Archives: Stories

Examples of Amish Family Enterprise

Horses power woodworking tools and a grain mill at the Copps’ family farm in Thorndike. Holli Cederholm photo. Living Grains Bakery and Locust Grove Woodworks By Holli Cederholm Kenneth and Katie Copp moved their Old Order Amish Mennonite family, and their family business, to Thorndike, Maine, just over a year after Amish families started settling

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Social Mission

Tom and Theresa Gaffney of Highland Blueberry Farm in Stockton Springs. Dozens of women have worked on the farm as part of their drug rehabilitation program. Rebecca Goldfine photo. By Rebecca Goldfine When Rebekah Pressley boarded a bus in New Jersey to travel to central Maine, she had never heard of the small community she

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Shalom Orchard

Charlotte Young and Jim Baranski offer a diversity of crops and products at Shalom Orchard in Franklin, Maine. Jane Lamb photo. By Jane Lamb Not many turkeys, organic or otherwise, can enjoy a 360-degree view of scenic Hancock County and beyond, from the Schoodic hills to the east, the Acadia mountains to the south, the

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Apprentice

Amber Reed (on the right in both pictures) apprenticing to be a farmer. Photos courtesy of Amber Reed. By Amber Reed Before the Quivira Conference in Albuquerque last fall, I had read only a little by Aldo Leopold. At the beginning of A Sand County Almanac I read: “There are two spiritual dangers in not

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Peter Hagerty

Peter Hagerty. English photo. By Holli Cederholm Twelve years ago Peter Hagerty, of Porter, Maine, helped found MOFGA’s Low Impact Forestry (LIF) group, which offers a safe environment for individuals to learn skills pertinent to working in the woods with horses and cattle. The group held its first workshop in November 1999, drawing participants from

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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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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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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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Camden

Barbara Smith admires a fellow gardener’s melons. Lamb photo. By Jane Lamb How can a community garden be a secret garden? Just ask any of the folks who raise their favorite vegetables in the Camden Community Garden. To some of them, it’s the most beautiful place in Camden. “It’s a fun place to be,” says

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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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