Life on the farm

Life on the farm: work that matters, play that’s fun, relationships that touch you deeply. You can construct such a life anywhere. Here’s how we live ours:

Spring

Spring brings the warm weather that melts ice and snow into the rivers, swelling them to ideal paddling conditions. It’s also the perfect time enjoy to Acadia National Park: cars aren’t allowed on the Park Loop Road until mid-April, leaving the paved road open to bikers and walkers, and the spring hiking is pure pleasure—the air is warmer, the sun is higher on the horizon, and the bugs aren’t out yet.

And Spring also marks the start of fieldwork season.

We burn the fields to synchronize blossoming and fruit setting, to encourage the growth of healthy new stems from underground rhizomes, and to suppress fungal diseases and insect pests, all elements that make for an abundant crop. We also spread sulfur in the spring to lower the soil pH, favoring those acid-loving blueberries while holding grasses and many herbaceous weeds at bay. In May we set out bee hives.

Mark keeping the fires burning at TWP-25

Driving the tractor to monitor for any wandering fires

Using the Indian water tank to douse the flames

Lisa setting up the electric fence to protect the bees from bears

A honey bee pollinating a blueberry blossom

A sea of blossoms promising a good year's harvest

Summer

Spring rivers swollen by ice-melt become bony in the summer, so we switch to lakes and salt-water. We love to bike in the summer, as we can pedal faster than the bugs can fly. We move our hikiing to the coast and especially to the nearby islands, where the onshore breezes are cool and there are fewer bugs.

Summer work is weeding, either with string-trimmers, which we use to remove any woody plants that have grown above the blueberry canopy, or with hand tools.

Weeding with head nets to protect against black flies

Grace, Sierra, and Millie paddling on Spring River Lake

Mark and Lisa practicing softball with Millie on a lunch break on the field

Harvest

We’re wildly busy during the harvest, but we still make time to play. Swimming and hot-tubbing are great ways to end a physically exhausting day.

Millie and Arthur having fun on the field

Using the walk behind raker on a weedy field

Mark happy at work in the back of the tractor

Kiernan and Alejandro checking in on a tractor raking day

Zion surveying the field as he prepares for more raking

Loading up full boxes at the end of the day

Stacks of field boxes ready to be loaded

The crew unloading a truck of field boxes back at the barn

Using the pickover table to sort out unwanted berries

Millie explaining how to package fresh berries

The drafty old farmhouse from the hot tub at sunset

Autumn

Fall is a great time for hiking—most of the tourists and bugs have left, and the changing foliage is a beautiful myriad of reds and yellows. We work now to spread straw for next spring’s burning, and alternate flail mowing certain fields.

The blueberry barrens showing their fall foliage

Michael, Hazel, and Lisa hand spreading straw together

Lisa hand spreading in the gullies at TWP-25

One of the first fall frosts on the vegetable garden in Cherryfield

Winter

Skiing, ice-skating, snow-shoeing, hiking—these are the sports that enliven our short winter days. What work we do depends on the size of the harvest. If we’ve had a good one, we spend our winters repairing equipment, attending farm meetings, planning for the coming season, and having fun. If the harvest was poor, we look for work—carpentry, roofing, painting, whatever we can put our hands to.

Lisa getting her skates on for a glassy lake

Lisa skiing on the recreational trail in Cherryfield

The view from Sargent Mountain on Mount Desert Island

Lisa skiing on the carriage roads in Acadia National Park

The Acadia carriage roads after a heavy snowfall