Today was a VERY nice day, and long overdue. A beautiful day with nice people, people who do real good in this crazy world in which we live. A day where everyone was friendly, people were fine wearing masks at a school as we are still living the COVID life. A day with no one with an axe to grind, only positivity and community in the best sense of the word.
One of my friends from Shipley is part of the development office team at Church Farms School. She told me a while back one of my friends and classmates from Shipley, syndicated cartoonist Robb Armstrong would be honored and be part of the Farm Fest parents Weekend 2021. Robb’s cartoon strip is called Jump Start.
This weekend has many activities and it was also the dedication of the buildings Church Farms has been working on and renovating and creating adaptive reuses of on campus. This school should get a historic preservation award for adaptive reuse. Greystock Hall and the Buck Family Center for the Arts were dedicated, they announced the Joseph E. Rhile Endowed Scholarship, and presented their inaugural CFS Medal to Stacey Shreiner Kley, Caroline Buck Rogers and Cannie Crysler Shafer.
So my friend Robb Armstrong was the youngest nationally syndicated cartoonist and is perhaps also today the most widely syndicated black cartoonist. I will note that I think there are only four syndicated black cartoonists. He created the interior of our Shipley yearbook, and we were all memorialized in his drawings. At Syracuse, where he majored in Fine Arts, he penned a strip in college newspaper called “Hector”. His strips are still drawn by hand, and he is also a motivational speaker.
Robb Armstrong speaking at Church Farms School, October 16, 2021
Robb spoke to the kids, and faculty, and parents, and the rest of the guests (which had a rather fun Shipley School contingent!) I am including most of what he spoke about. I missed the first few moments because of connectivity issues. I am also including the opening remarks from the Head of School, The Reverend Edmund K. “Ned” Sherrill II. I found him to be such an inspiring individual. He is a Head of School that is there for his students. He refers to what they do as “for the boys”.
It was a day that was full of good. For a few hours we left the strife and nastiness of everything locally, regionally, and in the world behind. It was so nice. It was also inspiring and soul rejuvenating. To see actually good people, spend time with them, learn what they had done and what Church Farms is about today, was just so nice. My husband and I had a wonderful time, and we also got to see a couple of our favorite teachers from high school.
If you are interested in Church Farms School or would like to make a gift, please visit their website.
I will note for the record, I was not asked to write anything, am not being compensated for this or photos. I am just paying it forward.
Enjoy the Church Farms Boys Choir, they are one of three videos I am posting.
Inside the hoop house – zinnias and lisianthus and more!
🎈UPDATE 🎈 the neighbors on Castlebar against Wildflower Farm in Willistown apparently had their zoning appeal tossed by zoning last evening. I am told the phrase used was “lack of jurisdiction” to hear their appeal.
Wildflower Farm will be back in front of zoning in a few weeks.
Snapdragons. They just remind me of childhood, because it was one of the first flowers I ever grew.
I will also note that not all neighbors on and adjacent to that street are against the farm. I think that is an important distinction not always noted. Also important to note is that not all of the “neighbors“ who have been involved with these zoning challenges of Wildflower Farm actually physically live on Castlebar Lane. That is a matter of public record, isn’t it?
I could look at this view all day!
And I am stating for the record that I am not the spokesperson of the Heenan family or their attorneys which is the latest rumor being spread. I am a friend of the Heenans, have a brain in my head, a legal right to express how I feel about this issue, and am an occasional customer of their farm. I am also a gardener, so I appreciate their efforts to rejuvenate their farm which frankly needed cleaning up, and their interest in flowers and trees and native plants and bee-keeping.
This Wildflower Farm property is zoned agricultural, BUT truthfully they could have IGNORED all that and built a giant McMansion when they purchased it. But instead they opted to restore the house and the barn and bring a viable adaptive reuse to existing farmland.
The restored barn and hoop house
The Heenans should have been welcomed into their neighborhood, yet they have been treated most poorly by some. For the record I happen to live on a cul-de-sac, and if this farm was on my street I would be unbelievably happy.
I think Willistown folk and other related people interested in this topic that it is really great that you are interested in supporting Wildflower Farm through this process and please continue.
🌸🐝Flowers bring happiness. We know, it’s why we garden.🌸🐝
I am using some of my photos of the farm taken last week, and I am also sharing a photo of the Radnor Hunt which does go through their property sometimes. Not all property owners allow the hunt to pass through any longer.
The above photo was sent today from a friend who had a friend passing through Bucks County. They snapped this photo at York and Street Road. I guess that makes it Warrington?
My friend’s friend was speechless. I am speechless. It’s literally a penis protest. And I thought the anti-masker protests were fakakta. I am sure someone will comment that I am anti-man anti-penis but ummm, what I don’t get is why the anti-foreskin folks are protesting? Is there a must get snipped law we are unaware of?
I will note if you look at the photo at the bottom that will show a school bus. Which means kids were looking at this. it’s like a renegade health class come to life.
According to a couple of newspaper articles within the past couple of days that I unearthed, these people are also standing there with giant red splotches on their crotch to represent blood I guess. Oh to be a fly on the wall when the police have to drive by.
📌‼️It was hard to avoid, a group of men, and two women, all dressed in white, with red splotches on the crotches of the pants, holding up signs that proclaimed, among other things, “Genitals Should Not Have Scars,” “Stop Cutting Baby Penises” and “Foreskin Theft!”….Over the past two weeks, the group, members of an organization called The Bloodstained Men, have been traveling the highways and byways of Pennsylvania, staging protests to the practice of circumcision, which the group contends is a human rights issue. They came from all around the country, meeting at the Philadelphia airport, renting a van and hitting the road….The group – which is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization – argues that many male newborns in this country are circumcised at birth, a violation of their human rights because a newborn cannot consent to the procedure. 📌‼️
I just don’t know. I have really limited things I can say about this because I’m still somewhat speechless. Isn’t this an issue with their parents for doing it? And if these are all adults are their parents even alive?
I have been sitting on this. I knew East Whiteland was working hard to get the derelict building that had a fire Christmas Eve, 2016 next to the WaWa at Route 30 and Planebrook, behind Osman’s Pizza in Frazer (a/k/a 577 Lancaster Ave) demolished.
Photo found on Internet – courtesy of. Malvern Fire Company or East Whiteland Fire Company (they were both there.)
The structure was never repaired. In my opinion it was also never properly secured all these years. It was featured a lot on this blog.
My photo. Taken recently.
So anyway this was a situation that bothered lots of people, including East Whiteland Township staff and elected officials. Township staff and Supervisor Scott Lambert kept chipping away at the issue, and finally last week I was told there would be good news come Monday morning.
On Friday if you were around the WaWa, you saw equipment being dropped off.
Well it’s Monday, and I have good news: as you can see from the video this hideous, derelict structure is finally coming down.
I know you all think all I do is criticize local government but I am going to thank East Whiteland because as we learned from them trying to get Malvern Meetinghouse down for years, it doesn’t happen overnight.
Amazingly enough, the list of things you are not allowed to do according to a select few in Chester County is growing.
(1) You may never ever criticize the landed gentry living on a cul-de-sac in Willistown because they are being mean to people who have a…wait for it…organic flower farm.
(2) You may never ever criticize grown ass idiots protesting in the rain in front of a mall on Route 100. It’s OK for them to express their opinion that their children are somehow suffocating wearing masks during Covid, but they would like to suffocate you for expressing your first amendment right to your opinions.
(3) It is perfectly acceptable for others to tear you down. What is not acceptable is for you to stand up for yourself
I had one woman who is (I guess) some kind of a women’s coach tell me this weekend I am essentially the most reviled woman in Chester County. But if I was speaking my piece wearing a tutu or tiara I would be just dandy? According to this woman I do the most complaining, as in, ever. Honey, you need to get out more.
I think women who supposedly spend their lives lifting other women up, yet find time to criticize me because I’m different from them very entertaining. When they say things like “women who are living a life of meaning and purpose” essentially have no time for me, what does that even mean? Then I am part of some female sub species because I speak my truth to power? Or my truth is somehow less important than their truth? Or maybe I just don’t do fake and that’s a bad thing?
Perhaps next I will be called a bad Catholic or not Christian. Now for the Catholic part, I will own it because I don’t like what I see as far as much of what poses as Catholic these days with a few exceptions. I guess I am seeing a lot of hypocrisy in religion, and a lot less of the truly good and godly people, the quiet doers. I tire of those whose version of lifting people up as a Christian is tearing other people down for being different.
However, if we’re going to talk faith, I have my faith. I know what I was raised, and I am at one with my God. I know who I am. But I will tell you that the God I know it’s not an angry, punishing entity, and that seems to be a trend. But rarely have I ever been trendy. Well except for French jeans in like 7th or 8th grade.
I have many friends who I find either to be deeply spiritual or what I would call true Christians. They aren’t flashy, they aren’t obvious, they don’t broadcast what they’re doing, they just do their good works.
I am also not a Stepford wife. It’s physically and ideologically impossible for me. And I’m not going to be apologizing for not being the identical twin to everyone else in my neighborhood or area. I am myself. And to be a woman as well as being who you are is not bad. Be true to yourself, don’t be a dumbed down version of yourself.
When you are growing up and you are not the mirror image of some, it had days that could be hard. Especially in like middle school and high school. I found it more difficult in the middle school to junior high school years because that age is just simply put, a mine field. Bullies reigned supreme and the popular lunch tables were a thing. But I found my groove and had my friends, most of whom I still have as friends today.
By the time high school rolled around, mean girls no longer took me by surprise in the least. They just did their thing, and I learned to do mine. And I am always amused to see them at reunions being just older versions of their younger selves.
But I didn’t forget the mean girls of youth because they teach you valuable lessons about yourself and others. The nice thing about age, comes the wisdom of being able to recognize mean girls as adults in their natural environment. And it’s always so funny to me how they still exist in adulthood. Only as an adult, it’s easy to put them is their box and forget them. Until some days they are just there again. But the mean girls of adulthood also teach you valuable lessons about yourself. They reinforce it’s ok to be an individual.
As an adult, you discover mean girls of all ages have the same tools. Gossip, bullying, whisper down the lane, and social media.
Now let’s talk social media for a moment. Do you think when all people post is how fabulous their life is, that their life is actually so fabulous 24/7/365? I’m not talking about a little post about their garden or something cute one of their kids did, I am talking about the full blown narcissistic social media posts. Look at me, I’m Sandra Dee. Hi there, yes we see you, can you really push a stroller in those heels?
I can’t help but wonder if because of how sociologically fascinating social media is if it will become a mainstream sociology course in the future? I did a little googling and I actually did find some schools with courses that kind of met this idea. I actually do find it fascinating. It’s like land of the sheeple, the next town over from Stepford.
But the thing is I am free to be me and you are free to be you. But I don’t have to agree with you. I don’t have to like what you stand for. If I think something is wrong locally or societally or politically and I want to talk about it, that’s my right. If I think something is wrong in my world personally and I want to talk about it, I’m not driving over a cliff, writing is my catharsis.
I don’t pretend to be a perfect human being. I can’t. We are all flawed. To be flawed is to be human. But I am not going to just take what someone preaches as their Gospel as my Gospel.
In the continual evolution of this country in which we live I find it amusing that sometimes now people are being persecuted for what our founding fathers fought for them to have as far as rights. And that’s the thing: you’re only OK in the books of these other people if you agree with them 100%.
Anyway that’s it. Just felt like Alice down the rabbit hole in the land of never evers. And I finally understand why sometimes you want to say “oh bitch, pullleazzzze.”
Moms Against Suffocating Kids. You just can’t make this stuff up.
How about Kids Against Suffocating Moms?
First of all, personally I am too damn old to protest in the rain. Secondly it’s SUNDAY, don’t they have anything else to do? Thirdly what do they think will happen because they stood in the rain outside a mall on Route 100 at Route 30? Literally no one blink their lights or beeped the horns in support. The people in the car next to us were laughing hysterically.
Also there is that whole thing about respecting our beautiful United States flag and not flying it in inclement weather? So Captain America, do you not respect our flag enough? The flag, our flag, should not be subject to weather damage. Maybe that is an all weather flag, but still? There are actually federal guidelines. How is this even a flag-bearing occasion?
Honestly, you can’t make this stuff up. I would say they should volunteer on a pediatric ward for kids with COVID but who knows if they even have shots?
I have always been fascinated with people who do metal detecting and treasure hunting. I think it’s just cool and I also like the history involved. So this morning, Chester County Metal Detecting came out to our home and scanned our property and woods.
Sadly no fabulous examples of local history were found but we did find a lot of really old shotgun and looks like rifle shells. The rifle shells are interesting because one of my neighbors tells me that Chester County is shotgun only.
These lovely people do this for fun there is no charge they’re not treasure stealers and they love what they do! I met them in part because they scanned a friend of mine‘s home and they were at a nonprofit event for the Tredyffrin Historic Preservation Trust recently.
They have a Facebook page and a website if you would like to connect with them and have them come visit you. It’s a totally fun experience and I highly recommend it! Besides, you never know what little bit of history will be unearthed!
I was there today visiting (I was a guest in their home, nosy neighbors) and for 25 min aguy in a dark SUV drove back-and-forth in front of their farm to see who was sitting on their patio. I finally waved at him and called hello (loudly) and he went away. I guess a middle-aged white woman sitting on someone’s patio as a guest drinking a sparkling water is a threat?
Can I tell you how BEAUTIFUL and serene and peaceful Wildflower Farm is in spite of their neighbors? I walked through their magical woods and walked every outside row and every hoop house row of flowers. I am a gardener, I was in heaven. And their trees are awesome. Including things like native redbuds and Japanese maples that they have planted. I can also envision their fields alive with peonies and hydrangeas, too.
We talked gardening. I shared my gardening resources for bulbs and native plants. I also shared with them Chester County farms also that are small producing farms. Why? Because those farms and farmers are embraced by their neighbors, not absurdly reviled.
The majority of the neighbors on this street where they live have that extra special development mentality that I abhor. They sure are the types who should be living in a Stepford Wife Toll Brothers or similar development where everything is samey-samey cookie cutter and they can’t plant flowers, but the petty tyrants of homeowner associations reign supreme.
Wildflower Farm is zoned to be a farm. They aren’t throwing raucous parties 24 /7 they are a young family with two beautiful children who have a dream to have a farm and grow flowers.
They are an organic farm.
And what I saw today with the person in the SUV driving back-and-forth and back-and-forth and back-and-forth with my own eyes, they are experiencing harassment and must feel as if they are constantly under siege.
If someone chooses to live differently or simply, these pig-ignorant types of people find fault with it. It’s literally heart breaking that they cannot see the beauty here through the trees. But it’s like a blood sport to play whisper down the lane and to gossip inaccurately and cruelly about this young family? That’s Christian, God-fearing behavior?
The people who live in this neighborhood on Castlebar Lane where poor small farm is located are not all bad. But the majority of them seem so off the hook unpleasant in my opinion, it takes your breath away. I don’t understand how these people can do any of this with a clear conscience? They trespass on their property, they fly drones overhead to try to say they’re doing something wrong and they’re not, and for what? What do they gain?
A friend of mine (who lives on a farm) said to me that they don’t get these people who want everything big box and cookie cutter.
Take the neighbor on one side? Building this giant berm so they don’t have to look at them which is something that is so ludicrous to me because if I lived next-door I would want a clear view so I could see what flowers they were growing! They have totally cleaned up this property it’s beautiful, and it has the most gorgeous woods. You look at it and it makes you think like this is what Chester County is supposed to be.
What is happening to these people is literally insane. And the fact that one of the people giving them a hard time and filing zoning things and other stuff is on the planning commission in Willistown Township just blows my mind and then there’s the other people who have lots (as in empty lots of land) on the road but don’t actually live there who have been big for years with the Willistown Conservation Trust? And if you go through publications of the Willistown Conservation Trust you see other names also in this bizarre NIMBY situation? I don’t understand these people apparently farms are OK just not in their neighborhood but it’s zoned agricultural, it’s not just a residential area so I really don’t understand the pretzel logic? (And FYI the candidate for Willistown Supervisor who seems to be doing a lot of promising including helping their horrid neighbors? Remember THAT at the polls. Those who over-promise to everyone, never deliver but that is a separate conversation.)
Wildflower Farm deserves ALL of our support. They are up in front of zoning next week and Willistown and I have posted about it it is a public meeting and if you’re not a resident you don’t have standing so you won’t be speaking but you can go and support in solidarity. Especially if you are a FARMER.
The Heenans are the people we want as neighbors in Chester County, and in a time where every square inch is developed they are farming and growing wildflowers and are into native plants.
Please lend these nice people your support. Supporting farmers benefits all of us. Their dreams should not die because they have the biggest bunch of jerky Stepford village neighbors ever created. NIMBY anti-farm hell. Petty tyrants. And that opinion is allowed.
Also they have a petition. Sign the petition please, but also please consider attending the zoning meeting, especially.
#PayItForward
#SaveSmallFarms
#MeanPeopleSuck
#ShopSmall
#SupportSmallBusinesses
I would also say in the short term to think twice about donating to Willistown Conservation Trust. If these neighbors are the kind of people supporting them I don’t know about you but you really want to be around them? But I would encourage you to support Natural Lands, of course.
I love flowers. I love farms. I love nice people. So you know I am Team Wildflower Farm, are you?
I took this photo recently at Life’s Patina where Wildflower Farm was part of an event there. I was super impressed by them and their flowers.
This is a strange tale of really surprisingly unpleasant and in my opinion oddly not neighborly folks. That being said, since they seem to be the litigious types, nothing here is not either a photo taken on a public road, photos of the farm I am writing about OR public information. Oh and that lovely thing called the First Amendment.
This is the strangest case of bad NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard).
This is a case of life is short, can’t we (literally) just enjoy the flowers and get along?
So how did I become aware of this? Recently someone said to me, have you seen the local zoning notices lately? And I said nooo….because your eyes can cross and glaze over if you read too many (just kidding but it’s dry stuff.)
Well then blow me over, one was about a local small farm…and most shocking, located in Willistown Township, supposedly the land of happy open space and farm loving people. So dear readers, I think I stumbled upon a case of those who shall we say perhaps move out here for the bucolic vistas and “country”, but oh hell no, put that farm someplace else?
Yes, I have been having some OMG moments over this. You see, I live in a nice neighborhood with nice neighbors. My friends live in nice neighborhoods with nice neighbors, but Willistown? One of the prettiest place in Chester County and it seems to be plagued by these bizarre occurrences of late? There was that whole thing of ruffled feathers over chickens, and then there was the political candidate who couldn’t seem to behave at a public meeting where she wishes to become queen and reign, and now this? These nice people not only sell their flowers, they believe in farming organically, and educating people. It’s an entire desirable package and a pretty little farm.
So they are talking about Wildflower Farm. As in they grow Wildflowers organically. As in they are this super nice, charming, lovely young couple with two adorable little kids, a golden retriever, etc.?
Yes, completely WTF.
These neighbors in my humble opinion (which I am allowed to have), seem literally hell bent for leather in driving them out of town. And why? And when you read that zoning notice you want to rub your eyes because of a couple of the names that pop right out.
So explain to me how these champions of community involvement and dare I say it,conservation have problems with an organic FLOWER FARM???
When did everyone get so mean in beautiful Willistown????
But it doesn’t stop with the legalities of a zoning challenge, does it? Nope, nope, nope. How about trespassing? Poison pen letters? Blocking the farm’s driveway so people can’t enter? Flying drones over their property?
OK class can you all say “WTF” now?
Poison Pen Letter Envelope
Did this car break down? Is that why it’s blocking a fellow neighbor’s driveway?
I have seen videos of trespassing. But that is not my tale to tell. But I guarantee you Willistown Township has seen and probably has those videos. Along with the mysterious drone video output, correct?
And speaking of Willistown Township, I feel sorry for the township. I am sure they don’t want this and when did it become the purview of municipalities to have to babysit neighbors with wild hairs up their rears?
This is not quite the haves vs. the have nots, but the haves are a wee bit unbelievable with their let them eat cake, no farms in our back yard NIMBY scenario, correct?
This is all so very, very ugly. Is this what we as a society have become? Instead of TALKING with our neighbors, people just harass, harangue, and sue our neighbors? And then sometimes people wonder why other people just sell out to developers and walk away?
I just don’t understand how this is happening in Willistown Township. This is one of the most farmer friendly, farm friendly places. Yet these people seem to be (as I said before) hell bent for leather on destroying the lives of the owners of Wildflower Farm?
WHY????? These are NICE people. Thoughtful people. Small farm, organic farmers. You know the future we WANT for Chester County? Farms are disappearing by the day, this is the stuff that makes quality people NOT wish to move into communities, buy farms, preserve land.
These neighbors won’t like my opinions, but they put this out there in the public viewshed like bad Karma waiting to explode, and you know me and my love and respect for farm owners, farmers, and what Chester County used to be about. And I wish they would reconsider their path. This ugliness taints communities. It is so unnecessary. And Willistown? Don’t they need to stand up for small farmers AND large landholders, right?
No drama intended, I fear for this young family at Wildflower Farm.
(4) If you are a resident of Willistown or a fellow local farmer or a customer or just a lover of organic Wildflowers, show up for the Heenan family at the upcoming zoning meeting: Willistown Township Zoning Hearing Board will meet on Wednesday, October 13, 2021, at 7:00 p.m., at Sugartown Elementary School, 611 Sugartown Road, Malvern, Willistown Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania.
That’s it, this is all I have got. I just think this whole scenario is wrong. I am shocked and saddened that these adults have gone all Lord of The Flies, Rambo, whatever on a young family farming the right way and adding positively to the community.
Please pay it forward and politely and calmly support this family, this farm, their business.
I just turned on the news for a moment and I had a completely visceral reaction to a breaking news video. I actually teared up. I have friends who have devoted so much of their lives to this.
I am glad it finally happened, and I will also own the fact that I have never been a huge Josh Shapiro fan, but he has finally started to do good here. A lot of us have been aware of him for years and truthfully that dates back to when he was Chief of Staff to then Congressman Joe Hoeffel. A lot of us who were involved with saving Ardmore’s historic business district from eminent domain for private gain had interactions with him early on. And to be honest back then he didn’t really pay attention to us as those concerned residents, and then we just sort of watched as the rest of people did in southeastern PA as he took one political job then the next. He’s a politician, so I’m just being honest here. But I am so happy that this finally happened. And I say thank you to AG Josh Shapiro.
But who else am I saying thank you to? My amazing friends who have devoted so much time to this. So much time. As someone who lives in close proximity to where Adelphia wants to do the same thing, I am grateful for their years of work. And it’s not over yet. It’s really just beginning.
These charges or the announcement of charges indicates my friends and these other activists who are just every day people. Because really, that’s how activism starts: something drastically affects you within your community. And you wake up one day and you realize you can’t just stand there and say nothing and do nothing. And we also have to remember former district attorney for Chester County Tom Hogan and his staff. In 2019 he filed charges against Energy Transfer for other things.
Today’s press conference was held at Marsh Creek right here in Chester County. Why? A bunch of these charges relate to the release of industrial waste at 22 sites in 11 counties across the state. And Energy Transfer polluted Marsh Creek last year and it was significant. For more read State Impact.
And I want to take another minute to recognize the local folks who really did this. Ladies and gentlemen you know who you are. Many of you are my friends. I am so damn proud of you.
So proud. It’s not the war, but it’s a significant battle. So hey there Governor Tom Wolf how about pulling the permits? Harrisburg could do that pending outcome of all charges and final disposition, correct?
