When I was a kid, our farm gardens were massive. We had acres of potatoes. My grandmother's "kitchen garden" had to be at least a thousand square feet. Corn, cabbage, cucumbers, tomatoes, green beans, kohlrabi, onions, peppers, and so much more. Rhubarb, horseradish, and dill grew along its borders. We had an apple orchard as well as pear and peach trees.  Now, we have a ten-acre chunk of that 150-acre farm, and our little garden has grown progressively smaller over the decades. This year we have onions, cucumbers, a few sad tomato plants, peppers, and one plant each of yellow squash and zucchini. Those last two are threatening to take over the world alongside the cucumbers. We've given bushels of the things away. People see my husband coming and run. They can't escape. He drives by when folks aren't home and leaves squash on their doorstep.  I've been cooking and eating squash and cukes for lunch and supper every single day. Yes, I'm sick of them. And...

Mid February, sunny, and 68 degrees. If I still had a horse, I'd have been out on the trails for sure. So when Hubby suggested we go for a ride on his new/used ATV (I'd not been on it before), I jumped at the offer.  We headed out into what used to be MY territory. My old route. My old trails. Yes, it would have been more fun on four legs than four wheels, but...it's mid February, sunny, and 68 degrees. Beggars can't be choosers, as they say. This is a shot looking at the rear of my house (the little log one) from the rear of what used to be our pasture. Heading through the gate toward the old road I used to ride. This really is an old road from colonial days. Rumor has it General George Washington once traveled it. I have no evidence, only the stories I grew up on. I remember it as the tractor road to our upper hay field. My grandfather was born in a log cabin off to the side of the road. I remember finding the stone foundation when I was a kid. Lots o...

Our "farm" isn't really a "working" farm any more. I miss the horses. A lot. I even miss the neighbor's %#*$ing bull bellowing outside our bedroom window at daybreak. But it's summer and there are moments when I'm reminded we're definitely out in the country. Like when I hear the plaintive cries of coyotes wafting through that bedroom window in the middle of the night. And in spite of those coyotes, we have a whole family (several generations, at the moment) of rabbits living in and around our yard. I call them the Bun family. Mr. Bun, Mrs. Bun and babies. Bigger babies (the teenagers?) and wee babies (second crop of the year).   They're not very spooky and pose for photographs almost daily. Our grand-nephew has bought my mom's house and is the sixth generation to live on this farm. Sort of. No one in the fifth generation ever resided here. But he's embracing his newfound farmer status. He especially embraces his grea...

After a whirlwind couple of months, life is finally slowing down to a tolerable level. And it's June. I love early June.  Provided it isn’t storming. Some of the worst storms we’ve ever had in this area hit on May 31 or June 1. This year, we’ve been lucky. A bit of rain during the week, but gorgeous weekends. I guess this is our reward for suffering through last winter. Everything is so green it makes your eyes hurt.  My  rhododendron was splendid this year after not blooming at all last year.  I've already started dining from our garden. Lettuce, radishes, and green onion salads. YUM!  And topping things off, my advanced copies of LOST LEGACY arrived! Kensi approves! Or maybe Kensi just wants me to unpack the books so she can have the box to play in! So enjoy the sunshine. Take a nap. Read a book. Happy June!

Today was the warmest day we’ve had in six months, and I’m horribly out of shape, so I took an afternoon walk around the old farm. I grew up here, but most of what I remember is gone. I’ve recreated it in my mind and on the pages of my books. Zoe lives in the house of my youth although the actual structure was razed after decades of being vacant. Check out the post I wrote about it a couple of years ago. So my walk involved a lot of ghosts.   Memories of my childhood, standing on ground that was once the farmhouse or a tractor shed, wandering through fields and valleys where my childhood best friend and I used to play, making up big adventures, cowboys and indians, acting out our favorite books. I walk over this ground every spring until it gets too grown over with brambles and the ticks come out. But with all the snow and cold we’ve had, the new growth is late this year. As a result, I was able to find the red-dog gravel base of what used to be the old tractor ...

Horseback riding opportunities have been sparse of late, so when my friend Stephanie invited me to come riding with her on her farm in Beaver County (about an hour north of me—when I don’t get lost), I jumped at the chance. The second the heat wave broke and the monsoons stopped, we made a date. Tuesday, I printed out directions, punched the address into my GPS, and headed out. Beaver County , Pennsylvania is beautiful. Lots of woods and big hills. Rugged and rustic.  I used to have family up there. My parents used to take me to visit when I was a kid. Some areas are vaguely familiar. Others, not so much. Yes, I got lost. Thankfully, my new GPS doesn’t growl, “Recalculating!” every time I make a wrong turn. I would have heard it a LOT. I finally arrived, only about 15 minutes later than planned. Stephanie brought Jonas, who was to be my mount, in from the field. He’s a big (BIG!) flea-bitten rose gray off-the-track Thoroughbred who’s been trained for dress...

Yesterday morning, when the world here in “farm country” was quiet, I kept hearing a motor running. I imagine in the city, no one pays attention to such things, since there are always cars and trucks bustling along the streets. Even here, there’s a lot of truck traffic. Not to mention we’re relatively close to the Pittsburgh Airport and are under one of the flight paths. But this was different somehow. Like a car idling outside my window. Only there weren’t any vehicles with engines running. I stepped out on my porch. The sound was there, but I still couldn’t locate it. A steady monotonous rumble. I mentioned it to Hubby, but he didn’t have any answers for me. Until today. He spotted the source on his way home from errands. It’s begun. If you’ve followed me here for any length of time, you know that I’ve been waiting for the onslaught of Marcellus Shale drilling to occur. We leased our gas rights over a year ago and rumors have been flying about when and if they would ever dri...

Yesterday morning as I walked home from a visit with my mom, I heard pounding from across the road. The reason this got my attention is the only things across the road are empty fields and my grandfather’s long-vacant farmhouse. The pounding was followed by a crash, which helped me locate the source of the sound. Someone was on the roof, tearing off the sheeting, and tossing it to the ground below. I grew up in that house. I’ve written about it here before. My grandparents have been dead for over 30 years and the house has gone through several owners since it passed out of the family’s hands. The current owner let it fall into such a state of disrepair that it’s now hopeless. The roof was already half gone, thanks to windstorms. The foundation is collapsing. Most of the windows are broken, their shutters hanging askew. The back door stands open. The front porch has crumbled to a heap. I used to dread the day that the place finally met its end. Now, since I have to look at...

I think I’ve been spending too much time holed up in my cave with my computer. This morning I learned that the power company was going to maneuver one of its massive trucks into our yard, around behind our old barn, and back into the yard on the other side (all to avoid potentially crushing our leech bed—thank you West Penn) so they could work on the electric pole just across the property line. In order to successfully pull this off, Hubby had to take down a small section of fence and remove one fence post. The fence was no problem. We haven’t owned any livestock in over a decade. Hurricane Ivan took out the bulk of our fence back in 2004. This was just a little piece that had survived and served no good purpose except to hold up the poison ivy vines. Note to self: add calamine lotion and Benadryl to the grocery list. The massive truck arrived. Hubby made them use it to pull the fence post. Or, to be more accurate, to snap it off at its rotted base. Meanwhile, having been coope...

Late last year I wrote about my farmer neighbor who was in the process of selling off his cattle herd. I’ve missed watching those cows and steers from my office window. At some point in the last several months, the neighbor on the other side of us sold his herd as well. I didn’t miss them right away since they generally spent the winter months on the far side of the pasture where the farmer kept their hay and feed. But as spring approached, I started looking for the annual crop of calves only to discover there were none. In fact there were no cows at all. After living in cow country my entire life, I find myself surrounded by empty pasture. It’s kind of lonely. But I have a feeling I should appreciate the quiet while it lasts. As the farming business is dying off in my corner of the world, a new industry is taking its place. Drilling for gas. I’ve known for several years that we’re living on what amounts to the Saudi Arabia of natural gas. Marcellus shale is the hot button topic in s...

I’ve lived my entire life on property that at one time belonged to my grandfather. My folks built a house on one corner of Grandpap’s farm. When I married, we built our house on another ten-acre chunk of it. These two lots are the only ones that remain in the family. Over the years, I’ve mourned as the rest of acreage was sold off to others. But some things didn’t change. The neighboring farm remained in the same family it had since long before I was born. Mr. C kept a large herd of beef cattle on several hundred acres. As I sit in my office at my computer, I look out my window to a view of his hillside. Pasture, some woods, and those beef cattle. Amazing how you take something for granted when it’s been there for decades. Mr. C is one of those guys you just assume will go on forever. He never changes. Except he is. He’s getting older, like the rest of us. His hips are bad, so his jaunts around his property are done on tractor instead of on foot. Still, he loves his herd of cattle. Or ...

Not long ago, one of the New York publishing professions coming to the Pennwriters Conference asked my advice about choosing a flight. I responded honestly that I am not the person to ask as you’d be hard pressed to find someone less traveled than I. For me, a big trip is making the three hour drive to Lake Erie and Presque Isle. The reason for this can be traced back to my upbringing. I was born into a family of farmers. We had cows and chickens and dogs and cats to care for. Once a year, my mom would send my grandfather off to my uncle’s house for a week for a vacation. Only recently have I realized the vacation was hers. She was Grandpap’s caregiver just as I care for her now. But we still had the animals to feed. We could never ALL leave at the same time. This week, my friends, Mark and Sara , have taken their kids and gone on a family vacation to South Carolina. This is a big deal for them because they have a farm. They also have me, the friendly neighborhood crittersitter. There...