Farm

On a hot Thursday afternoon, Eileen Shlagel drops a cucumber into a paper bag and adds 25 cents to her customer's bill, a simple enough act that requires the before-dawn-to-after-dusk labor of Eileen and her husband, Russell, their two oldest sons and Mr. Shlagel's parents, backed up by half-a-million dollars' worth of tractors, pickup trucks, combines, plastic mulch layers, plastic mulch removers, rakes, irrigation pipes and 200 acres of former tobacco land...

Barbara Longcope Keyser, longtime manager of Jones' Contrivance, her family's Reisterstown farm, died there Dec. 23 of respiratory failure. She was 87. She was born Barbara Longcope in New York City, the daughter of Dr. Warfield Theobald Longcope. She moved to Baltimore in the early 1920s, after her father, a noted professor of internal medicine, was appointed to the faculty of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Mrs. Keyser was a 1933 graduate of Bryn Mawr School and earned her bachelor's degree in art history from Bryn Mawr College in 1937.

Carol Hackney, a land preservation activist, has lived on two farms named Cold Saturday Farm in Carroll County -- one is her home on Oakland Road in Eldersburg, and the original was her childhood home a few miles away in Finksburg. Hackney's parents had bought the first Cold Saturday Farm at auction. Her father, H. Hamilton Hackney, was a judge in Baltimore's juvenile court who retired in 1943. He was from Pittsburgh, and her mother, Alice, was from New York City, but they met in Wyoming.

For almost 200 years, the Bosleys lived at Conclusion Farm. Four generations were born in its stone house and toiled in its fields, and many were laid to rest beneath its earth.But last month, a long-smoldering family quarrel brought an end to one of the oldest family farms in Baltimore County's northern valleys -- and devastation to a family whose name graces a major thoroughfare in Towson and a Methodist Church in Sparks.The Bosleys blame the loss of their 200-acre farm -- valued at $1.35 million -- on a decades-old sibling rivalry, a disliked in-law, and a conspiracy devised by lawyers, judges and neighbors.

The Howard County Antique Farm Machinery Club and the Howard County Conservancy will hold the ninth annual Farm Heritage Days from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sept. 26 - rain or shine - at Mount Pleasant Farm, the conservancy's home in Woodstock. Saturday's events will include demonstrations of vintage farm equipment, wagon rides, crafts, a flea market and live bluegrass music. A bluegrass gospel service will be held at 10 a.m. Sept. 26. Admission is free. The weekend is part of the county's eight-day Farm-City Celebration.

A federal judge upheld an order yesterday banning the commercial slaughter of animals on a Carroll County farm, owned by a father and managed by his son, who have both been charged with criminal offenses including animal cruelty and selling contaminated meat. Judge Andre M. Davis also warned owner Carroll L. Schisler Sr., 60, and his son, Carroll Jr., 34, that a violation of the order could bring fines, jail time and even confiscation of the 112-acre farm in the rural hamlet of Marston in western Carroll.

A "For Sale" sign is planted next to the quarantine notice that reads, "No swine, living or dead, may enter or leave," at the entrance to a 112-acre Carroll County farm with overgrown fields and weathered fencing. The farm, in the western Carroll community of Marston, has been on the market for several months, since its owner, Carroll Schisler Sr., 60, moved to Pennsylvania this year, his attorney, Roland Walker, said. But neighbors suspect the farm might be the source of marauding pigs - something Schisler denies - and shake their heads at the latest reports of decomposing carcasses and unsanitary conditions at the shuttered facility.

Carroll's Economic Development Commission endorsed "Right-to-Farm" legislation yesterday proposed by county officials.The legislation is aimed at reducing complaints and lawsuits filed against farmers by suburban neighbors bothered by smells, noise and dust.Members of the Carroll Agricultural Commission and Farm Bureau studied the issue and drafted an ordinance.The proposal includes a real-estate transfer disclosure statement for property purchased in the agriculture and conservation zones to notify potential buyers that farming is a preferred activity in those areas.

Days End Farm Horse Rescue Inc. of Lisbon is seeking donations of horse feed, supplies and money for other necessities to continue its work of saving abused and neglected horses.This winter's severe weather has depleted feed and other supplies at the farm.The farm is housing 32 horses, plus animals for its petting zoo.Anyone wishing to help should contact Days End at 15856 Frederick Road. Information: 442-1564.FireMount Airy: Mount Airy firefighters assisted Frederick County on a house fire in the 500 block of Prospect Road at 1:54 p.m. Thursday.

A Hanover, Pa., man who was working on his brother's dairy farm on Old New Windsor Road was seriously injured yesterday when he was gored by a bull.Malcolm Smith, 45, was taken to Carroll County General Hospital for treatment about 2 p.m. and transferred to the Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore about 5:45 p.m.Emergency medical crews from the New Windsor fire company were dispatched to the John Parker Smith farm, in the 2400 block of Old New Windsor...