Welcome This past summer and early fall, we remodeled our front porch. It included new railings to replace the wooden ones, sanding down the mahogany porch boards and re-staining and sealing them, painting the steps and a re-arrange of furniture to accommodate sunrises, visitors and Molly 5. As I drove around the area doing some [...]
. The Color of Calm The experts say that blue is the most calming color. I mean, I guess. Put me in a mountain cabin with a clear view of the blue sky and I guarantee you that I will feel relaxed. Green is the next most calming color. Okay, I can see that. A nice [...]
I love chemistry but struggled in my college chemistry class. I mean, I did OK and still remember that H2O is water, but it was always a challenging class. If I were a muppet I would be “Beaker” not “Professor Honeydew.” I even operated a wet-chemistry lab testing feed and forages in another life, but [...]
Finding First Gear We have a love affair with convenience. We want automatic everything so it’s faster and easier to do. I certainly prize my washing machine over a washtub and scrubbing board, but the more we take our elves out of the creation process or tackling the actual work, the less we appreciate the [...]
A couple of weeks ago, I had lunch with three of my closest friends from my undergraduate days at Penn State. While we’ve pursued different career paths and family situations, we’ve managed to reconnect for an annual summer lunch date. This year, Cindy and I drove to Trish’s house and then carpooled to Claudia’s house [...]
June 2021 we bought a new commercial retail freezer for the farm store to feature products like Windy Knoll ice cream, our Grateful Pizzas, and other prepared foods. Any new equipment we purchase is a big deal since our budget usually is restricted to “used”. About a month ago, the ice cream started to feel [...]
In baseball, they call it “small ball.” Be it by walks, bunts, steals, or singles, the idea is that a series of more measured, incremental steps is a more successful path to home base than swinging for the fences. Of course, who doesn’t love seeing a home run or a grand slam? Like America’s pastime, [...]
For last few months, the national news has been dominated by the politicking in Washington over two major spending bills- an infrastructure program and a social agenda program. While I am not qualified to discuss the merits of either one, I have found in my readings an example of one of the most successful [...]
Everyone is familiar with their “food budget”. It’s how much you plan to spend on food each month. The United Sates has the lowest percentage of disposable income spent on food in the world. In 2019, Americans spent an average of 9.5 percent of their disposable personal incomes on food—divided between food at home (4.9 percent) and food away from home (4.6 [...]
The number one question John and I get asked these days is “how is the farm doing?” Well the farm itself is doing fine. There has been farming on our land for 250 years and this spring and summer arrived like many of those in the past- green shoots, new life on wobbly legs, and [...]
