A Farm Life Archives - Pittsburgh Quarterly

2026 Winter A Farm Life

Purslane

by Daryln Brewer Hoffstot

Henry David Thoreau gathered purslane in a cornfield. He boiled and salted it and called it “a satisfactory dinner.” When writing about the plant in Walden, he made sure to include its Latin name — Portulaca oleracea — “on account of the savoriness of the trivial name.” By trivial name, I assume he’s referring to …

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Bird Flu?

by Daryln Brewer Hoffstot

It was near dusk on an evening last spring when I looked out at the chickens from the dining room window. I was checking to see if the flock was heading toward the coop for the night. It’s easier to round them up if they want to retire; if not, they run this way and …

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On Landscape and Language

by Daryln Brewer Hoffstot

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about our western Pennsylvanian landscape and the language we use to describe it — and I found inspiration in a surprising place — a book about the Gaelic language called “Thirty-Two Words for Field: Lost Words of the Irish Landscape,” by Manchan Magan. Magan tells us that there are …

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Wild Apples

by Daryln Brewer Hoffstot

A summer apple tree in the front yard is a wondrous thing. I can sit on the front porch and watch apples fall to the ground, listen to the “plunk” as they hit the grass, and wildlife come right to me. A squirrel climbs the tree, plucks an apple from a branch and runs away …

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An Ode on Snow Days

by Daryln Brewer Hoffstot

When I was young, one of the best two-word combinations in the English language was snow day! When I didn’t have to go to school and could stay in my pajamas and watch tv. When I coaxed myself into bulky pants, jackets, socks and boots—way before fleece, down, and waterproof fabric—and my feet got sopped …

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Carpenter Bees

by Daryln Brewer Hoffstot

We raised our babies in this old farmhouse, wrapped them in swaddling clothes like little cocoons, and protected them as best as we could. We renovated parts of the house, added a bathroom and knocked through a kitchen wall to create more space for a growing family. We fed our children, taught them what we …

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Poison Ivy Flourishes on Carbon Dioxide

by Daryln Brewer Hoffstot

One of my husband’s first tasks when we moved to the farm 36 years ago was to remove poison ivy from the trees. He never used chemicals, just his two (gloved) hands. He came home time and time again with poison ivy pustules on his wrists that leaked liquid for three weeks. “A fool’s errand,” …

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What Was that White Bird?

by Daryln Brewer Hoffstot

The first time I saw the white bird flying overhead, I thought I’d gone slightly mad because large white birds are not common in the Ligonier Valley. I was riding my bike on a rural road between two cow fields, a herd of black-angus eyeing me warily. I pedaled slowly, watching what I presumed was …

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Chanterelles

by Daryln Brewer Hoffstot

We bought a small section of woods some years ago that came with treasures not spelled out in the purchase agreement: chanterelles. We had no idea the prized orange mushroom would fruit the following summer. I wasn’t even positive what type of mushroom it was — I’d never foraged for chanterelles before — but after …

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What Would Rachel Carson Say?

by Daryln Brewer Hoffstot

On a Tuesday morning late last August, I turned out of my driveway onto Route 711 to drive into Ligonier. Route 711 is a two-lane state road, a main north-south corridor, designated as the Laurel Highlands Scenic Byway. I passed, heading in the other direction, two large white trucks, one of which had a long …

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The Common Snapping Turtle

by Daryln Brewer Hoffstot

Each spring before my first real swim, I stand at the house and gaze downhill to the pond. (I have dipped every month of the year, but that doesn’t count as a real swim.) I scan the water’s surface, looking for snapping turtles. I see them when they come up for air — their little …

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One Lone Bat

by Daryln Brewer Hoffstot

I never noticed so many ash trees in the forest until hundreds toppled over. The drumming of the ruffed grouse is dearer to me now because of its absence. But of all the things on the farm that have revealed themselves by passing away, none is more striking than the decline of bats. Thirty-five years …

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Giving Thanks to Mosses

by Daryln Brewer Hoffstot

We hardly notice them. we trod all over them. Most mosses don’t even have universal common names. Moss experts are few. Yet mosses are among the most ancient of plants — the first to crawl out of the ocean and inhabit land 450 million years ago.I wonder if that’s why I feel as if I’m …

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Less Lawn, More Native Plants

by Daryln Brewer Hoffstot

When my mother-in-law was ill 28 years ago, my husband began to build a stone wall on our front lawn. Each rock he handled three, maybe four times: plucked from the woods, thrown into the back of a pickup, dropped onto the grass to decide placement, or set directly atop a dry wall. One stone …

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The Fledgling Wren that Wouldn’t Budge

by Daryln Brewer Hoffstot

What must it feel like for a baby bird to fledge? To take a leap (of faith?) and fly for the first time? I couldn’t help but wonder one warm day when I watched a clutch of birds fly off our front porch. I feared, however, that if I wrote about birds’ feelings, I’d be …

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Fireflies: A Great Flourish of Evolution

by Daryln Brewer Hoffstot

“Male fireflies are like teenage boys,” said Lynn Frierson Faust, who wrote the book, Fireflies, Glow-worms, and Lightning Bugs: Identification and Natural History of the Fireflies of the Eastern and Central United States and Canada. “Males want to be seen, as flashy as possible, advertising their fitness. Look at me, they say!” One species, for …

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Nettle: The Weed that Stings

by Daryln Brewer Hoffstot

What is a weed? A plant in the wrong place is a common definition, or as Ralph Waldo Emerson said: “a plant whose virtues we haven’t yet discovered.” But nettles — weeds to most of us — have virtues long discovered. Samuel Pepys wrote in his diary of eating very good nettle porridge. In Aesop’s …

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A farm life

by Daryln Brewer Hoffstot

From photographs I sent to expert tracker Linda Spielman, she was able to tell me wonderful little stories about what animals on our farm were doing last winter. At the top of our hill, a mouse bounded across deep snow, its hind feet sinking into holes made by its front feet. “Lots of animals do …

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Our Sleeping Porch

by Daryln Brewer Hoffstot

“There was nothing of the giant in the aspect of the man who was beginning to awaken on the sleeping porch of a Dutch Colonial house in that residential district of Zenith known as Floral Heights. His name was George F. Babbitt.” — “Babbitt” by Sinclair Lewis The joys of a sleeping porch are many, …

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My Vegetable Garden, in Springtime

by Daryln Brewer Hoffstot

“The Glory of the Garden it abideth not in words.” —Rudyard Kipling My favorite time in the vegetable garden is in spring, after the soil is tilled and before the seeds are planted. Perennials are poking up—chervil, lovage, sorrel—but otherwise there’s little growth, just a blank canvas. The weather is cool, less humid and with …

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Mysteries of the Porcupine

by Daryln Brewer Hoffstot

This is how a porcupine attacks. It turns its back, displays the black line running down the middle of its tail, edged with white quills visible in the dark. Its body shivers. The jaw clenches, incisors vibrate, and the teeth clatter. It emits an odor. Quills become erect. These are mere warnings. If not enough …

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Counting Your Chickens During COVID

by Daryln Brewer Hoffstot

Buff Cochins: sold out. Barred Rocks: sold out. Light Brahmas: Sold out. Not a hen of my choice available this year from Murray McMurray, the hatchery in Iowa where I’ve ordered peeps for 30 years. This has never happened before, but due to coronavirus, suddenly everyone wants to be a chicken farmer. I had no …

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