 miles per hour. Now we are truly isolated. We are officially 'snowed in'. The county's snowplowing protocol goes into blizzard mode. The plows only clear the main arteries and snow emergency routes now. The secondary and back roads are cast adrift until the storm abates. Nothing moves on the road except for an occasional snowmobile and it is very quiet when the wind finally stops howling.

We heat our home with wood, and we've made some big withdrawals this month from our wood stockpile. We have burned 6-7 cords so far, but there's plenty left to finish out the winter.

Mo continues to enjoy all the snow, proving it's great to live a dog's life at Jolico Farm! He doesn't miss an opportunity to accompany us outdoors and he has added a new word to his vocabulary. The command, "DIG IT, MO", sends him digging into a snowbank to loosen the packed snow so I can shovel it away.


So, when all is said and done, there is always the beauty of last summer's geraniums, blooming anew in the back mud room, getting a jump on Spring. They are proof positive that there is life after the dead of winter.......... if we can just survive the month of February.

The Winter of 2010.....

Scientists knew last summer that this was going to be an El Nino year. But it wasn't until winter set in that its effects really hit the United States. Turns out it's not just a run of bad luck. What's behind a lot of this winter's weather is El Nino, the tropical weather pattern that starts in the Pacific. Major snowstorms are set to bury the mid-Atlantic states this weekend after record snowfalls in December. Last month California was awash in rain. The Gulf states have seen heavy weather lately as well.

So, why didn't somebody tell me?? Why didn't I know about this?? I am a weather watcher (as well as an animal tracker and nature being). I read and listen to all things weather-related. Why didn't I hear about this until now?? I can only assume it was a well kept secret or a subject so low down on the news radar that it failed to make us sit up and take notice until the winter was well upon us. Of course, my higher self knew we were in for a beating this winter, based on the cool, damp, blight-ridden Summer-That-Wasn't of 2009 - but my analog human mind just didn't want to believe all the signs that were, in hindsight, so patently clear.

But life goes on despite the season, or maybe even because of the season. The 2010 Swearing-In ceremony of the Sipesville Volunteer Fire Dept was held on schedule on January 9th. Art was honored, as always, to administer the oath of office to the company's officers. These are all-volunteer responders to structure and vehicle fires, forest and brush fires, Haz-Mat calls, vehicle accidents, storm damage calls. They provide traffic control during emergencies, staging for medical helicopter evacuations, they pump out basements during flooding......you name the disaster and these men and women are the very first responders on the scene with their presence and equipment, training, knowledge and bravery. I have been writing grants for this department for the last 6-7 years under the US Assistance to Firefighters program and have been lucky to have been able to obtain new firefighting and crash and rescue equipment for them, including in 2008, a new 4 wheel drive brush/attack truck which they put into service in early 2009. They are currently awaiting word on the 2009/2010 grant request for a new tanker truck to replace their 1978 tanker which must be retired this year, as it is no longer safe to use on calls. A second grant was also submitted for a CAF foam system for use on two of their vehicles. Both of these grants were written last May and there has been no word yet on whether they will be awarded, so we remain hopeful. I was thrilled when they honored me at last year's banquet by naming me an honorary member of the department!

On January 23rd we attended a wonderful dinner with Art's co-workers at Helen's Restaurant at 7-Springs Resort. This is their traditional holiday dinner that is always held about a month after the holidays! Actually, it is a much better time to get together as everybody is always too busy during the holidays to go to another holiday party! The food was wonderfully decadent and Helen's, situated in a balconied ski lodge provided an elegant ambiance for a festive and fun dinner party for ten of us.

Cat grass salad that Kitty, Mo and Mimi like to eat this time of year!

Kitty Cook - around 10 years old now.

When it's so cold, even Mo doesn't want to go out!

Snow sure is getting deep!
Here we go again....what number blizzard is this?

I love this Will Barnet print! It so depicts our menagerie and was a gift from Mimi's mom, Muff, many years ago. Muff just had rotator cuff surgery yesterday after a bad fall on the ice a couple of weeks ago. She's hurting and she's nauseous from the pain medicine right now. Mimi is staying here with us and she and Moses are having a blast together! Right now both dogs are stretched out and sleeping on separate couches in the living room, no doubt due to having expended lots of energy playing all day long, and maybe due in some part to this huge low pressure system that is burying us in snow again. Art is on call this weekend and I pray it stays quiet for his sake. I also pray the internet remains functional as it enables him to do video arraignments from home rather than having to drive to his office as had once been the norm.

A quick update on Groucho the Cat! We found her a wonderful home with Loni, a first-time cat owner, who promptly changed Groucho's name to Peppermint Patty! Good luck and lots of love to Loni and "Patty" in their new, long and loving life together.

Healing prayers go out to Muff, Floy McClintock, Don Brougher, and of course, all the people of Haiti who are daily in our thoughts and prayers, as well as to all people and creatures who are sick, hurting and downtrodden.

A touching poem to share...

At the Vet's
by Maura Stanton

The German shepherd can't lift his hindquarters
off the tiled floor. His middle-aged owner
heaves his dog over his shoulder, and soon
two sad voices drift from the exam room
discussing heart failure, kidneys, and old age
while a rushing woman pants into the office
grasping a terrier with trembling legs
she found abandoned in a drainage ditch.
It's been abused, she says, and sits down,
The terrier curled in her lap, quaking
as the memory of something bad returns and returns.
She strokes its ears, whispering endearments
while my two cats, here for routine checkups,
peer through the mesh of their old green carrier,
the smell of fear so strong on their damp fur
I taste it as I breathe. Soon the woman,
Like the receptionist with her pen in mid-air,
Is listening, too, hushed by the duet
swelling in volume now, the vet's soprano
counterpointed by the owner's baritone
as he pleads with her to give him hope, the vet
trying to be kind, rephrasing the truth
over and over until it becomes a lie
they both pretend to accept. The act's over.
His dog's to stay behind for ultrasound
and kidney tests, and the man, his face
whipped by grief as if he were caught in a wind,
hurries past us and out the front door,
leaving the audience—cats, terrier, people—
sunk in their places, too stunned to applaud.

"At the Vet's" by Maura Stanton, from Immortal Sofa. © University of Illinois Press, 2008. Reprinted with permission by The Writer's Almanac, January 16, 2010.

Snow......a New Year, a New Decade, a Winter Wedding.....and more snow.

Well, it's winter so I guess we should expect some snow. However, it has been snowing here nonstop since New Year's Eve, 7 days straight now with no end in sight. Another 8" is predicted for tonight with blizzard-like conditions to follow bringing gale-force winds and downright dangerously cold temperatures.

This poor young redtail hawk has been hunting small songbirds at our feeders from a perch in the locust tree in our front yard. The wind and cold are so severe and the snow so deep that there is no small game to be seen, and the hawk is hungry. It's easy to see why people and animals become distressed and depressed in winter.Our back fences are almost buried under 3' drifts! The poor birds puff up for warmth awaiting their turn at the bird feeders, which we keep constantly filled for them.

We always look forward to winter as a time to pursue pleasurable, mostly indoor activities like reading seed catalogs, novels, that stack of magazines piling up since last summer, watching movies and cooking great meals. Outdoor activities include shoveling snow, blowing snow, hauling in firewood, hauling out the furnace ashes, sweeping the snow off the solar panels, walks in the snow, bundling up just to go out to the mailbox, and occasionally, if the snow is just right and the wind isn't blowing too hard, some cross country skiing just to get the blood moving! Simple trips to the grocery store are combined with quick errands and always dinner at a restaurant, because one never knows when the next weather window of opportunity to escape the confines of the farm will present itself - smile!
The lake lies encased in thick ice and the gazebo slumbers under a blanket of white. I took this picture before New Year's when we could still walk down the hill to the lake. Now the snow is too deep for walking.Art clears snow from the driveway - a daily chore. Mimi and Mo have a blast as they romp in snow that is over their heads! However, this does not affect their exuberance as they blow off steam and enjoy each others' company!

Art was honored to preside over the marriage of our friends Jon Kates and Peggie Page on the first Saturday of the New Year and New Decade of 2010. The ceremony was held in Pittsburgh at the William Penn Hotel on January 2nd.

Peggie's daughter Sarah attended her mother as matron of honor and Jon's son Sam performed admirably as best man! It was such a joyous occasion, a celebration in toasts, song and well-wishes to the love and married life of a beautiful couple.

Well, another foot of snow has fallen since the night of the Kates wedding. We loaded another half-cord of wood into the basement yesterday and made a grocery run last evening......even grabbed a bite at the Italian Oven before scurrying back to the warmth and safety of home. I thought I'd do some blog posting today just to let the world know we're still here and thinking about you all. Here's a visual gift to enjoy.......what could better signify the promise and beauty of Spring?

Groucho The Cat

Groucho The Cat showed up at the cat feeder at Jolico Farm in the cold early winter of 2009. She was a fearless young, 'in-your-face' feline who promptly became pregnant, probably during her first heat in early February. She gave birth to a litter of kittens around April 1st. Unfortunately, only one of those kittens survived to become weaned. She became pregnant again when that kitten was about 2 months old and she delivered her second litter of 6 kittens on August 1, 2009. All of these kittens survived due to human intervention – twice-daily food and water carried up to the barn for them.

I took a real liking to this gutsy cat and I named her because of her resemblance to Groucho Marx. However, her name fit her 'grouchy' personality as well, as she is a vocal scolder to her kittens and even growls at me when I pick her up if she does not want to be held. She has never tried to bite or scratch me. She puts up with my handling, brushing, kissing and stroking, but rarely asks for affection. However, she will follow me around like a dog, and she tends to gravitate to the room in which I am working or sitting, making herself comfortable on the floor or on a nearby couch so as not to miss any of the household action.

I figure that Groucho was born in the spring of 2008. I also figure she was a drop-off, or she had been born at one of the nearby farms as a wild, or feral, cat. The fact that she has such moxie and has such a brave and fearless nature has endeared her to me. I resisted allowing her plight to affect my better judgment but, because she was such a demanding cat, crying at me through the windows when she wanted food for herself and for her kittens, I became like putty in her paws………and, I fell in love with her…………

When she weaned her last litter in mid-October 2009, I took her to the vet and had her spayed, vaccinated and de-wormed. I brought her home from her surgery and kept her in the house for 3 days to recover and then I let her back out to the barn. Two weeks later I returned her to the vet to have her sutures removed. She tolerated these procedures and intimate handling with vocal outrage but without any attempt to harm anyone.

While she was in the house she got a taste of the “good life” of a housecat, and she quickly adjusted to the litter pan and the rhythms of the household. When the weather turned bitterly cold this winter, she began to cry at the windows to be let into the warmth. When we ignored her insistent crying, she persisted and would cry all night long to be let in. We finally caved and allowed her indoors to become our pet.

She has no desire to go outdoors. She adjusted immediately to life in our home. She is quiet, clean and independent, but alert to our movements. She interacts with us and with our big dog Moses, who used to be her arch-enemy when she lived outside.

Our only problem lies with our older housecat “Kitty” who has never gotten along with Groucho. This dislike has escalated since Groucho moved indoors into Kitty’s domain. There has been fighting between the two cats, prompting us to banish Groucho back to the barn. However, this is breaking our hearts and we have decided we need to find Groucho a proper, loving home, even if it means losing our bond with her.

I hope and pray that whomever takes responsibility for her will love her as we do; and if they do not or cannot love and care for her, that they will return her to us. I hope and pray that we will find a very lucky person who needs the love of a very fine cat.

Parties, Family and Some Loving Thoughts........

It's been a while since my last post but we've not been idle! A wonderfully joyous occasion we attended was the wedding celebration dinner of Samantha Ginsburg and Steven Streibig on 11/14/09 in Pittsburgh. I swiped this picture taken at their wedding ceremony in Maui on 10/3/09 from their friend MJ's album because it shows their happiness and their beauty on their wedding day.

Dinner at the Fischer's is always an epicurian delight! Bruce cooks and Elaine bakes and we all eat too much. We moved from a table laden with appetizers, to the dining room where we consumed mass quantities of salmon and leg of lamb this year and to top it all off, Elaine's famous chocolate cheesecake and a homemade pumpkin pie! With Heidi and Joe growing older now, they have built an addition off the farmhouse kitchen with eventual retirement in mind, or a cozy apartment for an elderly family member. It includes many handicap accessibility features and even a ramp! I guess we could all use a ramp entrance, no matter how old or young we are......a ramp entrance and a grocery cart would do me just fine, I'm thinking!

The week around the Thanksgiving holiday was savored in a haze of company and food and lots of laughter and love. Mike, Connie and their dog Maggie came up from Pittsburgh on the afternoon of the 22nd for a pizza party. Brother Hank and his dog Maximus came up on Wednesday the 25th and stayed through Thanksgiving until Friday the 27th when he departed with bags of leftovers for his freezer. We decided we had much to be thankful for in our lives this year, not the least of which are our close family ties.

On Sunday the 28th our table was graced for brunch by our sister and brother-in-law Arlene and Robert Alfred and dog Charlie, and nephew Bruce and his wife Rachel, and their boys Joe and Michael Sheinbart who were visiting Pittsburgh from Florida for the long holiday weekend. We had a loving and heartfelt time introducing the youngest generation to "the farm" where Bruce spent much time during his 'growing-up' years. We laughed as we reminiscently told the old stories about the time when Kim fell through the barn floor into the cattle pen, and the time when somebody splattered a drop of red barn paint into Princess the Poodle's eye! The solution to that problem was Aunt Max running for the Visine......it gets the red out!!








Last evening Harold, Hank, Ros and Steve, Art and I met for dinner in Pittsburgh at Hokkaido Seafood Buffet and ate like there was no tomorrow! This was Hank's recommendation for dining as it is an all-you-can-consume Japanese seafood restaurant and we were not disappointed. I know they lost money on us as I watched the males of my family make repeated trips for heaping platters of Alaskan King Crab legs, shrimp, sushi, frog legs, oysters.....you name it! We ate for two solid hours; ate and laughed and enjoyed just being together. Steve left to drive their car back to Florida very early this morning, and Ros is due to depart next week. Their trip to Pittsburgh kept them occupied with a whirlwind of events shared with family and friends. We were glad the weather cooperated so we could sneak in to see them too!

All this togetherness lately has given my fertile mind some food for thought. I have been pondering my priorities and trying to pinpoint what is truly important in life. Imagine, as I have, that time is growing shorter. What could potentially give us cause for regret? Would it be trips not taken, or money not made, jewelry not acquired, fine wines and food not consumed, recognition not awarded? Or, would it be the friendships we didn't nurture, the time we spent in anger and not communicating with loved ones; the opportunities we passed up to say, "I love you", causing us not to hear those most precious words repeated back to us?

Do you find there is something your heart and soul craves, something that is missing from your life, leaving you feeling incomplete and empty inside? Could it be love? Could it be a reconnection to family ties? Could it be that you've lost your pathway to The Divine?

Do we appreciate or curse each new day? Do we speak or maintain silence? Can we live in peace and love, or must there be dissention? Can we find forgiveness in our hearts, then take the next step and express it?

Attachments, rigid boundaries, inflexibility, anger and frustration prevent transformation.

Change is an aspect of love moving from the present vibration to a higher vibration in an upward spiraling pattern.

Love is energy; it sustains all form and formlessness; it is our true identity. Love lives in the heart. It is the Glue of the Universe. It is a soul quality. We need more of it in our lives. Love is all there is.

Migrating geese, long walks through fallen leaves and comforting soup.........

Since I was a small child, I have delighted in playing in the freshly fallen leaves, kicking them out in front of me, burying my feet in their weightless, fragrant depths and drifts. When I was younger, before the advent of the tractor and leaf-bagger attachment, I would rake leaves in the late fall just for the pure joy of rolling in the giant piles I would create. Now I content myself with swishing through them on my daily walks down to the lake, where they cover the farm roads and woods trails as they morph from canopy to coverlet on their purposeful transformation from photosynthesis back into soil.

We have been putting the farm to bed, as we do each year at this time. We slowly gather up all the trappings of summer, clean them and put them away. Gone now are the patio tables and chairs, the hose reels, the flower pots, the porch furniture, the screens, the hanging baskets. We've brought in the geraniums for wintering in the dog room where they like the cool temperatures and the sunshine that warms them in the east window alcove there.

Now we fill the bird feeders, sweep up the leaves that blow in eddies around the storm doors, wash the windows for perhaps the last time before spring, add a bit of caulking here and there, bring in the rain gauges, close down the barn doors, take off the mowers, grease up the tractors and put on the snow blower and blade.

The fields are now harvested and bare. The crop yields were bountiful this year. We had plenty of rain and a longer growing season than usual here in the mountains, as spring was early and fall lingered warm and long. This past week our 25 acres of soybeans were harvested by the giant red combine and a 4th crop of alfalfa came off the hayfields. I can't remember the last time we got a 4th crop of hay and I am amazed. Is this a result of global warming? It is quite unusual.

Thousands of geese have passed through on their way to the south to warmer states where they will winter over. I've learned that more than 90 percent of all birds are monogamous, meaning they maintain an essentially exclusive relationship, or pair bond, with just one member of the opposite sex. Geese are especially fastidious when it comes to their loyalty. They're well known for the long-term pair bonds they form. I marvel at them each year. I like to image that the same pairs return to Jolico Farm to raise their young year after year because we provide such a pure and hospitable environment, but that is probably just my over-dramatizing imagination.
However, we enjoy watching for their arrival in the late winter and early spring, for geese, along with the robins, are some of the first signs of life to arrive as the grip of winter loosens and the days lengthen and the warmth returns in the spring. But for now the dogs love to race along the lake shore and shoo the geese back into the water from their resting and sunning spots on the lake banks. A few turns around the lake and Mo and Mimi are ready to race through the woods to see what other wildlife they can scare up.

The last of the garden produce has been harvested. This year we had a huge carrot crop and, even though we've been eating carrots throughout the summer as I routinely thinned the crop, I was astonished at how many I was able to dig out of the ground at the tail end of fall. What to do with such a bounty? Carrots store well in the root cellar, but they are the sweetest and most nutritious when they are freshly pulled from the earth. I like to make Carrot-Ginger Soup and I've made about 4 gallons in the last couple of weeks to freeze in small pint- or quart-sized containers so I have it on hand for a quick hot lunch, for Thanksgiving dinner or to give away to a sick friend. This I have done recently as we have a friend who is taking chemotherapy and suffers from the resulting nausea and loss of appetite. Ginger is very good for calming the stomach, so I sent him several containers of my frozen organic carrot-ginger immunotherapy, laced with lots of love and prayers for a return to good health in each and every spoonful...

Pickled Peppers, Visitors, Autumn and Winter............all in the same week!

The house siding project is finished, and just in the nick of time apparently, as Winter is riding hard on the heels of Fall in these parts! Many busy days have passed here in the recent weeks since we visited the beach in Cape May, NJ, now almost a month ago. We returned to find our contractors had finished our outdoor siding project. The added insulation is already paying off in a MUCH warmer and cozier home.

The weather has turned sharply colder and the leaves have quickly changed into their brilliant autumn colors here in our mountains this year, the Pennsylvania range of the Appalachians, which are locally called 'The Laurel Highlands'. The highest point in Pennsylvania, Mt. Davis, is located here in Somerset County and is over 3,500 feet above sea level. The weather fronts moved through very rapidly over the last couple of weeks. We went from temperatures in the 60's with sunny skies one day to over 3 inches of rain the next. The day after that we had plunging temps into the 30's at night with 60mph winds that prematurely blew a good many of the gorgeous leaves off the trees. However, warnings to the contrary, we were quite unprepared for the weather changes that blew in this past weekend. Two Nor'easters rolled up the east coast and some areas in our region got over a foot of snow that felled still heavily leafed tree limbs, causing power outages and some very messy driving conditions.

Around here when it's nasty outside, there is always something to do indoors. With the cold weather catching us off guard, we hurriedly snatched up the remaining peppers from the garden, roasted them on the grill, peeled them and turned them into pickled peppers, a favorite family recipe from my grandmother and my mother. We had a bumper crop of peppers this year and we quickly harvested more than I expected, but they won't last very long. Here's the recipe for the best roasted pickled peppers you've ever eaten!

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Freda's Pickled Peppers:

1) Roast whole, ripe bell peppers over a charcoal or gas grill fire until their skins are blackened and the peppers are soft.

2) Place the roasted peppers into a heavy brown paper bag and close the top of the bag tightly so that the peppers will steam in the bag.

3) When the peppers are cool enough to handle, peel off the charred skins, remove the stems and seeds and discard.

4) Cut the flesh of the peppers into strips and place into clean pint or quart canning jars.

5) Over a medium high flame, mix together equal parts of sugar, white vinegar and water. Then add more water (double or triple what you have already added) to taste until you have a mildly sweet and not too sour brine. Bring this mixture to a rapid boil, then fill the waiting jars of peppers almost to the brim, leaving a small space to top off each jar with a small amount (1/4") of olive oil.

6) Wipe the rims of each jar clean, then add the lids and bands, leaving them turned upside down until they are cool. The lids should be sealed down at this point. However, store them in the refrigerator as you would with refrigerator pickles. They may be enjoyed immediately, but be sure to use any unsealed jars first and plan to eat them all by Christmas, as they do not have a long shelf life.

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We heat our home with wood, a sustainable resource with a very low carbon footprint, and our woodshed is filled to the brim at this time of year. We heat with an HS Tarm wood-fired boiler made in Denmark. It burns wood so efficiently that Tarm advertises that their furnaces create the amount of ash per hour equivalent to that of a burned cigarette.

Each of us can choose to live more sustainably when we understand how our choices impact the environment, other people and other species. In its broadest sense, ‘sustainable’ refers to the capacity of something to be maintained or kept in existence indefinitely. It therefore also refers to balance. A carbon footprint also has to take into consideration how a fuel source was produced. Firewood is usually prepared with the use of log cutting machines and chain saws, and in that, firewood has a tiny footprint compared to natural gas, electric, or heating oil. We also have an oil fueled boiler, which we use to supplement our wood heat, so our alternative fuel is heating oil. There is no natural gas available in our rural area, and propane gas is usually more expensive than heating oil. We gather wood on our property when we are able, but we mainly buy our cordwood from our neighbors, the Beckners, who own a lumbering company. The hardwood we burn comes from the smaller discarded limbs of felled trees that are harvested locally.

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In early October we were pleased to again host what has become an annual gathering of Art's colleagues and their families. This year because of many schedule conflicts, we could not find a commonly acceptable date until well after summer had passed and autumn was already upon us. However, we managed to get the event in under the wire and a great time was had by all. Here are some pictures of a most enjoyable food fest!

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This past weekend we had the pleasure of a visit from our dear friends Sally from Florida and her sister Merrily from Chicago, Ginny from 7-Springs, Laurie from right here in Somerset, and my brother Hank and his dog (my 4-legged nephew!) Maximus from Pittsburgh. The occasion was Sally and Merrily's yearly fall family visit, which we celebrated with a small happy hour here at Jolico and then a nice dinner at the Pine Grill in town. Hank and Maximus spent the night with us and left the next afternoon laden with quarts of chicken stew and ginger carrot soup from our freezer, having really enjoyed resting, eating and playing at the farm.

Life is good. Family and friends are precious. "If you have love in your life it can make up for a great many things you lack. If you don't have it, no matter what else there is, it's not enough......Ann Landers"