Happy Presidents Day from Harrison Farm!

My grandfather & I shared a mutual love of history, and this greatly shaped my childhood.  Other children went to the zoo, to amusement parks, to local swimming pools. I was taken to forts where my grandfather shared stories of Indian attacks, to battlefields where he regaled me with information about the Civil War, and to an astonishing number of cemeteries where we paid our respects to American heroes.  He reserved his greatest admiration for President Abraham Lincoln -- and since I was convinced that my grandfather was absolutely correct about everything, I echoed that sentiment.

My grandfather told me stories about Lincoln's youth when I was a child, and then gave me his own books about the president to read as soon as I was able.  Thanks to my grandfather's tutoring, I was as enamored of President Lincoln as he was.  He took me to Lincoln's home in Springfield for the first time when I was eight.  It was a wonderful trip, and I have returned to visit twice since then.

On my first trip to Springfield, we saw an exhibition of sculptures related to Lincoln -- including several busts of the president -- by my grandfather's friend, the artist John Frank.  Mr. Frank resided in Missouri.  We visited his studio there a couple of times during my childhood, and each visit he sent me home with a gift.  I treasure the small bust of Lincoln he gave me, and remember vividly my excitement when he let me pick out any print I wanted to take home from his studio.  That print of a winter scene, as well as the sculpture of "The Prairie Lawyer" are fantastic mementos of my youth.  Although I was young, I knew that my grandfather greatly valued his friendship with Mr. Frank.  My grandfather always enjoyed conversing with others who shared his love of history, and who could offer their perspective on history.

In my grandfather's den, he had a plaque hanging on the wall with a Lincoln quote.  I now have it hanging in the farmhouse kitchen so that I see it every day.  It reads: "I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives.  I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him."  My grandfather was very good at living that sentiment.  I am working on it, and I have thought of that phrase often while on my winter task of organizing & cleaning the farmhouse.  

My personal favorite quote of Lincoln: "I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday."  That line reminds me that it is incumbent upon us as humans to keep moving forward, keep striving, keep improving . . . And to a certain extent, to be forgiving of our yesterdays because we did not yet know what we do today.  It may be small victories or it may be something grand, but integrity is built upon a willingness to be a better person.  Sloth is easy, improvement is hard -- but it is much more rewarding.  

I spent my Presidents' Day feeding animals in the cold, and then continuing my cleaning process for the farmhouse.  My personal victory today: I took apart the Oreck sweeper, figured out why it was not working properly, and successfully put it back together all by myself.  Certainly a very small victory in the scheme of the world, yet I am definitely wiser today about vacuum cleaners than I was yesterday.  I suspect that for Lincoln and for my grandfather -- Giants though they are to me -- there were likewise plenty of days with only small victories.  What made them great was that they persevered, they kept going even when the going was tough, and that prepared them to be men of character.  Reading and observation taught me that my grandfather and Lincoln both struggled in life, both wrestled with melancholy & disappointment, and both grew to be men of integrity despite these challenges.  They inspire me.

I hope that on Presidents' Day, all Americans take time to reflect on the leaders of our nation.  They were all just individuals like us, with all the frailties of being human.  Yet men like Lincoln and Washington and Jefferson rose to the challenge of their executive office and left lasting legacies.  Presidents' Day is not about sales at stores or the fun of a day off work.  It is about people like us who dedicated their life to serving our country to the best of their abilities.  It is about honoring their noble qualities -- and learning from their failures.  It is about taking their examples to be the best American that we can personally be every day . . . Whether it is in a small way or in a grand way, we can aspire to be a better American (and a better person!) each and every day.

Happy Valentine's Day from Harrison Farm . . . With heat!

In addition to the wonderful challenge of living in a home that contains the accumulated belongings of five generations of the Harrison Hoarding Gene, I also have the blessing of trying to manage the workings of the old farmhouse itself.  Serving as the caretaker for this structure often leaves me feeling like the captain of the Titantic.  We narrowly avoided a significant iceberg today with the furnace.  

The original part of the farmhouse dates from the early 1800s.  Each family that owned it -- and each generation of those families -- did some form of expansion or renovation.  This has left me with a structure that is like a ramshackle telescope.  My office was once a porch, the downstairs bathroom was the former milk house, the upstairs has no heat, and the basement was dug out in the 1950s (under an already existing house!)  I endeavor with persistence to manage all the issues that arise from maintaining such a residence.  Upon returning home from Jorgensen Farms last night, I discovered that the heat was not functioning.  And it was very cold!  I went through my usual troubleshooting (propane tank was stocked, air filter was new, no issues at the breaker box, thermostat was functioning, cycling the furnace off and restarting showed an LED light pattern that indicated the system was normal for operation), and still no heat.  After watching several on-line videos and investigating a few Do-It-Yourself forums, I realized that I was out of my realm for needed repairs.  And I settled in for a very cold night . . .

Fortunately, I also have my heroic & insane Valentine, Matt Karikomi.  By the time he was able to look at the furnace, it was late at night.  There was much banging, cursing, and grunting coming from the basement while he addressed the issue.  Around 4am, heat was restored.  There was a condensation issue that had caused the Watchguard cycle to prevent the burner from igniting, and thus no heat for Katherine.  While investigating all this, it also became apparent to Matt that the aged sump pump -- which I have been encouraging to keep limping along -- was no longer functioning efficiently.  Thus, at 6am (with the house back up to a bearable sixty degrees), Matt headed off to Home Depot to investigate sump pump options.  After he returned, I fixed Matt a breakfast of sweet rolls and coffee.  I had baked the sweet rolls for him the previous day as a special Valentine's Day treat, imagining a much more romantic scenario where we would indulge in a delicious repast of coffee & pastries.  Instead, after serving my Scandinavian-Japanese "Schneider" a meal, I went straight to bed to enjoy an hour of sleep with heat. Some women have flowers & chocolates & romance for Valentine's Day.  I have a working furnace and a new sump being installed.  But much better than that is having a man who stayed up through the early morning hours to make sure my home will keep functioning!

The sweet roll recipe that I make is adapted from my prize winning recipe from when I was in 4-H.  When I was young, National 4-H Congress was held in Chicago.  I got to attend as the State Winner for Breadmaking when I was 14, and it was an amazing opportunity.  I am very grateful for the experiences which I had in 4-H.  I learned to cook, to sew, to give a speech, to get stains out of laundry, to win, to lose, to be a camp counselor, to form lasting friendships, and to be tough.  Making rolls is a simple task, yet I am very glad that 4-H offered me the training to master such skills.  I only regret that I did not take projects in home repair!  Thankfully, in Matt I found another former 4-H member who does have those skills!

Harrison Farm Valentine Sweet Rolls

Dissolve 2 packages yeast and 1 teaspoon sugar in 1cup warm water; let stand 5 minutes.

Combine 2/3 cup sugar, 1 teaspoon salt, half cup softened butter, half cup shortening in mixer.

(For shortening, I use Crisco sticks that are like sticks of butter.  My Emma taught me to use these, and they will change your attitude about baking -- no more messy shortening covered measuring cups!)

Add 1 cup boiling water and stir thoroughly.

Add dissolved yeast, again stirring thoroughly.

Beat at a medium speed, add 2 Harrison Farm eggs and 3 cups flour (I use King Arthur All Purpose).

Gradually mix in 4 more cups flour to make a soft dough.

Place dough in a greased bowl and let rise in a warm place for 60-90 minutes.

Punch dough down and knead. Divide in 3 parts.  

Roll out each into an 8" by 12" rectangle.  Add melted butter and cinnamon sugar.

Gently roll, and then slice into 12 rounds.  Place these into a 9" round greased pan.

Allow to rise in a warm place 30-40 minutes, then bake at 325 degrees for 20-25 minutes.

The above photo was taken after baking.  I separated the dozen sweet rolls from each of the three pans, covered them individually in icing, and then gave them as Valentine's Day treats.  According to Val Jorgensen, they were "delightful"!  Matt gobbled them down for his breakfast, and seemed quite pleased.  Do not forget the icing (omitting the icing can cause Joe Blystone to go into palpitations!), and I suggest enjoying the rolls with Starbucks Cafe Verona blend coffee.  They taste even better in a heated home on a cold February day!

The Harrison Hoarding Gene

One of my strongest Harrison tendencies is to save everything.  I am truly my grandfather's daughter in this regard -- with a devotion to family history (and all the associated historical items) exacerbated by a Depression-mindset to save everything.  I save things constantly in case I would want them "some day" . . . And every time I actually use something which I saved (even if I hoarded it for a decade before actually using it), I triumph at my resourcefulness.  The longer I live, however, the more I realize just how untenable this situation is for a productive life.  The belongings of generations of Harrisons literally surround me . . . And sometimes drown me.

When my great-grandparents moved to our current farm in 1927, they had purchased a home with all its belongings -- and one current resident who had not yet left.  Berger Road is named for the Berger Family, who lived there from the late 1800s until my family purchased the farm.  Delano Berger, in fact, stayed at the house for several weeks even after my great-grandparents moved in.  His mother, Sofronie, had passed away a couple years before Delano sold the farm . . . And when my great-grandmother moved in she found that Delano had touched nothing since his mother's death.  Sofronie's church clothes were still lying on the bed were she left them the day she died.  When Delano moved out to a smaller place, he left many of the Berger Family possessions in the farmhouse.  My great-grandparents, their own parents, and my grandparents all accumulated numerous items -- many of which still remain at the farm.  Being surrounded by the treasured items of several generations is a wonderful thing . . . And sometimes overwhelming.

Matt & I are completely opposite: I keep everything and he keeps nothing.  That being said, he is very respectful of the deep family connection I have to objects, as well as my need to find my own bizarre form of closure with an item before I can dispose of it.  Having other people around me is good motivation for me to organize my belongings.  Thus, my desire to have a peaceful atmosphere to welcome those I love is one of my strongest motivators for cleaning.  The perfect example of this situation was when my Aubry & my Emma convinced me to clean out the refrigerator a couple months after my grandmother moved to her retirement community in 2012.  It is very difficult for me to dispose of another person's items, and they rightly realized that the refrigerator was a needed place to begin!  Aubry & Emma were both near the conclusion of their undergraduate careers at that point, and they set the primary rule that if something had expired while they were in high school then it was thrown away without question.  The "prizewinning" item?  A bottle of Karo Syrup whose label declared it the baking item of choice for the 1980 Olympic Team.  The best part about this was that my grandmother was on at least her third refrigerator since 1980 . . . She had literally moved the old bottle of Karo into each subsequent refrigerator!  I get my instincts honestly!

This winter I have been working sporadically to truly organize the farmhouse.  I recently dedicated myself to cleaning my grandfather's den.  How hard is it for me to divest of items?  He passed away in 1996, and I still think of the items in that room as his.  Sorting through Harrison items can be a definite adventure.  I found some truly memorable objects today.  I love locating something significant in the stacks of mundane objects!  Things to keep: a ticket for my mother's college graduation and a business card from when Auntie worked at Ohio Bell.

Of course, finding fun things is truly the needle in the haystack of Harrison memorabilia.  I tossed stacks of appliance manuals which we no longer own, receipts for items which are long gone, and magazines that were ancient.  I saved things which struck me of interest, for example the receipts my grandfather had kept from the hospital stays when his daughters were born.  I read that Jan's birth in 1947 at St. Ann's was at a cost of $46.05, while my mother (born a month premature) tallied a hospital bill of $80.18 at Grant Hospital in 1949.  Prices rose by 1953 when Jill was born at Grant: $110.80.  And one more receipt followed in 1957 for the little one they lost.  It is amazing how these mundane pieces of paper -- kept for sixty some years -- seem to tell vast stories of joy & sorrow, birth & loss.  

Here are my hints for sorting through the accumulated objects of life . . .

1.  Only keep the things that bring you joy.  My dear friend Stephanie recently taught me this concept, and it is a very important idea.  I have stopped asking myself if I could possibly use something someday (that is the kind of thinking that led to the great Karo syrup situation!), and instead I ask myself if something brings me joy.  In my case, unfortunately, a LOT of things bring me joy -- but I have stopped the Becky Harrison-inspired habit of washing & keeping recyclable containers "just in case" I ever need them, as well as the Ina Harrison-mandated habit of keeping every receipt ever received.  And interestingly enough, the fewer objects around me, the more joy I find in them!

2.  Use things.  Use them up and wear them out -- do NOT save them for "some day" . . . Some day rarely comes.  I saw this in both of my parents: saving things to enjoy some special day in the future.  And in both their cases, I ended up responsible for culling through everything they kept.  I was incredibly saddened after my mother passed on, and I realized that her wedding china -- always saved for some day -- was severely damaged by sitting in boxes unused for so long.  I wish she had enjoyed using it, instead of saving dishes which ended up broken & unused.  Items that are well-used have been well-loved.  I threw away all the expensive, broken dishes, but how I treasure her childhood Teddy Bear that was so well-loved & worn that he is filled with beautiful memories!

3.  Dispose of things which would burden those who come after you.  The reality is that we will all pass on, and someone will be entrusted to deal with the things we left behind.  Do what you can now to make sure that task will be one of love & respect.  Keep only the things that are necessary or joyful.  If a letter or an object could hurt someone else if they found it, get rid of it now.  I have found too many letters and notes speaking of dislike of other family members, disappointment in the birth of girls instead of boys, anger at perceived hurts.  Such things do not instill love & respect in subsequent generations.  The legacy of the grandparent who empowered & inspired me stands much greater than the legacy of the grandparent who left me written records of bitterness.  If you have items that would hurt others, dispose of them . . . Or better yet, become a person who rejects hurtful words & thoughts & actions in total.  Keep things that bring joy, and banish those things that pollute.

During the summer before my senior year at college, I did an independent study for my history degree in which I catalogued my great-grandmother's papers.  Being a good Harrison, she saved everything -- but what a joy it was to read the thoughts and impressions of a positive, hard-working woman who loved adventure!  It is wonderful to sort through the belongings of a previous generation and feel inspired, while wishing that you could have known that person.  When I sort through objects, I try to keep in mind what a positive experience it was for me to read through the papers of my great-grandmother, in the hopes that it will help to shape what I personally leave for future generations.  I hope what I leave behind will make previous generations proud, and leave future generations inspired.  

 

Doody the Goat

Doody the Goat, noted political commentator and social media guru, passed peacefully at the age of eight and a half, surrounded by his Harrison Farm friends.  Renowned for his political expertise, Doody the Goat ended his career as a prognosticator by correctly calling every race he predicted in November 2014.  Doody was the son of Kell B. and Dexter Manley, and was preceded in death by his parents, his sister Howdy, and his best friend Clementine the Goat.  He was born in February 2006, and often reminisced on his early friendship with Sean Haley (who offered many bottle feedings to Doody after Kell B. passed unexpectedly).  Along with Thunder the Sheep, Doody the Goat served as the bellwether for the Harrison Farm herd for many years.  Doody & Thunder were immortalized on the Ohio Farm Bureau collage of county images -- a display that has appeared at the Ohio Farm Bureau offices, at the Ohio State Fair, and on a plaque presented to Governor John Kasich.  Doody is survived by 30 goat friends, 15 sheep friends, 25 chickens (to whom he rarely spoke), Flirt the Horse, Cecilia the Donkey, and 1 loving goatherd.  Doody had pre-planned a simple Eco-friendly composting service at Harrison Farm, which the immediate animal family attended (except Pat The Goat, his longtime frenemy).  Doody asked for no flowers to be sent upon his passing, but was open to donations of hay for his survivors.  Doody's last words were, "MAA . . ." -- loosely translated as "Eat more lamb . . ."  

Christmas Letter 2014

Greetings from Harrison Farm!  This has been a year full of blessings & challenges, and I am grateful for the wonderful people in my life!  For the first time since my early 20s, I have had some significant neurological struggles this year.  It is a humbling experience to manage this, and I am profoundly grateful for my family who keeps encouraging me, my friends who are extremely patient, and my amazing doctors at the Cleveland Clinic.  I am particularly fortunate to have Matt in my life, as he steadfastly accompanied me to every doctor appointment, developed his own protocol for managing my care, and used his background as a researcher to review every relevant medical study.  I recognize that managing headaches & seizures will likely be a long-term effort, and I am blessed to have an amazing support network of friends & family that empower me to enjoy life despite challenges!

My work at Jorgensen Farms kept me rather busy this year.  We hosted 50 weddings, along with 20 other events with which I assisted.  With as many as 4 or 5 events each week between April 5th and December 5th, my schedule was hectic and averaged 50-60 hours/week (for my part-time job!). In addition, Jorgensen Farms expanded its farm sales to Jeni’s Ice Cream, local restaurants (such as North Star Cafe, Hollywood & Third, and Alanna’s), as well as Whole Foods & other markets.  I am fortunate to have truly amazing co-workers there, and I have developed great friendships through the farm!  It is a pleasure to work with Matt, and I am sincerely appreciative of the opportunities I have had there thanks to my friendship with his mother, Val (who often reminds Matt that she picked me first!)

My own farm is an absolute joy to me, especially now that I have downsized my livestock herd to be more compatible with my off-the-farm commitments.  I only bred 30 does & 15 ewes this fall, and am returning to kidding & lambing in the spring.  After two years of being in the barn during terrible cold spells in January & February, I realized just how wise my grandfather was to plan for babies to arrive in March & April!  I also have Flirt the Horse, Cecilia the Donkey, 26 crazy chickens, barn cats Peppermint & Mask, and my notorious house cat Cash.  I lost both of my dogs this year, and find myself without a dog for the first time in my life.  I enjoy visiting with Grace the Yellow Lab of Jorgensen Farms, and hope to find a new dog in 2015.  I remain very close to my neighbor kids, Joseph (16) & Eliza (8), and they are a great help at my farm!  Joseph is very good with livestock, and he is slowly developing his own herd of goats.  I am blessed to have very good neighbors on Berger Road!

I tremendously enjoy my volunteer work with Ohio Farm Bureau, and I was re-elected to a second 3-year term as a state trustee at their recent annual meeting.  It is very engaging to work on policy issues relative to the farm community, and I have developed great friendships with individuals across the country thanks to the opportunities which I have had through Farm Bureau.  I will be traveling to San Diego in January for the 2015 American Farm Bureau convention.  The 2014 convention was in San Antonio, and I was able to combine that trip with a wonderful stop in Dallas to visit my brother Sean & his girlfriend Nicole.  Sean continues to teach, and he is fortunate to have a fantastic partner in Nicole.

My brother Kevin is still based in Philadelphia, and does quite a bit of travel with his band.  I picked up a “Nemesisters” tee shirt during a tour stop in Ohio, and I am very proud of his dedication to music!  My brother Ian lives just outside of Columbus, and is working for a company that maintains food service scales.  These skills have been a great asset to Blystone Farm Butcher Shop when repairs are needed!  Joe expanded the shop significantly this year, and it offers numerous products from other local farms.  There is a dedicated bakery now, and this keeps my step-mother Jane very busy.  My two younger brothers Mason & Josh both work at the shop full-time, and it is awesome to see their skills develop with the farm business.  I enjoy helping out with the quality assurance paperwork, as well as animal handling documentation.  It is exciting to see how this business has grown since Mother & Joe opened it in December 2004 as a very small on-farm custom slaughterhouse!

My grandmother turned 97 in May, and continues to do well for her age.  She is still very good friends with “The Colonel”, and they eat most of their meals together at the dining room of Sterling House.  Grandmother’s cat Carlotta passed away in early December, at the age of 19.  I am sure she will miss her pet, but a constant stream of visitors keeps her spirits up.  Her address: Ina Marie Harrison at 609 East Water Street #119, Urbana OH 43078.

In October I worked again at Quarter Horse Congress for my friends Carl & Kathy Wilkinson.  It was a busy month with weekdays at Congress & weekends full of weddings, but I enjoy assisting at their Western jewelry booth.  I am very excited to return to Denver in January 2015 to work for them once more at the National Western Stock Show!  They are amazing individuals, and I have learned so much from them about business & about life.  They have become family to me, and I am always in awe of the great people God has sent into my life.

My Thanksgiving was wonderful: lunch with Matt’s family, then dinner with the extended Harrison-Blystone-Link family.  I hosted a dinner that weekend for my “farm family” of kids that have worked for me over the years.  They are all doing fabulous, and their lives are full with school, jobs, spouses, and growing families!  I also got to see my very good friend Amy Bricker who was visiting Columbus from her new home in Florida.  Amy is like a sister to me, and it was awesome to be together for a visit!  I look forward to hosting my family again this year for Christmas brunch, then I will join Matt to travel to Michigan after Christmas to visit with the Jorgensen Family (a lovely group!)  On New Year’s Day, I will fly to New Orleans to meet my brothers Sean & Kevin and my step-mother Debbie for a celebration of Debbie’s birthday!  I am very excited for this!  Debbie has been a positive influence in my life since I was small, and she is an extraordinary mother to my brothers.  My parents were remarkable individuals, and I feel extremely fortunate that they gave me great step-parents!

I am grateful for YOUR presence in my life, and I send best wishes for a happy Christmas and a blessed 2015!

Pearl Harbor Day

Last night at Mass, I was pleased to hear my priest reference Pearl Harbor Day in his message.  He spoke on the need to remember those who lost their lives and recognize their sacrifice to preserve freedom.  This morning, I was delighted to find that many of my Facebook friends had posted references to Pearl Harbor.  Growing up, my grandmother often spoke of Pearl Harbor Day.  Since it was a Sunday -- the one day of the week that my grandfather worked a short day as a farmer -- my grandparents were on a date that afternoon.  They had recently started dating, and he took her to see the movie "One Foot in Heaven".  As they left the theatre, they heard the news of the attack.

In January 2012, I had the honor of visiting Pearl Harbor with my good friend Tonja.  It was a beautiful day, and we were both profoundly touched by the experience of seeing Pearl Harbor.  While there, I met the gentleman who is shown in the picture above.  He was a survivor of the Pearl Harbor attack, and was signing copies of his memoir.  I enjoyed speaking with him, and had to laugh as he expressed that one of the best parts of signing books was pictures with "pretty girls"!

It seems at times as though the Pearl Harbor attack was long ago, yet it impacted American lives in ways that still resonate today.  My grandmother would lose her beloved cousin Ray in the Battle of the Bulge, and I have the Purple Heart which he was awarded and that his mother gave to my grandmother knowing how close she was to Ray.  My grandfather initially anticipated that he would serve in the military since he had been in ROTC while at OSU.  Instead, the government mandated that farms must stay operating to support the war effort.  As the only child of a handicapped father, my grandfather instead stayed home to manage the farm.

Since Matt & I began dating, I have enjoyed learning about his family heritage.  When we started dating the difference in our ethnic backgrounds was not something which I even really considered . . . Until the first time that someone made a slur against Japanese people in our presence.  I suspect this individual had no idea that Matt's slightly ambiguous ethnic appearance was actually half-Japanese -- and I think the situation discomforted me far more than it did him -- but for the first time I really considered the differences in our background.  One of these differences, was the way that World War II impacted our families as Americans.  While my grandparents worked to support the war effort and lost family members, Matt's grandparents were imprisoned by their own country.

As a young person, I became aware that families of Japanese heritage had been imprisoned during the war, but it never touched me personally as anything more than distant history until I began researching Matt's grandparents.  There is a very useful website maintained by the government that provides records for Americans of Japanese descent who were relocated to camps.  Matt's grandmother and her family were sent to a camp built in Arkansas.  This was the same location where George Takei was imprisoned as a child, and I like to imagine that he & Matt's grandmother played together as children!

Matt's grandfather was a young adult when the war started, and his family was taken from their home in Seattle and sent to the Minidoka camp in the middle of Idaho.  Ted Karikomi had never been to Japan, spoke no Japanese, and was a high school graduate with a job -- yet was still considered enough of a threat that his entire family had to be relocated from their homes and imprisoned.  On archived records of Japanese relocations, it was noted by government officials what potential the individual might have for work.  The mention of being a possible typist or chauffeur does not indicate the future success that Ted Karikomi would find as a decorated enlisted man in the military or as a family doctor in rural Michigan.  It amazes me that this young man chose to join the war effort as soon as he was permitted, fighting for the very nation that had mandated the forced relocation of his family.  That was how much he valued his country.

The attack on Pearl Harbor was a tragedy whose impact is still felt.  My grandfather was born in 1919, and Matt's grandfather in 1922.  They were both young Americans who loved their country and served it to the best of their ability during the war and after . . . as citizens, husbands, and fathers.  Yet, their experience during the war was vastly different, primarily because of their heritage.  We are so blessed to live in this great country of freedom, and -- much like my pastor said -- we must never forget those who have helped to protect those freedoms.  There is no other nation on earth like America, no other place where immigrants from any continent can build such free lives.  And these liberties must be protected from all aggressors.  As we live our fortunate first world lives, it behooves us to remember those who suffered to ensure our present blessings.  And we must always be willing to share that burden to protect American liberty for future generations!

Citizens for Stinziano

Last night I got to enjoy one of those great moments when you are able to stop and be amazed by life!  While enjoying cookies and discussing farm policy with some of my favorite people, I was struck by how engaging politics can be when the people involved are really good people.  

Our Franklin County Young Farmer council (aka the Irish Pirates) met last night at Harrison Farm.  We had delicious pizza from the Pump (proper name J&R's Pizza & Pub of Lithopolis, a local institution), and I made my first solo attempt at my Grandmother's chocolate chip cookie recipe.  Per Brother Man Josh, the cookies were a huge success!  I was very excited that Josh and his friend Ben were able to attend our council meeting.  They both work at Blystone Farm Butcher Shop, and it was great to introduce them to Farm Bureau activities.

State Representative Michael Stinziano was our guest speaker last night.  Representative Stinziano's district encompasses much of downtown Columbus, along with Bexley, German Village, Franklinton, and parts of OSU.  While this area might not immediately seem to be one that would offer its representative a direct connection to farming, Representative Stinziano has distinguished himself as someone who cares about farming and who understands the importance of agriculture in our community.  It is an honor to have this dedicated individual as a friend of the farm community, and as a personal friend.

Representative Stinziano shared his thoughts with our council on the upcoming General Assembly.  He discussed what he saw as challenges for the legislature in general, and particularly for farm-related legislation.  The 18th House District is metropolitan, but it does include urban gardens and the Ohio State University College of Food, Agriculture, and Environmental Sciences. Representative Stinziano has established himself as someone who works with both Republicans & Democrats -- in his District and in the legislature.  I cannot fail to mention that amongst his other accompllishments (devoted husband & father, graduate of OSU's law school, former Director of the Franklin County Board of Elections), Michael Stinziano is a fellow graduate of my alma mater, the University of Richmond!

I originally became acquainted with Representative Stinziano when he was running for his first term and met with representatives from our county Farm Bureau.  He impressed me then with his open nature and with his willingness to learn about farming, and he has continued to demonstrate those qualities.  Yesterday the Ohio House was in session, and thus Representative Stinziano worked late and then drove out to my farm in the dark to talk to a small group of farmers.  This was not a fundraising event and it was well after the 2014 elections.  Representative Stinziano drove all the way out to the farm after a very long day simply to show his support for the farm community and to discuss issues with local farmers.  That speaks volumes to me about this public servant.

Sometimes I forget just how fortunate I am to have met so many political leaders.  It is directly thanks to Farm Bureau that I have had these opportunities.  Last night's discussion reminded me of how fortunate I am to be involved with a bi-partisan organization that works for common sense in government.  Watching Josh & Ben interact with Representative Stinziano (one of the first state politicians they have met), reminded me what great opportunities are provided for political engagement through Farm Bureau.  Josh & Ben worked all day at the butcher shop, and then had chocolate chip cookies with a leader of our great state!  I must also applaud Representative Stinziano for sharing his love of government with others.  His passion for public service and his knowledge of local issues helped to create in these young men a solid appreciation for policy work.

My grandfather was quite active in local politics, and he created in me a love of policy discussions.  I think he would have enjoyed the fact that his granddaughter had the opportunity to host a prominent young politician for a discussion with local farmers . . . And I think Grandmother would be delighted that I am attempting to perfect her Chocolate Chip Cookies!