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Volunteer Profile Summer 2011

Peggy Smith Peggy Smith’s Nonviolent Communication Workshops Benefit MOFGA By Holli Cederholm Peggy Smith of Lincolnville, Maine, is a Nonviolent Communication (NVC) Trainer who strives to help individuals, businesses and communities in Maine via the services of her business, Open Communication. Smith offers workshops, presentations, coaching and consulting and finds that her work leaves her

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American Plains Indians As Farmers

John Eastman’s “Guarding the Cornfields” shows Indian women scaring birds away from the crop. The Dream That Might Have Been By John Koster American Mythology 101 holds that the Plains Indians had to be subdued and constrained to reservations because they were too proud or too lazy to take up farming. The myth permeates Hollywood

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John Bunker

John Bunker finds and saves heirloom varieties of apples in Maine; his dog, Tessa, keeps deer away from the orchard. Jane Lamb photo. “To Be of Value While I’m Here” By Jane Lamb “Core and slice thickly, with skin. Fry in pork fat. Add water as necessary till soft. Then add ‘a few dollops’ of

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Eggs

Jim Hannah has his chickens trained well – or vice versa. English photo. By Jean English Jim Hannah and Deborah Banks raise happy hens: 3,000 happy hens, in fact, all with room to roam and with feed to satisfy the most gourmand among the flock. Their Hilltop Farm in Dexter is, as far as Hannah

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Anniversary Farm Finds Its Balance

Ellin and Stephen Sheehy have a diversified farm with a bed and breakfast in Alna. Lamb photo. By Jane Lamb Imagine giving and receiving a little piece of Eden as a 25th anniversary present. Adam and Eve never had it so good. But Ellin and Stephen Sheehy did just that when they bought an old

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Volunteer Eric Rector

Eric Rector. English photo. “Every job I’m in, I end up doing the computers,” says Eric Rector, creator of MOFGA’s website (www.mofga.org). That’s what I’m good at.” Eric designed MOFGA’s site last year when the proposed USDA rules for organic labeling were up for public comment, and he wanted the talks MOFGA sponsored on the

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Lessons Learned

Toki Oshima illustration Half a Dozen Books With Garden Themes By Sue Smith-Heavenrich A few summers ago the local weekly was promoting a garden contest to keep kids “off the streets and doing something worthwhile.” I wasn’t interested in encouraging my children to grow giant zucchinis, but I was interested in the free seeds. They

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New Beat Farm

Adrienne Lee and Ken Lamson farm to a new beat – with a combination of horse and human power. Photos courtesy of New Beat Farm. Young Farmers Integrate Horse Power into a Modern System By Holli Cederholm Farming with horses requires a different rhythm, attest Adrienne Lee and Ken Lamson while reflecting on the name

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Groundswell Farm: Toward a Sustainable Organic Seed System

Mike Bowman and Maria Reynolds of Groundswell Farm at their booth at the Common Ground Country Fair. English photo. By Holli Cederholm Mike Bowman and Maria Reynolds named their Groundswell Farm after their farming ideology and the topography of the 7 acres they are leasing in Solon, Maine. Their 4 acres of MOFGA certified organic

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Payson

Louise Payson She is considered a pioneer of American landscape architecture. Her prominence in the “Golden Age of American gardens” was acknowledged in some of the leading publications of her time. As a woman practicing in what historically had been a male-dominated field, she helped redefine the character and qualities that established the distinctiveness of

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