Lost Woods

One of the highlights of my attending the Thoreau Society Annual Gatherings was meeting D. B. Johnson, author and illustrator of the Henry books for children, Henry Builds a Cabin, Henry Hikes to Fitchburg, Henry Climbs a Mountain, and others. I was actually walking a short while on a guided saunter from Fairhaven Bay to Walden Pond with him and other attendees when another asked him what he did and when he replied he was a writer asked him, “What do you write?” He responded and I went into full fan mode for the rest of the walk. I mustn’t have been too over the top though because after the walk we accidentally met at a coffee shop in Concord (no, I wasn’t stalking him, really) and from there went together to hear the keynote speaker Terry Tempest Williams. Unfortunately the books seem to mostly be difficult to find now.

For some time, however, he has been treating us all to a comic strip with his bear, Henry, taking us all on new adventures in nature in true Thoreauvian style. They are free to read and I guess kids might like them too. I find myself looking forward to each Wednesday when they are posted to my email, and yours too if you subscribe. You can also read them on his site, Lost Woods, the title of the strip.

By the way, I was exited to hear he was presented wuth the Walter Harding Distinguished Service Award at the Annual Gathering of The Thoreau Society this past summer. (I was attending virtually and missed it.)

You can explore his works and other fun things at https://www.dbjohnsonart.com/index.html.

Abraham Kauffman Newcomer [7/8/1842 – 9/5/1923]

Tombstone in Habecker’s Mennonite Cemetery S of Mountville, PA – Abraham K. was my great-great-grandfather.

ABRAHAM K. NEWCOMER, one of the prosperous and best known farmers in Manor township, ·Lancaster county, Pa., and residing two miles south of Mountville, was born July 8, 1842, and was reared on the old homestead. He was educated in the public schools, and. at nineteen years of age began learning the carpenter’s trade with Jacob Sneath; this trade he followed for eight years, and then began farming near Safe Harbor on a tract of thirty-seven acres. Seven years later he purchased forty-two acres of the Lehman farm, to which he at once removed, having sold his farm at Safe Harbor. He passed eighteen years on this new property, then without selling it, returned to the old Newcomer homestead in 1896, on which he lived until the spring of 1899, when he located on his present farm, south of Mountville. He now owns the forty-two-acre Lehman farm, forty acres of the Newcomer homestead, and six and a half acres where he resides near Mountville. In con­junction with general farming he has done con­siderable carpenter work and has erected all his own buildings as occasion required.
Mr. Newcomer married, Nov. 19, 1868, Miss Mary Ann Rutt, a native of Lancaster county, and a daughter of David Rutt. To this union have been born nine children, in the following order: Alice, wife of Frank Hershey, of West Hempfield town­ship; Amos, farming on his father’s place and mar­ried to Clara Witmer; Martha, wife of Milton Mill­house, a farmer of Manor township ; Abraham, also a farmer in Manor township and married to Ellen Dombauch; Mary; Ellen, Elizabeth, David and
Annie.
Mr. Newcomer has been an active member of the Mennonite church about twenty-three years, and for a long time has been a member of the official board; in April, 1899, he was made a deacon, and his life has been one of quiet usefulness and industry. The family stand among the county’s most worthy and respected citizens, and although unassuming in deportment, ‘are effective in their usefulness.

Biographical Annals of Lancaster County,1903. pp 335-336.

Purslane Rainbow

via GIPHY

This is an old photo project I did some years ago from a picture I took of purslane and manipulated into 24 posterized images in that many colors. It resides on an old photo frame where it fades slowly through the colors. Here it is a gif that cycles more quickly without fading due to limitations on the converter I was using.