Ginny’s recipe is lost to time, but here a moderately close example and link to a more modern blogger version of White Peach jam. CLICK HERE–>
Fly-over the Sunflowers at Maple Lawn Farms
Click on Picture to Watch Drone Fly Over
Full Details:
Maple Lawn Farms Sunflower & Peaches Weekend
Details: The Sunflower Festival is an experience. All guests park at the farm market. Each ticket includes a wagon ride to the field of sunflowers. Guests spend as much time taking pictures, exploring around the field, and reading informational signs as they like. Each ticket includes one ‘stem’ or LIVE cut sunflower.
Parking is FREE.
Pap-pap loved him some Burgundy Peaches
He could pare a peach and keep the skin in a single piece.Pap-pap, as my kids called him, or Grandpa, as me and my sisters called him, was Alfred Spory. Grandma Evelyn and Al were quite a pair and they loved canning peaches. My kids only got to do it a few times before Pap-pap passed away, but what fun times they were.
Apple Rising Event: It really happened!
See the video on Facebook [CLICK HERE] The Apple Countdown starts around the 6min mark.
Maple Lawn Farms – “Peach = Soccer Ball?”
Aunt Sarah & the kids find GIANT peaches and a GIANT Fantasia almost as big as a #1 Soccer Skills Ball.
[CLICK for VIDEO] Farmer Hugh tries to eat 1 of everything last week. Can he do it?
Life on the Farm – Life on the Farm: “Firsts & Lasts”
Hidden Gem Railroad Station nears completion.
Jesse admires his handiwork on the station. The train loads between the Rope Maze & Stone Labyrinth.
Come celebrate with us. We love it when you come over to the farm, so come celebrate with us. This weekend features a number of Lasts & Firsts as Labor Day often does. It is a milestone in the farm year, just as it is, or used to be, in the school year. Here are some for this weekend.
First – Gala Apples are in for their very limited season. The are so sweet and crunchy they are like candy to me. They are the last sweet taste of summer.
First – Macintosh apples are in as well, so you can get a bit of tart with your sweet Galas. Macs are best early in the season, so don’t wait for the rest of the varieties if you like TART.
Last – Peaches and nectarines finish up this weekend in the orchard and Mr. Allen will be moving his gazebo to the apple orchard to serve you better this Fall.
First – Blondee Apples are our newest variety in our newest orchard and we have picked all of the very limited quantity, but you HAVE TO taste them! I predict they will become a Maple Lawn Farms Signature Apple just as many of you know the Smoothee Apples to be.
Last – This is the last weekend WITHOUT Apple Cider Donuts. We are making donuts this Saturday to kick-off the fall season. We’ll have them every weekend from now through November in the farm market.
First – The Amazon Adventure Corn Maze opens to the public! Saturday Sept 5th at 10AM, you can be the first to challenge this year’s adventure and play in the Fun Park.
Last – This year we said good-bye to and rebuilt Perilous Planks, our tilting plank puzzle in the Fun Park into the Step-Over Maze. It’s a challenging puzzler that has you step over the colored planks in order: Red, then White, then Blue in an effort to escape!
First – The Hidden Gem Railroad takes it’s first passengers this weekend! This is a big new attraction for the Fun Park and for train lovers. We had this Trackless Train built special for our farm. It loads at the station between the Rope Maze and the Stone Labyrinth then travels behind the Pedal Karts to a special crop of Sudan Grass.
First – We are FINALLY able to open our new patio area this weekend with stamped concrete, new railings, new tables, chairs and umbrellas for you to enjoy. Grab an ice cream cone and relax on the NEW farm market patio!
So many Firsts and Lasts as the seasons start to change and Fall arrives. The weather is set to cool off a little for the weekend with the sun shining on this little farm in Pennsylvania.
Sure, you might have plans for some of the weekend, but you might want to carve out a little time to bring your family out for some good old fashioned fun.
We’re here for you 🙂
See you on the farm,
Farmer Hugh
Maple Lawn Farms – “Back to school – for grown-ups, too.”
Nectarines & Peaches | Hugh chomps a nectarine |
Back To School for Grown-ups
Farmer Hugh devours a nectarine – fast.
2 Things to Know this Week:
- Freestone Burgundy Peaches & Fantasia Nectarines are PRIME!
- We’re social: Connect for updates on Facebook [CLICK HERE]
Life on the Farm – “Back To School – For Grown-ups, Too.”
This is an interesting time on the farm when you can get peaches, nectarines and apples all at once. This weekend will be an excellent opportunity to fill your freezer, get some great treats for packing school lunches, and sampling the best fruits of the farm.
But, like anything good, there’s a deadline. The next two weekends will be the best picking for stone fruits, then peaches start to taper off and apples start to move to the lead position. You have to get here soon! When the peaches hit their deadline, they are over for a whole year.
That reminds me of “Back to School” timeas the age-old indicator of the relentless change of seasons and the forward march of time. Though Back To School is nearly like Black Friday in the retail world, it’s the change in mindset that always tugs on my emotions; pulls on my brain, calls for change.
Back To School for grown-ups. I think about what I say to my kids as they prep for school, and I’ve realized that it’s good advice for me, too.
- “We do what we have to do, so we can do what we want to do.”
- “Yep, math’s hard, life’s hard, get over it and find a way to win.”
- “Buck-up, buttercup.”
- “You can’t do every activity, so pick the one’s you enjoy the most, then commit to them.”
- “Sometimes you have to work with/be around people you don’t like, but you have to offer them respect and get your work done anyway. ’cause that’s what we do.”
- “Everything is hard until you understand it. Practice, hard work and time are the only things that make stuff easier.”
It’s a cliche for a reason. We all need to go back to school, at least go back to the Back To School mindset. You and I never stop learning; stop discovering. Cliche, but true. If you feel like you have or you feel like you are just “marking time” through life, learning something new is the cure. What do you not know, or wish you knew more about? What interests you or excites you?
I’ve recently really enjoyed our newest farm project (soon to be announced, we hope!) because it carries me out of my daily routine. We are working on new, interesting, though hard, problems. Yes, they are hard, but it’s really rewarding. (Wait, “Everything’s hard until you understand it.” Someone said that recently…) Each day we still learn knew things about fruit trees, peach harvests, Growing Degree Days, nectarine varieties, and filling good CSA boxes. Yep, we don’t know everything about fruit farming yet.
It’s a process. You’ll find that it’s a process as you learn and grow or read or run or get into your child’s 7th grade math or can peaches like Grandma did or make applesauce from scratch or coach soccer.
From task to adventure. Whatever you choose, work to shift your viewpoint from task to adventure. It takes me a hours to run my son to soccer, plan drills, spend the practice time, and commit to game days on the weekend. The flip side is that I have a “FREE” experimental group to learn about motivation in the U13 age group. Each week I try a different tactic to build the team, build up the players, enhance their skills, challenge them to pull together and ultimately succeed.
Each week I ask myself:Did that tactic work? Who responded? Who grew the most? Who rejected the push? Did the team’s mood change?
These and so many questions turn, what could be a dreadful hour and a half sitting in a lawn chair waiting until my son was done practice, into an adventure in which the kids and I get an interactive learning experience.
It all happens with a change in mindset; a willingness to shift your mind into Back To School mode.
So, what do you want to learn this Fall as the season change and as the kids go back to school. What new thing will you learn?
What will be your learning adventure this Fall? How will you go “Back To School”?
See you soon on the farm,
Farmer Hugh
PS Need a farm field trip for your learning adventure? These are the LAST TWO big weekends for peach and nectarine picking. Get here now and fill up your freezer for the winter. Those peaches will look really good come February…