Redefining the Family Farm
|
|
 Raising Kids at Crystal Spring Community Farm
The concept of "socializing kids into farming" competes with a process of "externalizing" farm families and communities that has been happening in New England since the 1800s. Crystal Spring Community Farm in Brunswick, Maine, may be inverting these trends. The farm supports a 200-member CSA and a Saturday farmers’ market (held on a different day from the Brunswick Common market). |
|
Raising Organic Hogs by the Tractor Method
|
|
"How can I turn the rooting behavior and the gluttony of the pig to my farm’s advantage?" The answer to the question is the pig tractor, which uses the pig to plow and fertilize your garden. Most people interested in organic livestock are familiar with the chicken tractor. The pig tractor is the same basic concept made much sturdier and used a little differently. |
|
Connecting with the Terrestrial Ecosphere
|
|
 Early humans had ritual ceremonies to celebrate nature rhythms, passages in an individual's life, changing seasons, animal migrations. Similar celebrations held in a garden, orchard, forest or hilltop, or near a creek, river or lake, can help us appreciate the ecosphere ourselves and teach our children about the natural world. Celebrate with joy and consciousness. |
|
The Little Farm on the Corner
|
|
 When I first spotted it, I thought it was an unlikely place for an organic farmstand: still within Ellsworth city limits, right off a fast stretch of Route 1, across the street from a hotel and in a residential neighborhood. Pulling up, I assumed the Blackstone Gardens farmstand would be just another folding tray full of excess zucchini. |
|
Deep Ecology and the Maine Earth Institute
|
|
Individual humans can control the way we live our lives, especially our level of consumption. Further, our attitude toward consumption reflects the way we relate to the earth. For example, do we see the earth mainly as a provider of natural resources to satisfy human wants and needs, or do we value and revere the earth as an intricately balanced support for all species? |
|
Organic Dairy Farming . . . Do High Pay Prices Equal More Profit?
|
|
Organic dairy farming has become the fastest growing agricultural sector in New England. Maine has the highest percentage of organic dairy farms compared with conventional in the nation. Despite the growth, little information has been available on the cost of producing organic milk. In 2004, the University of Vermont and the University of Maine received funding from the USDA Integrated Organic program to conduct the research project, "Profitability and Transitional Analysis of Northeast Organic Dairy Farms." |
|
Sambhavana Clinic and Herb Garden, Bhopal, India
|
|
 Bhopal is an epic human disaster. The people live daily with extreme poverty, despair, illness and death, yet their inner strength and ability to persevere in the face of such devastation and betrayal is a testament to the inherent dignity of the human spirit. Mainer Gail Faith Edwards was invited to work at the Sambhavana Clinic and Herb Garden in Bhopal last fall as part of an international task force attempting to assist the Bhopali people.
|
|
Rob Johnston, Jr., and Johnny’s Selected Seeds
|
|
 Following the progress of Rob Johnston’s life is like watching a seed as it germinates and responds to the sun. Johnston, founder of Johnny’s Selected Seeds in Albion, Maine, embodied a deep appreciation for seeds that grew as he progressed from uninspired college student to thriving business owner. Along the way, he was open to and received fertile input from key friends. |
|