Connie's Corner

Dudley Farm

Every morning one of my computer clicks is on the Rehoboth Beach Cam and usually I check the local Delaware weather. This morning I gasped when I saw the low was 44 degrees F. I keep wishing for cooler weather here in Florida but 44, uh uh...59-60 is just about right with days in the 80s. And the moon was so bright last night. For some reason I couldn't sleep...again...and I was up and out on the porch with Mopsy around 2 a.m. I could see the entire back yard almost like daylight. My calendar says "full moon" on Sunday. The only thing to disturb the serenity was the traffic noise from I-75 which seems to have gotten much louder lately somehow.

I have volunteered for something else, again. About 5 miles west of me is a State Park called the Dudley Farm  . It is a working farm meaning crops are planted and farm animals are kept. The farm was gifted to the State by the last Dudley to live there, Myrtle, in the 1980s, It became a State Park in 2002.

The farm dates all the way back to the mid 1800s just before the Civil War when the Dudleys moved here from the Carolinas and bought a bunch of land, at one time over a thousand acres. All the old farm buildings have been restored even down to the outhouse. Cotton, sugarcane and tobacco were the main crops at the time and evidence of this is seen in the tobacco barn and the cane grinding wheel, turned by mule power. A few Florida cattle, mules, and donkeys are kept even now and used as they were in the Dudley's time. The sugarcane crop is almost ready for cutting and thousands of visitors will show up for "cane day" in December when the mules will again turn the grinding wheel. Cane syrup is the finished product and that brings me to what I volunteered for.

There is a small gift shop/store on the premises where handmade items are sold including the cane syrup. I volunteered for 3 shifts a month (4 hours each). Yesterday I was oriented and trained and will have my first solitary shift next Thursday. Most of the items are donated but some are purchased like the Dudley Farm teeshirts. All the monies go back into the running of the farm. Most visitors show up on the weekends when they usually have their special events, a children's monthly craft day, cane day, and many others so Thursday will probably be a lonesome day at the store. I will take along some knitting and of course a notebook to keep me busy. And then I am an organizer so I will be squaring up and tidying the things for sale.

The gift shop itself is an old building originally a little store donated and moved to the site from the nearby town of Archer. It has a little front porch with 3 rocking chairs one of which I will be utilizing. It is a "shotgun" type structure meaning the back door and front door align allowing the most refreshing breezes to go through, important when there is no air conditioning (or heat). Three windows (no glass) with hinged shutters allow more air circulation.

I first visited the farm a couple years ago for a Gainesville Fine Arts Association plein air paintout. I walked all around the grounds feeling lots of nostalgia from my early years on a farm up north, corncrib, chicken houses, a hand pump, a root cellar, a truck garden, and a smoke house, all things familiar to me. I knew why this was a great place for a paintout as I watched the many artists pick their subjects and begin their paintings. I may have written about it here...will have to look back. It is a beautiful place that takes one back in time.

until next time...c