Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the pace of farm life in the Lehigh Valley slows just a bit. The fall crops are mostly harvested; some fields have been prepared for their winter crops while others lie still, waiting for the spring planting; the hills with their contoured rows of corn, stubble, and plowed fields create a powerful visual graphic, broken occasionally by country roads or windbreaks of tall leafless trees. Scattered across this landscape are neat, white homes and barns. Occasionally a crossroads will sprout a small cluster of homes. These are scenes worth celebrating and remembering, especially considering what you might expect to see.

Allentown, the county seat of Lehigh County, and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Pennsylvania, after Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, is at most, a 30 minute drive from these farms. Yet, there is virtually no sign of the suburbs, tract homes, and strip malls that seem to stretch so far from every other city of more than 300,000 people. The people of the Lehigh Valley have worked tirelessly to preserve the farming heritage of their land. So far, they have been able to hold back the tide of urban sprawl. How much longer can they keep their finger in the dike? No one knows. But while they succeed, one must continue to admire and photograph this beautiful land.