Musings from Debbie: Living off the land USA Part 2

For many of us, living off the land is something that our parents or grandparents may have experienced but it is certainly far from being a reality for those of us who live in the city. Frank and Jackie Luppino graciously hosted us for 5 days in their home - on a 7 acres farm near Lodi and allowed us to experience a bit of living off their land. We greatly enjoy the very organic and healthy way of living on the farm.

Frank is very good with dough so he often makes his own pasta and bread. But on that first day in their home, he makes pizza from scratch - proofing the dough and baking it in the mexican stove Francesca bought him for Father's Day.

Frank explaining to Yeye about the firewood for the mexican stove.
Somehow Yeye understands the body language without any translation.
Yeye listens and observes intently

Jason and Frank making the fire the mexican stove

Proofing the dough for the 4 pizzas

Cooking the pizzas in the mexican stove

I was sent to harvest the San Marzano long
tomatoesin the front yard for the pizza's topping.
Love thisorganic way of harvesting and
cooking food straight away!

Luscious long San Marzano tomatoes
freshly plucked off the vine

While waiting for the pizzas to be cooked, we munched on
Jackie 's delicious and colorful vegetables and dips.

4 men bonding whilst cooking pizzas for the ladies.Yes!!

The first pizza is ready.

Frank cuts and serves.

Yummylicious homecooked homegrown goodness!

Ken Jon is tasked to roll the dough for the pizzas
and to do the toppings for the last pizza personally
and to serve it to us.

Prior to our pizza party, Frank worked up our appetites by walking through his farm, unveiling the secrets in his barn and walking through his woods.

Yeye is delighted to discover several apple trees
laden with luscious fruits.

We clambered up the secret loft in the barn where Frank unveils his swing. Even Francesca and Ken Jon hasn't seen this swing. All of us had a go on the swing but Franks swings highest and hits the ceiling with his shoes and threatens to fly out of the barn window.

Jackie swings and says she is giddy.

Frank swings high.

The little boy in Frank grinning
as he goes higher on the swing.

His feet hit the rafters in the ceiling and he is satisfied
but Jason wants him to hurtle out of the barn window.

Frank shows us a tulip tree leaf. Why is it
called a tulip tree?Look at the profile of the leaf.
It resembles a tulip flower profile.

Oaks are divided into 2 basic categories - red and white
oaks.Red oak leaves have spiny tips.Frank educates
us to differentiate between red and white oaks
by looking at the thin spiny tips on the leaf .

White oak leaves don't have spiny tips

Our fave question. Can this be eaten?

I loved the way Jackie has put beautiful touches into their lovely home. And the way Frank can repair anything from dishwasher to ... What an awesome couple!

Love this pretty room with bedside lamp overlooking the front garden.

Embroidered pretty table cloth.

Such a sweet lamp.

Loved this book stand of little boy reading intently.

Over the next few days, we received quite an education on trees and many other stuff.

You can put letters with stamp in the postbox and raise the red flag up.
Then the postman will then collect your letters and mail them.
Saves you a trip to the post office.

We learnt how to polish apples before eating and not to take apples which had fallen to the ground as the deer could have peed over them. The moon flowers obliged us and bloomed while we were there

The joy in Yeye's face when he finds the big juicy red apples.
Each morning, he goes out with great excitement and
plucks the apples even when it is cold.

The moon flowers bloom in the night and early morning.

See the difference between the polished apple
and the unpolished apple.
Yes,we have become apple polishers!

Yeye enjoys eating the apples we plucked.
They taste so yummy - sweet and oh so crunchy!

Franks tasks us to pluck 2 big bags of apples.

I had taught on the word grace ח נ chen with the
alphabet chet of a fence surrounding a young plant
just before I left for the States. I see the fence around
Frank's young plants to protect them from the deer.

Frank took us to his woods and showed us his favorite trees.

Frank on his tree chair formed
by the trunk and roots of this tree

Jason walking through the green woods. The fresh air
and pure oxygen in the woods does us a world of good.

The colours of fall in the woods. Behind is is a maple tree I think.

Yeye enjoys the splendour of the tall trees in the woods.
Yeye has no cough at all while travelling overseas.
The clean air is very good for him.

Selfie in the woods

Frank is very intent when he explains his trees.

Lovers often carve their oaths on the soft bark of the beech tree

Frank says he also has twin towers but trees twin towers.

Frank explained how maple syrup was drawn from trees via splies. The syrup flow downwards by virtue of gravity into thin blue plastic tubings and then combined to bigger tubing pipes before being sent to be evaporated off. There is a new respect for maple syrup when we learnt it takes 47 gallons of raw maple syrup to become 1 gallon. Maple syrup flows usually in late winter to early spring. the condition needed is for the daytime temperature to rise just above freezing point whilst the nighttime temperature remains below freezing point. The change in temperature creates pressure to force out the maple syrup. I love the physics in the maple syrup flow! The pics were taken near Malabar Farm State Park.