Farm (Continued from Page B 2) court date, Renee adapted to living in the Romanian culture with its lack of everyday necessities Americans often tike for granted. Water was available only five hours per day, with disinfecting tablets dispensed to make it pot able. Shunning the water, she had difficulty finding sufficient liq uids to quench her thirst. Soft drinks are scarce, but peach juice she could sometimes get was “delicious.” Every night, Renee’s gracious hosts heated a large kettle of water, her daily bath. “We had to be up and at the market by 6:30 a.m. in order to get any bread,” she explains. “Meat is hard to find. We took canned INC. 148 Brick Church Road Leola, PA 717-656-2016 FEATURING TRACTOR GUARD FOR SCRAPING FEED LOT Our Sales Tool Is A Satisfied Customer - Call Us For Information! WE WORK HARD FOR CUSTOMER SATISFACTION SIZES AND LAYOUTS TO YOUR SPECIFICATIONS! Family Rescues hams with us that were really appreciated. You can find chick ens, but they’re the size of pigeons and still have the head and feet attached. There’s no white sugar, no candy. You stood in line with your own bottles for milk. I don’t know how people with babies manage.” Restaurants are reasonable, according to Renee, costing about $3 for food for three people. There are no menus. Diners have only one choice, usually consisting of potatoes, rice and a meat. A few offered soup, and occasionally ice cream for dessert. Citizens wait for as long as three years for a phone and own ing a car is a luxury many will LET OUR 10 YEARS EXPERIENCE WORK FOR YOU! ORIGINATED '^rmersZh CONCRETE bayfunding SYSTEM! BAY FUNDING ' never experience. Erika and Radu had recently acquired an apart ment in less populous and less pol luted Constanta, near the Black Sea, a 250 mile train ride from her parents in Bucharest. But they had waited - and still paid on the apart ment - many months before they could move in. The official court adoption on September 8 was easy for Renee after the paperwork hurdles she had conquered. Ty Matthed Whit craft needed only a passport, visa and a plane ticket for his new mother, to come home. Even that became a problem. When Renee called for a plane reservation, she was told that only one flight per week was available, IN-GROUND MANURE STORAGE SYSTEM Lancaster Farming, Saturday, November 24, 1990-B3 and she would have to wait another week. In retrospect, she believes the delay was a blessing. “Ty had never eaten solid food. His milk at the orphanage had a sort of porridge or cereal in it. We cooked a chicken and mixed some mashed carrots and potatoes with the broth, and mixed grated apple and grated bisquit, to make baby food. There wasn’t anything else,” she says. “He wouldn’t open his mouth and he just screamed and screamed when we tried to feed him. He just didn’t know what to do with food. It took about four days of force feeding before he started accepting it. If we had got ten a flight right away, I have no idea how I’d have fed him.” “He gets cranky now if you don’t feed him on time,” she grins, coaxing a smile from their curly haired son. Ty now weighs over 17 pounds, his hair has grown and he loves a bath. Even before com ing home, his activity level and eye contact improved, he learned to sit up and, to Renee’s delight, to smile. “Radu showed me how to do some muscle massage. Since their son was so big, I figured it works.” Ty also stands, bounces in a jumper chair and pulls himself up holding Renee’s hands. Just a few weeks ago, Ty reached another Ida’s Notebook Ida Risser It is time to have all the outside jobs in the garden taken care of by the end of November. But, I still find a few things to do in my garden. Many evenings I bring in some of my Apple Baum tea for supper. milestone when he cried. They believe a slight opening of his ear canal, damaged from the infec tions, caused the discomfort. Operations to correct the damage are already planned. Ty has already had his first trac tor ride on the family’s farm, part of the 200 acres Dale farms with his brothers. A Penn State grad, Dale is an engineer at AMP, Inc. In addition to caring for Ty and Erin, Renee babysits full-time for one neighborhood child, plus looks after seven others before and after school. Renee sums up the progress of their new son like this; ‘Today, the little boy renamed Ty Matthew is 16 months old, and while he is small, he certainly no longer acts like a newborn. He sits up, stands with help, crawls like a frog, eats like a horse, and can say Da-Da.” Though many reached out with love like the Whitcrafts to Roma nia’s orphans, the problem is far from solved. Renee encourages others to share their concern through the Help The Children of Romania committee, a non-profit program of the Romanian Ortho dox Church of America for pro viding medical and humane care. Help The Children of Romania is located at Dept. 771246, Detroit, MI 48277-1246. And, while I’m out there I gather tiny broccoli sprouts, plus some parsley and dill too. The kale and Swiss chard will stand the winter weather and provide “greens” for months. I’ve saved seed from the dried pods that I left on the climbing beans. There are tiny, black aspar agus beans, shiny white Lazy Wife beans and some Mostoller Wild Goose bean seeds stored for next spring. My Job’s Tears bore abundant ly and I don’t intend to plant any next year. However, I fear that dropped seeds will sprout in one comer of my garden. I’ve strung some on mylon thread to make strings of beads for the grandchil dren. They grow in several shades of grey and white. This year we had an abundant crop of Black Walnuts. However, the kernels were not as meaty as other years. My friend from east ern Lancaster County came as usual and picked up bushels and bushels of them. He is an elderly man who enjoys cracking nuts. He always gives me some of the large meaty nuts to use in baking. This year he had an unfortunate experience. While he and his wife were filling bags with the black walnuts, he stumbled on a yellow jacket’s nest. As he hurried away brushing them from his head and arms, he accidentally knocked his hearing aid on the ground. Later, no amount of searching could find it in the grass and weeds. As it was an expensive item, he came back the next day and diligently hunted some more. He found it. That was a happy ending to an unpleasant
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