On our way to Allentown Saturday, we had a beautiful drive through the country. 

This photographic church and cemetery are on aptly named Hill Church road, right down the street from the farm we are staying at. 

The trees in this orchard looked like they should be a commercial for Angry Orchard cider. 

There are tons of orchards in the gently (and not so gently) sloping hills here. 

A view of Allentown in the distance from the crest of a hill. 

This morning, we all went to Jake's Flea Market for a few hours, which was great. Dave and I found eight vintage life magazines, a free record, and a decorative box. We spent the afternoon tying up loose ends of projects from the week around the farm. We're looking forward to moving the chickens down to the lower field and continuing the brick retaining walls and seed planting in the garden as our main projects for this week. 

We took the day off from farm duties to explore some of the surrounding area. After a beautiful drive, we eventually ended up at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. 

Lehigh was a beautiful campus with more of the Gothic architecture Dave really enjoys. It's primarily known for its engineering programs and was originally a technical college. 

It was also a gorgeous day with crisp air and blue skies. 

The outside of the Lehigh's library...

And the inside! This library, with its spiral staircases and rotunda full of books, was a great unexpected surprise. 

So cool! I could just live inside here. 

This is the stained glass dome in the library's ceiling. (!!!) 

This library also had an incredible collection of very old books. This is an original by Mr. Audubon himself from1827. Audubon gave life-size paintings to his publisher, who transferred them to copper plate etchings. They were then printed in black on white paper, and each was hand-colored according to Audubon's specifications. There were only about 200 sets produced, and only about 120 remain today. How cool to see one in person! The book was huge. 

More of the university's really great buildings and geometric pathways winding through lush green space. 

Today, the conditions were just right (overcast, slightly rainy with a chance of more rain overnight) to burn this enormous brush pile and the invasive plants Dave has been clearing. 

Dave and Nitya, fire ninjas. This is only about a third of the pile pictured. It was HUGE. 

Apparently these large stumps have been through three burns, and they're still holding up strong. 

A few hours later, it was reduced to smolders, though we were told that previous burn piles typically stay hot at the center for two full days. We will have to keep an eye on it for a while, but it was a  great accomplishment for the day! 

Saying hello to the ladies (and gentleman) this afternoon. 

Egg collecting is always one of my favorite tasks. These four made an even dozen for the day.  

The beginning of our drive to the farm was really foggy! 

Why did the sheep cross the road? 

To get to the neighbor's lawn! 

Obviously someone has a hole in their fence. I'm sure the farmer won't be too happy when he discovers his break away sheep, but it was amusing to see these guys enjoying a walk across the street and through a neighbor's lawn. 

Joe with some of his white trumpet mushrooms. He and his wife Angie, not pictured, have a fantastic set-up. Joe was kind enough to show us around his operation and teach us about all kinds of fun things like substrate, mushroom spawn, and air filtration. Growing mushrooms is one of our primary interests for our future homestead, so we were grateful for the tour and the information. To top it all off, Joe sent us home with a great box of mushrooms, which we're about to use in a tasty beef stroganoff for supper.  If you're in the area and are interested in purchasing some home grown mushrooms, you can contact them at ovshrooms@juno.com. Thanks Joe and Angie! 

Dave with 2 of Joe and Angie's 5 Bernese Mountain Dogs. They were cuddly and sweet! 

We got our boots at Tractor Supply yesterday...just the good old fashion plain black ones. Nitya cautioned us about the ones with cute designs and patterns--- apparently they've fallen apart within a week for the work exchangers who have bought them in the past, so we stuck with plain black. When Nitya and I were making dinner, Dave disappeared for a bit, and reappeared with our plain black boots re-imagined. 

The two rooster designs were for me because I love chickens. 

For himself, Dave designed a train and an owl. One says 35 and one says 6, because despite his real age, Dave is 6 at heart, especially drawing these fun designs. Since he created them with pastels, they'll wash or wear off soon, but they are fantastic while they last. We joked that Dave should start doing boot art design at fairs and festivals like other people do face painting. 

Both of us with the Woodsong Hollow Farm sign for the egg mobile, which was created by Anna, the last work exchanger here. 

We're settling into the daily routine of life here. We get up early and work from about 7:30 till noon, with free time in the afternoon before evening chores and dinner. Today, Dave cleared a huge chunk of brush and Nitya and I worked in the garden, planting kale, radicchio, and herbs and creating a section of brick edging to define the herb bed. 

We tried Shoefly pie for the first time, which we picked up from a Mennonite farm along with fresh raw milk, which apparently is legal to sale for human consumption in PA! Especially together, they were delicious. Tonight we're planning French Onion soup with toasted cheese sandwiches for dinner, and some sort of dessert out of some pears we need to use up. I'm about to spend some time with the farm's extensive recipe book collection. It's wonderful to be in a home that is so focused on creating nutritious, organic meals from what's available. 

We had brunch yesterday at Arianna's Gourmet Cafe, which Dave found while browsing through deals on the Living Social app. They were offering a $20 gift certificate for $10, so we decided to go. That's how we ended up in West Chester, PA. 

Brunch was charming--- we had homemade quiche with salad and chicken barley soup, and tea served in an adorable teapot with mismatched cups and saucers. 

After brunch, we made our way to our work exchange, which was about an hour's drive away. We're loving it here. There are chicks just old enough to have all their feathers in, a coop full of layers, beautiful land, and gorgeous countryside for walking. Our hosts Nitya and Jeff are delightful. This afternoon, after looking after the chickens and clearing some invasive and non-native plants out from what will be a future driveway, we are heading in to town to Tractor Supply to get some rubber boots appropriate for this farm work. We'll be staying here for a month, and I can't wait to see what we'll learn and how we'll contribute. It's a beautiful journey. 

After a sunset picnic dinner in the state park, we left lovely Newark yesterday evening for West Chester, Pennsylvania. In the last hour of twilight, we were treated to some amazing countryside views, and we happened upon the gorgeous Goodwin Nature Preserve. 

With the waning daylight and this field full of tiny yellow flowers, this place seemed positively magical. 

There are hundreds of what we speculate are young fruit trees growing in the preserve, their young sprouts protected from hungry deer by these coverings. 

As we travel, we've seen some really great parts about America, like Goodwin Nature Preserve, but we've also seen some really dark parts, like abject poverty in Baltimore and copious amounts of litter, trash, and waste. We've enjoyed keeping this blog positive and cheery to provide an oasis from main-stream American news and media, but here, we'd like to share some of our observations. 

Baltimore: The Greatest City in America? 

An overflowing trash can full of recyclables sits next to an empty recycling bin at UNC. 

We have seen an unbelievable amount of trash on our journey. We've picked up litter from the streets of Washington DC, the trails at Chimney Rock, and many places in between. We can't stand to see trash lying around. On top of that is the trash we can't pick up, covering the sides of America's highways and byways. Today, after seeing a group of volunteers picking up litter along the road, we were inspired to see about volunteering to pick up trash ourselves. In Pennsylvania, the way to pick up trash is to have your organization "adopt" a section of highway and clean it four times a year. Obviously that's unfeasible for our schedule, so I continued looking around online, convinced there must be a short-term volunteer way to pick up litter. I came across the Pick up America project, which started much like our realization...a couple of guys were hiking in a National park, and were stunned by the amount of trash. On their hike, they picked up every single piece of trash, and determined to do something more about it. They formed a non-profit and determined to travel all the way across the country, picking up trash and educating the public along the way. They just reached their goal in 2012. How inspiring! I would love for us to be involved in something like this during our journey. It's also great to see excellent recycling programs in cities like Asheville, and we can hope that other cities will soon catch on to make recycling accessible and easy to every person. 

We made it to West Chester last night, another college town. We had breakfast at a delicious diner and chatted with a fun and friendly server (Hi! It was nice to meet you!) this morning, and spent the afternoon exploring the town's main street, which seemed lively on our way in last night, but was mostly closed today, Sunday. 

Some glimpses of downtown West Chester. 

Tomorrow, we'll begin our second work exchange near Allentown, PA. Can't wait!