Archives: Stories

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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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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Volunteer

Debbie Kipp By Ann Cox Halkett For a week each year before, during and after the Common Ground Fair, Debbie Kipp volunteers in the Fair office and does “anything that the office needs done.” That usually includes answering the phone, handing out passes, and running errands. “I just do anything … talk to vendors, take

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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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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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Six River Farm

Gabrielle Gosselin and Nate Drummond working in the peas. Photo by Bridget Besaw. By Polly Shyka When Gabrielle Gosselin and Nate Drummond left their jobs and friends in New York City in 2006 to apprentice at Sandy and Paul Arnold’s Pleasant Valley Farm in Argyle, New Your, they were, like most farm apprentices, on an

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Community Farms

Dr. Brian Donahue. English photo. By Jean English Brian Donahue enjoyed the Common Ground Fair last summer. “The type of activities seen at the Fair should be part of our daily lives,” he said. For many of us who live in rural Maine, they are; but Donahue goes a step further: “We should do them

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Edgewater Farm

Soup Kitchens, Apprentices, Community Benefit By Jane Lamb Nick Sewall, owner of the Hermit Island Camp Ground at the end of Small Point, has given him the use of almost an acre adjacent to Edgewater Farm in Phippsburg where Bill and his wife, Carol, operate a bed and breakfast. Carol manages the B&B and Bill

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MOFGA Farmers

By Jean English A strong drive to produce an abundance of healthful food is the force common to Tom Roberts and Gloria Varney, MOFGA’s “farmers in the spotlight” at the Maine Agricultural Trades Show in Augusta last January. Roberts and his partner, Lois Labbe, raise organic crops at Snakeroot Organic Farm in Pittsfield, while Varney

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