The stone wall of the old barn soaks up the afternoon sun, storing heat for the rhubarb patch that grows the full width of the barn. The rhubarb gets an early start in the spring. We fertilize the rhubarb early and keep it watered, so by the end of April we enjoy the first good taste of home-grown produce after a long winter of store-bought greens.

We cook the rhubarb by cutting stalks into one-inch pieces and boiling them in water. We barely cover the stalks with water because rhubarb stalks themselves contain a great deal of water. Then we add 1/2 to 3/4 cup of sugar for each pound of rhubarb. The sliced stalks boil until soft.

We like eating rhubarb as a sauce with a meal or as desert. We also bake rhubarb in a 9 x 13 glass pan with a crust of oatmeal and cinnamon to make rhubarb crisp. But one of the best ways to enjoy rhubarb is make Gram Jam.

Gram Jam is an old family favorite. Grandma Mary cooks up a big pot of rhubarb and when it comes to a boil, adds strawberry jello to turn the rhubarb into strawberry jam. Then she cans the strawberry jam in pint fruit jars to give to family members. It tastes just like strawberry jam, only better. Everybody in the family calls it Gram Jam.

Grandma Mary learned the recipe from Grandpa Dave’s mother, Grandma Van, who learned the recipe from her mother, Grandma Gribbell, back in the 1940s. Gram Jam is just as popular today in our family as it was 70 years ago. We freeze a lot of rhubarb in the summer so we have plenty of rhubarb to cook up as Gram Jam in the winter. We love that rhubarb patch at the end of the old barn!

Mary is the brains and Dave is the brawn behind Wild Rose Meadows. Mary grew up in the city, but she quickly turned into a country girl when we moved out to the farm.

This is a photo of Mary with Oliver, a bottle lamb. Our vet called and said, “I have a Shetland ewe in distress with twin lambs. I think I can save the ewe and maybe one lamb, but I can’t save the ewe and both lambs. Would you like to come and get the other lamb and see if you can save it?”

As you can see from this picture, that baby lamb did just fine in Mary’s care. Oliver went to the office every day for several weeks so he could get his bottle every two hours. He grew up with Chelsea, our dog, so Oliver always thought he was a dog.

Mary works in a high-stress job as Quality Control Manager for a company that develops operating software for financial institutions. She is the person who has to make sure the computers work right when you deposit your hard-earned money.

Coming home from work is the high point of Mary’s day. She pets the cats, collects eggs from the chickens, checks the calves, throws a little hay in for the goats, and then crashes in front of the TV to watch Dancing With The Stars.

That’s life on the farm at Wild Rose Meadows!