videos and harvest time

A lot has happened in the last couple weeks and, first of all, our hearts go out to my cousin, Jack Graybeal, and his wife Barbara who lost their son in a car accident last weekend in the Woodbine area.  The funeral will be this Saturday morning and it is my privilege to videotape the service.  I can't imagine the grief that comes from losing a child at such a young age.

The good news is that I have have a lot to videotape in the last few weeks that is a positive note.  I was commissioned by the northern Baltimore County 7th District Recreation Council to videotape and produce DVDs for the participants in "The Jungle Book" and "Pocahontas".  The children involved in these productions range in age from very young to late teenagers and the talent they display is astonishing.  You may remember that our son Robert was the music director for these productions for several years and that is how I got involved.

I also have been busy making a DVD slide show for two wonderful young people who are getting married in a month and I've been hired to videotape their wedding.  Jessica and Noah are bibliophiles.  Jessica is also a gifted writer and speaks French fluently.  She graduated from University of Chicago in June, 2003 with a degree in English.  She did a 3 month post grad publishing course at Columbia U. after college graduation, then started at Penguin. Noah graduated from Dartmouth in June, 2004.  He did the same post grad publishing course at Columbia U. after graduation from Dartmouth in 2004, then started working at Random House.  Two talented people who have charming parents.

After that, I have another wedding to videotape for Nicole Lovelace, a little girl from our church who is all grown up now.  But I still think of her when she was six years old and the life of the party in Sunday School. Time flies.

This is harvest season and there is a lot happening here on the farm.

First, we have been blessed with an abundance of potatoes, peppers,  tomatoes (large and small), onions, and strawberries.  We have dug up only half of the potatoes so far.  Today, I washed them off and let them dry.  We already had a couple potatoes for dinner tonight!  We cooked them on the grill the old-fashioned Boy Scout way...wrapped them in aluminum foil, put a little oil and seasoning on them, and mixed in some fresh onions and carrots and let them cook for 15 minutes over a hot fire.  Boy, were they good!


The other big farm news is that we are going to raise chickens.  It will only be two or three chickens and it

will be a joint project between Barb and me, our neighbor Courtney Bishop and her children, and our other neighbor Art Wannlund.  Barb and I are providing the chicken coop and the brooder kit.  Art is providing the location (where my grandfather used to have his chicken coops!) and the fresh water and electricity.  And Courtney and her kids are buying the chickens and will raise and care for them.  Barb and I are looking forward to a few of the fresh eggs but mostly we look forward to seeing the lifestyle of raising chickens alive on this farm again.  Art has been wonderful about helping me get some of Granddad Fishel's vegetables going again, such as the strawberries and the asparagus.  These were plants that I had forgotten how to grow but he remembered.  For some reason, I've always been good a remembering how to grow tomatoes and potatoes.

One final note, as an aside.  I've discovered how fast a person can gain weight...and then lose it.  I had to stay awake for three days last weekend to videotape all three productions of Pocahontas (they changed the cast each show) and I filled myself with sugar and caffeine. A really bad idea and I gained seven pounds very fast.  As soon as the weekend was over, I threw myself into every physical activity I could to lose the weight before my weekly Medifast weigh-in on Wednesday (today).  Surprisingly, I was down two and a half pounds from last week!  I felt like one of those prize fighters who goes on a crash diet to make his weight class.  Of course, now every part of my body hurts.  But it was worth it.

Next up:  vacations in Canaan Valley, West Virginia...and later...in Ocean City, Maryland. Can't wait!

the blog begins

It’s funny. On the one hand, it seems Barb and I have been very busy, but on the other hand I’m having trouble remembering everything. So here goes…

You may recall it was the Sunday before last when I returned from the church mission trip to a well-run United Methodist camp in Maine and I remember that it took several days for me to recover. Several of us discussed later how tired we were…particularly due to the 13 hour trip home which really sapped our strength. But, it was a very good trip in which we got a lot accomplished.

Immediately upon my return, I was tasked with scanning and putting together (with music) an eight minute video of Bill Lee, a longtime friend from Epworth UMC, who had passed away from cancer. He was the Maryland Highway director for several years and the funeral was a very big deal (write up about him in the Baltimore Sun). We have been friends with Bill and Betty Lee for many years. The viewing was a Lemmon Funeral Home on Tuesday a week ago and the funeral was held at Towson UMC last Wednesday. Here are the pictures of Bill Lee:

Fast forward to last Saturday, Barb and I did our monthly “grounds maintenance” at Epworth Church in which we are taking care of “Pulpit Hill” and the flowers around the church patio. They had fallen into serious dis-repair and no one was assigned to handle them, so we made it our monthly mission to pull weeds. The other thing I did was use four gallons of vegetation killer to knock down weeds all around the church campus. It took hours to accomplish, but I am hopeful we made a difference.

The Cockeysville-Timonium Lions decorated our trailer for their float again this year. The Hereford parade was held June 30th and the Towson Parade was held July 4th, so the trailer (float) got double exposure again this year. It was nicely decorated and the Lions helped me “undecorate” it July 4th and its already back in service moving firewood.

Later that afternoon (July 4th), Barb and I led the active adults group (Epworth Everybody Else) to Oregon Ridge for the annual July 4th Baltimore Symphony Orchestra concert and fireworks. We had a nice turnout. Pictures of the concert and fireworks:

Also for the last couple weeks, I’ve been working early mornings and late at night (not during the hot mid-day) to split all of the wood from the 61 foot poplar tree that we cut down. And Pegg was kind enough to bring up some dogwood from a tree that Adam cut down. It has all been cut up and split and now I am stacking it on the wood racks. I am more than half done on that. Very good exercise! Good workout.

Last night was our second quarterly meeting of the Epworth Seniors Ministry. So far, this is going really well.

It was a project that I took on because I wanted the seniors (70 and older) of our church to know that they are remembered and appreciated. We are up to 54 members of the group. The first event was a Saturday morning pancake breakfast. The quarterly gathering last night was a crab feast and cookout. Barb and I shuttled people from the church to the house where the event was held. We had a little excitement during the evening when a deer walked past us and the Baltimore County Police helicopter circled overhead apparently in connection with a nearby incident.  Pictures of the crab feast:

We’ve had several folks use the pool recently, which is always gratifying. Our pastor, Rev. Trish Watson, and her newly adopted daughters…and our neighbor Courtney and her three children…have been over to beat the heat.

This Friday night, I’m booked to videotape the annual 7th District recreation council music production which usually is held at Hereford High School, but this year it will be held in the Fellowship Hall of the Hereford United Methodist Church. Matt and Rob, you would be amazed by the work that is being done on Hereford High School to install a completely new air conditioning system. The auditorium is closed for the summer while the renovations are going on. The rehearsals for the production are being held in the cafeteria of the 7th District Elementary School near Maryland Line. We stopped by yesterday to check it out. While I’m videotaping, Barb will be joining about 26 other people…including our neighbor Art who is her “date”…at the Friday night Orioles game. We purchased the tickets in bulk and I am wishing our Orioles well. We took Art to another daylight game a week ago and it was hot and sunny, so I purchased Art an Orioles hat. He has promised to wear it for the game Friday night. Barb now has a couple official Orioles shirts to wear, so we are getting into the spirit of the games.

This morning, Barb and I plan to visit Mom. We try to visit at least once a week, but we are nothing compared with Sue and Pegg who visit more often. As you know, these visits are increasingly stressful, so I’m not sure what to expect today. Pegg and I are booked to fly to Providence, Rhode Island next Saturday at 11:30am for a memorial service for Eric Zimmerman, one of the children of the Zimmerman family that was so close to our family when we were growing up. Eric was a book-binder and one of the most gentle people I have known. I am making a video of the event for his wife, Kendra. I very much look forward to seeing his brothers (Loy and Mark) and his sister (Amy). I am presuming their mother, Weezy, will attend, but I’m not sure. Weezy and our Mom were classmates in nursing school together. Pegg and I will fly back on Sunday departing at 11:25am and returning at 12:35 p.m.

Otherwise, the garden we share with Art is going crazy thanks to all of the rain. We grew broccoli for the first time this year and it was a screaming success. The white onions also have done very well. The tomatoes are just coming in and the potatoes have had a fine season so far. Also, we planted several varieties of peppers and they are having a banner year. The thing that I am watching most closely is our asparagus. Spurred by Art’s success last year with his initial planting, we attempted to get some asparagus roots planted and we already have gotten our first shoots. We will let the asparagus establish itself for a couple years and then we should be able to start harvesting some shoots. I remember well how successfully Granddad great his asparagus. With the success of the plants, of course, has been the success of the weeds, so I will have to do some work on that, too. We even got some strawberries this year, our first year for planting them. I am grateful to Art because I have learned so much from him about what can be grown in our little garden.

One of our most fun tasks this week has been to administer the medicine to one of the cats of our friends, Wayne and Judy Sutter. I say “fun” because I get to find the cat named Turtle down in the Sutters’ basement each day. She is a mercurial cat (a Jellicle cat?) because she is very good at hiding, but each day she had decided (after a few minutes of calling her) to make her presence known to me and then she purrs up a storm. She is an elderly cat, but she allows me to hold her and carry her upstairs to receive her medicine and then I pet her some more. She’s not thrilled about taking the medicine but she’s a very good girl and affectionate. Talkative too. That’s my report from the farm. Ed