Something/Someone Old

My Something Old today is Appleton Farm, the oldest working farm in America.

This is the Old House, first built by Isaac Appleton in 1688. Isaac was the brother of Samuel Appleton, the first settler on land that had been carefully tended by the local Agawam tribe (local legend says they fertilized the soil with fish bones).

This is a drawing of Samuel's original house:

Apparently the Old House (Isaac's, not Samuel's) was gutted and rebuilt six times as various generations of Appletons took it over in succession.

This is a picture of it from the late 1800s:

What is so neat about this farm is that it continued in the same family for seven generations. When, at last, the family line had run dry, the last two Appletons did something remarkable:

But it almost didn't happen that way. The ninth generation of Appletons — the late Francis Jr. and his wife, Joan — had no children to pass the property down to. While most folks would have sold the property to developers and cashed in for tens of millions, Francis and Joan decided to donate the estate to the Trustees of Reservations, a nonprofit that has devoted itself to preserving Massachusetts's landmarks and landscapes for nearly 120 years. In 1998 — eight years before her death — Mrs. Appleton officially turned the property over to the trustees. Her only stipulation: that the property she and her husband held so dear must remain a working farm — and that it be left open to the community forever.

As a result, Appleton isn't just the oldest farm in America, it's the people's farm. For the citizens of Ipswich, it's also a remarkable resource, plain and simple. Kids in the farm's 4-H program stop by regularly to feed and care for their calves, volunteers lead bird-watching excursions, and agricultural interns work diligently in the fields. After work and on weekends, bikers and runners take to the 10 miles of grassy paths. Mothers push babies in strollers, and couples walk happy terriers, shepherds, and bulldogs. Along the way, visitors pass spring-fed ponds that empty into small creeks, hay bales drying in the sun, and centuries-old stone walls that trace the lush landscape.

[O]ne of Appleton Farms' most successful ventures has been its Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program, whereby area residents pay a fixed seasonal fee in exchange for a 22-week share of the farm's fresh produce. Eight-hundred families in and around the North Shore of Boston participate in the program, which operates from May to November.

http://www.countryliving.com/life/travel/a2855/americas-oldest-farm-0709/

Let's hear it for Mrs. Joan Appleton and her husband Francis, who made an incredible gesture: valuing the commons over the dollar.

I bet the farm produces a ton of apples.

Something New

My reggae listening tends to center on Bob Marley and Peter Tosh. In other words, top-notch but old. I stuck my head up to see what new musicians might have arisen since the 1970s. I found Jah9. She's good.

Janine Elizabeth Cunningham was born on May 23, 1983 in Montego Bay, Saint James in Jamaica.[3] Her father was a Christian preacher,[7] while her mother was a teacher and social worker.[3] Spending her childhood in the rural town of Falmouth, Jamaica,[8] Cunningham recollects being a creatively-minded "introvert" growing up, often spending her time writing and reading.

https://everipedia.org/wiki/Jah9/

...Jah9 spent her first 9 years in Falmouth, Trelawny, on the rural western edge of Jamaica before moving into the city of Kingston, in 1991. Transplanted in the city, this country girl, used to the idyllic Falmouth where everyone knew everyone else, was suddenly struck by chaos disguised as order in Jamaica’s capital. Highly sensitive to her surroundings, she ventured inward and found an outlet for her feelings in the words that she wrote.

Growing up in a conscious family with a preacher for a father and a social worker for a mother, Janine had always been aware of the injustices in the world. However, it was not until she was on campus at the University of the West Indies that she would embark on a pivotal journey to find her true voice. At UWI, she would gather with a group of fellow socially conscious and Rastafari brethren by a fire to steam herbs and reason for long hours. There her heart was opened to the teachings of Haile Selassie I and her ears to the hypnotic bass of the heavy dub rhythms of roots reggae.

https://calendar.uoregon.edu/event/jah_9#.Wj2UBt-nGUk

In 2008, she retired from the corporate world, and started focusing on her music full time. A good thing, in my opinion.

She has been compared to Nina Simone.

Here's some of her work:

Something Borrowed

Latin America and Africa have apparently traded tubers.

Sweet potatoes, Ipomoea batatas, originated in the tropical regions of this hemisphere, especially Central America, and are now enjoyed more or less everywhere.

Yams, Dioscorea batatas, originated in Africa and are now quite popular in Latin America and the Caribbean. In Spanish, they are referred to as batata, boniato and ñame.

Apparently yams can grow up to seven feet long!

Sweet potatoes are members of the morning glory family, Convolvulaceae. They are only distantly related to potatoes, in that they are members of the same order. But to make it clear how distant that relation is, the order Carnivora, in the animal kingdom, contains 280 species.

They are not even distantly related to yams, whose true name is Dioscorea batatas, and are more closely related to lilies than to sweet potatoes:

A monocot related to lilies and grasses, yams are a vigorous herbaceous vine, providing an edible tuber.[1] Yams are also an invasive plant, often considered a "noxious weed", outside cultivated areas.[1] Native to Africa and Asia, yam tubers vary in size from that of a small potato to over 60 kg (130 lb). Some 870 species of yams are known,[1] and 95% of these crops are grown in Africa.[9]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yam_(vegetable)

When African slaves were brought to the Americas, they encountered sweet potatoes. It reminded them of the tubers they ate at home. I'm not sure what they called Dioscorea batatas when they were at home, but the New World word "yam" comes from the African words njam, nyami or djambi, meaning "to eat."

https://www.thespruce.com/sweet-potatoes-vs-yams-1808067

Something Blue

The hyacinth macaw is the largest macaw and the largest flying parrot in the world. Meet Anodorhynchus hyacinthinus:

They have beaks strong enough to break open coconuts! In fact, they can break open the hardest nuts in the world.

https://aqua.org/explore/animals/hyacinth-macaw

They are intelligent birds. Get a load of this:

And they are good mimics:

But as wonderful as these birds are, don't go buy one as a pet:

The hyacinth macaw is considered vulnerable to extinction due to habitat loss and over-collection for the pet trade.

We don't want them to go extinct.