Tag Allentown

FLOTUS story time

Angel Ackerman 3 Comments

It’s Wednesday afternoon, and it’s been a hearty week. I just finished editing a novel by debut author E. H. Jacobs. Parisian Phoenix Publishing plans to release the book, Splintered River, in September before the upcoming presidential election. Somehow, by the skin of my teeth, I managed to pay all the bills another month.

As a small business owner, there is always a hustle. And while I typically work seven days a week, I love what I do and it often doesn’t feel like work.

And this week I had a special surprise– Armchair Lehigh Valley asked me to cover First Lady Jill Biden’s visit to Allentown, the largest city in the Lehigh Valley region and third most populated city in the state. For comparison, it stands behind Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Philadelphia has 1.6 million people. Pittsburgh has more than 300,000. Allentown has about 125,000.

Harrisburg, the state capital, has 50,000 residents and is number 16 on the list of most populated Pennsylvania cities. Bethlehem, the center-most city in the Lehigh Valley, is number 7 on the list with 78,000. Lancaster is number 12, which isn’t what you’d expect since Lancaster is known for its Amish communities.

The city closest to my small town is Easton, which is number 41 on the list with 28,000 people.

Anyway, Allentown’s population is 50% Latin, so lawmakers like to stop by to woo the Latin voter. Yesterday, Jill Biden visited Lehigh Carbon Community College to promote Career to Classroom, a proposal from the Biden administration to “reimagine high school” by connecting students to jobs, training and opportunities to learn skills and an associate’s degree while still in high school.

I haven’t attended an event with politicians that required Secret Service in decades. I arrived early, parking at the PPL Orange garage.

I arrived at the LCCC campus in downtown Allentown around noon, and the Allentown police were already outside with the people coordinating the event. Media had to line up along the building after receiving their press passes. The Malinois K9 sniffed our stuff and we headed inside two people at a time.

K9’s have to be high-energy and driven, and this guy was no exception. He played with his toy and barked when he didn’t have enough to do. You could see the disappointment when he didn’t find anything in our stuff, because for him, this was a game and he wanted to find whatever he needed to find to win the game.

Once I arrived inside, the Secret Service scanned my person and another agent checked my bag. He saw my cookie that my friend Laurel had given me in case I didn’t eat. It was a Panera oatmeal berry cookie, which is one of my favorites. The agent looked at me in all his Secret Service seriousness, and said, “Ma’am, all chocolate chip cookies must be confiscated by me.”

“That’s fine, Sir,” I said. “But it’s oatmeal.”

“Then you are free to go,” he said.

I headed into the elevator and up to the third floor. As we arrived, I saw the sign for the restroom. So, I asked the Secret Service agent if I could go to the restroom. I was told yes. When I returned, I entered the room and saw a random sign for “media entrance.” I saw all the video news crews and photographers setting up their tripods. To stay out of the way, I wove farther into the room and sat down.

I ended up sitting with the audience, unintentionally, but got a great view of everything.

To read the article, which the editors at Armchair focused on the workforce development legislation Biden has proposed, click here.

If you want to read a speech only a few words different from the one Jill gave yesterday, click here.

“Review”: Pick-Your-Own-Bouquet Outing at Terra Fauna Farm

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

This one brings to mind memories of my mother’s flower gardens during my childhood— her lovingly tending her petunias, impatiens, zinnias and marigolds. I begged for straw flowers, snap dragons and “blue angels.” I thought of my mother’s gifted green thumb while frolicking in these fields.

Last week, knowing my teenager had left me home with no car, my sweet friend Joan had invited me to a pick-your-own-bouquet workshop at Terra Fauna Farm. Joan is a member of their CSA.

For those who don’t know, like the teenager, let me explain the concept of CSA or “Community Supported Agriculture.”

First, some history. Our area (the Lehigh Valley/Slate Belt of Pennsylvania) is traditionally primarily rural, with a few small cities scattered here and there and one of the largest cities in Pennsylvania on the one side (Allentown) and the Poconos on the other. New Jersey lies to the east and more rural areas to the West.

I once served as an advisory board member for the Penn State University Cooperative Extension. I completed six years, many of those as Secretary. I never realized how passionate I was about the area’s agricultural heritage until I had this opportunity. I took it for granted.

I grew up in the rural Slate Belt in the 1980s where most of my neighbors were dairy farmers. One literal neighbor had a green house business. And our school bus route cut through a pig farm. Pig farms smell bad, by the way.

Corn fields. Horses. 4-H. Farm Shows. Future Farmers of America. Horticulture and Agriculture as high school science electives. I took horticulture one and it was an amazing exposure to organic gardening (in 1990 before it became trendy), flower arrangement, and gardening. You haven’t lived until you’ve washed a greenhouse of poinsettias with lye soap to kill the white flies.

At that time your parents were either farmers or blue collar workers. My dad was a diesel mechanic.

During the last two decades, farm land has given way to suburban developments and warehousing.

And to compete with large commercial farm and maintain some smaller farms as viable, farmers have embraced the CSA model.

In a CSA arrangement, when selecting his crops and ordering his seeds, the farmer also contacts those who have expressed interest in supporting the farm. These supporters then purchase a share of the season’s crops by sending money in advance. There’s usually a “full share” customarily enough for a family of four and a “half share” for those who don’t have a family or are timid about how much produce they can use.

The farm typically shares what crops they want to plant and the supporter can usually cater their share to their likes and dislikes.

The farmer uses that money to buy his supplies and pay his bills until the crop is ready. And has a guaranteed market for some of his crop.

Terra Fauna (located in Northampton, Pa.) planted a flower and herb garden on what I believe they said used to be their cow pasture. For $5, you can pick a bouquet.

As I mentioned, they had planned a workshop for last week but the heat and the threat of thunderstorms made them postpone until July 5.

Joan took photos and the teenager and I indulged our witchy senses and gathered blooms and herbs from the rows.

We spent $26.50 on extras— a farm fresh cucumber, two zucchini, a quart of new potatoes, a pound of local honey harvested this past Saturday, some garden herb cheese spread and a coffee flavored yogurt smoothie which I think tasted like a milkshake.

The teenager came home and spread her cheese spread on some crisp fresh cucumber and for the sandwich effect added “chicken in a biskit” crackers I bought over the weekend. The juxtaposition of ultra-processed and farm fresh was not lost on her.

Perhaps before the end of the summer, Joan and I can “do lunch” at the farm on one of her weekly CSA pick up days. Which, as a country girl, let me tell you this one truth: 

The only way to eat sweet corn is fresh off the farm. If you’re buying sweet corn at a local big box grocery store, I’m sad for you.