Where did we go?

We’re right here! But, if you kept up with news of the farm, you may have wondered.

For the busiest folks, I’ll sum it up with a single line: We had a good year at the farmer’s market, and a great year at… well, life.

If you have a little more time, here’s a recap of what we’ve been up to, and a farm update. But first, please allow me to explain my hiatus.

After keeping this journal for several years, I took a break from it this year. Although it’s been incredibly fun, regular posts require a lot of time, and I needed to use that time in a different way.

Some of you may know this, but to others it may be a bit of a surprise. I’ve been a screenwriter for about 15 years. I write “specs.” Sometimes solo, sometimes with a partner who lives in Maryland. Spec is an industry word for a screenplay that nobody asked you to write. It’s a script you’re trying to sell, or use to attract a manager or producer. After years of shoehorning screenwriting into the nooks and crannies of my life (nap time… at 5 in the morning… during PJ Masks), my schedule, headspace, and finances allowed me the incredible opportunity to write full time.

This past year, I wrote and rewrote, and cut my teeth pitching. I pitched projects to more than 50 managers and producers, and had a fun ride as a finalist in the PAGE International Screenwriting Awards — a contest that draws about 9,000 entries. In the science fiction category, my script made the Top 10 out of 500 scripts.

It was a thrilling year, with one learning curve after the next. And 2024 is shaping up to be just as exciting.

So — yes! I’m still here. We’re still here. Life just continues to evolve.

Our biggest news this year isn’t farm related.

After nine wonderful years with our little guy at home, the time had come to send him to in-person school for the third grade. The decision was a combination of factors — a mix of what was best for him… and for me.

As summer clipped along, we all had big feelings about the change. It’s been the three of us at home together for the past few years, and, of course, Silas has been at my side for almost a decade. Letting him go, it hurt.

But first, let me back up a bit to May, when we returned to the farmer’s market at the lovely Meadville Market House.

This was our first season without the CSA. Since we no longer needed to provide produce for approximately 50 families a week, we scaled back the amounts we grew, especially when it came to greens. We still planted an abundance of kale, but only a limited amount of lettuce in the spring. With the sale of greens no longer financially necessary, we decided to ease up.

A more relaxed farm season helped us take two wonderful trips this summer. One was to visit with Jason’s family in Alexandria Bay, on the Saint Lawrence River in upstate New York. The other was hiking the mountains and waterfalls of Shenandoah National Park. This park has more than 100 drivable miles along the Blue Ridge Mountains. You can cruise through the park at 35 mph and pull up to incredible vistas along the entire way. The mountain experience left an impression on all of us, and we’re planning to explore another range next year.

Here are a few photos from our trip to Shenandoah National Park, in Virginia. These were taken on Hawksbill Summit, Shenandoah’s highest peak.

The hikes were awe-inspiring to Silas. We want to see as many national parks with him as we can.

Hi! It’s me on a mountain.

We’ve never been so sad to see a summer end. I cried harder than I have in decades the first morning that school bus pulled away.

It wasn’t long after the tears dried up, that we were beset with constant school-borne viruses. It was so bad we had to end our farmer’s market season two weeks earlier than intended. (This first year of in-person school has been a doozy. Silas is recouping from his eleventh sickness since September.)

Apart from the parade of illnesses, Silas has successfully transitioned into school. Any chance he gets, he makes it known to us that he prefers school at home, but there are perks to regular school that even he can’t deny. It’s helped tremendously that he has a very kind teacher who has nearly 30 years of experience. Art and tech are his favorite classes, and he loves all the fun that happens around the holidays.

We sure do miss him, and we can’t wait for Christmas vacation to start. (Neither can he!)

Jason will take a few days off around Christmas, too, but he’ll have to hit the ground running in January, with grant deadlines looming. He stays busy in his “hobbit hole,” as we call it. His basement office is a cozy, windowless room with an ornate door that’s rounded on the top. It was built by my uncle, and looks exactly like something you’d expect Bilbo Baggins to pop out of.

Kidding aside, I’m so proud of him. His intelligence and conscientious manner have made him an asset to many worthwhile regional projects. (For those who don’t know: Jason is a grant writer and project manager. The company he created, Spark Community Capital, will have its third anniversary next year.)

But what about the farm? Ah, yes — the farm!

Here we are at the farmer’s market.

In the spring, we’ll reconfigure the layout of the gardens. There are sections we no longer need, and we’ll till those under. This will let us brush hog those areas. They’ll be more sightly and less of a haven for varmints.

We’re also redesigning the sections that we’ll continue to plant, and rethinking the 125-foot long beds. The extra long beds were necessary when we were growing CSA-sized quantities, but now truncated rows will be more manageable.

Kale and Swiss chard growing in the Big Tunnel this spring.

And we’re yet again rethinking how we approach the farm. The goal was to become self-employed. We achieved this, although ironically not through farming. While this has been wonderful for our family, it’s left us unsure of how to proceed with the farm.

And the question was raised this year: Do we proceed?

Do we want to?

Ultimately, we decided the answer was yes. We’re going forward with Season 10. But that brings me to how we’re rethinking the farm. Our mindset for this year will be that we’re growing again for us. We’re approaching this season less like a business, and more like, well, a garden. We’re trusting our instincts and listening to our hearts. Anything else has never really suited us.

Jason plants garlic for next year.

I’m not sure how much you’ll hear from me here. There are only so many hours in a day, in a year, in a lifetime. I don’t regret how I’ve spent mine in the past nine years, but I do have a strong sense of how I want to spend the next decade. Merry Christmas, friends. And may you make excellent use of your hours in the new year, too.

~ Stella

Connections to the past

My mother’s mother was entirely Polish; her name was Esther. Esther’s father sailed from Poland to America, where he met his future wife, who was also Polish. (My mother’s father was Lithuanian.) My grandmother could speak and read Polish. When she gave us the Polish word for something, she lowered her voice, like the sounds were coming from deep down, and she’d punctuate the lesson with a big, proud grin.

My mother moved away from her Ohio family long before I was born, and I didn’t feel much connection to her Polish ancestry. When we’d return for weddings, I’d scramble out of the way to avoid being swept up in the fearsomely fast polkas. (Polka, by the way, isn’t actually a Polish invention. My indifference in acknowledging this fact is proof of how removed I am from my Polish roots.)

But a few years ago, I started following the site, Polish Your Kitchen, out of curiosity. It was fun to read the recipes, but most of them were either meat-centric or more complicated than I was willing to tackle.

Then, I came across Anna’s recipe for zupa fasolowa (fah-soh-loh-vah), a hearty Polish bean soup. I was curious to try it, so I added vegetarian bacon and marjoram to my grocery list. It had been awhile since my cupboard was stocked with marjoram. Apparently, it’s a traditional Polish seasoning.

When it was time to make the soup, Jason helped, and we invited Silas to drag a chair to the counter. When Silas was little, he used to drive me crazy with always wanting to help in the kitchen. Now, sometimes I’ll ask him to help, and he’ll say, “That’s OK,” and keep playing. But tonight, he wanted to be included in this mom-and-dad activity, plus he was highly curious about this fake bacon we kept talking about.

While Jason diced carrot and onion, and taught Silas how to cook (fake) bacon, I chopped potatoes. Everything smelled so good, and we had a warm fire crackling. Silas was chatty and precious, standing on his chair and stirring the pot. I just felt so damn happy.

You know when you’re cooking something, and you just know it’s going to be delicious? That’s how I felt, and a sample taste proved me right. This soup’s combination of smokiness and allspice makes it warm and cozy. I’m proudly adding this Polish zupa to my repertoire.

I also learned a good tip from Anna’s recipe. To thicken your water-based soup with flour (and keep it clump free), separately whisk together cold water and a few tablespoons flour, then add it to your cooked soup ingredients.

Here’s my zupa fasolowa.

History has been on my mind lately.

Earlier this week, the snowpack we’ve had since early January was coaxed to slush by warm southwest winds and sunshine. We finished up school early so we could enjoy the novelty of deep snow and balmy breezes. Even Luna was panting by the time we reached the farm.

Inside the high tunnels, it was hot enough to strip to a T-shirt. We took down the rest of the tomato hooks, and then relaxed in the sun. Jason and Silas tossed a ball the length of the Big Tunnel for Luna, and I rested on a bucket.

After a few minutes, head-to-toe warmth in February had me under its spell. I sank down on a straw-covered row and closed my eyes. When Jason and Silas left for home, I stayed. It felt like I was on the beach, with the wind like waves and the whipping plastic like sails. Last season’s straw had been soaking up the sun all morning. I’ve never had a spa treatment, but I don’t think they could do much better. It was one of those rare moments of luxuriant rest that come only in solitude, especially if you’re a mother.

Lying there, my thoughts turned to who else might have set foot here. Who has passed through this place? I’m approaching middle age, and it has me thinking often about those who came before me and those who will follow. This stage of life has that effect.

Before it was our farm, there were hooves that pressed the grass into the earth. My parents’ horses. But this equine fact is the extent of my definite knowledge of this land. It’s only been in my family about 30 years. However, there are ruins that provide a major clue to its history.

An old homestead lays at the bottom of the hill. A foundation remains from a home, and there’s a stone springhouse guarding a still prolific spring. You’re guaranteed to find broken crockery in the trickle that leads from the springhouse. Judging from the towering heights of the apple trees in the old orchard, they were likely planted by that farm family. Surely one of them tread where I lay.

I don’t know when the land was cleared. But it must have been woods at one time. Perhaps a tree grew exactly where I lay, and an ax man braced himself in this spot.

And before that, perhaps a leather-wrapped foot stepped softly here, heading downhill to what we know as the East Branch of Little Sugar.

All the possibilities suddenly spooked me, and I sat up, wanting to sever the connection between the ground and my thoughts. Imagine all that may have transpired in this spot? Could there have been incidents of great personal significance? A death? A birth? Or perhaps it was an ephemeral encounter. Just a hunter traversing the woods. Those kind of thoughts get you thinking about your own fleeting time walking the earth. And who will touch this ground decades from now, or centuries? They’ll never know that I kneeled here to pick peppers and cucumbers, and had some of the happiest moments with my family. And they would never guess that I laid on a bed of straw and wondered about them.

~ Stella

Enjoying the winter storm, heating with wood & adjusting to self-employed finances

From my pillow, the woods behind the house is visible. In winter, my gaze threads the spaces between branches, able to dart a short distance until the lattice of limbs becomes a gray wall. But when I woke on Monday, the snow had stacked thick on the branches, halting my view at the first row of treetops, much like in summer.

About a foot of snow had piled on overnight. Just a day before the storm, the ground and air were bone dry. On a walk up to the farm, the wind sent leaves clattering across the road and rushing through the woods. It felt like a late-autumn day. Now, the woods was heavy. The snow weighed everything down. The branches of the thorn apple looked like fat, white, spiked dinosaur tails.

Before the storm, Jason hauled firewood from the backyard stacks to our basement. In a less chaotic year, we would have stored wood under our porch, just a few steps from the house. But this year, we’re stuck playing catch up all winter. Jason cut and hauled enough wood in from the forest, but he has to split it every few weeks, and then we take turns dragging it to the house in either a cart or sled. One of Jason’s oft-quoted sayings is, “Firewood is so nice, it warms you twice.” First, the chopping warms you, then the flames. This year, we could say it warms us thrice, or four times, or more. Chop it. Haul it. Stack it. Split it. Drag it to the house. Stack it in the basement. Carry it up the darned stairs!

If you’ve never experienced wood stove heat, this may not sound worth it. But wood heat is a different kind of warm. There’s something about having those orange flames glowing in the Buck Stove in the middle of our humble dwelling. For more than a million years, we’ve fed the flames and they’ve nourished us with heat. That bond is alive and well as I sit in my chair and type, listening to clicks and crackles and pops coming from the stove. In winter, the low grumble of the fire is always in the background here. The peak of luxury is crossing my legs at the ankles, and feeling waves of heat wash against the bottoms of my feet.

Before bed, we load up the stove, but it usually burns out at some point in the early morning. This makes for a chilly house before breakfast. With a mild winter thus far, the lowest temperature in the house was 53 degrees in the main living area. Back in the bedrooms, it’s cooler. If I wake up, and my sinuses feel near froze, the only relief is to tuck my forehead in the warm bowl Jason’s shoulder blades make when he sleeps on his side.

The chill is temporary. We dress in layers, and there are enough morning chores to warm us up. Layers and movement, the two best remedies for cold. Within a few hours, the temperature rises to the mid 60s. By evening, it’s in the 70s, thanks to old Buck.

Working full time and farming made finding time to tend to firewood difficult for Jason. Now that he’s home, one of his goals is to get a year or two ahead with firewood gathering. Time, we trust, will be our greatest asset in this new life.

Not a bad way to get some exercise.

After the big snowfall, Silas and I went sled riding with Luna. Our house sits on a knoll that’s steep enough to cut a decent track. Earlier this month, Jason and Silas managed to sled ride with just a dusting on this knoll as I watched from the window. When you’re a wife, but also a mother to a young son, there’s usually at least one person trying to show off for you much of the time. Silas would look over his shoulder and smile at me on his way down the hill. Jason would at least wait until he reached the bottom to catch my eye and grin. Admittedly, there is something still quite thrilling about having him show off for me after more than 20 years together.

While Silas and I zipped down this same hill, Jason used a shop broom to sweep snow off the little propagation high tunnel, which crumples like a squashed bug under heavy snow. After brushing it off, he gets underneath and pushes up from inside until it pops back up.

Afterward, Jason strapped on snowshoes and trudged uphill to the farm to sweep off the kale tunnel.

Just in from sweeping snow from the tunnels. Lots of snow, lots of sweat.

After lunch, we trekked up the road to sled ride at Grandma and Grandpa’s cabin, which sits atop a long slope. At times, we were playing in the middle of a blizzard, with snow tumbling down and blowing all around.

While Jason and Silas kept sledding, I enjoyed the rare opportunity to swing on a swing and leap off without shooting thunderbolts up both my ankles, thanks to foot-deep white padding.

We’re making the most of all this snow, Silas especially, of course. Is there any greater test of woman’s endurance than the repeated bundling and unbundling of a child in snow clothes?

One year, we made a family pact to sled ride every day that we could. The rule was, a Ruggiero had to go down a hill at least once, provided there was enough snow. We set impressive streaks, going weeks at at a time without missing a day. With Jason at work, it was mostly Silas and I who carried out the pact. Watching them both from my snowy swing made this a merry blizzard.

Friends who know about trees: What is this lavender stripe?

ADJUSTING TO SELF-EMPLOYMENT

We’re in our first month as self-employed people. In the weeks leading up to Jason’s final day with his old employer (and his final paycheck), I spent a lot of time thinking about how to best handle the money flow in our house now.

Ever since starting (and completing) our debt-free journey, I’ve had my consistent system, which was based on the arrival of regular earnings. Now, our income comes from two primary sources (Spark Community Capital and the farm), and we’re no longer on the standard twice-a-month paycheck schedule that we’ve known our entire adult lives.

I needed to come up with a new system to ensure we always had enough money in the hopper. The last thing I want is to have to sound the alarm each month. We do not want to scramble. The whole point of our low cost of living is to enjoy a life free from money struggle.

As part of our new system, we opened another checking account. This account serves as a holding pen for the next month’s bills, so we’re always a month ahead no matter what. With our new system, we should always have enough funds for the current month’s bills, and the upcoming month. This lets us divert “extra” money to savings, family fun, and charity, etc. The idea is that we’ll always have time to replenish the family coffers and avoid lean times.

We also brought back our sinking funds account. Sinking funds are money that we set aside every month to pay for upcoming (usually large expenses), such as car and home insurance (paid in full, not monthly), and spring and fall property taxes. That fund was key to helping us get out of debt. It kept us from dealing with any expensive “surprises” throughout the year. (They weren’t really surprises, of course, but sometimes those larger bills sneak up on you.)

I’m convinced that the key to making our self-employment work is laying out a monthly budget, and sticking to it. We don’t see budgets as restrictive. For us, they’re a way of maintaining peace of mind in our home.

Our current monthly personal budget generally looks like this. (Note: Spark pays its own bills, and the farm pays for itself, as well. The list below is for our household, and doesn’t contain costs such as taxes.)

FEBRUARY 2022

— House-related payments: $620

— Internet: $100 … Our internet out here in the sticks is so lousy, that we started tracking every day it’s patchy, and our internet speed. Our line is likely cracked somewhere, and Verizon has apparently no intention of ever digging it up and fixing it. I requested a sort of peace agreement with the company: they’ll keep providing sub par internet, and we’ll only pay for sub par internet. They offered to give me a monthly discount for a year, and a one-time $65 discount for lost service in January. I’m going to keep tracking, and keep calling, so we’ll see what happens. We’re also exploring other internet options because it is a hinderance to our businesses. Normally, our bill for a landline and internet is about $100 a month. With the discounts, our February bill should actually be about $28.)

— Electric: $200 … This varies, depending on the time of year. During the farm season, we power grow lights and the walk-in cooler, and our bill tops out around $200. This time of year, our bill is around $130, but I typically budget $200 anyway out of habit.

— Groceries: $400 per month … During the winter, we go to the grocery store twice a month.

— Gasoline: $90 … We budgeted for three tanks of gas, given that Jason no longer has a commute.

TOTAL FOR BILLS, GROCERIES, AND GAS: $1,410

Note: We’re being extremely cautious with spending in this first year, as we figure out how to navigate self-employment. With January going smoothly thus far, I did build some spending money in our February budget for things like birthday gifts and family fun (about $150 total).

Easy, lemony kale & northern bean soup - Save this one if you'll be a part of the farm in 2022!

This soup is so tasty, I could eat it every week … as a matter of fact, I have been eating it every week lately. It’s a meal that just makes you feel really good. The northern beans are filling, and the citrus makes it bright and refreshing. Our weather in NW Pa.’s been about as cheery as Mordor, so hot bowls of this lemony soup have really hit the spot. And it is easy to make.

Here’s my recipe for Lemony Kale & Northern Bean Soup. CSA friends: You might want to save this one for when your share starts in June. Your CSA will include a lot of kale, and this is a fantastic way to use it up quickly. You’ll also receive the fresh herbs listed in the recipe. (If you’d like to learn more about joining the CSA, click here.)

INGREDIENTS

Butter

1 large onion, chopped

Garlic, to taste (at least a few cloves), minced

3 cans of northern beans (also known as white beans) w/liquid

1 bunch of kale, chopped (remove the stems)

Fresh parsley, chopped

Fresh oregano, chopped

Fresh sage, chopped

3 cups of water

Juice from 1 lemon

Salt & pepper

Optional: Bouillon cubes or Better Than Bouillon, use according to package instructions. (You could season this soup entirely with salt and pepper, but I like to cheat a bit with a few teaspoons of Better Than Bouillon.)

DIRECTIONS

1.) Cook onion in butter until it starts to brown.

2.) Add garlic. Stir briefly, browning garlic slightly.

3.) Add 3 cans of northern beans, as well as the liquid from the beans.

4.) Add chopped kale and herbs.

5.) Add 3 cups of water and lemon juice.

6.) Season with salt and pepper, and bouillon. You may also want to melt in pats of butter for flavor.

Enjoy!

~ Stella

Game for 2022 - Our holiday recap

Hairy vetch still blooming in the Big Tunnel in January.

Jason’s final day of work was before Christmas. Since he normally takes vacation days between Christmas and New Years, it didn’t feel odd to have him home these last few days.

We watched out the window for him on his last day. When the headlights cut through the December dark, Silas and I started waving like high-speed windshield wipers.

We didn’t have anything special planned. We’re the worst at celebrating things sometimes. We did, however, have a bottle of champagne Jason bought last summer to mark the end of the CSA season. That we finally got around to drinking it several months late is evidence of our weakness for celebration. Jason did have an extra-special Christmas gift for me that he and Silas managed to keep secret for weeks and they opted to give it to me then.

After putting Silas to bed, I curled up with my champagne refill beside Jason, and we enjoyed the Christmas tree lights. The couch in our living room could have just as easily been the edge of a skyscraper. This night felt exhilarating and frightening. Don’t look down. Just look out. Our new life officially started.

A few days later, it was Christmas. Since we’re vaccinated, we hosted a few small holiday gatherings with family and friends. For one night, my best friend and her family stayed with us. They have two boys about Silas’s age. Silas’s Christmas wish from Santa was that everybody stay healthy so the boys could be together. Even though it was damp and dreary, they played outside for hours, then huddled around to play Minecraft at night.

The grownups played board and card games. I’ve never been one for games. Actually, for most of my 36 years, I didn’t like playing games at all. (Aren’t I fun on paper? A frugal, caffeine-free, vegetarian, minimalist who hates games.) Maybe it’s the social isolation of the pandemic, but it felt incredible to have fun and joke together. I laughed harder than I have all year. My mother, who loves games (she made an Arcade Day for Silas once in her living room), seized on my newfound mirth and immediately scheduled a family game night.

A few days later, I had the chance to visit with a good friend who was in town. We made a moms-only trip to French Creek Coffee and Tea, and it was so nice to sip and chat in peace.

For New Year’s Eve, the weather was warm, so we spent most of the day working on the farm. Everything was frozen in time up there after an autumn that went completely haywire. Cleaning old messes and putting things away was a proper end to the year. Later that night, we put on, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” As much as I love the end of that movie, I couldn’t stop my eyes from closing about two-thirds through. Jason and Silas watched the ball drop while I snoozed. Tucked snug in my bed felt like a good way to ease into 2022.

With cool, rainy weather for New Year’s Day, we worked in the Big Tunnel, unclipping the dead tomato vines and taking down the hooks. It’s a peculiar feeling to walk along the tomato rows this time of year. The sungolds have dehydrated into orange paper lanterns. Many of the bigger red cherry tomatoes are still plump, but pinched at the top like tiny coin purses. As we unclipped the vines, we breathed in sun-dried tomatoes with an occasional whiff of rot. Mother Nature, after giving birth to another growing season, is in her postpartum again.

Jason had what felt like his “first” day today. I’ll write more about our new hybrid schedule soon. I’m honestly still wrapping my head around it, and so is he.

With such a dramatic shift in our lives, I wanted a fitting resolution for the new year. For most of my life, I’ve been someone who checks off her to-do list with an almost self-righteous vigor. In my defense, it was often necessary to keep our farm and family running. But I want to put my checklist approach away. Try something new. In short, lighten up. Maybe I’ll despise it. Maybe I’ll love it. I’m game.

~ Stella