August may be the busiest month for jarheads (enthusiastic canners). Working full time and getting enough jam, peaches, cherries, beets, various other pickled things, salsa, and spaghetti sauce put up for the winter can be a real BEAR!
A Real Bear. Photo Courtesy Therese Boyd.
You’re lucky if you get the bread-and-butter pickles done in time for the Fair (more on the Centre County Grange Fair to come).
Something I’m probably going to miss this year is Ag Progress Days, August 14–16, at Penn State’s Russell E. Larson Ag Research Center at Rock Springs (west of State College on Rt. 45). Bob Oberheim, APD manager, noted on Penn State Live: “[Ag Progress Days] allows the College of Agricultural Sciences to highlight for the public and producers the land-grant research and cutting-edge technologies that drive our food system. . . . Also, consumers can learn more about how their food is produced and get information on health and nutrition, home gardening and other topics that can help improve their daily lives.”
Among the APD program sessions this year are the vegetable—
- High Tunnel Research and Education
- Sustainable and Organic Cropping Systems
the mineral—
- Protecting Private Water Supplies from Natural Gas Drilling
- Short-Rotation Woody Crops for Biomass Tour
and the animal—
- Fiber: The Unsung Hero of Your Horse’s Diet
- Equine Acupuncture
Speaking as a human who has benefited immensely from the subjects of these last two sessions, I wonder if The Pie’s results are similar to my own.
