(Continued from Pago A 1)
design, retail nursery, and ponds
and waterscaping.
The Wizars (pronounced Wi
zer) live in a stone farmhouse they
remodeled that was part of the
40-acre farm parcel they bought at
public auction in 1985.
Sandra said that after the the
auction, her mother cried all the
way back home to Middletown.
She explained that was because the
Wizars had lived in a very nice,
single family modem home and
her mother was concerned that her
daughter and son-in-law wouldn’t
be living as well. ,
That has changed. The Wizars
have worked to create a home that
is now a showplace.
From the Wizar’s porch that
faces away from traffic, the couple
has a broad view of their pictur
esque, several-acre wetlands and
pond, and a stream that courses
between the wetlands and the
house.
They can also see a long green
house that sits between the stream
and the wetlands, and, closer to the
house, a screened pavillion and
swimming pool. On the far side of
the pavillion is lawn and a tall, old
sycamore.
Beyond the wetlands is an over
grown fenceline, and then beyond
that are other people’s crop fields.
Traditional farmland adjoins the
property almost on all sides.
A narrow road divides the prop
erty between the house and where
the main business activity takes
place.
The business area consists of a
red-painted, rennovated bank bam
with a closed system aquaculture
facility and offices; barn-red
painted outbuildings for the nursey
and landscaping business; a nursey
area with demonstration and work
areas; and a Christmas tree-raising
area that remains from their gradu
al phase-out from that highly com
petitive, low margin business.
The road that bisects the proper
ty is a section of Spangler Road
a wending, walnut tree-lined sec
ondary road with little through
traffic, though their operation is
visible from the very busy Rt. 322.
In the spring, large flocks of
snow geese, whistling swans,
ducks and other types of geese and
waterfowl stop at die wetlands and
in adjacent fields.
<* golf cart to
next quickly, especially with supplies or plants. A number
of farmers, especially those with some of the larger opera
tions use golf carts or four-wheel drive all terrain vehicles to
commute around the farm.
Retired Couple Establishes Agricultural Business
The upper of end of a manmade wetland is in the fore
ground of this landscape photograph of Wizar’s Country
Nursery in Lebanon County. Retired from Bell Atlantic,
Richard and Sandra Wizar live in the rennovated stone farm
house and have created a multi-faceted nursey and land
scaping supplies and design business on 40 acres. The
Wizars constructed the wetland through a federal cost
sharing program, and with the help of Ducks Unlimited.
Other waterfowl nest there.
The sight of their swirling flocks
coming in and landing on the shal
low pond and wetlands attracts
attention from motorists on Rt.
322. Some bring video cameras to
the Wizars to document the flights
of birds and the scenery.
A business sign along Rt. 322
informs those in automobiles that
Wizar’s Country Nursery is down
that road that leads closer to where
all the birds are going.
The local public’s knowledge of
the business has grown quickly,
not only because of the obvious
change of a low-lying farm field
into an open-water wetlands, but
from other landscapers, customers,
and from word-of-mouth among
backyard pond enthusiasts.
In the aquaculture facility that
he built inside the stall area of the
bankbam, Richard raises several
hundred Koi (a strain of fancy
goldfish that come in a variety of
colors and tailshapes that have
long been bred in Asia and more
recently in the United States for
outdoor pond aesthetics).
He buys them young and raises
them to size, and while most take
months to raise like feeding out
a hog for market some custom
ers desire larger, older fish and that
can take years to raise.
Richard said he imports some
fish from Japan and Israel and the
others he buys from domestic
breeders.
Later this year, he intends to
expand from only retailing the fish
to wholesaling some.
The fact that the couple has
developed, an apparently success
ful business is tesdment that back
ground and experience in produc
tion agriculture arc not the telling
factors in whether a person can be
successful or not
In the Wizars’ case, Richard
grew up in the nearby mining vil
lage of Burd Coleman.
The historic Cornwall Iron Mine
was a major employer in the area
until Hurricane Agnes struck the
region in 1972 and the operations
was shut down after it was deter
mined to be not worthwhile to
pumpout and repair to working
order.
Lots of equipment remains at
depths unreachable by scuba
divers.
Likewise, the jobs and lifestyles
of the miners were also deep
sixed.
Some mine workers retired ear
ly. others were offered jobs else
where, while still others had to
search for new careers. A few lin
gered in maintenance and security
At his office, Richard Wizar talks to a customer about his pond system and attempts
to trouble shoot the customer’s problem over the phone.
Christmas tress grow on acres to the left and behind
house. The first floor of the bam has been converted into an
Indoor aquaculture facility where they raise Koi fancy
relatives of goldfish and carp sought by those who stock
landscaping ponds while rhododendron, azaleas, and
some rare plants are sold through the nursey center, to the
right of the bam. A greenhouse runs lengthwise in front of
the house, between a stream and the wetland pond.
operations.
Richard’s father was a minor,
though Richard was out and on his
own before the flood shutdown the
mine.
Sandra grew up living with her
parents on her grandparents’ farm
in the rural Middletown area.
She said growing upon the farm
she did have regular chores,
depending on what kinds of lives
tock her grandparents were raising
at the time.
They did subsistence farming
and gardening. Her grandfather
was a carpenter by trade. Sandra
said she pulled a lot of weeds.
While growing up, Richard said
he worked a couple of summers
going around the county as a labor
er baling and stacking hay, but that
was the extent of his agricultural
background.
He has two year’s worth of col
lege studying economics, and he
attended Penn State University,
and Franklin and Marshall College
in Lancaster.
Other than that, he has on-the
job training at Bell Atlantic.
He worked as a manager of the
long-range planning department in
technology planning with a
research group that was part of
Bell Laboratories.
Over the years he became edu
cated on technology and how to
implement it
“But I’m not mechanically
inclined,” he said.
*»)**■*
5. *
. .
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> *
Without that mechanical incli
nation, he nevertheless manages to
be somewhat expert on pond sys
tems, water filters, low head
pumps, and irrigation equipment
With the help of Penn State
Cooperative Extension, he also
learned about market conditions,
plant cultivation, care, diseases,
treatments, soil conditions,, soil
fertility, and some other matters
important to raising Christmas
tree, landscaping and nursery
stock.
While aquaculture still remains
the unclaimed child of Pennsylva
nia agriculture (proposed legisla-i
tion that would change its legal sta- ’
tus and thus allow aquaculture
operators the same considerations
as livestock and crop agriculture
failed to be approved last session
and a new, similar version is cur
rently sitting in the Senate Appro
priations Committee awaiting
further consideration). Richard
said it is becoming more and more
important to the business.
His interest in raising ornamen
tal fishes came from landscaping,
which lead to waterscaping, which
led to stocking ponds with fish.
Koi are the fish most often stocked
in waterscape, backyard ponds.
However, die care and raising of
ornamental fishes was not an
expertise he was able to find and
mine for information through Penn
State Cooperative Extension. |