Tag Archives: rural life

Down Home on the Farm

Having spent my formative years living in rural Vermont, though I don’t think about it much since I now live in the close-in ‘burbs, I do feel at home on a farm.  Even when it’s a historic farm like Landis Valley Village and Farm Museum, which I visited last week during a conference in Harrisburg, PA.

I am happy walking a country road and communing with cattle and crops.  I especially grooved on the presentation of the heritage seed program they have at Landis Valley.  Hundreds of heirloom tomato seeds!  My favorite was one called the Mortgage Lifter.  Gotta get me some of those next year.

I also learned a lot in the farm equipment part of the tour.  Like many, I assumed the Conestoga Wagon was the conveyance that the “pioneers” took across the mountains.  Not so, it was actually the 18-wheeler of its day!

At the end of the visit, clutching the chamomile plant I purchased which I hope will thrive in my side yard herb patch (which shares space with lots of weeds and where the mint has run wild), I was content to have gotten a farm fix.