Thoughts and Words Ill-Sorted

We bought a farm!  Let the jokes begin.

After a lovely two-week visit to my parents, the kids and I returned to Kentucky, where Sydney and I signed the papers on a 17-acre farm near Harrodsburg.  It is 25 minutes from our house, ten minutes past Shaker Village (one of our favorite hiking spots), and 1.5 miles from the local ice cream shop.  Priorities.

After years of Kentucky clay, Sydney now owns a farm with silty soil, which soaked up the 6 inches of rain that came down the other day and flooded much of the area (!).  It was a good test of the new place, which held up well.

The farm comes with a tiny concrete-block farm-hand house with a nice tool shed, four barns, and lots of fencing.  It is funny to think that what used to be home to cattle is now owned by vegetarians.  It’s surrounded by huge wheat, corn, and soybean fields.  As much as we’d have liked to farm closer to Wilmore, it’s really nice to be in an area where every square inch isn’t being prepped for new housing developments.

Sydney has been hard at work, trying to break ground and transfer his farm operation from the one we’ve rented to our new place.  This is going to be a busy year, but we know that by the end of it things should be much less chaotic–and we should be thoroughly at home on the new place.

Despite having plenty of new things to take care of, Sydney’s carved out play time at the farm, with late-night campfires (Nutella, graham crackers, and marshmallows), new kites (there’s a good breeze there), and a relaxing Sunday afternoon under the large black-walnut tree. 

He is planning to transform roughly three acres of the farm into beds for cover crop and vegetables, and we’re hoping to plant trees throughout much of the rest of it.  For now, one of our favorite activities is to perch atop a four-board fence and look around, marveling at the space and the view.  I hope it’s a long time before we tire of that.

Erin

Since we didn’t have a clear start to the school year (will they go to school?  will they stay home?  what would either of those look like?), we thought we would mark the end of the school year with some school pictures.

Both kids have spent a lot of time at these desks throughout the year.  Thanks to the art class they’ve taken in town, they’ve also been able to fill their walls with creative work.  Today we closed up the math and language books, they celebrated the end of their Spanish lessons with me (they have grumbled about just how hard it is to learn a new language), and they proudly tucked away their history research papers.  Their desks are now empty and ready for whatever next year brings, but they’re currently keen on free reading, time outside, and a trip to their Iowa grandparents next week (Katherine corrected me: 3 1/2 days and 4 nights!).

They will both be headed back to public school in the fall.  As much as I’m looking forward to seeing what new topics they learn about in school, we all know that there are some things that they’ll miss from their year at home:

sleeping in

hot oatmeal and tea breakfasts

morning math work in a quiet room and at their own pace

doing English projects that are more than just two paragraphs of reading and two sentences of writing

being able to hum or sing quietly as you work

flexible schedules that allow for morning hikes

good lunches

more family time (including kitchen collaborations)

seeing birds and flowers right outside your window

birdsong

and homework done with a cat on the lap.

Erin

Last spring, Sydney filled our backyard garden with strawberries.  He has since thinned, weeded, mulched, and watered them.  Since he used to pick strawberries commercially, and since he prefers blueberries anyway, this is very much something he does just because I like strawberries.  And this year we had a bumper crop!

We’ve had a couple of big batches just for our use: I’ve made strawberry shortcake twice, Sydney’s made strawberry freezer jam, we’ve both frozen strawberries for smoothies, and everyone’s had strawberries and yogurt for breakfast the last week or two.  We’re taking our second batch to market tomorrow; they were snapped up quickly last week.  They are a lot of work to pick (we’re both feeling it in our backs and back-of-the-leg muscles this week), but they are such a crowd-pleaser.  And I’ll be enjoying Sydney’s jam on my toast for the next year!

Erin

The joke in our house is that Sydney is slowly reclaiming our yard from lawn, one garden square at a time.  Sydney has sown carrots in the holes in the concrete blocks he’s put down as edging (wood, we’ve discovered, rots quickly in Kentucky).  In this new bed, there are beets for Sydney and blackberries for Erin.  Everyone loves the carrots.

Erin

Neither kid is keen on picture-taking at the moment, but Katherine can be leaned on “for the grandparents’ sake.”  Nathaniel, however, is quite happy to refuse me even then.  Sorry, I tried.

Sydney has one class left to teach this week before the school year wraps up, and then the farmer’s market begins on May 1st.  I am squeezing in one more writing project before my sabbatical ends, as the kids stay in school mode through May.

Katherine, however, is leading the way with new things as we look forward to summer.  She gets braces next week (cue her famous eye-roll), but she also joined the volleyball league in town and is becoming acquainted with the mental game of playing sports as much as she is court positions and serve posture.  After less than a week, she made it clear that she’s not okay with not knowing what she’s doing, and she’s determined to figure it out.  So you’ll find us at the park a couple of times a week, as I chase balls and she applies to volleyball some of the discipline she’s learned from music.  I try to remind her to lighten up, though I’m also glad to see her so interested.  She’s a bit intense . . . to no one’s surprise.  Much to my delight, however, when she’s actually playing with her team, she laughs, forgets her self-consciousness, and generally seems to have a good time.  And that is fun to watch.

Erin

Katherine likes ceremony, and she thought a picnic on her birthday would make the most of our lovely spring weather.  The redbuds in Kentucky are filling every background with pink and purple, and everything has turned green underfoot.

Rain made her reconsider her plan, but she suggested a really nice alternative: a picnic in the greenhouse, where we could hear the rain all around us but keep our food dry.  It was a great way to spend an afternoon.

Erin

Erin

She threw open the screen door, handed me the egg basket, and announced, “Two eggs.  And spiders are floating away off the top of the coop, like in Charlotte’s Web.”

Erin

Just a few weeks after Sydney returned from Nova Scotia, his father, Henry, passed away.  Given the current travel restrictions, we weren’t able to attend the funeral in person, but we were able to watch the service online.  In the obituary, Sydney captured the extraordinary variety of Henry’s interests and the many people and places he had known in his life.  Henry was deeply loved and he will be missed.

Henry D. Penner ~ age 74, of Berwick, N.S., went to his eternal rest on Wednesday, January 20, 2021. Henry was born on March 1, 1946, in Manitoba to Heinrich C. and Aganetha (Dueck) Penner, the second-youngest of nine children. In 1948, he moved with his family to Chihuahua, Mexico, and then in 1958 to what was British Honduras, now Belize, where he worked hard to help carve out a new settlement in the jungle. Despite having to battle the jungle for farmland, he loved the forest and its wildlife, and eventually built up an extraordinary butterfly collection. Henry married Dora Reimer on November 14, 1976. Together, with hard work and dedication, they set out to cultivate a family and homestead. He had a special enthusiasm for fruit trees, and soon assembled a diverse orchard of tropical fruits that included but went far beyond oranges and mangoes. Henry had struggled with ill health earlier in his life, but achieved better health through adopting a healthier lifestyle. He came to feel a calling to share what he had learned with others around him, including by starting a small health food store. He made numerous trips to the United States to buy products from wholesalers there, products which he would then drive back down through Mexico to sell in his store in Belize. Since he had long had misgivings about living in Belize, Henry and his family moved to Nova Scotia in the spring of 1986. The move came with hardships. He lamented the orchard he had to leave behind, and was grieved by the limited friendship opportunities for his family in the early years. Differing property values in Belize and Nova Scotia also entailed years of financial hardship. But Henry and Dora were both blessed with a capacity for hard work and determination, and a new farm took shape in Berwick. The farm even came to include some tropical fruit trees again, this time grown in the protection of a greenhouse. Eventually he also owned a health food store again, with the purchase of Rising Sun Natural Foods. Henry remained a fixture at the store until the last year of his life. He was preceded in death by his wife, parents, brother, Walter D. Penner, and sisters, Elma (Abraham P.) Thiessen, Martha (Daniel D.) Plett, and Maria (Levi L.) Friesen. Henry is survived by his son and daughter-in-law, Sydney and Erin Penner, and grandchildren, Katherine and Nathaniel, of Wilmore, KY; son and daughter-in-law, Nelson Penner and Kira Woolaver, and grandchildren, Allister and Everett, of Berwick, N.S.; brother, Arthur. The funeral service took place at 2:00 p.m., Monday, January 26, in Bethel Mennonite Church, Grafton. Director, Larry Kornelsen and Minister, Rev. Arthur Penner officiated. Interment was in Berwick Cemetery, Berwick. With gratitude the family would like to thank all who have expressed their condolences.

Kentucky has been throwing us for a bit of a loop, weather-wise.  Our area endured ice storms in February and we waited a rather anxious week, listening to the tinkling of trees, hoping that the ice would melt before wind and snow arrived.  Then came floods all around Kentucky.  Today, people walked around with a sort of stunned look as they stepped into sunny, 70-degree weather.

But don’t worry: we are prepared for all kinds of weather.  Assuming he has electricity, Nathaniel is ready to bake us some gorgeous bread.  He’s been keeping us supplied with rye bread throughout the winter.  Our cats also seem quite happy to curl up on the various laps around the house, and the kids are enjoying having cat company while they do math in the morning.  And the chickens are keeping us occupied–and out of the house.

Erin