Seasons change.....time to flip the mattress over!

"In the days before electric lights, farmers depended on bright moonlight to extend the workday beyond sunset. It was the only way they could gather their ripening crops in time for market. Not since Sept. 23, 1991 has a full moon occurred on the same night as the fall equinox, and it won't happen again until 2029", wrote astronomer Tony Phillips in a NASA announcement. That's 38 years from now and I wonder how many of us will be alive to see this again?

The end of September signals the beginning of Autumn. The days grow shorter, the nights lengthen and the weather cools perceptively. We start the day wearing warmer clothing, perhaps even socks! Kitty curls up against us in the night seeking warmth from our sleeping bodies. We must take care not to squish her.....and we are grateful for the warmth that she imparts as well.

We change over our wardrobes. Sweaters and long pants are moved to the front of the closets while shorts, T's and sandals are pushed to the rear. Even the foods we crave are warmer, more filling and sustaining. The oven is more often in use now, filling the kitchen with warmth and wonderful aromas once again. We also flip the mattresses on our beds, wash all the mattress pads, covers, blankets and spreads, vacuum underneath and replace everything all freshly laundered and sun-dried. This is my favorite Autumn ritual and such a gratifying feeling!!

The summer of 2010 had a long run, being perhaps the longest summer I can remember since I was a kid, when every summer was long and languid. Hot and dry as dust too, the earth cracked and the water in the lake evaporated a good 6 inches, exposing bare shoreline from which the snails retreated into deeper coolness, where the migrating herons had farther to reach to pluck them. Our county is in a drought emergency. The weather people tell us we are 12% below average in precipitation levels. It is up here in the mountains that water is born from rain and snowfall. Springs, creeks and streams from thousands of small watersheds fill ponds and lakes and eventually form rivers that flow, providing hydration, recreation, moisture.....without which survival of everything on Earth would be impossible. Today it is raining softly and steadily and we are grateful.

Autumn marks the beginning of our six-month heating season. We heat our 3000 square foot 1870's farmhouse with an HS-Tarm wood-fired boiler that we installed in 1995, in conjunction with a backup Burnham oil-fired boiler. The Tarm, with its downdraft gasification technology, burns dry hardwood at 92% efficiency. This translates into the smoke equivalent of 1 cigarette (1 gram) per hour. Our Tarm also provides all of our domestic hot water produced during the heating season via a thermal loop to our hot water tank. We usually burn 5-6 cords of firewood each heating season. We are gratified to see that our 40-foot tall chimney, when cleaned in the spring, yields only about 1 gallon of ash.

These potatoes weigh about a pound.....each!!

Our garlic crop was amazing this year.....onions were small but tasty.

The tomatoes were fabulous and yielded gallons of frozen juice and lots of sauce, too.

.....plenty of roasted sweet peppers made it into jars, as well as frozen peppers for the freezer.

Visitors in September included Connie, Martha and Mike;

Casey.....

Maggie......

Brother Hank.........

Niece Rachel........

The blog wouldn't be complete without Moses hamming it up for the camera!

 Panoramic shot of Jolico Farm taken by our nephew Ben with his iPhone. I think he pieced together 8 shots to make this one photo.

Happy 41st Anniversary. Max speaks to Art........

Excerpt from Paradise Lost

By John Milton

(Eve speaks to Adam)

With thee conversing I forget all time,
All seasons and their change, all please alike.
Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet,
With charm of earliest birds; pleasant the sun
When first on this delightful land he spreads
His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flower,
Glistering with dew; fragrant the fertile earth
After soft showers; and sweet the coming on
Of grateful evening mild, then silent night
With this her solemn bird and this fair moon,
And these the gems of heav'n, her starry train:
But neither breath of morn when she ascends
With charm of earliest birds, nor rising sun
On this delightful land, nor herb, fruit, flower,
Glistring with dew, nor fragrance after showers,
Nor grateful evening mild, nor silent night
With this her solemn bird, nor walk by moon,
Or glittering starlight without thee is sweet.

Excerpt from "Paradise Lost" by John Milton. (Public domain)

Family, Friends, French Fries, Feeding Fish and Food for Thought. . . .

Groucho's kittens were one year old on August 1st. True Leo's, they are very Leonine, even Little Girl, the only surviving female. She isn't around much, as she seems to be constantly in heat, though seemingly never pregnant. The boys, however, are visible like lightning bugs, every evening and all night long, making sure there isn't a chipmunk, or "Grinny" as my neighbor Floy calls them, darting around the gardens of Jolico Farm. This picture is of Tommy Tip (on the right) and Tom Boy (on the left) enjoying some catnip. (Unavailable for this photo is Brother #3, named Little Tom, the runt when he was born, but the 2nd largest now, just in case you were wondering!) Tom Boy is my favorite, as he is friendly and allows me to pet him through the open kitchen window. He reminds me the most of his mother Groucho. If you have been following this blog, you will remember that my beloved Groucho found a wonderful Forever Home last fall. She lives with Lonnie, who renamed her "Peppermint Patty".

Sadly, on July 23rd we lost a good and faithful friend, Freddie Oakes, who passed away in Pittsburgh at the too-young age of 65. Fred and Art were friends since the days of their misspent youth and we will sorely miss him always.

Weeping willow trees are gracefully beautiful. We had two towering willows on our property. The older one was planted by a young girl named Joni, the granddaughter of Alfred Barron, the farmer from whom we bought Jolico Farm. The willow tree that Joni planted in her youth grew very big, its trunk measuring 200 inches in circumference after 40+ years of growth. Art planted the second willow tree in 1975 above the bank barn, far enough away (he thought) so that the branches and leaves would never overhang the barn roof. Wrong! This tree grew over 40 feet tall and clogged the gutters and downspouts so thickly with fallen leaves each autumn that the gutters were literally rendered useless. Joni's tree was badly damaged a few years ago in an ice storm, so we had the tree-trimmers out to cut it back and clean up the fallen limbs. This was a job too big for Max and Art and our little toy tractors! The willow continued to grow and thrive, but this spring a terrifying thunderstorm twisted a huge limb off the upper half of the tree, leaving the tree split and badly injured. Sadly, we decided that euthanasia was the best decision, as Joni's tree had become too big and unwieldy and was beginning to rot as well. We called Phil Read, Tree Surgeon Extraordinaire, who not only removed both willows, but a 100+ year old rotten apple tree, as well as trimming the tops of our dwarf pear trees in the orchard.

 The willow tree above the barn is about to come down!

The stump of Joni's willow tree measures 200" around the base and 66" in diameter!

Phil Read, our hero!

Our newly trimmed pear trees. Now the fruit is reachable!

This is the tree Art thought he and I could handle by ourselves.....NOT!

Willow and apple wood is not suitable for burning in the Tarm to heat our home, so Phil hauled it all away.

On August 1st we had the honor of a visit from our Atlanta GA cousins, Linda, Julie, Terry, Sam and Jake. Art's sisters Sheila and Arlene, brother-in-law Robert and dog Charlie came up from Pittsburgh to enjoy the day with us. As a picture is worth a thousand words, and I have so many pictures.... please enjoy!

From left: Terry, Sheila, Sam, Julie, Robert, Arlene, Linda and Art.

Sam holding his brother Jacob!

Lunch! As usual, there was plenty to eat!!

Sam fed the fish while Mo cleaned up the pellets that didn't make it into the water!

The garden, planted so early this year due to the warm early spring, seems to be ripening early as well.  Art harvested potatoes one day recently, digging them out of the ground with a small camping shovel while kneeling in the soft dirt. He finds this the easiest and most back-saving method to tackle an age-old job.

As usual, we planted red, white and blue potatoes, an all-American tradition!

Digging potatoes is hungry work so.......

.....let's go make some homemade fries! Pomme frites!!

These peppers are the size of Bocce Balls, each of the red ones yielding 3 cups of diced peppers! The white eggplant is 8" long and gives some perspective as to the size of the red bell peppers.

We are ecstatic over this years' tomato crop! After a devastating year in 2009 fighting the late blight, we could not be happier with the yields, the taste, the size, the GLORY of our 2010 crop!!!

In memory of Fred..........

With you a part of me hath passed away;
For in the peopled forest of my mind
A tree made leafless by this wintry wind
Shall never don again its green array.
Chapel and fireside, country road and bay,
Have something of their friendliness resigned;
Another, if I would, I could not find,
And I am grown much older in a day.
But yet I treasure in my memory
Your gift of charity, and young hearts ease,
And the dear honour of your amity;
For these once mine, my life is rich with these.
And I scarce know which part may greater be,–
What I keep of you, or you rob from me.
(By George Santayana)

What I Really Know About Long Walks

I spent my 13^th birthday in July of 1960 hiking portions of the Ditmar Trail high up in the Allegheny Mountains of Pennsylvania.  It was the longest walk of my young life. A city girl from Pittsburgh, I was 100 miles from home at a two-week Girl Scout camp. I had been to an overnight camp before and I had survived, so I was not completely out of my element. A stranger when I arrived, I quickly made friends with campers and counselors alike. I had never experienced camping outdoors, nor had I gone on an overnight hike, but I was very I was eager to try.

Outfitted with a pack frame, I carried 3 normal-sized packs, as I was strong and tall for my age. Each hiker carried her essentials for the 14 mile first leg of the hike, and the camp truck delivered our sleeping bags, food and cooking gear to our evening campsite, in a farmer’s cow pasture along the banks of a running stream.

The walk was grueling, hot and dusty and straight up and straight down, sometimes over gravel switchback roads, but mostly on paths through the rugged wildness of the Eastern Front of the Alleghenies. Fourteen miles each way with an overnight camp, this was a great challenge for young women.

When we made camp that evening, we built a campfire and cooked our evening meal.  I can’t remember what we ate but the birthday cake we baked over the campfire in a reflector oven, and the birthday song sung to me by fellow campers and counselors, were the sounds and the taste of victory. We slept that night under the stars, and I awoke in the foggy dark dampness to see a cow staring straight into my eyes, her head just above mine. I had no fear.

On that walk I developed courage, determination, self discipline and self-sufficiency, and my lifelong love of the outdoors was born. That walk instilled in me the concepts of teamwork and community, of setting and reaching goals. The strengths I developed that July when I turned 13 have remained with me throughout the years. That walk that took me over 28 miles in two days started me on the pathway of my life.

Midsummer Wisdom

Busy, busy, busy, busy hands.....making pesto, pickles, zucchini breads for the freezer, cooking for friends and family, hanging sheets on the line. Solitary work only occupies my body. It allows my mind to float free. If I am calm and happy, I am in the astral world, a state of simplicity, harmony, order and serenity. When my mind resides in the astral world, I become a different kind of human being.

It has taken me the better part of the two years since retirement to reconnect with my home, my garden and with nature, relaxing into the silence and enveloping calm of my farm, my daily habits and chores.

An easy recipe for happiness:

• Be grateful.
• Be optimistic.
• Count your blessings.
• Use Your strengths.
• Commit acts of kindness.

Even the most reliable of life's gifts can be taken away unexpectedly. So seize the moment and live in joy. Search for kindred spirits along the way. Take the time to smell the air, and in doing so, imprint memories related to those smells upon your brain, your heart and soul. Later, when you are old(er), those same smells will trigger the wonderful memories you have attached to them......of a rich and redolent life.

"Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life." (Melodie Beattie)

"Knowledge comes, wisdom lingers." (Daisy Hickman)

"Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom." (Marcel Proust)

The spectacular view of the garden through my kitchen window;
I am grateful and blessed to have such beauty and abundance surround me.


The garden begins to deliver its organic bounty. We are grateful to receive it into our bodies, for nothing tastes as good as organic, home-grown veggies! We are optimistic that we will have a healthy tomato harvest, after the disaster of late blight in 2009.

Scott, Art and Harry are exercising their Second Amendment rights on the 4th of July. We all celebrate and count our blessings!

The Second Amendment guarantees us the right to own and bear arms. This right has recently been closely studied by our US Supreme Court. The Court has ruled by a majority that each citizen may own firearms (within certain State restrictions; only mentally stable adults, not having been convicted of a serious crime). Under the Constitution we have the right to protect our families, homes and property. History has shown that we are a nation prepared to defend global freedom. We owe the deepest debt of gratitude to all those who have defended us and freedom worldwide, and who have paid the ultimate price for our Constitutional rights.
God Bless America! God bless us all on Earth!

Jon and Peggie, as they prepare to move to a new home and practice opportunity. They are using their strengths in new ways and we wish them happiness!

Pure Prairie League in concert in our little town
Somerset PA, Saturday night, July 10, 2010.

I think that acts of kindness work in many ways; not just when we bestow kindness on others, but also when we receive kindness, which, like love, can flow in ALL directions.

I have been happier - consistently happier than I've ever been in my entire life.

My beloved spouse, (...of 41 years!...alias "Mister Wonderful", alias "Mister All-Or-Nothing-At-All", alias "Slim Cookie", alias "Judge Slim Lebowitz"), has even commented on it! He is my 'Mirror of Truth', my 'Best Friend of the Heart', my 'Other Half', my 'Soulmate', my "Everything".... so it has to be be the truth.

I am grateful for so many things....all of them "biggies" in my mind. Some wouldn't think they are worth mentioning, but they are THE most important things to me, and more highly prized than jewels; my family and my friends (especially those who remembered and celebrated me on my birthday:)). I am so grateful for the rain and the sun;

grateful for my amazing friend (canine) Moses who is my constant companion; grateful for my strength of body, always so willing to take the abuse my WILL heaps upon it; SO grateful for my eyesight, my excellent mind; my heart that bursts and overflows with love; my senses (of compassion, altruism, fairness, of loyalty, of direction, of hearing, of balance, taste, intuition, time....and even my hot flashes).

I hope I have not sounded self-important or vain, as I am not any of those; especially in these times of suffering for so many, of economic stress, of terrorism, of discontent, of anger, of violence, of Earth Changes. This is NOT the time for 'self'.

I am simply filled with gratitude to God and filled with love......and I just wanted you ALL to know how very much I love you.........Max

Springing Forward........

I have more nice pictures this Spring than nice words it seems. My words this Spring would probably fall unwelcome on some ears. Narrow, ungenerous behavior exacts a price on psyches and relationships, and those who wound with words and actions cannot, or do not care to see the long term damaging effects on once-loving relationships until they are lost.

In our lives, we come across many circumstances in which we have wronged someone or someone has wronged us. As we grow, there comes a time in our lives when the opportunity arises, giving us the chance to forgive them. We have all heard the saying to 'Forgive and Forget'. Well, human nature does not allow for the mind to forget easily, so really it is 'Forgive and Accept'.

When we decide to forgive someone, this is a selfless act of kindness to that person and to ourselves. We are forgiving the person and not necessarily the act that was committed. This is self healing. When we are releasing negative energy and breathing in positive energy, we are looking away from the past and toward the future. In forgiving, we accept what happened and move forward; and really, moving forward is what it is all about. The same energy comes when someone forgives us. Even if we have to approach that person and ask for forgiveness, it is OK because we are moving forward. If they forgive us, we also must forgive ourselves and recognize that we have grown and moved forward on our path.

There is so much emotion tied to this. We may feel that something is unforgivable.....and that is OK, too. That is our choice, and once again, if it is truly unforgivable we can accept it and move on. We must not let the negative hold onto us, but release it and move forward into the positive power that is out there. Many things happen throughout our lives. Some are done accidentally and some on purpose, and those we will sort out and do what is needed in order to move forward. This is all part of loving ourselves enough to move forward and release the negative and receive the positive. Forgiveness of yourself and others is a cleansing of sorts, like detoxifying your soul. Again, love yourself enough to move forward. Forgiveness is not a weakness. It is one of the most courageous things a person can do for themselves.......

Life has been full and satisfying. We are joyful and filled with gratitude that Mother Earth has greened up once again and her abundance springs forth! Green and growing grass prompted Art to adapt his oldest piece of equipment to run on his newest tractor. "Arthur The Inventor" is forever seeking to reinvent. He is supremely adaptable, and from his fertile mind optimism springs eternal. We have owned a #1 John Deere sickle bar mower since we bought our farm nearly 40 years ago. This was the first tractor-mounted model of mower that John Deere ever produced! Other mowers have come and gone here, but the sickle bar mower has a prominent, specialized place in our arsenal of grass-tamers. We use it to cut grass that is unable to be harvested along the very edges of our fields, to neaten up the road berms and ditch banks after haymaking and, more recently, to cut the high grass that grows along the shoreline of our lake. Without this mower, with its cantilevered cutter bar that juts out from the right side of the tractor (forcing one to always make clockwise revolutions), we would have to perform this exhausting task using a gas-powered Stihl string trimmer, or risk upsetting a valuable tractor into the lake! Art re-engineered the #1 using 2 nuts, 1 piece of custom-bent black iron pipe and an extension PTO bar, enabling the mower to snap onto the quick-hitch and run on the modern JD4720.....super slick!!

The business end of the JD4720
with the JD#1 mower...... on the move!

Innovation......The American Way!!

600' of ditch bank mowed along the main road
saves PennDot the trouble!
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Another year, another garden. Hope springs eternal and this year we've planted many veggies that we hope will all make it to the table! I'm sure I'm missing something here, but I believe we have planted Vidalia, white, yellow & red onions, red and white garlic, curly parsley, basil, dill, arugula, romaine, mesclun lettuce mix, spinach, a dozen plants of 4 types of disease-resistant tomatoes, red bell peppers, Ichiban and white eggplant, red beets, carrots, 8-Ball zucchini, yellow straight-neck squash, cucumbers, tomatillos, sweet potatoes, Russian blue, red and Yukon Gold potatoes. Yes, I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but here are some photos of the early vegetable garden and also some spring flowers.

The early spring garden from the west side.

Tomato plants in wire cages, with potatoes behind them.

Garlics, with potatoes behind them.

Basil plants.

Chives among the Hostas.

Spring Daisies!

A lot of chirping going on in this Sparrow nest!

Clematis reaching up to the Sparrows.

Mo and Art heading down to the lake to trim the banks.

A&M Cook, Jolico Farm, Somerset PA
100% Solar Powered since 1978!!
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.....And finally, I could not publish this post without attempting to express my personal, gut-wrenching anguish and fist-clenching anger over the worst and most horrible environmental catastrophe to befall our country, and possibly the most widespread and worst toxic despoilment ever to occur upon our planet. Like everyone else, I feel utterly helpless in the face of this disaster. I pray a lot and watch the news for signs of hope that there will be a turning point, that the storm of oil gushing forth from the belly of Mother Earth will begin to slow. I Tweet about all the news, the good and the bad, trying to spread awareness of what man has wrought in his insatiable quest for OIL. It saddens me that most people who are not living in the reality of the holocaust occurring in and on the Gulf Coast, are going about their everyday lives with barely any notice taken or expressed of this tragedy that is affecting so many millions of creatures..... man among them.

I ask myself, how does one go about forgiving an accident, an incident, acts of omission or commission, a corporation, a drilling rig, a fire, a mechanical failure, a "situation"? Should I go through the same process of forgiveness as I would towards a living person? Who or what deserves a punch in the nose here? After weeks of listening to my higher self I come full circle and repeat the last step in the forgiveness recipe above:

There is so much emotion tied to this. We may feel that someTHING is UNforgivable.....and that is OK, too. That is our choice, and once again, if it is truly unforgivable we CAN accept it and move on. We must NOT let the negative hold onto us, but RELEASE it and MOVE forward into the POSITIVE power that is out there. Many things happen throughout our lives. Some are done accidentally and some on purpose, and those we will sort out and do what is needed in order to move forward. This is all part of loving ourselves enough to move forward and release the negative and receive the positive. Forgiveness of yourself and others is a cleansing of sorts, like detoxifying your soul. Again, love yourself enough to move forward. Forgiveness is not a weakness. It is one of the most courageous things a person can do for themselves....... Does this also go for oil companies? I hope so.