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I have always viewed myself as coordinated and at least somewhat graceful. According to my daughter, I am about as graceful as a “bull in a China shop.” I must be somewhat coordinated, however, because I have stayed on bucking horses, and I played the snare drum in the high school band. As for a graceful, I was never chosen for any sports, and I was a straight “C” student in a gym class. I remember walking across the balance beam but still getting a “C.” I suppose it is because I walked across the beam with the same grace as I cross a roa...
When I started my trek, I tried to find actual destinations. Often events were weeks or months apart, so I ended up with many side trips. My first planned stop was in northwestern Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Equine Council has a division dedicated to equestrian trails. They hold one- and three-day clinics on trail mitigation and maintenance. They also aid Pennsylvanian equestrian clubs. I took their three-day clinic where we installed three bridges and a ford on a trail in a state park that was doomed to be closed because of the stream damag...
When I was very young my brother and I colored a few hard-boiled eggs for Easter. Sometime in the night the Easter Bunny hid our eggs plus many more around the living room. Of course, the ones the bunny brought were prettier than ours, but little ones barely notice that. On Easter morning my brother and I were sent into the living-room to hunt for the brightly colored eggs while my parents watched and kept count of our finds. We always had dogs and cats in the house. After the bunny hid the eggs, the cats determined they were put there for...
My original plan when I left Pennsylvania to travel was to follow Route 6 from there to California. After I bought my camper, I headed to AAA for a “trip tick” of the proposed route with accompanying paper maps and travel books. I knew I would take side trips along the way but I could always return to Route 6. I spent a month at my cousin’s estate in Maryland to get my “sea legs” for camping before heading out. I had been several weeks on the road and had several side trips when I crossed the state line from Pennsylvania into Ohio. I came to a...
February 12 is Lincoln’s birthday and February 22 is Washington’s. When I was in school, these two days were celebrated separately on the days of their birth. The school halls and classrooms were decorated with silhouettes of the two honorees. We made or colored top hats for Lincoln and it was not unusual to see them sported in the halls. For Washington there was a cherry pie or cobbler for dessert in remembrance of the “I will not tell a lie” tale. Speeches were made starting with “The Gettysburg Address.” There was a recounting of Washingt...
One year my husband and I decided to sell Christmas trees in Connecticut with a friend, Rick. We bought an old truck with a tool body on it. After buying two wheels with tires from two different junk yards, we traveled to Pennsylvania to buy 100 trees. We bought another wheel with better tread and took off the tool body, replacing it with a plywood flat bed. When we returned to Connecticut with the trees, we proudly put up a “trees for sale” sign and put six trees in the sale spot we had picked under a three-way bridge. The next morning we fou...
When we first moved from Rhode Island to Pennsylvania, my parents were excited because our 110 acres had many pine trees. They envisioned treks to find the perfect Christmas tree, plucked from their own property. So began the annual Christmas tree hunt. There was a large learning curve along with this hunt over the years. The first being the first day of rifle hunting season begins the first Monday after Thanksgiving in Pennsylvania. This event is so popular the schools are closed that day because everyone is out hunting and nobody, including t...
Where I formerly lived in Pennsylvania, most of the fields were fairly small because of the mountains and forests. The fields were wedged between hills and trees and aerial spraying or crop dusting as it is sometimes called, was not a common farming practice. As time went by, farming the small fields became less profitable and many farms were sold to developers. The developers broke the farms into one, two or three acre lots. The lots were sold to people from the cities and houses sprang up everywhere like mushrooms. One such farm had fields...
During my many travels across the country, I attended several Mother Earth News Fairs. The first one I went to was in Wisconsin. While there, I decided I might be able to work for the fairs and offset my travel expenses. I was told...thanks but most of the work is done by volunteers at each venue. I left my name and number in case there was a job opening. The next fair I planned on attending was in Pennsylvania. A few weeks ahead of the fair, I called the Mother Earth News magazine office to check on a job. After some checking they said that...
My mother had gone to her mother’s for a month-long visit, leaving my father, brother and myself alone to fend for ourselves. I was in charge of the kitchen and all the meal preparation, well at least dinner. I had recently started dating the man (really a boy) who would become my husband, I decided it was a good time to showcase my cooking skills. I invited him and planned the meal. It was nothing fancy, just a meat and potato supper but I knew from our dates that my guest liked desserts, apple pie in particular. We had an old apple tree in t...
