Clarion Farms Farm Life

We are enjoying our new building and can now offer a variety of fresh milk products, fruits, vegetables, pork, chicken, and eggs along with Clarion Farms locally-raised beef.

Summer is an exciting season for farmers. We have the opportunity to watch our crops grow in the warm summer sun and rejoice at the timely rains. Hay-making is a memory of every farm kid and we are busy ‘making memories’ for John-Scott and Katie, and have included a number of cousins and friends in this season’s hay adventures. The farmers’ markets are in full swing and friendships are developed with the other vendors and our customers in the various communities. Meadow flowers are blooming and the butterflies and grasshoppers thrive in the fields around the farm. Family members return to the farm for leisurely visits and to enjoy recipes like ‘Huckleberry Scones’ and ‘Zucchini Pie’.

As the crickets begin their late summer songs, we know it is time for the sweet corn to be enjoyed with Beef Barn burgers and steaks. For almost two decades, John-Scott and Katie Port have had a roadside stand selling sweet corn. In days gone by, it was heart-warming to drive to the farm and see John-Scott with his friend Jake and faithful golden retriever and Katie Port with her Tweety Bird umbrella sitting at the end of the driveway with a pile of fresh sweet corn for sale… This year we will be selling our sweet corn from the Beef Barn, so watch for the signs in mid-to-late August to see when it is ready.

Pumpkins, Indian corn, and gourds will be in abundance this fall. John-Scott has tended these fall crops attentively all summer, so they are always excellent products to decorate your homes this autumn. JS will be a senior at Penn State this fall; he will have to make a few quick trips back to the farm between PSU games so that he does not miss the harvest!

Winter is a time of rest for the land, but not for the farmers, as the weather poses interesting situations for the care of the animals. Frozen water lines and moustaches, icy driveways and howling winds, driving sleet and bone-chilling temperatures are tempered with the knowledge that the barns are snug and dry, the land is being renewed under the blanket of snow, there is a fire in the hearth at home, and all is well under a clear, bright, star-studded sky. And the seed catalogs arrive in the late January mail…