Farm Life

Patrick Thompson lives on a half-acre of land in Clarksville, which means he can't own a cow. So he rents one. Thompson, 17, regularly drives a half-hour to a dairy farm in Woodbine, where each summer a handful of 4-H members lease calves and heifers to show in contests - such as the Howard County Fair, which starts Saturday. The arrangement is a boon to youths with rural hankerings who had the bad luck to be born in suburbia. "I love dairy cows," said Thompson, who hopes to one day teach agriculture to high school students.

PARIS, Ky. -- As the brown grass turns to green in the land of the bluegrass, Cigar approaches his ninth spring with not a care in the world.He is not being bred to mares. He is not training for races. He is, in the words of his keeper, veterinarian Phil McCarthy, simply being a horse."I've been around him long enough to know that he's a very happy animal," said McCarthy, who has cared for Cigar since May at his Watercress Farm in Kentucky.As Desmond Ryan, farm manager, led Cigar out of his stall, the great brown horse arched his neck, and his rangy body began to swell -- as if he were ready to race again.

All year long, the Tussins plan their trip home to the farm, excitement building as the trip nears. The fact that this suburban couple didn't grow up anywhere near a farm makes no difference.After four visits in as many years, the Tussin children can gather eggs, milk cows and feed goats with the best of them at New Hampshire's Inn at East Hill Farm, a working farm and informal resort in Troy that has been welcoming families for 50 years from around the country."Going to the farm is the best of what your childhood was," explains Naomi Tussin, a creative director who grew up on Long Island, N.Y., and now lives near Hartford, Conn.

The world is as still as the pickets that line a winding path to Mary Kinder's mammoth farm. The two-story Cape Cod is boarded up, the white dairy barn is closed and few cattle remain for the caretaker to watch over. Just off Sudley Road in West River, Henry and Mary Kinder spent a generation raising cattle and growing old together on about 400 acres of rolling fields. All along, they resolved to protect this place at the headwaters of Rockhold Creek, to keep the encroaching hustle and bustle from knocking on their front door.

THE QUESTION: CAN A CITY SLICKER LIKE ME GET A TASTE OF HOWARD COUNTY FARM LIFE? What a timely question. It just so happens that the Howard County Farm-City celebration started yesterday and runs through Oct. 2. Check out www.farmheritage.org or call 410-313-6500. Have fun now, and watch where you walk.

On May 1, 2005, JOHN KNIGHT PARLETT, SR., 68, of Charlotte Hall, MD died at his residence. Born February 1, 1937, he was the son of the late Lawrence Linthicum and Lucy Louise Fowler Parlett. He is survived by his wife, Catherine Ann Mattingly Parlett. He is also survived by his children: John Knight Parlett, Jr., of Charlotte Hall, MD; Joseph Lawrence Parlett, Sr. of Charlotte Hall, MD; Cathleen Parlett Moeller of St. Leonard, MD; Cynthia Parlett Pickett of Wilmington, NC; William Timothy Parlett of Huntingtown, MD; Robert Wayne Parlett of Charlotte Hall, MD; and, Julie Parlett De Cesaris of Davidsonville, MD. Also surviving are twenty grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

Names in the newsPhilip L. Dumenil of Arnold has accepted an agent appointment for Farm Family Life Insurance Co. and Farm Family Casualty Insurance Co. Dumenil attended Anne Arundel Community College, where he received an associate's degree. He works in the Hanover office.Nancy D. Hagman has joined Wheeler, Goodman Masek and Associates, an Annapolis-based architectural and interior design firm. Hagman will be responsible for marketing and business development activities. WGM/A specializes in health care, historic restoration and renovation, hospitality and corporate projects.

NOT MANY state fairs offer as much proximity to a region's population center as does Maryland's farm extravaganza that begins its 10-day run in Timonium today.Just off an interstate highway (I-83) and directly on the light rail line, the fairgrounds give Baltimore city and suburban families a chance to take in livestock, horse shows, home arts exhibits, midway rides, garden displays, 4-H events, music performances and thoroughbred racing.This is the 117th Maryland State Fair. It's a great entertainment value.

Marie L.F. Stewart, a former teacher and farmer, died of pancreatic cancer Sunday at her farm in Phoenix, Baltimore County. She was 81. She was born and raised Marie Lillian Foulkes in Orange, N.J., and earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Maryland, College Park in 1947. In the late 1940s, Mrs. Stewart was a kindergarten teacher in Baltimore County public schools and during the 1970s was a substitute teacher in elementary grades at Friends School. For more than 50 years, Mrs. Stewart lived at Phoenix Farm, where in the early days she raised sheep and then horses.

Inside, the big red barn is redolent of newly sawed wood and fresh paint. Outside, two young men brush preservative on battered pieces of old farm equipment: a plow, a grain winnowing machine, grain flails, a wooden lathe and a wooden wheelbarrow.Baltimore County's newest museum is taking shape and will show how education and science combined to advance American agriculture in great strides between the Civil War and World War II.Built by the county 15 years ago to replace a 19th-century barn destroyed by fire in the 1970s, the barn has stored county equipment and part of the Baltimore County Historical Society's collection of farm and farm-home implements.