A Gentleman's Farm – Life on the homestead with a librarian and a chef.
Description: Welcome, I am JoLynn Powers an artist, author, social media fan and content creator. I grew up at that foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Boulder, Co. and eventually moved to the much older and mysterious Appalachian Mountains in 1990. I'm a mother of two boys and grandmother to two girls. I work in the…
One of the projects that has been taking up some of my extra time these days is a dream project involving creating a Heritage Apple Orchard at the 1870’s Adaland Mansion in Barbour County, West Virginia. I actually started work on this project last spring during the Covid shut down. Volunteers came together to apply for a grant to bring apples back to the historic property. The application was awarded to Adaland from “Try This West Virginia”, a health improvement coalition in West Virginia that are tackling
The orchard has sparked new partnerships in our small community. Everyone wants to be involved in our little project from our local hospital, to West Virginia University Extension, to even our local Heart and Hand food pantry. We have discovered that there are only 3 locations in our state where these old examples of apples are being grown on this scale. Although we are starting with only 20 trees on our 20 acre property we are 1 of 3 Heritage Orchards that will be open to the public. Not only will this orc
Adaland Mansion historically had an apple orchard and was known to have produced cider and apple brandy or as locals call it, Apple Jack. So the thought of bringing cider and other apple products back to the property was over whelming supported by the Adaland Mansion Board of Directors. Not only does the orchard allow us to talk about foods and farming at the turn of the 20th century but give us a chance to cook, preserve, and share the apples with the public. Eventually if this experiment is successful we
A Gentleman's Farm – Life on the homestead with a librarian and a chef.