The History of Cold Saturday Farm

This evening I met a woman named Alice. As it turns out, she has some personal history with Cold Saturday Farm, the property across the road. In 1932 her mother and father and their three children were living in Baltimore, where they had moved from New York City. Alice's mother always wanted to live on a farm, and on weekends she had her husband drive them into the country to look for farms. Apparently they drove down Rt. 91 through Finksburg, and she noticed a grove of evergreens off the road. She rightly guessed that there was a house back there. They drove in, found the house, and inquired whether it might be for sale.

They ended up buying the farm - all 330 acres - for $33,000. This was during the depression, in 1932. At the time, the farm was called Clover Hill Farm. The beautiful old stone house was built in 1765. There was also a smaller stone house, a barn, and several out buildings. Alice's mother went to Annapolis to research the property, and found that the original name had been Cold Saturday Farm, so named because when it was originally surveyed, it was noted that it had been a cold Saturday in January. She reverted the name of the farm back to Cold Saturday Farm, and so it has been ever since.

They raised cattle and had horses. In 1939, a terrible arson fire destroyed the barn and all twelve of their riding horses, draft work horses, and the children's ponies. The herdsman, who lived in the smaller stone house, saw that the barn was on fire and was able to open the gates and let out the cattle, but none of the horses were able to be rescued. Tragically, they all perished inside their stalls.

The farm remained in the family until 1976, when her mother sold all but 75 acres - saving 25 acres for each of her children. Sadly, the new owners neglected the property. It became very run down until it was sold again in 1985 to a Mr. Bean. Mr. Bean restored Cold Saturday Farm and still owns the property today. In order to afford the restorations, Mr. Bean sold off large portions of the farm to developers, including the land where our house sits today.

After she was married, Alice and her family moved several times while her husband served in the military, until finally settling near Washington, D.C. Alice had her own career as an anesthesiologist. She ended up in medicine after she took a required science course in biology and found that she loved it. Prior to settling on medicine she had started out in college with a major in English, then art history.

About 6 months ago, Alice moved back to Finksburg where she and her daughter now live on the remaining 75 acres of the original farm. As it turned out, her siblings settled in different areas, so Alice bought their 25-acre shares from them. I recently posted a blog describing the walk Jim and I took through that property, and posted some of the photos I took that day. I would like Alice to come over to see them. We'll have tea, I think. I'm sure she would enjoy seeing how lovely the property is today. I'm so delighted to live within walking distance of this beautiful place.


Old Stone Farmhouse, built in 1765.


Smaller stone house where the herdsman lived.


Horse looking out of the barn.


One of the horses boarded at the farm.


Fencing overlooking stream and bridge.


Log house used for bath house in summer, skating house in winter.


Another view of the log house. It was moved from another place and completely reassembled on site, board by board.


One of the old barns.


Farm pond.


Geese swimming on a stream. Beautiful bridge over the stream.

The Throes of Summer ...

Like most of the country, it's been miserably hot here lately. Hopefully, tomorrow will be a little cooler and we can venture outside without immediately wilting. A thunderstorm blew through late this afternoon, and it was interesting to see the temperature drop 20° in a matter of minutes. Gave us an opportunity to poke around in the garden after the storm and harvest a few cucumbers and cherry tomatoes. I was rather depressed to check out the flowers. We have two potted double hibiscus trees that have been in great shape until now. Each pot is actually three bushes braided together. One has the trunks of three different colored bushes, resulting in a bush with peach, red, and yellow flowers. It's lovely. The other is all peach. I noticed that the peach one has had an alarming number of leaves stripped off by the squirrels. I know it's them because I've caught them in the act many times and chased them away. They shimmy up the trunks, pick off the leaves, then run away with a leaf in their mouth. They sit up on the hill out of reach, blissfully chomping away. Must be a delicacy for them, given how few leaves are remaining. Unfortunately, the hibiscus branches aren't strong enough to support squirrels, and I've found several broken off under the weight of the thieving rodents. That's even worse than losing leaves, which may grow back.

The rest of the flower beds and pots really need some attention. I usually go out every day and tend to deadheading the flowers, watering the pots, and pulling up weeds. Well, things are looking pretty scruffy out there now. No way am I going to tend the garden when the temperature is in the mid-nineties, and it shows. Maybe tomorrow I'll be able to catch up a little. I hope so. Damn this global warming.

Sharing Daddy's Lap

After a few days of hisses, growls, and bad tempers, Paddle has begrudgingly accepted little Ming Toy. Ming was brave tonight and jumped up onto Jim's lap while Paddle was lying there. At least Paddle didn't chase her away. Progress! The other two have yet to be civil to the new kitten, and it's really sad. She wants to play in the worst way. It may take a few more days before everybody starts napping together in a pussy pile.

Ming is proving to be a very sweet little cat. She's well behaved, mostly, and very affectionate. Big eyes take everything in as she figures out where she fits in. Good appetite, uses her litter box, plays with various toys, although she doesn't put them away yet. Doesn't quite have the retrieval concept down, but I think she'll catch on soon. All in all, she's great fun. Now if only the boys would quit the macho attitude...

Welcome to our Family!!!

We have a new family member! We're back to 4 Tonks with the addition of a new Natural Mink Tonkinese to our household. After a flurry of kitten power talks and emails with a breeder in Virginia, we made trip to "adopt" this little five-month old kitten on Thursday. Today is her 5th month birthday. She's just adorable, very brave, and very affectionate. I'm just thrilled with her. She was spayed a week ago and had her stitches out on Wednesday.

Natural Mink is what my Ping was, our cat who died last year on September 11th. I loved her very much. She was unique, one of a kind, and irreplaceable. I'm not trying to replace Ping, truly. I loved Ping's coloring and her mink-like coat. The Natural Mink is fairly rare and darkens as the cat ages until it's a deep sable with brown-black points. I also loved the time when our Tonks were kittens, and wanted to capture that fun time again.

And so we have! Our new kitten is named Catdancing Ming Toy. (Catdancing is the name of the cattery.) I call her Ming or Toy. Hubby calls her Shitsky, but just to push my buttons. He claims since she came from Warsaw, (Virginia) she's Polish, ergo the name Shitsky. The other Tonks call her An Intruder. They are Not Pleased. They have been shooting her dirty looks and giving her a hiss when they see her, complaining in low growls. She's being respectful of her elders, keeping her distance, but not hiding from them. Today we had a game of "catch the birdie" with a feather toy between Paddle, Pong, and Toy. Pretty soon the animosities from Pong and Paddle diminished and they were all jumping after the "bird." I think they will all be bonded in a few days. But for now, they just wish she'd go home.

Meanwhile, I was advised by the breeder that we should sleep with her for the first three nights. This is to assure that she bonds with us instead of the cats. Well, it hasn't worked out quite that way. I have spent the past two nights with Toy in the spare bedroom, while my husband has remained in our bedroom. He decided years ago that the cats had to sleep outside our bedroom so that he can get a good night's sleep. That's fine with me. After 2 night's, I'm feeling somewhat sleep-deprived. Toy is a kitten, after all, and feet under a sheet are meant to be pounced on. Regardless of my husband's refusal to sleep with her, she is bonding to him as well, jumping up on his lap and rolling over for a belly rub.

Lots of fun times ahead. I'm really happy.

Itchy Bum? NO! Ichiban!

Several years ago, we received a gift from one of our family members. It was a beautiful handmade pottery vase, a low dish with three short, upright tubes. We were told it was an Ichiban, a Japanese flower designing vessel. The tubes were open at the bottom to allow the stems to uptake water. Well, recently we had a visit from this family member. She found the Ichiban in the bathroom, serving as a catch-all for a candle, matches, and hair clips.

Ah, the humiliation. We were given a stern lecture regarding the proper usage of an Ichiban, its history and its purpose. An Ichican is a feng shui-type pottery vessel, designed to support the stems of flowers and sprigs of greenery in a simple, vertical arrangement. It's all about maintaining different heights of the selected vegetation in a pleasing arrangement. The still water in the bottom is also very feng shui, transmitting positive chi, tranquility, calmness, and peacefulness to the household.

Ever since the visit, I've been maintaining our Ichiban, changing the water and the flowers faithfully, and I've come to love it. I use flowers from our garden and sprigs from the surrounding shrubs and trees. Here's my latest arrangement, which I think is quite lovely.

Pastoral Walk Thru Finksburg

I think my muse must have been off on vacation for the past week or so. Happily, it's back again and I can post. I've missed my blog! It's time to get back into writing.

I want to start by describing and showing a walk we took around our neighborhood at the beginning of the week. Luckily I had the forethought to bring my camera with me. I'm so glad I did, because there were some beautiful photos for the taking. I can't get over how beautiful the scenery is here. Within walking distance of our home there is a very old, beautiful horse farm, streams and and several ponds. We saw a gaggle of geese (I've never used that word in a sentence before!) who were swimming in the brook, then trooped out and marched across a lawn.





The greens of the vegetation were wonderful, reminding me of the 40 shades of green in Ireland.




Here's a burro who came up to the fence for a pet.


I love the old weathered barns.







The following photos are just beauty that speaks for itself.






















I can't believe how fortunate we are to live in such a beautiful area!

Finished!

Just finished reading the book for our book club Monday. The Amateur Marriage. When we learned what the next book would be last month, I realized I had already read it. Anne Tyler is a favorite author of mine and I've read most, if not all, of her books. Anyway, decided I'd better leaf through it again to "refresh my memory" before Monday. I remembered how the story started, but couldn't recall much except that the main characters met on Pearl Harbor Day and he went off to war. After that I couldn't remember anything else. So I checked it out again from the library and started rereading it. Come to find out, I had only read the first 50 pages or so the first time around! Yikes! Only three days to read the whole book.

Well, it was a great book, so it was easy to get through it in just a couple of days. Lucky for me. I highly recommend it.