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| At the Farm Show |
The week started out routine, but along the way we had some excitement. There was some drama down at the barn. Midweek we went to the Farm Show. And all week long I got seed catalogs in the mail.
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| Some of the many catalogs I get. |
I get a lot of seed and plant catalogs. At last count, 18 of them with more yet to come. I don't order from most of them, but I read through every one. I love the pictures of the flowers and vegetables and especially, as a lover of words, the written descriptions. I would nominate some of these catalog writers for a Nobel Prize in Literature or at least a Pulitzer. Their lush prose, some approaching sheer poetry, can make me drool. They tempt me to buy, plant, and eat vegetables I don't even like. For example, take this description for a variety of the homely parsnip. (I take after my grandfather who hated parsnips too and once said that even pigs won't eat them. I don't know if that's really true because I don't grow parsnips and have never tried to feed one to a pig.)
Pacific Parsnip: has a bold, classic Parsnip flavor and is wonderful boiled and mashed, roasted, or added to soups and stews. A kiss or two of fall frost makes these creamy-white, broad and bulky, gently tapered roots even sweeter.
Or this seductive description of a tomato (remember I hate tomatoes):
Black Pineapple Heirloom Tomato, Ananas noir, ranges from black-purple to hazy green with red-pink or yellow splotches. These kaleidoscopic orbs have bright green flesh with red-pink striations. Growing on indeterminate, regular leaf-type vines, this heavy producer yields large 1 to 1½ pound, beefsteak-type tomatoes with a sweet, fruity, smoky, rich flavor.
I'm especially susceptible to flower descriptions, and particularly roses. Roses don't grow well here. Our USDA Zone 4/5 climate is not hospitable to most types. But I love them and I've planted a few of the hardiest types that I nurture to keep them alive. Last week the Rose Catalog of All Rose Catalogs arrived in the mail – the David Austin 27th USA Edition Handbook of Roses 2026.
It is the most beautiful catalog I receive and I always read it cover to cover, over and over. The photographs are spectacular and the written descriptions are beautiful and enticing. When I look through it, I want every rose, like this one:
Gabriel Oak, English Shrub Rose: A magnificent variety, bearing large, many petalled rosette blooms. They are a striking shade of deep pink, the outer petals of each bloom paling slightly over time. The beauty of blooms is enhanced by a wonderful, strong fruity fragrance. A vigorous rose; it forms a very shapely, broad, rounded shrub with mulberry purple stems and dark green foliage, giving the overall impression of richness and abundance. Named after the beloved character in Thomas Hardy's novel, Far from the Madding Crowd.
Or this beauty:
Eustacia Vye, English Shrub Rose: An exceedingly pretty rose of soft, glowing apricot-pink, each bloom packed with numerous delicately ruffled petals. Held on red-tinged stems, the blooms begin as shallow cups, opening to full rosettes, revealing petals of a richer hue, which gradually pale over time. They have a delicious strong fruity fragrance. A very healthy variety; it makes a strong, vigorous shrub with bushy, upright growth. Named after the flawed heroine of Thomas Hardy's Return of the Native.
I must be in a Thomas Hardy mood. Both those roses are named after characters in his novels. The catalog is very comprehensive. It gives instructions on planting and care. It has sections on the different types of roses – shrub, climbing, rambling, and standard; the varieties of flower forms – button eye, rosette, recurved, incurved, deep cup, shallow cup, etc.; and a guide on The Language of Fragrance. To me fragrance is as important as any feature in a rose and I love how they describe each of the the types – Tea, Fruity, Musk, Old Rose, and Myrrh. Here is their description of the Tea Rose fragrance: "Soft and comforting, like sipping a warm cup of tea, with hints of violet and orris root." And here is the Old Rose scent: "The classic, romantic fragrance that's rich and layered, with hints of citrus peel, dried fruits, black pepper, and patchouli." How can I resist that? If I had a million bucks I'd buy them all and build a conservatory to house them in and live in it in bliss. But, alas.
Last Sunday, when I went into the barn to do the afternoon chores, I could see that something was amiss. I've had my five guinea fowl cohabiting with five chickens, four hens and a rooster, since their keet and chickhood days. They always got along – until that day. For some reason, they were fighting. The largest guinea, that I suspect is a male, was attacking the chickens. After I fed them, they settled down, but it was a tense truce. On Monday morning I went down to check on the situation, not knowing what I would find. Would they still be fighting? Would there be beaten up or even dead fowl? No one was dead, but the guinea pen was pandemonium. The biggest guinea was chasing and attacking all the chickens again. I had to intervene. Adding to the craziness, I caught each of the chickens and tossed them out into the main flock. There was lots of screaming and feathers flying. And then it got worse. Out in the coop, the rooster that had been in with the guineas was immediately attacked by one of the coop roosters. It was a terrible fight. Before I could break it up, the coop rooster had beaten the other one into unconsciousness. I put the poor knocked out rooster in a feed bag and brought him up to the house. Some semblance of order returned to the coop. The guineas now had the pen all to themselves and seemed content with that. It looks like they staged a coop coup. Out in the main flock, the pecking order began its period of adjustment as the four hens I just added found their place – at the bottom, of course. I don't know what brought all of this on, why after all this time was the harmony of my flock shattered like that? The bagged rooster spent the day in his bag in the kitchen. When Stacey got home from work, she dispatched him and added him to the freezer meat supply. It was not a happy way to start the week.
In addition to all of that drama, Monday was cold and dreary. When I came back up to the house that morning, sad and cold, I needed some warm music to lift my spirits. No Russians this time. I chose the Chants d'Auvergne, Songs from the Auvergne, by Joseph Cantaloube. I first heard this music sometime back in the 80s on good old 91.5 KUSC Classical Music Radio in Los Angeles on a lovely, warm spring day. I thought the music was charming. So I always associate the music with warmth. The music was composed over a period of years, 1923-1930, by Joseph Cantaloube (1879-1957) based on folk songs from his native Auvergne region of France. That part of France isn't noted for being warm, not like the Riviera or Provence, but my brain and memory don't care about that. The songs are written for orchestra and soprano. There are five series of songs, twenty-seven songs in all. The most famous of them is Baïlèro. Here is Victoria de Los Angeles singing it, the very recording I heard that warm spring day long ago.
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| Joseph Cantaloube. |
When I went down to do the chores that afternoon, the flock had calmed down a bit. The four hens that used to be in with the guineas seemed okay. I saw no violent behavior towards them from the main flock. The guineas were nervous. They are skittish to begin with, but I had built up some trust with them by sitting in their pen every day and feeding them freeze dried mealworms and soldier fly larvae, which they love. After a few weeks of doing that, they'd gotten to where they would come pretty close to me. Not any more. I scattered the larvae on the ground and sat in the corner as I usually do, and they wouldn't come near me. After all the ruckus and seeing me tossing chickens out earlier in the day, now they would not trust me, even for a mealworm treat. A week later, they still won't. At least there is no more fighting. I hope they'll learn to trust me again, but I have a feeling that when I finally let them out in the spring, they will wander off, never to be seen (or heard) again.
On Wednesday we drove down to Harrisburg to go to the Farm Show. We left home at 7:30 that morning and arrived at the Farm Show Complex at 11:30 where we met up with the Thayns and Miriam. The Farm Show is held every January for eight days. It's the largest indoor agricultural event in the United States. The Farm Show Complex and Expo Center is huge. It covers 60 acres spread through eleven connected buildings including three arenas. We were advised to wear comfortable shoes because we were going to do a lot of walking. And we did.
We walked several miles through the various buildings, arenas, and halls. We watched a Tractor Square Dance. We visited all sorts of displays. We ate all sorts of food.
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| The tractor display. |
Tractor Square Dancing.
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| The Farm Show bell. |
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| A sign made entirely of apples. |
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| June enjoying a famous Farm Show milkshake. |
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| The Butter Sculpture. |
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| A patriotic potato display. |
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| Russell and "Washington Crossing the Delaware" made of fungi. |
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| Petting some sheep. |
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| Russell and John Deere. |
We were at the Farm Show all afternoon. Then we went to our hotel where we had dinner and relaxed the rest of the evening. We'd planned to go to the Farm Show on Thursday too, but we thought we'd seen about as much as the children (and at least one adult) could handle, so we decided to do something else.
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| Dinner at the hotel. |
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| Breakfast at the hotel. |
On Thursday, we visited the state capitol building. I'd been there before, but this time we had a guide, Tom, and he took us on a very interesting tour. It's a beautiful building with so much history embedded in it. He told us all about the architecture, the art, the furnishings. The two statue groups on the front steps of the building were sculpted by my first cousin three time removed (my great-great-grandmother Anna Liza Barnard Hench's cousin), George Grey Barnard (1863-1938). In my entirely unbiased opinion, I think it is the most beautiful state capitol building in the nation.
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| The State Capitol (not my photo). |
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| On the front steps of the capitol with the Barnard statues. |
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| Standing under "Labor and Law" statue group. |
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| Under the rotunda dome. |
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| Looking up into the rotunda. |
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| The statue of Lady Commonwealth on top of the capitol dome made out of Legos. |
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| The grand staircase. |
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| The House of Representatives Chamber. |
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| The Senate Chamber. |
After touring the capitol, we drove out to City Island in the middle of the Susquehanna River. We did that as a special favor to me. When I was a child we lived in New Cumberland, across the river from Harrisburg. Whenever we drove home from Harrisburg, we took the Walnut Street Bridge. The bridge was built in 1890 and had two spans, one from Harrisburg to City Island and the other from the island to Wormleysburg on the West Shore. As you drove from the island section onto the second span, there was a big bump, so we called it the Bump Bridge. We loved to go home over the Bump Bridge. We moved away in 1968 and not long after that, tragedy hit the bridge. In 1972, after damage from flooding caused by Hurricane Agnes, the bridge was closed to motor traffic and became a pedestrian and bicycle bridge. Then during the Blizzard of 1992, an ice jam formed and tore off three of the spans on the West Shore side. Now you can only walk out to City Island from the remaining Harrisburg side. We drove out to City Island on the Market Street Bridge, parked, and then walked up to the Bump Bridge. I told my children and grandchildren about its history and my happy memories of it from back in the days when it was whole.
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| The Walnut Street Bridge. |
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| The broken span (not my photo). |
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| Looking east to Harrisburg. |
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| The broken side looking west toward Wormleysburg. |
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| Looking toward Harrisburg. |
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| On the Bump Bridge. |
We said good-bye to the Thayns on City Island and went our separate ways homeward. As we drove north, the weather got colder and colder. As we drove into Potter County it was snowing a little. Then as we drove into Gold, it was snowing a lot, of course. But it was nice to be home. We had a fun adventure.
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| Driving back into the highlands on Route 15. |
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| Welcome to Potter County. |
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| Welcome to Gold. |
We got home in time for me to do the afternoon chores at our house and at Foster's next door. I collected eighteen eggs from my hens, and twenty-seven from Foster's! That was a nice welcome home.
After being away from home for two days, I spent most of Friday tidying the house even though things weren't really untidy. It just felt like that sort of day. It was cold and snowy, so I wasn't tempted to do anything but what was absolutely necessary outdoors. I put on a queue of Patsy Cline and set to some tasks. I swept floors. I cleaned the downstairs bathroom. I cleaned the refrigerator. I took the computer keyboard apart, cleaned it, and put it back together again. That turned out to be a bigger task than I anticipated. It's amazing how much gunk gets embedded under the keys. I'll spare you the disgusting photos I took of it. I did share them on our family chat and now Geoffrey is sending us a new keyboard. Thanks Geoffrey!
I also did laundry and had an unwanted adventure. I wasn't careful and when I did the white clothes, somehow there was a red placemat mixed in with it. When I pulled the clothes out of the washing machine, everything was pink. I immediately loaded them into the kitchen sink and soaked them in hydrogen peroxide. That did nothing. In a panic, I phoned next door to the Shilligs. Julie is a laundry expert. She said try bleach, but we didn't have any, so I borrowed some from them. I did several soaks and rinses, ran the clothes through three wash cycles, all to little effect. So it looks like pink is the new white.
Yesterday was another cold, gray, snowy day. So far in 2026, we've only had one really sunny day. Some days the sun peeks through, but it never stays long. I'm tired of this dismal season. To brighten things up a little, Miriam and Hannah have begun our annual tradition of making valentines. They have their list of potential recipients. It's a pretty long list. They've set up the table in the workroom upstairs. They've set out the papers, pens, stickers, doilies, and other necessary items. They have their list of valentine movies to watch while they work. The first movie was A Midsummer Night's Dream. I watched with them but didn't make any valentines. I do join in at some point, but I can't multitask. I'm either making cards or watching the movie. If I like the movie, it has my full attention. If I don't like it, I pay no attention to it and work away. I think the deadline for mailing out the cards is February 6th or 7th, which is just a little over two weeks away, so we'll be making cards every day until then.
The tidy bug I had on Friday was contagious. Yesterday Stacey and I spent the morning and on into the afternoon cleaning our bedroom, dusting, sorting out stuff in drawers, the desk. Then Stacey decided to try again to take care of an ongoing furnace problem. Sometimes when the furnace comes on, it sends out a terrible smell. It smells like something died and is rotting. It's been doing this for months now. We've tried everything we can think of to find out why. We've opened the furnace box and found nothing. We've examined the ducts and found nothing. We even had our neighbor, who is a plumber, come over and check it out and he found nothing. Yesterday the smell was really bad, so Stacey went outside and opened the exhaust vent pipe on the side of the house. There was nothing. It's a mystery. A stinky mystery.
While we were working indoors, Hannah took on the tasks of burning the Christmas tree bonfire and restocking wood on the back porch. I'm glad someone doesn't mind working in the cold.
Last night the valentine movie was a Bollywood production in Hindi with subtitles. Miriam and Hannah love Bollywood romances. I wasn't interested in it, except for the dance numbers, so I tuned it out and made a few valentines. As the movie was ending and I was finishing up, I suddenly felt sick. I was shivering and could feel something coming on. I took a hot Epsom salts bath and went to bed. I had a rough night. I hardly slept. All night long I tossed and turned, entertaining mortal thoughts. I don't handle being sick very well. This morning, I felt a lot better, but decided against going to church. I stayed home and relaxed. After everyone else left, I went back to sleep and slept until 11:00. Now everyone is home again. Stacey reported that attendance was light again. Lunch preparations are underway, but I have no appetite. I'm not going anywhere or doing anything for the rest of the day, not even the chores. I think whatever this was, it is over now. I'm feeling much better, but I think I better play it safe and take it easy, at least for the rest of the day. Because I missed church, my whole week will feel out of whack, but I'll be okay. Who knows what new winter adventures the week holds.
As I sit here preparing to send this out, I realized that yesterday was a day with special significance. Twenty-six years ago, on January 17, 2000, we arrived here with our two cars, moving van, seven children, two cats, a dog, and a cockatiel. And so began the next, and greatest phase, of our adventure.
