Monday, July 27
Each summer we help our niece Karen who plants and processes lots of fresh corn as a gift to our church members, neighbors, friends, and others who are dealing with illnesses, accidents, or other incidents.
Karen began gathering corn in the early morning, so it was ready for husking by 7:30 am. We arrived about 8:30 to help with the husking. She had about 250 dozen ears of corn this time.
Our daughter Diane is here from Maine for the week to help her daughter Abby with the children so Abby can be prepared to begin homeschooling their three oldest – Anthony. Jasmine, and Natalie. Diane stopped in at the farm to help husk corn for about an hour before going to the Zucks.
It was about 9:30 am when the pickup truck was full of large buckets of husks. Karen drove the truck to the other side of the barn to throw the husks to the cattle.
The cattle started running as soon as Karen backed the truck up to the fence.
The bull didn’t move as fast as the others.
The process of husking took all morning.
The last of the ears was finished at 1:45 pm.
It felt good to see the last of this job.
About the time we finished, a group of volunteers arrived from our church’s Manheim Project.
The Manheim Project is a large undertaking by a group of more than 150 volunteers from our church. The committee spends months setting up projects (along with Love Inc.). Those who came to help with the corn had completed their morning project and were available to help with Karen’s Corn Project.
You can see many of the projects that were being done on Monday at Manheim Project 2026 – Google Photos. Photos will be added all week. This will continue through Friday.
We learned on Sunday that the team from our church had 47 projects ahead of them for the week and that there were going to be 36 campers (people who stayed at the Manheim Farm Show building for the week). This building is the headquarters for those who stay and those who volunteer by the day. It is also where meals are served. A project may mean house repair, yard and garden work, painting, etc.
But more than that each project means we are reaching the hearts of those who asked for help and were accepted through Love Inc. and the Manheim Borough. Those who are being helped gave us their prayer requests. I just counted them. There are 42 prayer requests. Many from people who are not people of faith in Christ. Pray for our team this week – and the recipients.
Back to the corn project – the neat machine that removes corn silk.
After the corn is cooked, it is cooled by a process of putting the hot corn into buckets of ice water.
Miranda taking cooled corn to the table where the cutters are waiting.
Now begins another long process – that of cutting corn from the cob.
More volunteers from the Manheim Project began arriving, so I took a few more pictures before going home and giving the cutting shift to others.
Before long, Karen was kept busy finding work for everyone.
These two worked on the final project – putting corn in bags.
Karen will give some packs directly to those who were receiving her kindness. Other packs will be frozen before going to their recipient.
We went away for the evening and returned home about 8:15 pm. Several people were still working on the corn. Diane and a few others stopped in for the late-night shift. Diane thought they finished bagging the corn about 11:45 pm. After that Karen still had a lot of clean-up to do before going to bed.