Yes, that is what I said. The field next to our campsite are alive with the sound of frogs. I thought at first it was crickets, but being a girl from Georgia, I knew that it is too cold for crickets. When I asked the locals, they said that they are called “Snow Frogs”. I have never heard of snow frogs, but you never know, that might be what they are. When I wake up in the middle of the night, that is what I hear. They are very loud, so sometimes it keeps me from going back to sleep. I guess it could be worse, it could be jet planes like we experienced last year at Holiday Trav-L-Park in Virginia Beach. I will take frogs over jets any day (or night).
Weikert’s Egg Farm
While I was out yesterday, I also went by Weikert’s Egg Farm. It is at 2559 Fairfield Road in Gettysburg, about 3 miles from Granite Hill Campground, where we are working. I have been seeing their sign every time we go somewhere since we got here and have been wanting to go see what they have for sale. So, while I was on the loose alone, I went in there.
They sell eggs and BEEF, which is surprising because I would have thought eggs and CHICKEN. The eggs they sell come from free walking chickens. That means the chickens are not in cages, they can walk around in the chicken barn, eat as much a they want, and lay their eggs in a nest. I didn’t get any eggs while I was there because I didn’t need any but I will be going there next time I need them.
They advertise their beef as “Naturally Fed Beef”. To quote from their flyer, “Unlike most commercially produced beef, our cattle are fed an all natural diet of corn, hay, and wheat without any special feed additives to speed up the animals’ growth. This means there are no hormones, implants, or any other artificial substances used to enhance growth.
In addition, the crops grown on the Weikert Farm to feed the cattle are also grown without the aid of chemicals such as pesticides, insecticides, herbicides, or chemical fertilizers.” end of quote.
I was glad to see this advertisement because Fabgrandpa’s endoctrinologist, Dr. Singh, told us he should not eat beef because the beef on the market has too many hormones added to it for someone who has a thyroid problem. Ever since he told us that we have cut our beef consumption drastically. I MIGHT buy a pound of ground beef once a month, and only use about a half pound in a pot of chili. So, I bought one rib steak from them yesterday and we split it. It really did seem to taste better than what we are used to getting at the supermarket.
Weikert’s eggs were priced from two dozen small eggs for $1.50 and up, depending on the size. They have both white and brown eggs. Their beef prices were comparable to what I would have to pay at the grocery stores in town. T-bone steaks were $8.89 per pound, Rib steaks were $7.99 per pound, and Chuck roast was $3.49 per pound. They also have beef by the quarter at $1.05 per pound live weight. For more information, click here for their website.
Four Seasons Bakery and Cafe in Gettysburg
Today was laundry day, so I went out by myself. Usually when I am out by myself, I go to the places I really shouldn’t go.The place that grabbed my attention last week when we were driving around town was the Four Seasons Bakery and Cafe. When I saw it I made a mental note to myself of its location. (I know those of you who know me well know that any note to myself is mental!) So, that is the first place I headed before going to the laundromat.
The Four Seasons Bakery and Café is located at 100 Chambersburg Street in Gettysburg. The menu includes soups, sandwiches, pastries, coffee and tea. There is a wide variety of cookies, pastries, pies, and cakes for sale as well as bread and foccacia of the day. It was hard for me to choose, but I finally settled on a cheese danish. I was not disappointed! The pastry was crisp and light, with a generous amount of a cream cheese filling. The price for the danish was $1.85.
The service was quick and the staff friendly and they smiled a lot. I did not have time to stay for lunch, but based on the yummy treat I had today I know I will be back.I think I can get Fabgrandpa to go in there too, because they have his favorite, Reuben Sandwiches. Oh, and I was going to take a picture of the danish, but I forgot to do it before I ate it!
Here are some examples of the menu 
offerings:
Scratch Reuben $8.50
Grilled Marinated Portobello Mushroom Sandwich $7.95
Cream of Leek and Potato Soup Bowl $4.75
Caramelized Local Pear Salad $5.25
Croissant $1.85
Scones $1.50
Cannoli $1.50
They had cannolis today, and I love them, but I just walked away! But don’t you know if they had had some cream puffs, I would still be there.
Four Seasons Bakery and Café is open Tuesday through Saturday 6:00 a.m. til 5:00 p.m. and on Sunday from 8:00 a.m. til 5:00 p.m. If you are ever in Gettysburg, this would be a good place to stop for lunch.
My Two Daughters
I have two daughters. For most of their lives I have been of the opinion that the two of them were as different as night and day. The older one, Rebecca, has dark, extremely curly hair. She is an artist. She was the kid no one liked in school because she could flip through a book and know everything in it. She never had to study but always made the all A Honor Roll. She went to college on a full four-year academic scholarship. She graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting and Sculpture. She is 33 years old and has never married.
Emily, the younger one, has brown wavy hair. She is a surgery scheduler for a pediatric ear, nose, and throat doctor. She made good grades, but she had to study hard and work for every A she got. She moved in with her boyfriend, who is now her husband of 15 years, the summer between her junior and senior years of high school. She worked her way through college, and paid for it with the Georgia Hope Scholarship and student loans. She graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Biology.
When you look at the facts, you would certainly think that the two of them are different. But, this past year, I have discovered that they really are more alike then they think. The things in life that are important to them are the same. They each want a family who loves them, to be respected by their co-workers and friends, and to be happy in their work. They both love me, even though they may show it different ways.
Another way in which they are alike is that they both have a love for books and reading. Both of them gave me books last month. Both of them were on subjects that I really needed to read.
“Making A Living Without A Job” by Barbara Winter was from Rebecca. It is a wonderful inspiration, with testimonials and illustrative stories of women and men who have pondered their talents, devised a plan, and gone into self-employment to change their lives for the better. It is about earning a living doing something you enjoy doing.
Emily’s gift was “Choosing Forgiveness” by Nancy Leigh DeMoss. Subtitled “Your Journey to Freedom”, it is a very good read and was very helpful to me in my life at the point I received it. The author writes about how when you hold on to your anger and hurts that others have piled on you, then you give that other person power over you to keep you imprisoned by those emotions. Only by letting go of the issues, forgiving others, and asking for forgiveness of the people you have wronged, can you let yourself out of that prison and truly be free. It opened my eyes and my heart so much.
Rebecca is job hunting at the moment. She was an art teacher at a private school but left there last spring to pursue promoting her own artwork. Emily is also job hunting. She has decided to change careers, and has taken the exam to become a middle school science teacher. So even in their sameness in being teachers, they are so very different in the subjects they teach. I wish them both good luck in their chosen paths, and hope we can get together very soon. I miss them both very much.
The Past Week
We had a week off before we had to start working, so we drove all around looking at all the scenery and trying out new places to eat. We found a neat little restaurant called The Book and Table Restaurant in Fairfield, about 6 miles west of the campground. They serve a good tasting, very filling breakfast. For $3.95 you can get two eggs, toast, and home fries, and juice. Coffee or tea is extra. The waitress there are nice and friendly and keep your coffee cup filled. There are a lot of locals there every time we go.
In the town of Gettysburg, we went to a place called The Pike. It is a pub. They sell Yuengling Beer, which is from America’s oldest brewery. They have a pretty good lunch menu We had crab quesadillas, homemade beef soup, and a hot roast beef sandwich. They were all very good. They have bands on Friday and Saturday nights, and karaoke on a weeknight. FabGrandpa said the ale was good.
Also in Gettysburg is Dunlap’s Restaurant & Bakery. They have an excellent breakfast served until 11:00 a.m. Order the number three, it includes two eggs, toast, home fries, and coffee or tea for the shockingly low price of $2.50. Fabgrandpa and I can eat and leave a tip for less than $10.
Just for thrills I went to the KFC in town the other day. I told the little guy behind the counter “I want two legs and a biscuit”. He told me “If you order the number four, it would be cheaper”. I told him “I don’t want a number four, I want two legs and a biscuit”. He said “OK”. So I waited for my order, and when he gave it to me I went out to the truck to sit out there and eat my lunch. I opened the box and there were two legs and a corn muffin. The muffin was cold, I mean really cold, like it had been taken out of a refrigerator. So, I went back inside and showed him the contents of the box and asked him if that was a biscuit. I was thinking maybe since I was north of the Mason Dixon line for the first time in my life that what he had given me may well have been called a biscuit here in Pennsylvania. The guy looked at it and said, “No, that is a corn muffin”. I said, “Well, I ordered a biscuit.” He said, “Oh, you mean you really wanted a biscuit?” And I am thinking, YEAH, I thought that is what I said to begin with. I finally got my biscuit, but I do not think I will be going back to KFC any time soon.
On Sunday we drove down to Washington, DC to visit my son and his family. He is stationed at Andrews Air Force Base. I was dreading the drive down because I have heard the horror stories about the traffic on the beltway around DC. But, it was not as bad as driving on I-285 around Atlanta on the weekend.
When we arrived at the gate to the base they were not going to let us enter. Then Seth drove up and showed them his ID and told them we were his parents and they let us in. We had to stop at a check-point and give them our driver’s licenses, the truck registration, and proof of insurance. They inspected the truck too. Seth said it is because that is where Air Force One is hangared.
Seth has a four bedroom, two and half bathroom house on base. It is huge! The living room is big enough for a sectional sofa, a regular sofa, a love seat, a big screen TV and a wall unit type of bookcase, and it doesn’t look crowded. I was really surprised at how nice the base housing was.
We drove around the base a little bit. Seth showed us the hangar where they keep Air Force One. He said there are actually several planes of varying sizes that are called Air Force one, and it depends on where they are going and who is going which one they use. How interesting. I always thought there was only one plane.
Seth took us to the BX, which looked sort of like a small mall with a food court. We got some lunch from Captain D’s. After lunch, we went over to the park by the lake and the guys went fishing while Sarah and I sat and talked. Seth caught a huge fish. Fabgrandpa said it was a pickerel. I have never seen one of those. I just know it was very big, because they were on the other side of the lake and it looked like a monster from where I was sitting. Michael caught mostly limbs and branches. We saw some sort of animal swimming in the lake. I don’t know what it was. We think it may have been a muskrat.
We finally had to head back home to Gettysburg. It was a nice day trip, only 108 miles from our house to theirs. We were hoping they could come up here this weekend, but the temperature went down and it started snowing this morning. By dark, there was 8 inches of snow and still snowing. Hmmmm, did someone tell me it snows in Pennsylvania in March?
Anvil Campground, Willamsburg, Virginia
[ad#Home Page Above Posts]
We have arrived in Pennsylvania for our job here at Granite Hill Campground. The trip up was very nice. We stopped in Concord, North Carolina the first night at Fleetwood Speedway RV Resort at the Nascar track. It is a good place to stop for the night, but I have no idea why they call it a resort. It just looks like a campground to me.
The next day we headed out to Williamsburg, Virginia. We stopped there for 3 nights at Anvil Campground. If you click on the link, you will see that they don’t have any pictures of their campground on their website. I think there is a reason for that. The place is one step away from being classified as a dump (in my opinion). It is right next to a railroad track, and trains roar by throughout the night. It sounded like those trains were going right through our bedroom. We wondered what those folks thought who were camping in tents right next to the tracks.
We met our friends Charlie and Lynn for dinner on Friday night at Outback Steakhouse. We had fun with them, they are really nice people. They said they were going to come up to Gettysburg sometime this summer. I sure do hope so. Then, on Saturday, we met Linda and Ron and Liz and Russ for breakfast at IHOP. Again, we were glad to see all of them. It was over way too soon. Linda and Ron are leaving Virginia soon for a new job in Florida. Maybe we’ll see them this winter.
After breakfast we drove down to Norfolk to visit Rebecca and see her new apartment. We went to lunch with her and Joe at a Mexican place. Then we drove out to Virginia Beach for ice cream. It seems like all we did in Virginia was eat, eat, eat. We hung out with Rebecca for the rest of the day. We got back home to the train yard about 9:30 pm, just in time for the Amtrack train.
Sunday morning when we checked the map for directions to Prince William Travel Trailer Village in Dumfries, Virginia, we realized that it was only about 40 miles south of Washington, D.C., so we called Seth and told him where we were going to be. They decided to drive down and visit with us. We have not seen them in more than 3 years. They arrived about an hour after we got to the campground. It was sooo good to see them. Michael jumped out of the car as soon as they drove up and gave FabGrandpa a big hug. I got one next, and Michael told me he missed me a lot. I met Seth’s new wife, Sarah for the first time. She is so nice! We really enjoyed seeing them. We went out to Cracker Barrel for a late lunch, then went back to the trailer to visit for a while.
On Monday, we only had about 106 miles to go, so we slept late and still got here about 2 pm. The countryside in Maryland and Pennsylvania is beautiful. There are lots of farms with silos and red barns. Even with everything still being brown from winter it is still pretty here. The lakes and ponds are all frozen over, which surprised me. I knew it would be cold, but I guess I just didn’t think about it being THAT cold.
Last night it was 10 degrees! It is supposed to snow 2-4 inches tomorrow. We went out today and filled our propane tanks. Oh, and I had sticker shock at the grocery store in town—celery was $2.89! carrots were $1.99! and 5 lbs red potatoes $3.99! Yikes!
We also had to drive over to Hanover, about 14 miles away, to go to the mall. We got lost on the way, and wound up going into an industrial area, where we saw the Snyder’s of Hanover pretzel plant. It smelled like pretzels in the air around there.
Here in Gettysburg, we have already found a farm market and an egg farm to buy fresh food. There was a nice butcher shop in Hanover near the pretzel place. (I had to go in there to ask directions after we got lost, so of course I looked around to see what they had. The meat prices in there looked pretty good.)
There is a shetland pony farm about 3 miles from here, I want to take Michael and Sarah there, and Spencer too if he gets up here this summer. And of course, there is the National Battlefield Park, and I saw a Civil War Hospital on the way to Hanover. I’m sure there are lots more things to do that I haven’t discovered yet. So, that’s it for today.
Yay ME! I sold a photo!
I am so happy! I sold another photo that I took. I am “FabGrandma, the Famous Photographer”, hahaha! Now if I could just sell one more often than every 8 months or so…
I will let you all see the fab photo that I sold, here it is:
Now, does anyone out there know where this is? I will tell you if you get it right.
And for those of you who want to know, I get $30 for it. I am so not going to get rich but I love knowing that someone actually bought one of my photos.
Fab Grandma Times 4
I am proud to announce that I am going to be a Fab Grandma again. My son and his lovely new wife, Seth and Sarah, are expecting a new baby probably in September. We are all so excited about this good news. Michael, the big brother, said to me “I told my parents I want to help with the baby when it gets here.” I told him it would be his job to teach his new brother or sister what not to do so he or she won’t get into trouble. He liked that. I have started a crocheted afghan for the cute little him or her. When I was in the store buying the yarn, it looked pale lavender, but at home it looks more pink. Oh well, so much for trying to remain neutral! He will just have to deal with it.
I also have started a baby quilt for the new little person. All I have accomplished on that so far is to sketch it out and decide that I want to make it in yellows and purples. It will be in the pinwheels pattern, with a striped border. I am planning to go to Douglasville next weekend and Emily and I can go to the fabric store and pick out some fabrics to go with the ones I already have. So far, I have some yellow that was used in Aunt Becky’s quilt (which I have not finished yet but plan to this summer) and Spencer’s big boy quilt; some yellow scraps that were left over from a dress I made for my granddaughter Sarah when she was little; some purple from Becca’s quilt (also not finished yet but I promise it will be this year!); and two purples left over from Sarah’s big girl quilt that I made for her sixth birthday. So, as you can see, this project already has some family history. I am eager to begin working on this but I can’t start cutting the fabric until I have all of it, so it will have to wait another week or so. But I can show you the sketch of it, hope you like it.
Last night while I was trying to draw this out, I was having a hard time doing it because the squares are on point. So, I drew them all out in a large square, colored them, cut them out, then taped them all back together in the pattern I wanted them to be in. Now, the reason I have to do all that is because I don’t have a pattern for this quilt to go by, and I cannot visualize it unless I am looking at it. Now that I have my drawing, all I have to do is count the squares so I will know how many to cut of each one. Sometimes even if I have a pattern I do this because I can’t imagine the pattern in MY colors when I look at it in the pattern makers colors. It helps me to see the squares in the quilt in the colors I am using.
But FabGrandpa was sitting across the table from me laughing at me. He couldn’t believe I would cut up all those little pieces of paper just to tape them all back together again. “Well,” I said, “isn’t that what you do when you make a quilt? Don’t you cut up pieces of fabric just to sew them back together again?” Men! They just don’t get it.
