Anna's Blog

Heritage Happenings

8/20/10

Howdy everybody! These last few weeks have been full of fun and excitement! My Grandma stayed with us for a couple of weeks and while she was here, my dear friends Lindsay, Cara, and Bethany Weber came for a week. We had a fabulous time, as I’m sure you can guess! Above are Bethany leaning against our farm sign and Tim slumbering, or pretending to slumber under it. Below are, left to right, Lindsay, me (Anna), and Cara in the field, great friends, as you can see!

We had all sorts of fun and so many unusual experiences! ;D These friends come every summer and they always get the real farm experience! Guess what is under the blanket in the picture on the left ... give up? A real, live skunk! Don't worry, they don't spray if they can't see their target, so we were all safe. The skunk was eating our chickens so we set a trap and deported it. Riding in the back of the truck with a skunk was one of our most interesting experiences that week! Most people can't claim to have done that! But we had a blast! :p (No pun intended, of course.) 

We "helped" move haybales and rode them like  horses. (Or like an elephant, rather.) It really is a lot of fun! Maybe we should develop that as a tourist attraction! ;)

The Weber girls helped with all of our regular work and absolutely loved it! In the pictures below Cara and Lindsay are picking  cantalope, and zucchini. Can't you tell they love farm work? (Bottom left) Lindsay, Cara and I are posing behind the zucchini plants. (Bottom right) Lindsay proudly holds a crate of picked zucchini. Why so many pictures of zucchini? We have it coming out our ears right now!!!  

                                                                                                                                                                                      We also helped with the livestock chores. Below are, left, Cara, and right, Lindsay, feeding the chickens, and bottom left, Bethany gathering eggs.                                                                                                                                            

They went to a couple of Farmer's Markets with us and we all thoroughly enjoyed it! On the left are all of us kids sitting on the tailgate of the truck behind the table at market. Left to right, Cara, Lindsay, me (Anna), Bethany, and Tim. In the photo on the right, Lindsay, Bethany, and Cara all congregate around my Grandma at the Farmer's Market.

Pete, James (our intern), Tim, and all of us girls had so much fun together! We played practical jokes on each other, went canoeing together, played capture the flag in pitch black dark, and had all sorts of races, such as the 6 person three-legged race below.

The Weber girls absolutely love being here and we absolutely love having them come! They are practically part of the family - they even call my parents "Ma" and "Pa" and my Grandma "Grandma" and they consider me their sister, and Pete their big brother, and Tim their little brother. They fit in so well with our family that they just seem to belong here and the weeks in which they come each summer are some of the sweetest of my memories. Here they are with Tim,  "their little brother".

These past few weeks have been full of departures, too. Not only did the Weber girls and Grandma leave, but James, our intern, also left. He was a wonderful help this summer and a lot of fun to have around too. He was an excellent worker and he was good with marketing and organizational skills, so he filled some voids around here. We had a lot of fun with him too - playing card games and outdoor games and having deep philisophical conversations. We’ve all been missing him, but we wish him well as he goes back to cooking school.

I also have an exciting announcement: We have another new addition to our family! We got a new sister-in-law last month, and a new baby this month! My sister Rebekah and her husband Jason just had their third daughter on Sunday. Her name is Jessica Joy and she’s a beautiful, healthy baby. Her big sisters, Christina and Abigail, are also shown in the photo on the right, as they meet their baby sister for the first time.

                                                                                                                                                                            Things are at their height on the farm right now, though the season will wind down before too long. We have corn, tomatoes, watermelon, peppers, and lots of other things coming in the garden now. On the left is the van filled to bursting with freshly-picked produce. Shown on the right is our abundant table at the Farmer's market. We also have a new product now: turkey! We are now selling turkey breast, thighs, drumsticks, and ground turkey. They're delicious!

Well, so long until next time!

Anna –SDG

PS: Jerry Bridges said in his book,"Trusting God",that, though trusting God in times of calamity can be extremely difficult, sometimes trusting God in good times is harder than in bad times. This is because in times of ease we tend to get comfortable and trust in our blessings, rather than in God. The author said that during times of blessings and prosperity we show our trust in God by acknowledging Him as the provider of all those blessings. He said that we ought to be as earnest and frequent in our prayers of thanksgiving when the cupboard is full as we would be in our prayers of supplication if the cupboards were bare.

I had never really thought before about the need to trust God in times of ease, but it makes a lot of sense. If we don’t trust God in good times, then how will we trust Him in bad times? Ever since I read that, I’ve tried to keep up a never-ending (usually silent) conversation with God all day long. I thank Him for everything, even the little things like the sound of the birds, the blue sky, and the wind in my hair as I’m out in the garden picking. And I thank Him for the big things like my redemption and the salvation of my soul. And guess what: you wouldn’t believe how much of a difference it makes! Usually I take everything for granted and I don’t notice how much I love the sound of crickets outside at night or how glorious Tim’s patch of sunflowers looks against the blue sky, or how wonderful my family is. When I’m looking for things to be thankful for, I find them everywhere and I appreciate everything so much more! When I’m working on something, whether it’s picking beans, washing dishes, or butchering chickens, if I thank God for giving me something useful to pour my energy into, I enjoy the job so much more! And you wouldn’t believe how much easier it is to get along with certain family members (like annoying little brothers, for example) if you thank God for them! Wow! All that, just for giving God the glory He deserves!         

7/26/10

Hey everybody!

So much has happened since I last wrote! Life has been a whirlwind for the past several weeks! Where shall I start? Well, about two weeks ago, we all made the 16 1/2 hour drive to Kansas City, Missouri for my brother Dan’s wedding. The drive was very long, but the wedding was wonderful! Dan married a very sweet girl named Florina Marcellus. She is a wonderful wife for Dan and she fits in wonderfully with our family. We all get along with her very well!

Most of us had a role to play in the wedding. My brother Pete was the best man, my brother Tim was the ring bearer, my 3 year old niece Christy was the flower girl, and I was pianist. At the end of the ceremony, just as they were announced husband and wife, the bridal party set off party poppers (they make noise like fire crackers and shoot out confetti), which Dan and Florina were not expecting. This picture was taken a split second before they realized they had confetti flying at them!

They went to Budapest, Hungary for their honeymoon, where they had a wonderful time. I know...  it's an odd honeymoon destination! After their trip, they came here for a few days and we hosted a second reception for family and friends who were unable to make it to Missouri for the wedding. Below is a photo of Dan and Florina preparing to smash cake in one another's faces at their second reception. I just love cake smashing! The messier the better!

We had a full house for a few days - overflowing with family and fun! My grandma and several sets of aunts and uncles from both sides of the family came for the reception and stayed for a couple of days. It was great to see everyone! My grandma from New York state is staying with us for a couple of weeks and we've been enjoying spending time with her.

Our intern James heroically managed everything on the farm while we were gone. It was a difficult task, but he handled it well. We were sure glad we had him! If he hadn't been here, we wouldn't have all been able to make it to the wedding. In the photo James is moving a hay bale with the tractor. He and Pete have been working on moving all the hay bales to the field where we will feed the cows in the winter.

Last week we hosted a PASA (Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture) field day at our farm. The group spent the day touring the gardens and high tunnels in the morning and the livestock in the afternoon, after a delicious catered lunch. It was a great day, despite a couple of rainstorms. Everyone had a good time, and it was a welcome change for us too from our day to day work. We took everyone on a hayride for the tour of the farm, as you can see below.

A few weeks ago we moved our pigs out from the barn to the woods. We loaded up the pigs into the trailer and drove them out there. They stepped off the trailer into the lush undergrowth and immediately were in "hog heaven". They rolled around in the plants, eating them and grunting in sheer pleasure. I must say that pigs are very expressive, almost like dogs. They have personalities and you can almost read their thoughts in their faces. They're pretty cute animals and they actually keep themselves pretty clean in the woods! They are much happier there and they eat about half of their diet from the woods. Their meat will be a better quality and we can cut down greatly on feed costs. We have a section of the woods enclosed by an electric wire that must stay hot at all times, or otherwise we will have pigs running free around the national forest! Wouldn't that be just great!  

Well I hope you all have a wonderful, fantastic, marvelous, superb, breathtaking, brilliant, astonishingly fantastic day!

So long,

Anna - SDG 

PS: I would like to share my favorite scripture with you:

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me,because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,to proclaim liberty to the captives,and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord,and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn,to console those who mourn in Zion,to give them beauty for ashes,the oil of joy for mourning,the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they may be called trees of righteousness,the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.

Isaiah 61:1-3

This verse seems so beautiful to me. It's a desciption of Jesus and what He came to do. He has been sent to heal the brokenhearted, proclaim liberty to the captives, comfort all who mourn,etc. This is what He does for all who come to Him in a spirit of repentance. It is such an incredibly beautiful picture! I have also made this verse a kind of mission statement in my life. I am following in the footsteps of Jesus and I will point others to Him and try to help and comfort and heal, wherever the Lord allows me to. This verse is very special to me and I thought maybe it would be a blessing to you too.

6/28/10

Hello everybody!

I hope you’ve all been having a fantastic summer so far! We sometimes have some great sunsets here, as you can see in the photo above!

I don’t usually title my stories for the blog posts, but I will call this one:

HAY WARS!!!!

We have had many battles with hay over the years, and this year the war continues! The battles are often complete with everything you would expect in the midst of a battle – clanks, bangs, sighs, groans, sweat, blood, dirt (or maybe grease in this case), appeals for trained reinforcements, a struggle, and usually at last a victory … for one side or the other! You see, hay-making requires four pieces of equipment: a tractor, haybine (cutter), hayrake, and a baler. With all of that heavy metal involved, something is bound to break down! Our first hay baler that we got several years ago was a real rattletrap! My dad and Pete had awful problems with it breaking down – hence the clanks, bangs, sighs, groans, sweat, grease, etc. The picture below is from about five years ago after a hard day of working on that baler with no success. It’s a wonder they were even smiling!

Ever since then we’ve had many more problems every year with all of the different pieces of machinery involved. Last year, Pete managed to break five hay bines in the course of one hay season! Now that has got to be a record! This year, he only broke one, so far. Impressive, huh? :) In Pete’s defense, none of the breakdowns were actually his fault. Well, to end the story, we have new equipment now for the rest of this hay season and everything has been working fairly well so far. Well, actually, Pete came in a little while ago saying that now the tractor won't start…

Below is a field of finished round bales. Notice the rainbow in the second photo below. We always knew there was a pot of gold hidden behind those hay bales!

The Clarion County Farmer’s Market has been open for a while now, and the Ridway and St. Marys Farmer’s markets opened just last week. We’ve been selling chicken, beef, pork, eggs, lettuce, spinach, broccoli, beets, and jam at the markets. There is a new addition to the list each week as more things are ready to be sold. The photo of the Farmer’s Market below is actually a photo from last year, so most of the produce shown in the picture is not yet ready. We will have all of those things later on in the season, though. Our newest product is our all-natural hotdog. It’s a hotdog you can eat with a clear conscience! We cooked them over a campfire the other day and they were delicious! Our intern James is holding two packages of hotdogs in the second picture below.

We have been busy preparing for a trip to Kansas City, Missouri for my brother Dan’s wedding on Saturday. We leave on Thursday and we’ve been trying to work ahead and prepare everything on the farm so that our intern James will have as easy a time as possible holding down the fort (or rather barn). I will have some stories and wedding pictures for you next time!

‘Til then,

Anna – Soli Deo Gloria

PS: In our Sunday night Bible Study we have been studying the book, Trusting God, Even When Life Hurts by Jerry Bridges. There were a couple of quotes that stood out to me in the last chapter. First, let me share a scripture with you: “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs – heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.” Romans 8:14-17 The Bible makes it clear that those of us who are redeemed are children of God. Jerry Bridges said in his book that God’s love to us cannot fail, just as His love to Jesus cannot fail. Think of that! Even when things are going wrong for us (like when all of our hay equipment is breaking down), God’s love for us cannot fail, just as it cannot fail for Jesus, because both us and Jesus are His dear children. The verse above also says that as heirs with Him, we must also suffer with Him. So we should expect trials, even welcome them with a grateful heart, being counted worthy to suffer with Christ. (Though that is much easier said than done.) And we can know with certainty that our trials will be ultimately for God’s glory and our good. Here’s a quote to think about: “The same arm that sovereignly rules the universe also picks up His lambs and gently carries them.”   

6/10/10

Hello, everyone!

It's hard to believe it's June already! Summer is marching on! The field in the photo above is ripe for hay-making and Pete began cutting it yesterday, as you can see below. It will dry for a of couple days and then he'll bale it into giant round bales. Hopefully I'll have pictures of the finished bales to show you next time! We have a lot of hay to make within the next few weeks, so we'll pray that none of it gets rained on and ruined. I love hay season and the smell of cut hay! 

We have a wonderful announcement to make! My dad has been teaching in the St. Mary's public high school in addition to farming, but has been working for years toward becoming full time on the farm. Finally, the farm has become successful enough that he will be able to come home! He teaches for several cyber schools and will be beginning a part time job with Farm Bureau, but none of these will take a whole lot of his time, so otherwise he will be free to work the farm all year. It is an enormous gain for both the farm and our family! We are all extremely happy about it, and for my dad it is the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. He grew up in the suburbs of New Jersey, but always loved nature and wanted to get away. His dream was to be full time on his own farm, working the land with his family. Finally, another piece of his dream has fallen into place! If you would like to learn more about my dad's life story, you can read his book, Growing a Heritage; Our Small Farm Story.  You can click on this link to find out more about the book: http://www.heritagefarm.us/content/916 and you can contact us to request it at gkb@penn.com.

My brother Dan came to visit for a few days this week. He works for a mission school in Mexico and came back to the states for the summer. He is getting married to a wonderful Christian girl named Florina next month, so he will be going to Kansas soon to help her prepare for the wedding. He’s very excited about the wedding and about his bride-to-be, as I'm sure you can imagine!

Things are great in the garden right now! We've planted most of the crops for this year and things seem to be growing well so far, despite the overabundance of rain we've been getting. We were transplanting cucumbers, watermelons, cantalopes, and zucchini in the photo below. 

Well, have a great weekend, everybody!

So long 'til next time,

Anna  -  SDG

PS: I was reading Deuteronomy chapter 13 this morning and the seriousness of idolotry just struck me. Deut. 13:10,11 says, "And you shall stone him with stones until he dies, because he sought to entice you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. So all Israel shall hear and fear, and not again do such wickedness as this among you." This isn't a pretty passage, but it's an important one, I think. It was a serious crime in the Old Testament to worship other gods, and the penalty was death. Of course, we are under grace now, but God's view of sin has not changed, and idolotry is still just as serious a sin as it was then. I think we worship many things in our culture today. They might be our outside image, our hobbies or interests, our job, or whatever. But if we tend to put them in a higher priority than we do God, or think about them more often or with more pleasure than we do God, then they are probably our idols. I was just struck by the need to put God first above all else in my life and to love Him with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. 

5/21/10

Greetings, folks!

It's been a while since I've written, but we’ve had a bunch of exciting things going on around here. Our new intern James arrived on Sunday and he’s been a great help already! James is actually a chef, a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, and he’s interested in sustainable food. My mom and I have been peppering him with lots of cooking questions! It’s been very interesting. Anyway, he’s a great worker and it looks like he’ll work out fine!

We started processing chickens recently. From now until October we will be doing about 400 chickens every week. We sell whole chickens as well as boneless skinless breast, legs and thighs, and wings. Shown below is a pretty little package of boneless, skinless breast. The Clarion County Farmer’s market has begun and we’ve been selling meat (chicken and pork so far), eggs, jam, and lettuce there. We’ve also been bringing lots of chicken, eggs, and lettuce to the six restaurants that we supply in Pittsburg.

My sister and brother-in-law, Bekah and Jason, came to visit a couple of weeks ago with their little girls, Christy and Abby. They live in New Mexico as missionaries to the Navajo Indians, and we don’t get to see them much, so that was a real treat! We celebrated both my mom’s and Bekah’s birthdays while they were here. Unfortunately, for some strange reason, the camera acquired a large appetite and decided to eat most of the pictures I took while they were here. This picture of my niece, Abby, survived, however. She is almost two years old and a real cutie, as is her three year old sister Christy. Bekah and Jason’s third child is due in August.

I couldn’t resist posting this humorous poem by Robert Frost along with an illustration!

The Objection to Being Stepped On

At the end of the row

I stepped on the toe

Of an unemployed hoe.

It rose in offense

And struck me a blow

In the seat of my sense.

It wasn’t to blame

But I called it a name.

And I must say it dealt

Me a blow that I felt

Like a malice pretense.

You may call me a fool,

But was there a rule

The weapon should be

Turned into a tool?

And what do we see?

The first tool I step on

Turned into a weapon.

Yes, that can actually happen, though you have to be especially talented (or especially clumsy like me)! :)

So long ‘til next time,

Anna - SDG

PS: Recently I read an article by Rachel Weaver called “Second Mile People” in the magazine Charity Christian Missions. The article said that “we fall into defeat when trying to judge the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Our work is to yield to Him in joyous faith and not to worry about the value of the fruit He is producing.” That really made me stop and think. How often do I focus on myself in my relationship with the Lord and worry about the fruit that I’m producing? I realized that I need to focus on Him, worshipping Him, and trying to bring Him glory rather than trying to judge my own spiritual condition and my fruit. It’s only when I focus on Him and on Him only that I will grow in Him and will produce wonderful fruit. And even then I probably won't realize that I'm producing good fruit!