Fear Not to Sow
Because of the Birds
Please enjoy Paul’s beautiful essays on Country Living and Natural Farming at Walnut Acres
The historic photos below accompany Paul’s essays
Dissatisfied with a conventional life as a college math instructor, I travel to India seeking inspiration and discover my desire to live close to nature.
Not long after our marriage, Betty and I both teach at Woodstock School near Mussoorie, India, in the foothills of the Himalayas. It is the custom to wear Indian attire for special occasions.
In 1946, eager to begin a new life, we buy the farm called Walnut Acres. Daddy Morgan, Betty’s father, comes to us after forty-five years of mission work in India. (Left to right: Marjorie Ann, Paul, Daddy Morgan, Ruth Carol, Betty and Lassie)
WINTER
The black walnut trees that abound on our farm were thought by the early settlers to be signs of a good limestone soil.
At first we heat and cook with wood only. I saw fallen tree branches by hand, then use the circular saw on the back of the tractor to cut the wood into usable pieces.
In the winter we can look out of our house at the one-hundred-year-old farm lane, too narrow for modern traffic and the snow-covered stream that meanders by its side.
Curbside service: Pull right up to the entrance of our very first store, next to this Amish buggy. Only natural foods are produced and sold here.
After a hard winter ice piles up on the banks of Penns Creek. (Left to right: Jocelyn and Ruth Carrol)
Ralph the duck falls in love with Tinker the dog, but Tinker only holds disdain for this untoward development.
In winter the snow cover is deceiving. Multitudes of living things quietly prepare to rise again.
SPRING
Sharing beats shearing: Some lambs are rejected by ewes and must be bottle-fed. The little shepherd here is Ruth Carol, our second daughter.
The shepherd shears his woolly friend in spring. We send the fleeces to a blanker mill, where they are woven into soft, beautiful blankets.
With our first tractor I prepare to work the fields for our first spring crops.
A horse appreciates a whole ear of dried corn, especially when offered by a tiny child (Ruth Carol).
For years we do all our farm work with two teams of horses. Here the big, gentle Belgians, Mollie and Prince, are directed by our first daughter, Marjorie Ann, at age four or five.
In early spring a flowering fruit tree stands in a field of grain that was planted during the preceding fall.
On a fine day spring day during the early years, I gaze with a strong feeling of kinship over the rich, rolling fields. Penns Creek lies in the background.
SUMMER
Peas and vines are fed into the machine hopper and drawn into the viner. Revolving paddles inside a large drum beat the pods until they open. Peas fall into containers; spent vines fall off the far end and will become compost. We try to return to the soil everything usable that springs from the soil.
Helpers George Richard and Richard Nellis haul early crops of peas to the viner by wagon. Pitchforking vines, pods, and all is an arduous job.
Our helper Bill Newby prepares to cultivate rows of corn with Mollie and Prince and the old cultivator.
Cultivating carrots and beets in stony soil is difficult. Here Ab Bojarsky leads a horse between the narrow rows while I manipulate the cultivate.
Our third daughter, Jocelyn, ponders life’s glories.
Our bees, whose attention I divert here with a bellows-type bee-smoker, are never fed sugar. Enough honey is left in the comb to sustain the hive through the winter.
The old log springhouse, once home for an early settler’s family, serves as the family refrigerator for many a year and finally become my hideaway.
At times the road leading to Walnut Acres disappears beneath swollen waters. Because of too little advance warning, the foodstuffs stored on the lower floor of one of our barns are ruined this day under four feet of surging water.
Horses return from the field and take in huge draughts from the old wooden water trough; sheep huddle in the hog-pen shade; chickens peck endlessly, living a natural life close to the soil – all happens under the observing eye of Lenore Keene, our niece.
FALL
In fall the field corn is ready for harvesting. At first we do it all by hand, one ear at a time. Then we get our first corn picker. Tractor drawn, the picker pulls each ear from the stalk and husks it. The elevator carries the husked ears above, then drops them into the truck bed.
I maneuver our McCormick-Deering reaper-binder as it cuts and ties the sheaves of ripened grain.
For many years we make our own apple butter outdoors in a great cauldron, boiling down the cider and apples in the midst of exquisite scents. (Left to right: Paul, Ruth Carol, Marjorie Ann, and our friend Kit Haines)
Fodder for the cattle is hauled from the field along with Marjorie Ann (left) and Ruth Carol, who like to hitch a ride.
In our early days we harvest all vegetables either by hand or with the aid of a simple potato-digging device.
The family enjoys a Sunday afternoon wagon ride around the farm with the cousins. (Left to right: Daddy Morgan, niece Winnie Keene, sister-in-law Elsa Keene, Betty, Ruth Carol, Marjorie Ann, Paul, nephew Jim Keene, and niece Lenore Keene)