Dewy Meadows Farm in northeastern Pennsylvania has experienced many changes during the past two centuries. One constant, however, is the Dewing family, which has owned this 500-acre parcel since the early 1800s.
“In 1976, the property had gone from father to son for 100 years, so we qualified for the Pennsylvania Century Farm Program,” said Andy Dewing, who went into the family farm business when he graduated from high school.
Now Andy and his wife, Sally, live on the property, along with two of their three sons and several of their 17 grandchildren. Everyone has some role on the farm – whether it’s splitting and stacking the many cords of firewood they process each year, tending to the grass-fed black Angus cattle they move from pasture to pasture throughout the summer, making the pegs for a timber-framing project, running the portable sawmill, maintaining trails, or boiling sap in the spring to make maple syrup.
“When the grandkids show up, it ceases to be work and it gets to be fun,” Andy said. “When I start the evaporator up and steam comes out, I know somebody’s going to come running down across that field to help Grandpa. It’s a neat little culture. It’s something I take for granted, because it’s what I grew up with. But a lot of people don’t have that.”
Call it work or call it fun, there seems to always be something to do at Dewy Meadows. The property comprises roughly 100 acres of tillable land, another 50 acres or so of brush and pasture, and about 300 acres of woodlot. There’s a forest stewardship plan for that woodlot, with objectives that include both timber harvesting and providing habitat for wildlife.
“Sally and I got married in 1971. That year, we planted about 2,000 spruce trees up the creek valley to help with soil erosion,” Andy said. “Those trees are now about 50 feet tall, and when you walk through there, you can see the roots growing on top of the ground and over each other. My oldest granddaughter, when she was about 10, decided it looked like the Narnia woods, so that’s what we call it now.”
Since then, Andy and Sally have worked to create favorable conditions for grouse, including building brush piles and maintaining a mix of young and mature poplar stands, and they have planted oak trees in another area with an eye toward improving wildlife habitat. One recent project has been clearing ash trees before they succumb to the emerald ash borer. And there is always firewood work to be done.
“I always sold cord wood when I was young, and now I help the grandkids sell it,” Andy said. “We probably sell 20 face cords of wood a year. It gives the kids some spending money.”
One of the first timber harvests Andy recalls was in the 1970s, when the Dewings joined the American Tree Farm system and had a forester come out to walk the land and help devise a forest management plan. The money from that harvest helped Andy start what has become a focus of the farm: sugaring.
“We took that money and bought an evaporator,” he said. “And I built a sugarhouse on the imprint of an old carriage barn.”
He said the farm has always produced some syrup. But what was once a few gallons each year for the family’s own use has grown to a 2,000-tap operation with an output of between 350 and 500 gallons of syrup each year. The family makes the syrup in the sugarhouse Andy built. And, yes, they still fire the evaporator with wood.
“We have about 25 acres that’s our main sugarbush now,” he said. “I worked on that for probably 20 years, just cutting the beech out of there and trying to thin it out a little bit. Because the sugar is made in the leaf, so a tree with a lot of leaves is going to have more sugar in it than a tree with fewer leaves.”
Beyond sugaring and raising beef cattle – which replaced the dairy herd nearly 30 years ago – the Dewing family is also involved in timber framing, another endeavor they pursue together.
“My youngest son, Joel, was interested in timber framing right out of high school. He’d bring home books from the 1800s about timber framing,” said Andy, noting that Joel first built a “little shanty” in the woods.
Eventually Andy and Joel bought a Norwood sawmill, which they set up to cut the longer beams required in many timber-framed buildings. Joel and his brother Nathan attended a timber-framing workshop. Nathan built a house on the property. Then Joel built a small house – and a larger one as his family grew.
“Joel has a chicken coop, a couple of storage sheds, and they’re all timber frame. It’s the only way he builds,” Andy said. “He’s spent probably the past seven years building the house, and it’s a better house than most people dream of having. It’s gorgeous. He did everything right down to his hardwood floors. All the wood came off the farm.”
There’s also a timber-frame cabin next to a pond on the property. That’s where the extended family gathers during the warmer months for the weekly Sunday dinner.
“When the kids went to college, Sally said, ‘If we want them to come home, we’re going to have to feed them,’” Andy recalled. “We started fixing Sunday dinner, and all the family comes. We’re never sure if we’re going to have 15 or 40. We plan a big meal, and sometimes there’s nothing left, and sometimes we eat the leftovers all week. Even though they’re getting older now, the cousins love to be together.”
They also gather during deer-hunting season in the fall, which Andy considers part of the heritage of both the place and the family: “We look at hunting season as harvest time for the deer. I’ve gotten a deer every year since I was 12 years old, and I still hunt. But I’d rather see one of the kids get a deer than me. It’s more fun to see them learn.”
Even after decades of working the land and tending to it, Andy loves to be out in the woods. He does the smaller harvests on his own, including most of the firewood work – although splitting and stacking is a duet featuring him and Sally. And he carries a chainsaw most every time he heads out to check on the trails.
“When we cut the ash, I had a logger come in and do it, because I knew that was beyond me. But often, if we’re going to get a load of wood out, I work for a month or two with my little tractor and get it out myself,” he said. “I told my wife, if I’m out cutting wood and I die, don’t feel bad for me. I just love working in the woods.”