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Sunday, August 15, 2010

The Day I bought the Farm

Hi all,

Thanks for joining me!  Ironically, though it is my first day writing my 'gay farmer's blog', I'm not in the country, but at my apartment in New York City.  The dog (Rye) is sacked out next to me and I got two dirty parrots picking through seed on the other side of the room.  

I should be at the farm, but the house that I'm building there...or rather that a construction crew is NOT building there, is taking forever to complete.  So I'm here, sweltering in the city, spending hours picking through the farmer's market when I could be up at my own beloved farm, enjoying a fresh picked peach or rifling through the bean bushes for the latest, freshest pod.  

About the farm:  well, I bought it five years ago.  I had been living in NYC for over ten years and I was desperate for some green.  I looked everywhere for a 'place in the country', upstate NY, LI, New Jersey.  It was either too far away, too expensive or both.  Then one day, I was searching the internet for farms for sale and stumbled on a horse farm listing in Towanda, Pa...wherever the hell that was.  So I loaded up the bf and we drove some 4 hours to Towanda.

Towanda is the capital of Bradford County in Northeast, Pa.  Some of the highlights along the way are the Outlet Mall in the Poconos, the lonely and lost-looking rte 380 which takes you past exits for towns like Moscow and Mountainhome, the Bluebird Diner located at the start of rte 6, and finally the endless mountains themselves, rolling hills and valleys through which the Susquehanna meanders panoramically.  

Route 6 is worth getting to, a winding road with enough speed traps to break your bank, but scenic and entertaining.  There's a seasonal BBQ on the left hand side as you head north and you pass through Meshoppen where a local guy sells his home-buzzed honey.  

Anyway, if you stay on route 6 long enough, you end up in Towanda and I don't care how much of a lead foot you are, that's too far to drive from New York City for a 'place in the country' as I found out that day. HOWEVER on the way home, we decided to take another rural route home, rte 187, and we ended up driving right by the for sale sign on the current farm that I own.  Weathered and forgotten, the sale sign had probably been there for years...indeed, inside the barn there were several versions of it, from this realtor and that.   Later, David (my ex) and I called up the broker and visited the farm and I'll never forget that walk.  A bright, June day with spinach and pea green colors all around, an intense sun, a baby turtle in the swamp, an orange salamander in the woods, the stream, the barn, the fields, the forest.  It had a little of everything.  The true litmus test was when I found a broken shovel and spooned a test load of the soil. It turned like cake flour in a bowl.  Sold.  

I'll post some pics of the early farm if you want to see them.  Mile tall with Teasel weeds and burdock, milkweeds and mustard.  The bf and I used to tunnel a path through it to a part of the stream that tumbled into a waterfall.  At the base of it, you can make a camp, build a fire and have a couple of drinks, which is exactly what we did; a make shift lost-world home filled with idle conversation and dreams of what the farm could be.


I remember that first year well.  I hacked an opening in the weeds and mud where I thought an orchard should be.  Bought a potted apple tree (that bears that most delicious apples to this day) and set it in on a hot, unforgiving July day.  I believe it was the next March that my friend Yvie came up and helped me plant an entire order from Miller's Nursery with snow flurries flying and way too many holes to dig.  One of the trees we planted that day (everything else is dead) is bigger than a pickup parked straight up and is right now ripening fruit.

It has been five (6?) years since I bought the farm.  I have replanted the orchard some 3 or 4 times due to freezing weather, deer and rodent damage and poor site location.  I have planted a garden, over 3000 spring bulbs, forsythia and Chaenomyles Speciosa from my first home in Altoona Pa and watched all of it prosper, struggle or drown in the wilderness that surrounds.  Finally, after years of dreaming of house on the land, I was offered a natural gas lease from Chesapeake Natural Gas for 100k.  The money gave me the confidence to build a house.  Now with the house nearly finished, I pursue my dream to be a gay farmer in Pennsylvania, learning the ways of the land and perhaps passing on a few tips to you, my friends and farming enthusiasts.