Fork Mountain Farm

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    Equinunk is in the northeastern corner of Pennsylvania, along the Delaware River, which borders NY state. I am told the name means "land of many fish." Their historical society has more information about the town. Our farm is about 3 miles south of town, on Fork Mountain. It's 56 acres, half woods, half pasture. The house faces north and the drive approaches it from the east.

    Summer 2003
    We moved in August 1. The pig. It was left behind by the former owner who couldn't catch it for a long time. Finally, it got so hungry it would follow anybody around. We left blueberries next to its mud puddle. If we lived here full time, we could have a pig, a goat, a cow.... we do have two chickens tho: Bert and Bertha. they live in the barn and we leave out food and water for them and they do just fine.

    Fall 2003
    We go out on weekends and start cleaning up the place, lay out a garden plot, and pick the blueberries, apples and pears. It's beautiful in the early morning light.

    Winter 2003-2004
    We put up a private property sign to keep curious strangers and hunters from coming up our drive, which looks like a country lane. The snow ends our work outdoors and we shift our focus to inside the house.

    We have no way to plow the drive and over two and half feet of snow fell this season. We parked our car at the foot of the drive and walked up to the house in snow shoes, pulling our belongings behind us on a little red sled. The water pipes froze while we are away visiting family and we return to 3 inches of water that flooded our kitchen and mudroom. We have to pull up the particle board floors that have warped into hills and valleys and discover underneath a layer of plywood, nailed over two layers of 1930s linoleum and an original hardwood floor at the bottom of it all. We also have to pull out all the ceiling insulation in the basement that got soaked, blown in cellulose covered with a vapor barrier. WHAT A MESS!!! glad that's done!

    It was a long hard winter this year. Just as we thought we'd be pulling our groceries behind us on a sled forever, getting strong legs from all the snow shoeing, the snow suddenly melted!

    Spring - Summer 2004

    With the earth revealed in its bare, brown, matted state, we could see several more dump sites that needed clearing. The burnable garbage went onto the burn pile. The scrap metal and glass went onto a big heap that got hauled off for recycling as soon as we were able, and with the warmer weather, we finally finished painting the interior of the house.

    We experiment with a garden, and as the plant life grew up all around us we learned to identify the herbs, weeds and fruits that are growing wild everywhere: mint, Saint John's wort, bone set, spirea, wild mustard, pineapple grass, elder berries, burdock, curlydock, yellowdock, raspberry, blackberry, dew berry, goose berries, apple, pear, wild cherry, hawthorne, veronicas, goldenrod, oxeye diasies, black eyed susans, crown vetch, milkweed, ragweed, Timothy grasses, to name a few...

    Bert and Bertha - our beloved rooster and hen who survived the long cold winter and started laying eggs for us on the equinox - suddenly disappeared, not long after a wild turkey joined them, ate their food and started digging around in our garden. Presumably a predator got them? It's very sad! The barn is empty without them and we miss watching them walk around scratching for bugs.

    Still, the deer show up every evening in the drive to graze. Chipmunks scurry around the house, inside and out, helping themselves to the birdfeeders as well. Even encountered a garden snake in the kitchen one day! A woodchuck waddles through the grass. A wren nested in the bird house on the deck and a robin is currently nesting just outside our window, in an evergreen bush. Four blue eggs have produced 3 babies.

    Throughout April, at dusk, the peeptoads peeped and in May a Luna moth unfolded its green wings one night on our deck. With the dawn, lots of bird songs merge to create a chorus throughout the day and into the evening. There is one bird whose song sounds like a droplet of water falling into a pool!

    We divide our time between working and resting, feeling gratitude, and soaking in the beauty around us, one day at a time.