Fleur-de-Mushroom

 I feel like a mushroom. Rooted. Sheltered. Safe.

I found a job. Or, better put, it found me.

In a college town where student interns and green, social-networking savvy graduates seem to have a corner on the job market, a lawyer-turned-roofing-contractor decided to give a graying farmer-without-a-farm a break. (Family connections didn’t hurt either. Thanks, Pam.)  I dug in my heels for a fight – what do I know about roofs or construction? – until I saw the company has built a few “green roofs.” I thought, maybe, just maybe, it might work out.  (Green roofs are plantings of sedums, herbs, and grasses in a shallow medium on top of a roof to improve the building’s storm water management and energy efficiency.)

It’s a job. It allows me to keep my mother living in her home and my son taking college classes, and maybe, it will even cover ER expenses if there’s a Bicycle Crash No. 2. It’s so different from my life for the past 20-some years, but that doesn’t mean it is bad.

Just call me Excel Laurie.

I’m learning about Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, work orders, and invoices. Sometimes, the numbers even become musical as I scan for checks and dates: four-fifty-four twenty-three, one-five four-four-four, eight-five-eleven, on and on in a sing-songy sort of way.

During my first days of work, I was deep into Cara Black’s “Murder on the Ile Saint-Louis”, one of a bagful of books I bought at the Louisa Gonser Library back-room sale last time I was in Kutztown. It’s one of my favorite shopping places … but more on that later.

Black’s murder mysteries take place in various neighborhoods in Paris, and they’re heavy on the flavor of my favorite city, with a good dose of intrigue, but light on graphic blood-and-gore details. Just my kind of book. “M on the IS-L” took me into the abandoned quarries and sewers beneath Paris, and then threw in a tidbit on mushroom farming in these underground tunnels that made me hungry for more.

So to Google I did go. It turns out the Romans were the first to begin quarrying limestone and gypsum in what is now France, creating aqueducts, bridges, coliseums and such. By 1813, there were 170 miles of quarry tunnels under Paris. It was in that year that quarrying under the city was banned to prevent all those Baroque and Empire limestone buildings from toppling into the hollowed out underground. Some old quarries were consecrated as burials ground -- by 1860 bones of six million people lined the catacombs. Other abandoned quarries supported underground agriculture. Here, out-of-work quarrymen became 19^th century urban farmers, raising mushrooms and endive in these dimly lit underground tunnels.

The air temperature, humidity, and absence of light in the old quarry tunnels created a perfect growing environment for Agaricus bisporus (aka “les champignons de Paris” or what we call button mushrooms or baby Portobellos).  Enterprising Frenchmen carted down loads of horse manure into the tunnels, formed long raised beds, and planted wafers containing mushroom spores. They would use the raised beds for five mushroom crops, and then the compost would be gathered, hauled to street level, and sold to market gardeners. In the 19^th century, these Parisian underground farmers harvested 2,000 tons of mushrooms a year. As demand grew and production was constrained by the quarry tunnels, many mushroom farms were moved to caves on the outskirts of Paris, although some remained into the 1960s.

The more I read, the more I drew parallels to my work environment. I sit in a cave-like section of a building, with no windows, staring at a computer monitor. A far cry from the fields of Fleur-de-Lys. The day the earthquake shook the Eastern Seaboard I was motionless, like a fungus rooted to the forest floor, surrounded by stacks of paperwork bound for the dark bowels of the office Dell.  In my former life, I used to smell the rain coming, not to mention slosh around in it. Now when it rains, I often don’t know until I hop on a wet bicycle seat for the ride home.

But I count my blessings.  As it turns out, every farmer I’ve talked to says this growing season has been the worst in memory – too much rain, too much heat, too much rain, rain, rain.

Guess what? Rain is good for the roofing business. The phone calls are non-stop. The work orders pile up.  Even in a bad economy, “Everyone needs a roof over their head.” Even mushrooms.  Laurie Lynch

Melancholy/Or Not Mushroom Soup

(Serves 6)

1 lb. mushrooms, chopped

2 cloves garlic, chopped

6 shallots, chopped

3 Tbsp. butter

Salt and paprika to taste

3 Tbsp. flour

4 cups broth or water

½ cup plain yogurt

Brown mushrooms, garlic and onion in butter. Stir in salt, paprika, and flour. Add half the liquid. Stir until thick and smooth. Blend in remaining liquid and heat to boiling. Divide yogurt equally in soup bowls, and pour mushroom soup over it.

Rotary Relatives: Of the 70-some employees at the roofing company, I am one of three women. I was eating lunch alone on the first day when woman No. 2 sat down.

No. 2: My son started Penn State classes this week.

Me: So did mine.

No. 2: Well, actually he started this summer.

Me: So did mine!

No. 2: Well, mine took a year off between high school and college.

Me: So did mine!!

No. 2: Mine was in Brazil as a Rotary Exchange Student.

Me: So was mine!!!!!!!!!

Turns out No. 2 hosted Richard’s Rotary sister from Brazil – we’re Rotary-Related, so to speak. I took it as a good sign, and a large, cruel world became very small.

Kindle Kin: My sister Lee Ann (No. 3 of 5) was showing me her Kindle a few weeks ago.  There is a certain allure … but I’m staying true to my Saturday morning forays into Louisa Gonser Library’s back room (and Schlow Memorial Library in State College). In the back room of LGL, I’ve found so many cheap delights, and an added bonus. I’ve begun a collection of bookmarks left behind in recycled books. One has the word “library” printed in more than a dozen languages – from Arabic and Vietnamese to Malay, Nigerian, Tagalog, Portuguese, and French. Then, there’s a 1903-2003 100 Years of Flight timeline, a bookmark commemorating a 1987 exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art of Chinese tomb figures, and my current favorite, a laminated original work of art signed by “Humberto A”, an indigenous Mexican artist at the Vamos! Project through Casa Romero. It is painted on the fragile bark of the amate tree! And, the message includes an email address for anyone who wants more info: coleman@cuer.laneta.apc.org.

Pasta Squared:  I’m hooked on hand-made pasta from a cute little shop in town called Fasta & Ravioli Company. Remember the beans and potatoes and tomatoes that we grew at Fleur-de-Lys Farm – colors of the rainbow? Well, Fasta has piles of fresh pasta in colors of the rainbow that melt in your mouth. But, bookworm that I am, during my first visit to the store I was sidetracked by a book behind the counter: “The Geometry of Pasta.”

Pumpkins Cubed: My friend Emelie was our first visitor from “home”. She came up to see her son, a freshman at PSU and member of the PSU Pep Band that plays at volleyball games. She brought house-warming pumpkins: an orange jack-o’-lantern, a huge white squash called Polar Bear, and the gorgeous tan and green and orange “Rascal” pumpkin pictured above.

Written on Slate: To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable; and wealthy, not rich; to study hard, think quietly, act frankly … to listen to stars and buds, to babes and sages, with open heart; await occasions, hurry never … this is my symphony. – William Henry Channing

Fleur-de-MustardMagic

A few weeks ago I got an email with the following subject line: APD Volunteers Needed!

I was scratching my head. Anyone who has spent time in Kutztown knows that APD is the Airport Diner – the only all-night eatery in that corner of Berks County. (I never could understand why the Airport Diner was referred to as the APD and not just the AD … but then I’m not Kutztown-born.) But when the kids and exchange kids thought they were old enough to go carousing at night without telling Momma, the APD was on my rounds, yes, in my pajamas, to check that they were safe.

The email was puzzling, though, because it had Centre County origins. Turns out that APD in these parts means Ag Progress Days.  So last week, I volunteered at Penn State’s Russell E. Larson Agricultural Research Center at Rock Springs, location of APD, for PASA (Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture), PCO (Pennsylvania Certified Organic), Penn State Pesticide Education, and Penn State Potatoes. Lots of Ps.

I was in my element, rubbing calloused elbows with farmers and gardeners, chatting about pollinators, and sipping on Pennsylvania maple milkshakes. I was supposed to be there as a volunteer to teach and explain, but as often happens, I finished the three days with a learning high.

At the Penn State Potato plot, I learned about a wonderfully simple technique that I have to share with all of you gardeners out there. I’ve grown cover crops and I’ve tried to steer clear of fungicides (chemicals used to reduce fungal diseases), but it wasn’t until last week that I learned about biofumigants – plants that naturally fumigate the soil, suppressing harmful nematodes and diseases.

In the last several years, potato experts in Maine, Michigan and good old Penn State have been studying the effects of growing a mustard seed mix the year before planting potatoes, and they’ve found that when chopped up and mixed into the soil, mustard greens release gases that can suppress harmful nematodes, insects, weeds, bacteria and fungi in the soil. And, at the same time, mustards serve as a green manure, enriching the soil with nitrogen and thus improving potato yield by as much as 8 percent.

It turns out that the disease suppression of Oriental mustards or Brassicas is associated with the amount of glucosinolates in the tissue of the plants. (These are also the compounds which create the hot taste of mustard). Mustards are native to the Mediterranean and were domesticated about 4,000 years ago as a source of oil, spice, and medicines. Today, researchers using these mustard seed mixes are finding that the naturally occurring biofumigant properties of mustard are only part of the story.  Mustards also improve soil structure and fertility, reduce erosion, stimulate growth of beneficial microbes, draw in dozens of bees and butterflies, and, for you poets out there, they’re beautiful!

If you have an area in your garden that you are having trouble with, or were planning to let go fallow for a season, this is where you plant your mustard cover crop. Penn State plants it after a wheat rotation, cuts it just after Ag Progress Days, turns it into the soil, and then plants potatoes in that spot the following spring. I also think it would be a great cover crop after harvesting garlic in early July. It could also be grown in the fall, but I think we’ve missed the planting window for this year.

1. So, for next year, order Caliente199 from Rupp Vegetable Seeds or anywhere else you can find it. Caliente 199 mustard seed mix produces the highest amount of biofumigant gas when chopped.  (3 oz. seed packet covers about 850 square feet.)

2. The tiny seeds germinate rapidly, in 5 to 10 days after planting, and will germinate in soil temperatures as low as 40 degrees. In four to five weeks the plants will completely cover the ground, and soon will produce flower buds, with yellow flowers bursting forth a week later.

3. At maturity, the plants will be three to four feet tall, with deep taproots.

4. The biofumigation properties of mustard residues are highest if plants are mowed or cut into small pieces and rototilled into moist soil around the time of full flowering.

5. Smile, knowing you did something good for your soil, your garden, and the planet. And give a nod to Mother Nature, who, it seems, thought of everything.

Here's to your field of dreams! Laurie Lynch

Fleur-de-Landmark

Somewhere in my adulthood I began taking notice of personal landmarks. There was the magnificent gingko South of Broad in Charleston, SC, and the causeway to Sullivan’s Island. In Pennsylvania, the landmark was a section of undulating fields cutting into the bare Maxatawny sky. And, although this is the third time I’ve lived in State College, this is the first time I’ve adopted a personal landmark here: Mount Nittany.

To me, a personal landmark is a place that changes from hour to hour, day after day, season to season, yet remains a constant presence. I always thought, “That would make a great calendar – 365 views of the same tree/marsh/field.” And then I’d quickly tell myself, “Anyone else would think it boring – 365 photographs of the same landscape.”

Mount Nittany seems like a no-brainer, but every other time I’ve been in Happy Valley, the symbolic mountain has simply been background scenery. This time around, every morning I take a bike ride and sit on the Slab Cabin Run bikeway bench that faces the backside of Mount Nittany, I feel centered.

So I have adopted the Mount of Princess Nita-nee, but I’m such a latecomer. The Algonquian Indians named the mountain Nit-a-nee, meaning “single mountain”. By the 1700s, colonial settlers were using the slight variation, Nittany Mountain, and in 1903, folklorist Henry Shoemaker wrote a tale of Princess Nita-nee, who the story led her tribe to the safe haven of the Nittany Valley. When she died, the mountain rose from her grave. (However, from my vantage point, not the Beaver Stadium view, I swear Princess Nita-nee is carrying a little papoose on her back … perhaps fuel for another tall tale.)

Fifty years or so after Penn State was founded, the Nittany Lion mascot arrived on the scene and soon the story of Princess Nita-nee included an Indian brave named Lion’s Paw (gimme a break!).  In 1945, when the owner of the mountain was preparing to sell the land, alumni with the Lion’s Paw Senior Society took an option to buy Mount Nittany. By 1981, the society formed the Mount Nittany Conservancy to preserve the pristine beauty of the fair mountain maiden.

To me, the beauty of a personal landmark remains the paradox of ever-changing consistency. One morning, Mount Nittany appears to float on a golden shimmering lake, surrounded by an ice flow. The next, she is wrapped in an apron of fog as the sun burns through the dawn. Another morning, she sits blue and heavy, in a steaming cauldron of clouds. Just the other morning, the entire mountain was erased by mist into a chalky nothingness.  Then, on a clear and cloudless morning, I hear a slightly familiar “whoosh, whoosh” as I pedal up the bike path hill -- a hot-air balloon hovering over my shoulder. A downhill plunge and I whiz ahead. When I arrive at “my bench” I sit and watch as the balloon, colored with a Lego pattern in green and yellow and violet and blue, lowers over Lemont. Then flames lick and spit, sending the balloon straight up over Mount Nittany. Picture perfect. Laurie Lynch

Good Eggs: Well, I admit it. After 14 years of having “farm-fresh eggs”, the Egg Lady got a little jaded with the orange yolks and substantial whites, and sometimes thought customers eggsaggerated about the quality of our hens’ eggs. Now that I’m a consumer and not a producer … well, I haven’t seen a good egg since. It will take time to track some down, but I will. The supermarket brown-Organic-Cage-Free-Omega-this-and-that eggs are pale by comparison.

Name Game: No longer the Egg Lady, I’ve been thinking of a new moniker. Bike Lady had possibilities until Crash Lady appeared. Then, an old buddy from Philly emailed. “Yo, Fleur,” his message started. I sat there and said, “I like it!”  It makes me feel like a schoolgirl at Harry Potter’s Hogwarts and proves that Fleur-de-Lys is not a farm, it is a state of mind.

Caring and Sharing: A certain nephew of mine called his mom, quite concerned, about AL No. 1 (that’s my niece/nephew nickname). There are five of us Ls – Laurie, Lisa, Lee Ann, Larissa, and Leslie – and I, being the oldest, was named Aunt L No. 1. “She really should carry a cell phone on her bike rides,” he said. Well, AL No. 1 wasn’t born yesterday and after her first trip to ER figured that out too. And, at the risk of totally embarrassing NL No. 1, I’ll share with you all that I now carry a cell phone close to my heart on all bike outings … that’s why God gave women cleavages!

Good Eats: Chef Wille, another nephew, offered to make dinner the other night. For those of you with late summer beach plans (or a good seafood store nearby), here is a novel way to celebrate those lovely cherry tomatoes that are weighing down your garden plants.

Wille’s Drunken Mussels

Saute sliced Vidalia onions in a large frying pan. Scrub, de-beard (if they haven’t been cleaned already) and rinse a pound or two of fresh mussels.  Remove any mussels that are open and do not close when you press on them. Toss cleaned mussels into the bed of onions with a nob of butter, a couple handsful of cherry tomatoes (Wille used Sungold, a nice color contrast with the black shells), and a splash of beer. On a medium-hot burner, cover pan and steam until mussels pop open (3 to 5 minutes). Ladle mussels, onions, tomatoes and broth in individual bowls, accompanied with slices of toasted whole grain bread to sop up the delicious broth. (Be sure to place several empty bowls on the table for the shells.) Mmmmmmmussels.

Fleur-de-Planted

In the past week or so, many of you have encouraged me to bloom where I’m planted. I don’t think any of you meant face first.

I blame it on the ghost in the machine, but some of you can write comments on the blog and others cannot, and so you send emails. Either way, I’m glad you are staying in touch. I just wish I could make it easier for you but I haven’t been able to figure out the details of blogdom.

When I moved to State College, I decided it was important for me to take the time to do something for ME … and my knee. Since my knee surgery in January, I’ve been a little stiff and arthritic. I decided bicycling would get me out and about, and stretch any of the kinks in my joints. And, we have wonderful bike paths around town.

The one closest to my mother’s house connects to Slab Cabin Creek Park where, during the winter, there is a tobogganing hill and marshmallow roasting fire pit. I started out with short excursions, early in the morning.  Unlike other summers when I would make elderberry or blackberry jelly at the farm, this summer I’m making jelly legs, thanks to all the hills on the bike path.

Then came Sunday. It was a glorious morning. I stashed a camera in my knapsack and was headed to my favorite bikeway bench with a stunning view of Mount Nittany. I coasted down the first hill and then noticed my watch was upside down. I reached over to fix it … and next I knew I dove into the asphalt, face first.

The only pain I felt was that of embarrassment. I didn’t want anyone to see me. So I stood up, retrieved my water bottle, lifted up my bike and pushed it home. I was bleeding, from my cheek to my knee, but my lips were the worst. In a matter of minutes, I looked like a poster child for Botox Gone Bad. My brain was working in slow-mo – "Ice pack," it told me. So I held one to my mouth and drove to Mount Nittany ER.

For the first half hour, a couple dozen nurses and aids quizzed me on the details of my accident: I was riding a bike. Yes, I was wearing a helmet. I tried to adjust my watch and crashed.  Two hours later, X-rays showed a cracked cheekbone A follow-up the next day in the dentist’s office yielded good news – teeth and roots are OK, a little bruised, but OK. If this only happens once every 57 years, I can take it. Yes, I was wearing a helmet. On the ER pain scale of 1 to 10, I gave myself a 4. The only question that stirred a little concern came from a rotund RN who asked, “Were you riding a stationary bike?”

Too many years ago, a fellow told me he knew why I became a swimmer: “You’re the clumsiest thing on two feet.” Now I can add, “Two wheels,” but honest, what do you take me for? It was a regular mountain bike with spinning tires, annoying seat, the whole nine yards … not a stationary bike.

I am a novice bicyclist and still grind my way through the handlebar gears, but my problem was not bicycling; it was multi-tasking. So I’ve made a pact with myself: No more multi-tasking while biking. Sure, I can breathe, and think, and wipe the Neosporin-laced sweat off my chin, and occasionally break into song, but that’s it. When I’m biking, I’m biking. And, in the meantime, I’m healing. With a gentle pat on the arm, and somewhat gentle words: "Your face is really a mess, but it will be OK," Mother Marie is taking care of me. Laurie Lynch

As Promised: Oh the shame! Called out in the Fleur-de-Lys blog! Argh! Sorry I didn't get this to you sooner ...

Garlic Ice Cream, Kutztown Style

2 cups of cream*

2 cups of whole milk

1-2 cloves garlic, crushed

1 cup sugar

1 T honey

1 T vanilla

In a saucepan, mix together the cream, milk, and crushed garlic. Heat well, but do not allow to boil. Remove from heat and stir in sugar. Allow to cool. Add honey and vanilla. Refrigerate until thoroughly chilled. Stir, freeze, and enjoy!

*We use cream from Jersey Hollow Farm in Kutztown -- it's so thick you can turn the jar upside down and the cream stays put! Also, the milk we use is the top of the raw milk, so it's basically light cream. Call it what you like. Lisa

Slow Food, Soft Food:  Monday morning, battered face and all, I had commitments in Allentown. I went into the Master Gardener office wearing a surgical mask to hide my bruises and swelling but Dear Diane said the mask was scarier than my face, so I continued the day au naturel. I had a half dozen errands and ended up at dinner with two friends. They knew about my road burn accident and figured I couldn’t open my mouth wide enough for a veggie burrito and probably didn’t want to be seen in a restaurant. So, we “ate in” and they made an assortment of “soft food” – tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil salad, hummus, and something called “Skillet Squash Sandwiches” minus the sandwiches:

Saute one or two each sweet onion and summer squash/zucchini in olive oil. Add 1-2 tablespoons red wine vinegar and chopped or dried tomatoes.  Saute until vegetables are the way you like them. Sprinkle with mozzarella cheese. In separate bowl, mix 1/4 cup mayonnaise, 3 cloves crushed garlic, amd 8-10 chopped basil leaves. Serve sautéed vegetables and place a dollop of mayo mixture with each healing helping.

Local Food, Famous Food: The other day nephew and culinary-nutrition graduate Wille took the bus from Providence RI into NYC to sample Watermelon Gazpacho and peruse menus of his favorite restaurants. Chef Thomas Keller (The French Laundry on the West Coast and Per Se on the East Coast) listed on his menu: “Salad of Eckerton Hill Farm Cherry Tomatoes” (Tim Stark’s place near Lenhartsville). Cool beans!

Written on Slate: "When I go biking, I repeat a mantra of the day's sensations:  bright sun, blue sky, warm breeze, blue jay's call, ice melting and so on.  This helps me transcend the traffic, ignore the clamorings of work, leave all the mind theaters behind and focus on nature instead.  I still must abide by the rules of the road, of biking, of gravity. But I am mentally far away from civilization. The world is breaking someone else's heart."  -- Diane Ackerman


Fleur-de-EatDrinkStink

Last week, after pulling garlic from the field at Fleur-de-Lys and nestling the harvest in the bed of my pickup truck, I had a vague plan – very vague. I had 13 bins brimming with 13 varieties of heirloom garlic, each carefully labeled. Then the rains came. Luckily, a friend’s carport sheltered us (the garlic and me) from the first storm. The same friend convinced me to place each label in a plastic Ziploc – to avoid losing years of careful nurturing and monitoring by preventing the names from bleeding into unreadable ink spots – and helped me tuck everyone (the 13 garlic families) under a heavy-duty tarp.

I was barely out of Berks County when the downpour came, windshield wipers slapping from the Susquehanna to the Juniata, and then up over the Seven Mountains to Happy Valley. I backed into the “cart shed” with my precious cargo and recruited my son Richard and sister Leslie to help me unload.

I grew up just behind the second tee at Centre Hills Country Club, in the house where my mother still lives. This location created a youthful enterprise – Sugar and Spice Stables – where my four sisters and I rented spaces for golfers to store their golf carts. We bought our first pair of llamas, Paco and Suzette, with the proceeds. My mother still rents spaces for three golf carts and, after several generations, has one llama left (Belladona).

My vague plan was to somehow hang the garlic from the cart shed rafters … but serendipity prevailed. There, amongst the boxes of my life in storage, I spotted my antique shoe drying rack. My Italian grandfather, Abele, came to Pennsylvania from the Old Country with few belongings and a trade that served him well over the years – he was a cobbler and shoemaker. For years at 440 Hottenstein, this rustic wooden rack was used as a telephone shelf and storage place for my endless piles of paper. There it was, empty. The perfect place to cure my garlic – plenty of air circulation and racks for stacking the labeled garlic bins, and a few knobs to drape tied bunches of special garlic. Somehow it seemed especially fitting that the “roots” of my garlic found a home on a shoe drying rack amongst all of my earthly possessions.

Settling in has been a smooth adjustment. Our tomatoes and peppers and shallots look great, but the garden is overrun with brazen groundhogs and voracious bunnies who mowed down the green and purple beans, zucchini, yellow squash, and Poona Kheera cucumbers. I brought pots of chocolate mint and a Fleur-de-Lys fig, and spent a morning repotting Mother’s Day gift plants of avocado, guava, and Meyer lemon. (More on the tropical leanings of Fleur-de-Lys Central in a future blog.)

My mother loves having company and running errands to interact with people, even if she gets a bit perturbed with her eldest daughter. And vice versa.  She absolutely deplores my Fleur-de-Lys fashion, or lack thereof, and her favorite questions about my attire are: “Aren’t you going to change?” and “Are you going to wear stockings?”  It’s like I’m 15 all over again.

So, we stop at the neighborhood bank, and no, I didn’t change, and I wasn’t wearing stockings.  We walk up to the bank manager (“the handsome one,” she always points out) and my mother has already complimented him on his tie (as she does on every visit). He takes one look at me and says, “Eat, Drink, Stink?” Well, yes, it has been 90+ and humid as a rainforest but … then I look down at my chest. I’m wearing an Easton Garlic Festival T-shirt emblazoned with the motto: Eat, Drink, Stink.

I mumble something about being a farmer without a farm, with a shed full of garlic, drivel, drivel, and his eyes light up. “I love garlic!” I asked if he grows it or just eats it – only the latter. I asked him where his ancestors were from. “Italy, of course.” And I told him I’d be back with a gift.

A few days later I bundled up and labeled some soft-neck Chet’s Italian Red and some gorgeous hard-neck German White, stuck them in a paper bag and we were off on a road trip to the bank.  The conversation in the car went something like this:

 “Why are you taking garlic to the bank?”

I retell the T-shirt story.

“He’s so handsome. Are you flirting with him?”

“Mothhhhhherrrrr, he’s married.”

“How do you know?”

“Because every time you compliment him on his tie he says that either his wife or his daughter bought it for him.”

“Well, he is cute but I don’t know why you’re bringing him garlic.”

“I’m bringing it to him and all of the bank tellers because they like garlic.”

“Well, it looks kind of messy with those stalks sticking out of the bag.”

“I thought it was a good way to show them how garlic grows.”

“He is really handsome. Do you think he’s married?”

Ah, life at Fleur-de-Lys Central, where I’m just spreading the holy grail of garlic, one bank at a time. Laurie Lynch

Good Eat: Once there was the Egg Lady, now there is the Chicken Wing Man! Richard won the Hartranft Hall Chicken Wing Eating Contest the other night. Magic number? 32. While we were moving, Richard took one look at me: sweaty brow, pitted out T-shirt, etc., and said he knew where his sweat genes came from …  I’ve never eaten “Wings” – too boney for me -- so I can’t take any of the credit for his culinary appetite genes.

Good Drink: I’m still waiting for my buddy Lisa to send me her recipe for Garlic Ice Cream … but until then, I’ll share this cooling tip I borrowed from the Dynasty Restaurant in Tiburon, CA, when Richard and I visited my mother’s dear friend and college roommate Trig. The waiter carried a water pitcher that was stuffed with mint leaves and then filled with ice water. So refreshing.  I’m doing the same (in an old juice bottle), filling it with chocolate mint leaves and adding water to keep in the frig. Give it a try.

Good Read: “The Novel” by James Michener. Made the easing out of Berks County and the Lehigh Valley a little less abrupt and less painful.

Good Escape: To get away from the stifling heat my mother, sister Larissa and I went to see “Midnight in Paris.” Yeah, I loved it, and I bet you will too. Great scenes of a beautiful city and fabulous concept for fellow bookworms.

Fleur-de-Farewell

Well, this hasn’t been the easiest newsletter to write.

Do I talk about the Jim Tammen lilies blooming in the cutting garden or the New Dawn roses framing  the front porch as I said good-bye? Or, do I reminisce about Libby and Fleurry in their new home just outside of Stony Run or the six hens that left on New Year’s Day to live on another hill on Hottenstein?  Or, do I get down to the nitty-gritty of packing 20-plus years of memories (14 at 440 Hottenstein Road) onto a 20-foot U-Haul truck that I was scared as hell to drive?

OK, I’ll write about the truck.

My neighbor Beverly set me up with a brand-new (2,000 miles) automatic monster with air conditioning and airbags. My neighbor Gayle, who drives her Eagle Point Farm Market box truck from Leola to Trexlertown like it’s a VW Bug, said simply: “Use the mirrors.” And when fear and trepidation set in (i.e. backing out of the steeply sloped driveway with less than an inch to spare), I let  a certain 6-foot-6 19 year old hop into the driver's seat. But actually, as a recent veteran of the Kutztown-to-State-College-and-back-again run, I can look back and say, “It was a breeze” and recommend it to any of you. Sure, there was a gnawing cramp from my right bicep across my shoulders and neck to the left bicep from gripping the steering wheel like it was going to roll out the window, but as the miles flew by I passed a few slowpokes, pulled up to a gas pump (twice), made it up the Seven Mountains by downshifting, and, I used the mirrors … as well as my excellent co-pilot Richard.

The packing went really well. Dina supplied a bunch of bicycle boxes for the odd-shaped, over-sized items and Vanessa carefully wrapped and stashed all of those necessities you use up to the last minute and then have to pack. We even found two foam rubber panels to protect the glass Hoosier doors – and remembered that our daughters (Abby and Marina) used them to dress up as matching dominoes one Halloween many years ago. Richard, Celso (our former Brasilian Rotary exchange student, KU graduate, and soon-to-be executive assistant for a national recycling firm), and farmer Steve and his crew, Blake, Sam and Caleb, added muscle to the move.

Nick the Cat is the original mellow yellow, so he was unfazed by the process. Magoo the Bouvier, a completely different story. In the weeks before the move, as each room became a maze of boxes, he was unsettled. As the boxes began disappearing, he began piling up his toys on the couch so he could keep track of them. And every once in a while he’d give me a jab with his big, black rubbery nose as if saying, “Hey, forget all the work, let’s go play with the Frisbee.” But the most poignant moment was when he took a giant leap into the back of the U-Haul, and tears came to my eyes knowing I couldn’t take him, and all of you, with me. Laurie Lynch

Fleur-de-Lys Central: The only thing that hasn’t changed is my email address: fleur.de.lys_farm@mac.com. My new mailing address is P.O. Box 842, State College, PA 16801. I’m living with my mother at 101 Timber Lane, State College. Home phone: (814) 238-1774. Please keep in touch.

Too Small Most Agreeable Town: While Marina was visiting in early June we were shopping in a local drug store and bought a copy of a bridal magazine. Then, just the other day, there was a knock on the door at 440 Hottenstein asking if congratulations were in order. The answer is “no” and “NO”.  The magazine was a gift for Ziggy’s (Marina’s boyfriend) mother.

Written on Slate: I am still determined to be cheerful and happy in whatever situation I may be, for I have also learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions and not upon our circumstances. – First First Lady Martha Washington

Fleur-de-MakeAnOffer

Good Morning,

Busy week ahead as life as I knew it at Fleur-de-Lys Farm winds down. Friday and Saturday, from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m., we will be selling the contents of "the shop", including many of the decorative items, antique games, cooking and gardening books, birdcages, farm-y collectables, as well as our Sayings on Slate, luffas, and vegetable brushes. We also have two saddle and bridles for sale, as well as a wooden horse cart with harness. No reasonable offers will be refused! Laurie Lynch