After two days of climbing at Summersville Lake, we headed into the mountains of West Virginia, to the little town of Belington to visit our friends Katie and Joel. For the last few years, they’ve made a go of having a small farm and bakery, and up until this point, we hadn’t managed a visit. Better late than never. We spent our time there eating, wandering around the fields behind their house, and getting to know their draft horses, Candy and Belle. Joel and Katie are still, thankfully, making their fine baked goods under the Wolpertinger Bakery name (a treat we enjoyed when they lived in Pittsburgh). I can say with a fair degree of certainty that their ciabatta is the best I’ve had.

The next day, we drove into Western Maryland to spend some time at Backbone Farm, run by Joel and Katie’s good friends Max and Katharine. It was “farm day” there, so we got to wander the farm, meet the animals, and learn how they manage with (mostly) horses instead of tractors. It was a great experience, particularly for the boys. Seb was fascinated by the horse-drawn implements, and Oren spent quite a bit of time in the barn with the horses, cows, and pigs. Seb wanted to know if he needed to go to school to be a farmer, to which I responded, no, he didn’t need to go to college, but he would have to work on a farm to learn all about it. Perhaps in six or seven years, he’ll still be interested, and could intern at a place like Backbone.

Posted on 3 August 2010