Travelers' update

We are in Maine and are blown away once again by the beauty of the coves, the rocks, the woods just starting to change to their fall colors, boats in and out of their harbors, lobsters and the beautiful New England houses built long ago.
We have been to Damariscotta and seen the Pemaquid Point Light and have spent a few days on Monhegan, a tiny island out in the ocean, where T had a truly remarkeable adventure.
This morning T and I are off to the Unity Fair, an agricultural fair put on by The Maine Organic Farmers Association. The Easy Houseguests are going to explore Camden while we are away.
There is so much to see and do every day that the reports and pictures of our travels will have to wait until we have a quiet moment, which may be when we return home. We are having a grand time and are enjoying every minute of this trip !

Cheers !

While on the road, it is becoming increasingly more difficult to eat locally . However, we found you can always fall back on locally brewed beer ! In the small glass is a sample of pumpkin beer, the big glasses are filled with Pemaquid ale, both local products.

End of summer

Eating locally is just too easy right now for those of us living in the country with a big vegetable garden. Every day I bring in baskets and buckets full of vegetables and fruit - the problem is using it all up fast enough before it becomes overripe. The kitchen is humming along at top speed : there is tomato sauce bubbling on the stove to be canned later, peppers are being chopped for freezing, apples need to be pared for apple sauce, and someone needs to help cut up those green beans, but woven through all that activity is a bittersweet good-bye to summer and all its bounty.

These early fall days make the gardener very aware that soon all harvest will cease with the first frost. Today I picked the last cucumbers for this year. Funny, how I suddenly value the odd fruit or two now and how much I appreciate it . Just a few weeks ago there was such an abundance of cucumbers , that I picked only the youngest and slimmest and the rest went to the chickens. Hmmm, seems like there is a moral here somewhere....

The Eat Local Challenge is about to ratchet up a notch, however. Tomorrow morning we start on a 10 day trip through New England with the Easy Houseguests and the big question is how we will be able to keep eating locally on the road. I've done my homework and found out a few restaurants in Maine, where local food is served, thanks to Liz at Pocket Farm, but what and where will we eat the rest of the time ? Stay tuned for road trip adventures.

And so to bed.

One week later...

Look who's getting feathers !

!

And drinking like grown-up chickens !

We're very proud of our acomplishments here at the farm !

Overwhelmed

Just feeling really, really overwhelmed these days. What with R having difficulty adjusting to her new class, W screaming bloody murder at every opportunity and the mail piling up it is all I can do not to run screaming from the house, let alone procure and eat an entire meal of locally produced food! I still do my part though - just this afternoon I called in to Martha Stewart Living Radio and asked the invited guest (a NYC chef) why in God's name he bought chickens from CANADA? He diplomatically explained that the producer is within a 250 mile radius (his cut-off point) and that he tried to buy locally for years but the product wasn't uniform enough. And then I won a free cookbook! Written by himself! Hurrah - that did lots to boost my spirits. Will be sure to cook from it and report back once received. Tomorrow Paul and I are off to a wedding in the North Woods of Wisconsin to the Red Crown Lodge. R and W are staying the weekend with the in-laws and I am having some serious anxiety over leaving them. I wish I could be more laid back!

Mr. Weaver and the rose

When we first moved to the country, we had a wonderful neighbor who taught me about gardening, farming and country ways. He was an old man, born in the century before last , whose wife had died and who lived alone in a big fieldstone house. The house was just as old-fashioned as he was; the first thing you smelled when you walked in was wood smoke, even in summer, and I think electricity was still a new-fangled innovation for Mr. Weaver in 1970.

I saw Mr. Weaver almost every day and each time I said good-bye after a visit, he would say " What can I give you ? " He would produce a basket of blueberries or a bucket of green beans he had picked from his garden or sometimes it would be something from his house - an oil lamp, a hackle for flax which had belonged to his mother or a 3 volume set on farming , ordered from Sears, Roebuck in 1890. I still have all those treasures, of course, but my fondest memory of a present is a gift he would invariably give me at this time of year.

After his customary " What can I give you ? ", he would cut a perfect rose from the bush blooming next to his door and present it with a gallant flourish while reciting

’TIS the last rose of summer

Left blooming alone;

All her lovely companions

Are faded and gone;

No flower of her kindred,

No rosebud is nigh,

To reflect back her blushes,

To give sigh for sigh.

Thank you, Mr. Weaver !!

More Sightseeing

From the big city to the country - we've seen the sights around here with our guests. They enjoyed Washington, DC as well as visiting our neighbors, the Amish. We had a typical enormous Pennsylvania Dutch meal with them and the Europeans tasted root beer for the first time. What a surprise - it wasn't beer !

It was great fun seeing our everyday world through their eyes - we are fortunate that we have rolling hills, farms and the Chesapeake Bay right at our door, so there is really lots to see and do.

A big hit was the arrival of 50 chicks destined to become dinner. The houseguests are city people and everything here on the farm was fascinating to them .

Picking apples from the tree, the barn chores every morning, all the tools and equipment that accumulates on a farm and the ability to roam the woods and pastures in every direction were new experiences for our guests. Even the summer chorus of crickets and cicadas was new to them - they couldn't sleep at night because of "the noise."

They left yesterday for New York City and in one week we will pick them up there for a trip through New England . I'm totally looking forward to some local lobster eating in Maine !!!