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To the Tower

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I didn’t want any grass to grow under my feet, so as soon as I got settled at the hotel, I prepared for the walk to the Broadway Tower, a curious landmark and the second highest point in the Cotswolds.







Photo by Newton 2, cropped by Yummifruit











I quickly settled in at Lygon Arms which feels welcoming like a sweet, aristocratic ancestor. After all, there has been some kind of hostelry here for 1,000 years. In contrast to many open air, high ceilinged American hotels , the Lygon Arms has cozy, dark nooks and crannies, its floors with dips and stone floors smoothed by centuries of feet. I counted four wood fireplaces set in each sitting area, furnished with comfortable leather chairs,  in conversational groups.





It also features wonderful green squares,  like little parks which are just blooming with delicate blue and yellow flowers.


























My room is situated as an attached cottage on the green, decked out with all the necessary modern conveniences, including–most important to me– a teapot, tea, shortbread cookies and plush robes. It has a sporty, masculine style, with brown tweed and plaid accents, two dog portraits and heavy furniture that looks like it might have belonged to King Charles I. 





I grabbed a cookie and donned my water repellent jacket and pants, just in case.





Before I could take 20 steps outside, I noticed a woman washing off big boots in a boot-washing stand, with sprays and brushes to remove dirt and mud, caked on the soles like thick chocolate icing piled on a cake. She’d just come from a walk to the tower. “Very muddy out there,” she said. “You can get some boots from the hotel reception area.” This was the best advice of the day. I would have slipped into a puddle without those boots.










I’m never afraid to ask my fellow travellers, who offer better on-the-spot tips than any guidebook.





Walking in the mud is fun in Wellies












A receptionist at the reservation desk found boots my size from a collection offered to guests. Pulling on the wellies,as they are called, I felt ready to tackle mountains of mud and prospective rain that is always a factor in England. These solid rubber boots give you the childhood thrill of splashing directly in mud puddles. The receptionist gave me a map and pointed me in the right direction, down High Street, turn left. Off I trudged, window shopping at the art galleries and glitzy country shops (selling Wellington boots as well as walking gear) as I go. Soon there was an opening on the right, lined in 5-foot high hedges. I asked a sweet older woman with a Labrador in the path which way to the Tower.





Oh yes, straight that way, through the kissing gate, go diagonal that way and follow where the grass is tromped down, she said. (I need affirmation; she was friendly and encouraging though I had no idea what a kissing gate was. I have since gone through a few; they provide a way to go through the gate without letting the animals out.)












In minutes, I found myself in the middle of the prettiest landscape, like a John Constable painting. Greens and wheat colors flowed down and up, lined by hedges and stone fences.







These poles mark the Cotswold Way














Sheep–the main source of wealth and wool for the area in the past









Tromping through the mud







View from the top. On clear days you can see all the way to Wales.














I walked a long time, with the hills growing steeper and the sky growing darker. I didn’t see the tower anywhere, no signs either, and no fellow travelers. I breathed deep and kept admiring the pristine landscape. For a tourist spot so prominent, it was totally unspoiled-without a gum wrapper or any trash, allowing unadulterated enjoyment of the land. I could see the village below, so small I could hold it in my hand.





Another walker came by to reassure me. “Yes, it’s up there just about 15 more minutes. It’s situated sort of in a hollow.”





I couldn’t give up! Finally, there were steps that led up to the tower, just as a light rain began to fall. I made it! The tower was all I had wanted to see. Tall, impressive, fun. And I had to turn around quickly as it was getting dark and rainy.












A couple with a husky appeared from the other direction. I asked them to take my picture. I reciprocated. They had been walking four hours from Chipping Camden and wondered where Broadway was. I was able to point them in the right direction and pretty soon we bonded as the rain drizzled. Their names were Suzanne and Eric.











Fellow travellers joined me at the Tower






The couple were the idyllic image; they had just moved to a little cottage in a little village where they worked remotely in wood crafts. Aurora, the husky, was lunging after the sheep, which she wanted to eat. There must have been 20 little lambs cavorting across one field, as the mother sheep baaed in panic.










Rain! I was grateful to come back to the hotel. I told the couple I am so thankful to meet such good, solid company. Suzanne hugged me. They departed for 2 miles further to their village and I went in to the hotel for a shower, dinner and a good sleep.





The walk was really a special accomplishment. Later I found out that the tower is accessible through car, or at least within a few yards on the other side. It has a cafe that sells afternoon tea and Prosecco. For me, having struggled up the hills to the Tower, the commercialization slightly spoiled the lonely image of this limestone oddity in the rain, the design of James Wyatt who built it in 1784 for Lady Coventry. The lady wanted to light the three story tower up for all the people of the Cotswolds to see. And there it still stands for travellers to admire the sheer beauty and folly of it.

			

				

					
				

			
	

	


			
				
				


		

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On my way to the Cotswolds
						

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At Paddington Station in London, feeling lost like Paddington Bear.






After a break for the winter doldrums, I’m relaunching Farm-finds with a trip to the Cotswolds, the heart of the beautiful English countryside. I came to London for a family wedding and figured I would take off a few days to walk a part of the Cotswold Way, a 102-mile walking trail, the main route between Bath and Chipping Camden for the last 500 years. Thousands of hikers tackle the whole trail, which has become one of the most popular in England.





I am just doing segments. My base will be Broadway which couldn’t be further from the NY Broadway. A honey-colored village without neon lights or billboards. I rode the Western Rail line from Paddington station to Moreton-in-Marsh (pronounced Morton and Marsh) for an hour and a half. The names of the villages –Bird Lip, Dursley, Chipping Camden–ring like places plucked from Harry Potter. Getting deeper into the country, I had to catch the bus from Moreton-in-Marsh to Broadway with just two minutes time. We hurtled down the road through tiny villages on roads about as wide as one mini-van.





Connections by public transportation are spotty. The bus driver couldn’t even tell me his schedule for my return trip. Cars rule here, unfortunately, but I was scared to drive on the “wrong side of the road” by myself.





The bus driver was skilled in driving down two-way roads to my destination Broadway, which fits the definition of charming and quaint. Its “fancy” shops feature Wellies and cheerful teacups.  The town museum has a painting exhibit on dogs.





Broadway Tower, a “folly,” is my first destination, a 5-mile walk up and down hills. One of England’s great landscape designers, “Capability Brown,” built it in the middle of his 200 acre-estate in the 1800s.






Broadway Tower sits atop the Cotswold escarpment, looking like it was just dropped in the field from the sky.






Then I’m planning to go by bus to Chipping Camden, another charming town with history and an art galley. I’ll walk 1.5 miles to Hidcote, an arts and crafts-style garden from there.





Finally, I’ll visit the incredibly successful and commercial organic farm, Daylesford, owned by Lady Bamford and her billionaire husband. Lady Bam is very savvy and trendy, the Martha Stewart of the upscale farm scene. On the farm in Daylesford, they grow wonderful organic produce with which they create amazing dishes to sell at their chic cafes in London, at their home base in Daylesford, and at a three-star restaurant in another Cotswold village. They’ve got lots of high-quality, high-priced products, from cutting shears to country inns. Organic, making a profit. How do they do it? I want to find out.





Travelling solo. I couldn’t convince my daughter, son or friends to come along due to conflicting schedules. I travelled all around Europe as a student, but I must admit as a single, older woman, it is a little intimidating. I’m calling on my old adventurous self. I like the idea of going my own way, walking at my own speed, dipping into shops and pubs on a whim. And perhaps as a nod to luxury, I’m staying at a nice hotel, the Lygon Arms, which claims Oliver Cromwell slept here– as well as the Duke of Windsor,  Richard Burton and Liz Taylor and Prince Phillip. Its origins go back to the 1300s when the inn on this spot was known as the White Hart.












But, maybe for me, the extra benefit is the location right on the Cotswold Way.






As the coach road between Bath and Chipping Camden, the Cotswold Way is dotted with pubs and inns every five miles or less. I wanted to come, partly because spring comes a little earlier here than in Maryland and I am tired of winter. Also I have been carrying around memories of a visit years ago, when a group of us came out to stay in a B&B and do some walking.  We were meandering along in these rich velvety green fields when a tumultuous rain soaked us to the bone. We ran across the fields, quickly found a pub, and dried off by the fire with a pint. We were talking and laughing and having the best time.






These signposts serve as guides through the fields






It’s a comfort to know you are always within a few miles of a pub and a pint with the beauty of the  Cotswolds behind you.























	

	


			
				
				


			

		
					
	

		

					
Wreaths for remembrance
						

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On the last Christmas before she died, two years ago, my sister Emma had urged me to go with her to  visit the Moore’s, where we had gotten the best trees and wreaths over the years but I made an excuse—too much to do. Betty had some good stories about our father, Emma said, besides bringing in a bumper crop of Christmas trees from the mountains. 





This season before Christmas, alone at home in Halifax, I was missing the family I’ve lost—my parents, Emma and my dear husband John. That’s occupying too much real estate in the cemetery. 





My sister Anne and I  have been placing wreaths on the graves of our dear lost ones to continue our family tradition.   I remember my grandmother making a wreath for her husband and her parents.  They are all in the graveyard behind St. John’s Church in Halifax, Virginia. The wreaths mark our remembrance, never to forget them in the rush of holiday parties and festivities.  But usually we just order them from the comfort of our homes. 





On the road to wreath country















Partly to get out of the house, and as homage to Emma, I drive out to the Moore’s –six miles through lot of red clay and pines, along the two-lane road, turning right onto a one-lane road into the deep country further through tall cedar trees, down a gravel road where over 200 Fraser Fir had been assembled, awaiting dispatch.   The family works as a team—Jerry, his son and two grandsons out in winter gear, loading and cutting the trees for delivery or for those who drive up from town.












In a covered greenhouse, where tomatoes grow in season, I met Betty Moore and her sister Melinda Lewis making wreaths  with boughs cut from the sold Christmas trees.





The wreath-making operation





Betty is immediately engaging.  She tells me how her father and the older Mr. Moore were hunting buddies.  My father used to keep hunting dogs out here, because he didn’t want my mother to know he had even more than the four or five he kept in pens at the house.  My father loved to come up to their farm to hunt for then-plentiful quail.  They raised baby quail and planted shrubs and grasses to attract the wild ones.In summer, he would buy fresh vegetables from their extensive garden, on over 150 acres.  There’s been a garden here for centuries, since the family got the property through a land grant from the King of England, Betty says. And over in a field to the left, the winter root vegetable, cabbages and kale are thriving.





“We started with vegetables and growing flowers,” she explains.”Jerry and I decided to raise a few tomato plants.  That turned into eight greenhouses.  One day Jerry says we haven’t got anything for the winter.  We got five Christmas trees up in Floyd County.”





The Fraser Fir thrives in the mountains.  It’s the preferred species, Bettty says, because it stays green for the longest time, doesn’t shed, and has tough branches for hanging the heaviest ornaments. “It doesn’t stick you up, either,” she adds.





“People call me.  I need Christ trees this big, this wide.  They never come and look at the tree.”  Tney trust the Moore’s to deliver the perfect tree and put it up.





Betty is laid back as a warm summer day, even though this is their rush hour. It’s warm in the greenhouse, the aroma of fresh pine intoxicating, the talk relaxing. Betty goes on.





On one of those first trips to Floyd County, Betty was entranced with the beautiful wreaths sold at the Christmas tree farm.  Down in the basement, she was introduced to a one-woman  wreath-making operation: one woman turned a metal frame and inserted pine boughs in a circle. Jerry ordered the round metal rings in different sizes and a pump mechanism on the floor which you step on and secure the bunch of pine boughs to the metal frame.





Floyd County wreaths










 At the helm, Melinda takes a long pine branch and clamps it to start the ring.  Then she snaps in the other branches move from there.
























Sometimes customers will ask for special additions.  I brought holly for the three I ordered for the graves of my family, especially for my father, who planted a grove of holly trees in our yard. The holly berries were thick as grapes on the branches.





Garland machine





To add to the wreath-making operation later,  Mr. Akers, the local jeweler in town, gave the Moore’s a garland machine.  I remember Mr. Akers as a kind man who had been injured in the war.  He had a slight limp. As a jeweler he had a lot of fine motor skills and the technical ability to fix watches and tiny jewels.  I never knew he dealt in big Christmas trees, but Betty says he and his family sold  them on Spencer’s Hill during the season, on the main road between Halifax and South Boston. His machine is like a sewing machine for pine boughs. 












Betty, seated at the machine with her foot on the machine’s pedal, points out that you have two strings to be concerned about—one thread that runs through the garland and the wire that holds it together. I order a 6 foot garland for my railing. Pumping her foot as she straightens out the woven boughs, Betty completes my 6 foot garland in 15 minutes. 





 When she puts it in my car, I am embarrassed by a plastic one that I had picked up at a store the previous day that looks pitiful beside the full fir branches. The live evergreens fill the car with the most wonderful fresh pine aroma, way stronger than those candles that purport to emit Fraser Fir.





Once Melinda completes the evergreen wreath, she adds a big bow, redder than a holly berry.  They can loop a perfect bow, in a minute. Betty always does 7 loops for Christmas.  Sometimes the loops are uneven.  That’s just how it comes out, she says.  Each loop she embellishes with good wishes for whomever gets the wreath, she says.





The perfect 7-loop bow
























I think, 7 times 4, 28 good wishes to be laid on the graves.  And I will add more wishes.





These wreaths bring sweet memories of Christmases past. I found out perhaps as a message from Emma, who always took time out to talk to people and learn their stories, this visit is about more than a wreath. It’s about wishes and stories that warm the heart.





Best wishes to you for the holidays!





Here is the wreath I made for my door from Halifax greens and Betty’s bow:










Happy Holidays!






	

	


			
				
				


		

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Shopping self-serve for holidays–going really local in my Baltimore neighborhood
						

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Self-serve pottery: a great way to shop local. 






The other day, distressed over the onset of Christmas commercialism, I was walking my dog Jojo through my neighborhood, when I stumbled upon a tiny shop that has brightened my whole attitude toward the holidays.





It was the tiniest shop, actually a little cupboard, about the size of a small refrigerator, set up on the sidewalk with beautifully crafted cups and vases in speckled vanilla whites and rich sea blues and grass-greens. I eyed a cup with a perfectly round rim, in vanilla white, with brown speckles, sprinkled over it like a friendly freckled face. This is White Hill self-serve pottery, without a lock, on a narrow residential street in Baltimore.





I took two cups and felt like a thief. The sign said you could pay by Venmo, credit card or cash. Without my wallet, I decided I would pay when I got back home. Then I ventured up the steps of the house and met the potter, Alison Hershberger, elbow-deep in wet clay at the potter’s wheel wedged between displays of pottery wares on the front porch of the white frame house. Alison, a fair-haired, fair woman with a broad smile, was welcoming and relaxed in tennis shoes and a simple green dress covered in a sweatshirt.





No worries, Allison said.










“It’s always been very low key, “ says Alison.  “It started out as a hobby. I never set out to have to make money. In that state, it has really boomed.” All out of her house, from making the cups, baking in a kiln on the back porch, glazing, selling from the tiny shop and mailing online orders out. She has a computer to spit out labels and a postal service ap to assess and pay for postage. 





It’s the epitome of going local.










The self serve idea, rooted in an honor system and good work, is working for an increasing number of homegrown enterprises around the country, although Alison notes people of her Mennonite faith have done it for years, selling soap, fruit and other homemade products. The homespun trend, however, is enabled and magnified by technology, such as Venmo, postal service aps and Facebook.





Her initial qualms about opening her yard to customers died down as she met curious neighbors and appreciative patrons.  “The longer I lived here I felt safe. The honor system usually makes people rise to the challenge.”










One person paid $10 for a $22 cup, and four or five pieces disappeared.  But otherwise, it is scandal-free and most convenient for her customers and for her schedule of community work and parenting.





 When she first moved to Baltimore, from the rolling hills of Stuarts Draft, located about nine miles from Staunton, Virginia, this endeavor was way down the priority list. “I was already addicted to the potting, but I wasn’t sure if it was going to work.” Her five children ranged in age from 19 months to ten years old.





Her husband Darrell, who is now head of a school in Hampden, had signed them both up for classes at Blue Ridge Community College only to discover Alison was more gifted in making pots than he. He now designs glazes while she has become the artisan, throwing herself into making perfect pots, plates, bowls and pitchers of all shapes and sizes.





“To turn aside and create something that really benefited my mothering, I always get involved intensely in social situations and in the community. Pottery is a delight to turn aside to.”





In the process, Alison has perfected her designs, including a slight turned-out lip in the coffee mug for the best drinking and strongly joined handles for old-fashioned cups that are easy to grip. A commission for a café in New York City called for over 200 cups, But she prefers making her own practical wares on her own time schedule, when her children are at school.






This is my perfect cup for tea.  You can see the bottom and it has a sturdy handle.






Her signature color is subtle white with brown specks, which sells the best. She may sell online, in craft shows, as well as from self-serve to neighbors, family, coffee drinkers and random customers. “A lot of dog walkers,” she adds, nodding to me, a convert to this easy transaction.





 For the next December weekends, she will be bringing her cups and bowls to Waverly Market in Baltimore. at 32nd and Barclay Street. You can also order online.
















	

	


			
				
				


			

					
Baltimore Orchard Project celebrates a new mural and apple harvest
						

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Artist Teresa Hammann at work on the mural she created for the Baltimore Orchard Project





by Jonathan Simpson





Guest writer





The Baltimore Orchard Project (BOP) celebrate a unique new mural  that was painted on the road near the BOP orchard in the city’s Druid Hill Park.  The artist is  Teresa Hammann, a graduate of Maryland Institute College of Art, who painted the scene this summer.  The mural features sunflowers, trees with pears and other fruits, a Baltimore oriole and a block tagged with Baltimore Orchard Project.





While Hammann is the main artist, she took suggestions from  bystanders on what to include in the mural itself. So it feels like not only her work  but the work of the community as well. “As people were walking by, they would say, “you should add this’, or ‘you should add that,’” Hammann recalled.





So, it isn’t just Hammann’s creation, but it is also the community that was involved in a way. On Sunday, October 22,  Hammann opened the mural up to let the community will “help finish the work”, by adding more flowers and details using stencils, said Forest Fleischer, co-president of the Baltimore Orchard Project.





The mural at Druid Hill Park, on Red Road near the soccer field and adjoining the community garden, was celebrated There were tool sharpening classes, apples, cider-making in addition to the mural work.





The event is one of many BOP projects to find and promote sources of healthy food in the city. Healthy food is a necessity for all, the project states, but not everyone gets to access it, especially people in poor communities where food deserts are common, and the people there don’t always have the knowledge or resources to grow their own food. The Baltimore Orchard Project, which began in 2012,  is doing its part to help change the food disparities in Baltimore City,  with a group of members dedicated to education and finding economical sources of food to share. In September members harvested 709 pounds of apples from an orchard located on the grounds of Baltimore Country Club to share with those in need.





“We educate people of the existing fruit trees and orchards in the city. We also look to expand on those fruit trees. So, if people already have an orchard, they want to add more or maybe they want to establish one on their own on their own, and we’ll help them do that,” said  Fleischer.





Fleischer, who grew up on a farm in Carroll County,  found BOP offered her the opportunity  “to experience more nature and the outdoors part of Baltimore, and that’s really helped me to get involved here,” she added. “We are in this green space and even though our focus is fruit trees,  it is still important to add to the green spaces in Baltimore.” 







Cider-making at Druid Hill





Adding final touches to the mural







It helps that the project is located in Druid Hill Park, the 745-acre park developed by Frederick Olmstead, the creator of Central Park.  In a grassy plain, the group holds meetings and events ranging from how to take better care of garden tools to tree planting.





The orchard features beautiful fruit trees, which the group planted two years ago. The trees are beginning to bear fruit, including apples, berries,  and pears.






A view of the fruit trees at Druid Hill   (photo by Jonathan Simpson)






 Fenced off near those trees is a flourishing community garden where urban dwellers can plant fruit and vegetables. It’s quite a sight to see and if you keep on walking around the campus there are various fields for soccer, baseball, and  tennis with a tennis court right across from the park headquarters building.     It’s a great place to take a walk, sit and walk by the fruit trees or play sports nearby.             












Note:  I’m honored to have been named a board member for Baltimore Orchard Project recently. I think it’s a great cause; I’m really into more trees and more nature, especially in areas that haven’t been served in the city.





I’ll be helping with the apple cider press Sunday for the “InCider” event which reminds me of cool fall days growing up when we gathered all the apples that had fallen on the ground in baskets.  We’d  wash them in a big tin tub, then throw a mix of  red and green apples into the mill, along with a few yellow jackets, to produce this amazing aromatic golden drink.





It’ll be fun and delicious at the park so come Sunday if you are anywhere nearby.





Lavinia