Farm Life

Just two years after the Revolutionary War, Richard Hope began clearing chestnut trees from a 120-acre tract just outside of what is now Jarrettsville. It was 1783 and Hope was establishing his family farm. There were about 13,000 residents in what would later become Harford County, according to county historical documents. Most of the Indians, including the Susquehannocks, had been driven out of the region by a government policy of extinction. Wolves were considered a bigger threat to farmers and livestock.

When Shyami Codippily talks about why she paints farms, she returns often to the example of the farm she painted at the University of Maryland, College Park in 1985. At the time, she said, she never imagined the dairy barns would be replaced by the Comcast Center basketball arena. "Things that are here today are gone tomorrow," she said. Codippily - who uses her maiden name in her art, but otherwise goes by Shyami Murphy - recently completed a series of oil paintings depicting fields, fences, barns and livestock at 24 Howard County farms.

Local farmers want to plant a seed in the minds of city and suburban dwellers. You don't have to drive far to experience rolling fields, orchards of crisp apples, patches of bulging orange pumpkins and other wonders of fall. Farmers, county agencies and agriculture groups have organized the nine-day Howard County Farm-City Celebration, which will start Saturday, to highlight farms in the county and what they provide. Several locations will offer farm tours, fall activities such as hayrides and corn mazes, farmers' markets, demonstrations of antique farm machinery and other events.

At the farm where we live now in Northern Baltimore county, the early morning view from the side porch is wonderful. The sun has been rising between 5:30 and 6, accompanied by a soft mist rising from the dew-covered pastures where the horses are kept. And the sounds of a working horse farm begin. A cock crows. Two farm hands, Charlie and his brother Fred, walk out to the stables to begin their murmured coaxing of the thoroughbreds. A stallion is in one barn. Charlie brings a mare or two by to see whether they are interested.

If you want a refreshing view of autumn, stop by the 18th Century Market Fair at the Claude Moore Colonial Farm at Turkey Run on Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Learn how to hook a rug or turn wood on the carpenter's lathe. No one will go hungry with all of the meat pies, roasted chicken, cheese, sausage, tarts, lemonade, beer, wine and fish house punch you could ask for. The Claude Moore Colonial Farm at Turkey Run is at 6310 Georgetown Pike in McLean, Va. Admission is $5 for adults, $2.50 for children 3-15 and senior citizens.

FANNY LYON PEARRE JOHNSTON, known as Pansy to her husband and Fan to everyone else, was born in Baltimore County in 1914 and raised on her family's historical farm, Wester Ogle, a land grant from the King of England. She married from across the Green Spring Valley to Bartlett F. Johnston and they lived on his great-grandfather's farm, Burnside, until 1945. At the urging of her uncle Moncure Lyon of Black Oak Farm in Purcellville, VA, the family moved to northern Virginia, farmed near Waterford, and later moved to Hamilton.

Dozens of schoolteachers from across Maryland will converge on Carroll County this week for a little education of their own. They will tour an orchard and a lumber mill, meet farm animals, arrange ivy topiaries and learn how to sow lessons of soybeans and grain in their curricula as part of the Maryland Agricultural Education Foundation's 13th annual Ag in the Classroom summer workshop. The five-day seminar, held at the Best Western Conference Center near Western Maryland College, is designed to get agriculture out of the fields and barns and into classrooms.

The popular hands-on farm that was one of the most visible symbols of agriculture in suburban Baltimore - and in its recent demise, a potent reminder of the seeming inevitability of development - is springing back to life eight miles from its origins. In an unexpected twist, the family of former state Sen. James Clark Jr. will announce today that they're bringing in Cider Mill Farm's manager to re-create the agritourism activities on part of their 548-acre Ellicott City cropland. Clark's Elioak Farm is expected to open Sept.

THE FAIR SUNDAY at Hancock's Resolution will be no run-of-the-mill craft show. Instead, the event at the historic farmstead will feature craftsmen and craftswomen demonstrating skills that were part of farm life in the18th century. That includes everything from basket-making to beekeeping to the woodworking techniques used to build the Colonial-era farmhouse at the Pasadena landmark. "We will have something for everyone in the family," said Peggy Hanna, Friends of Hancock's Resolution member and event chair.

Imagine living in Carroll County 100 years ago - no electricity, no cars or tractors, few indoor bathrooms, no grocery stores with ready-to-cook meats and vegetables, no refrigerators, no computers, no TV. That lifestyle is detailed in a new book by George Grier. "I started noticing as I got older that the older people who remember something about farming back a hundred years ago were sort of fading out of the picture, and that we were going to lose a lot of what we know about what went on at the old family farm," said Grier, 82. So he talked to farmers around the state and searched archives, museums, libraries and former farm families for photos of a long-gone way of life.