Annual Newsletter 2012

Dear Friends,

The quiet of day’s end is beguiling. Bill sits on the porch as Rudy flops on the grass above “our” meadows. The season has been renewed by the first significant rain in a month and a half. The browning of Berlin Township will pass. As with natures transition into spring, the tranquility of rainfall generates a “sense of reassurance” – a return to order. No matter what folly we are engaged in, or dreams we launch or thoughts that conflict the season is both predictable and unassuming.

The marriage of nature to our expectations is always a surprise. Its outcome must be one of joy & delectable passion. Any wedding is like that, but when our daughter, Adrianne is at the forefront, the level of emotion flows high.

Tom and Adrianne were married June 2, 2012 in our comforting church in the village. Our children should always be in love. Is it fair to observe that a person in love is incomplete until marriage? It is the essence of binding the future to the present.

Our summer will be pumped up further by the birth of Brooke & Ben’s second child in July. Coming together to celebrate joys is the essence of our lives. Despite the distance to Toronto and Phoenix, we are hostages to good fortune. To witness our children’s evolving lives only for brief intervals every few months is always offset by their new blooming. Adrianne & Tom’s new life in Canada, Brooke & Ben in torrid Phoenix, granddaughter Payton’s spontaneity – how they brighten our days.

While a sweet serenity now possesses the farm, the misty dawns of summer will come early this year. So too will the harvest. It is 2 to 3 weeks ahead oflast year. The great haste of the green world is upon us.

Here is what to expect this year:

June 20 First Peaches & Apricots
July 10 First White Peaches & Nectarines
August 1-5 Red Haven Peaches
August 5-Sept. 10 Plums
August 10 Pears
August 20 First Cider
Sept. 1-5 Gala & Honeycrisp Pick your own
Oct. 1 Cameo & Fuji Apples Pumpkins
Oct. 10-15 Pink Lady & Goldfish Apples

Hope to see you soon!

The Gammie Family

Annual Newsletter 2011

Dear Friends,
A reread of Adrianne’s note highlights this past week of coming together to savor our joys and shared anxieties. “Thank you for loving me enough to not want me to move to Indonesia, but still letting me find my love there.” She is far too gracious. Her soul has been enriched, but her dilemma and our quandary is that Tom is working in Indonesia near his family-a marathon that makes our trip there in November all the more intriguing in anticipation of the June 2012 wedding in Ohio.

Brooke, Ben and Payton, their new daughter, underline the belief that children are our greatest gift to the future. We hope the curves in the road she will face, unlike some of ours, will be eased as she emerges into our lives. That is our assignment. Her smiles and cries amuse and delight us. She is a fortunate little girl for she has an exuberant mom and dad who will not give her answers to remember, but problems to solve.

Jacque has reluctantly retired after 30 years of teaching. It is not a state to arrive at, but a “manner of traveling” where making a difference has been the benchmark up until now. We have celebrated our first year in the winery. A short hop up the hill is enhanced by Lake Erie’s vista to the north. Amy & Mac, our partners in the winery, have enriched our perspectives with the birth of their third child, Collin James.

The intensity of moving from season to season has relaxed, yet you and I are not so easily swayed. Do we set our own pace, or are we driven by an unseen hand? Most likely it is our own judgments -good and bad -that count the most. How does one direct the joys to outweigh the challenges? A handful of red raspberries, a charred chicken wing, a quiet eve’s boat ride-are all dollops of simple joy. The growing season is always an array of mixed messages, yet we approach it with promise.

The season is upon us. Here’s what we expect:

June 20-July 20 Sweet Cherries
July 8-10 First Peaches & Apricots
August 15-20 Red Haven Peaches
August 15-20 First White Peaches & Nectarines
August 20-Sept. 15 Plums
August 25-Nov. 1 Pears
Sept. 5 First Cider
Sept. 10-15 Gala & Honeycrisp/Pick your own
Oct. 5-10 Cameo & Fuji apples/Pumpkins
Oct. 20-25 Last apples/Pink Lady & Goldrush
Nov. 10 To Indonesia

Hope to see you soon!

The Gammie Family

Annual Newsletter 2004

Dear Friends,
A peculiar unsettled feeling has steadily gripped us. It has more to do with the calming thrust of mother nature than to the emotion of family or the turmoil in the world. Despite the wet, the pleasant stretch of grand days has softened our anxiety that has dominated the approach of harvest in the past several years. Last night’s rain was as soothing to us as a kind word and agentle heart. We will savor it. We need to avoid being consumed by things we cannot control if we are to notice our good luck. Each season has a point in which survival appears as fragile asthose early May peach blossoms. Uncle Len warned us time and again, “What cannot be cured,must be endured.”

The idea of family must always dominate despite what anyone else may define as success. On the 4th of July, part of the Gammie clangathered at the farm to celebrate the return of cousins from Florida. Chuck, who had worked as a young boy on the farm, commented on how reassuring it is to recall memories of times less hectic. To watch our children grow up is success. To watch them cast off is always a tearful ride.

Adrianne has completed her third year at University of Cincinnati. She “‘co­oped” inChicago for a couple months, returned home to pick the first raspberry and then set off for theSouth of France for the summer. She finds city life vibrant and as daring as it is to create agarment that could be called fashionable. In both, she perseveres to the finish line.

Ben’s trek in Texas is ongoing. A month ago he came up with a peck of peaches from a growing district west of Austin. But what was missing was the scent of home. His responsibilities at Bury Engineering are expanding and fruitful.

We tend to be anxious for both of them. Are they having too much fun? Are they giving back? Can they avoid being overwhelmed by the unimportant? Growing never stops. Yet, will they ever have those “pastoral” daydreams of a small Ohio country town? Surely, butthey mustnot dwell on them.

Somehow Jacque, Ben and Adrianne will rendezvous in France in early August. Jacque, her brother Joe, and sister Madeline will reunite with their nearby Italian heritage. Ben will catch up with his mates from Scotland, and Adrianne will translate… and Bill will take the road most traveled from home to the barn.

Here’s what to expect this season:

July 11-­13 First peaches (cling­ type)
July 30-Sept.15 Nectarines
August 7-10 Red Haven (freestone) begin
August 10-15 White peaches begin
August 20-Sept.10 Plums
August 25 Pears begin
Sept. 5-10 Gala & Honeycrisp apples begin
Sept. 15-20 Last of Peaches/First of cider
Sept. 11-15 Fall apples/Pick your own begins
Oct. 5-11 Pick your own pumpkins
Oct. 15-31 Cameo &. Fuji apple harvest

Annual Newsletter 2003

Dear Friends,
Frogs chirp in The old quarry behind our home. Rudy studies the sloping meadow to the north for a woodchuck to pursue. Fireflies have yet to mass, but the full weight of a muggy summer’s evening descends and creates a subtle calm at days end, as we await chops on the grill. A happy day. again and again , we muse on what we do and why we do it.

Our Uncle Len often pondered on Alexander Pope’s thought of how. “Hope springs eternal from the human breast”. Morgan Freeman’s character in the movie The Shawshank Redemption said that “Hope is a very dangerous thing”. All of us know the extremes of the spectrum. Our family and the seasons ahead have always been the focus of our hope. Stability is always elusive, yet attainable. We know that hope must be tempered by determination if we are to straighten the curves in the road.

It is said that children enjoy the present because they have neither a past nor the future. When do they emerge from the narrow view ofthe world? Of course it is an ongoing process, but fully impacts moms and dads when “home” becomes a distant place. For the first time in our lives, both Adrianne and Ben will be calling some place other than Berlin Heights home. Adrianne will spend the summer in Cincinnati working in a “boutique” as part of her fashion design study at the university. Ben will launch a “career” in Austin, Texas with an engineering consulting firm. Our tears will well up when they say from time to time, “I’m coming home”.

While Bill and I hope always to celebrate the joy of rural living, our longings will be confirmed as our children push themselves from the porch. Their own making of new lives and new relationships will rivet us as they climb their mountain of hope.

A friend of our farm just called inquiring when Melrose apples will be ready. That query alone is cause for hope. We are grateful to you for trekking down a back country road.

July 10­-15 First peaches (cling­ type)
July 30-Aug.5 Nectarines
August 5-15 Red Haven (freestone) begin
August 10-15 First White peaches
August 15-20 Gala apple harvest
August 20-Sept. 10 Plums
August 25-Sept. 10 Pears
Sept. 10-20 Last of Peaches
Sept. 11-15 Fall apples and pick your own begins
Oct. 10-31 Pick your own pumpkins
Oct. 15-25 Cameo &. Fuji apple harvest

Hope to see you soon!

The Gammie Family

Annual Newsletter 2002

Dear Friends,
The glow of fireflies in the parched corn field behind our home is glorious. A sleepy dusty day has lapsed into a sweltering night that disguises our eagerness for a harvest season. There is no such thing as “just another day.” Yet, enthusiasm cannot be dampened by a month without rain.

After all, this is home. The gist of past thoughts we have shared with you always highlighted home. But its is not sacred, nor should it be. “We talk a good talk about the joys of home, but the truth is we are obsessed with the road” (Time, July 2002)

Ben graduated from Ohio Northern University with a degree in civil engineering in May, and two weeks later he was in Colorado working on a ranch. Perhaps a last fling before “settling in”. Adrianne’s first year at the University of Cincinnati deepened her appetite for fashion. She has declared that next summer she will begin an internship. Jacque is ready for a road trip anywhere. Only Bill appearsto believe that a man’s character is his fate and is content with a glimpse down the road.

Our friend Webster has taken a new course. Mark Twain has said “Heaven goes by favour. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.” His death reveals to us that the wag of his tail reflects that the ultimate goal in life is to enjoy it. However, we have a new “Rudy” whose adolescent extremism is a slobbering reminder that reasoning does not always work with child or beast.

While there are always curves in the road, our task is to straighten them out. The weather has been wacky, but we are hopeful for tomorrow.

July 10 First peaches (cling­type)
July 30-Aug.5 Nectarines begin
August 1-15 Red Haven (1st freestone)
August 7-10 First White peaches
August 15-20 Gala apple harvest
August 20-Sept.10 Plums
August 25-30 Pears begin
Sept 10-20 Last of Peaches
Sept. 11-15 Fall apples and pick your own begins
Oct. 15-25 Fuji apples begin

Hope to see you this season!

The Gammie Family