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
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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.
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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,
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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