Remember to not wear shoes

This T shirt was made for me by..... my daughter.... who I presume took this photo judging by the perspective it is taken from.

Summer will return.  It will return in all it's glory.  It will come again, and shed it's light upon us.  It will be as warm and lovely as it was.

File this photo under "Why to get up early".

Keith Stinson of Richmond Maine.  7th generation on his farm.  "The generation that lost the farm." he says.  I remind him, that he didn't lose it.  He farmed it till he had a heart attack and two strokes.  His kids are the generation that lost it.  The farm is there, but it's not working, and it'll be gone as soon as he can't plow the snow and tote the wood anymore.  I love this guy.  He is one of my best friends.  He comes over and pitches in, when it suits him.  He thinks highly of me, and that's a greater success to me, than most other measures of such.

After Keith is done playing with the carrots in the field, we bring them to the wash station, and toss em through this clever thing.  It's a barrel washer, made by Colin Cassie of Whitefield.  The greatest single labor saver on the farm.   The wood part spins around, and the copper part sprays them with water, till they fall out the end into the tote.

Carrots grow really well in Maine.  There is no reason what so ever, that carrots should be imported into Maine.

Thank you.

This is chard that has been in the field for four weeks.  It gets planted when it is 4 weeks old. The below photo is the same about 2 weeks later.

That's some nice residual organic matter, good moisture level.  Weeds are non existent. I give it 4 1/2 stars.

Can you find Peaches in this photo?  It's cool, she's sanitized for your protection.

This is a chioggia beet.  This was taken in the summer, but you can buy it now!!

This carrot is an ancient heirloom from the lost civilization of Siam.

In that other post, there was a bit about growing ginger.  If I were better at blogging, this photo would be nearer to that story.  This is ginger.  What a miracle that we can grow and enjoy this here in Maine!

Onions are funny, in that they really come quite early.  All spring you watch them and wonder, and worry and weed, and then one day in the end of July it's time to pull them!  Here Diego is laying them out to cure on the table in the nursery greenhouse.   They need to be hot, and dry, but shaded..... so we lay them out thusly, so they re own tops cover them.  The ones in the corner were cut to be the first to sell, and got shaded with a sheet later on.

Kind of a weird American flag of onions.

You know you made it when you got a pile of cats

Doesn't it feel like a year since the last kitty photo on stonecipherfarm.blogspot.com.  It has been!  They've grown so much.  They've loved up so much.

This is how desperate they look every morning, to get out.

We used to let them come and go, out in, night day, whatever.  We never knew how many were home.  They're barn cats... that we let in the house.  Till we came back from the fair last fall, and 3 of them were gone!  It was 5 days till they all came back! We were sure they were gone.  That was the day they became house cats.... we love them too much.  Now they gotta all be in every night.  They still dismember a rat with the best of em.

This is the first photo of farm product I have posted all year I think.  This is ginger.  We grew ginger for the first time this year.  Man!.....  harrowing right till the first day I dug it!   Expensive seed, long long long germination period, of high heat and even moisture,  by the time we planted them out (taking up the whole greenhouse), they were pathetic looking, and we just hoped for the best.  Next thing we knew, they came boomin out of the ground.  I didn't have the courage to paw around below the plants, or pull one up....  I couldn't handle being any more discouraged if they were small or sad looking.  Come mid September I realized if I didn't start selling them, I'd be sitting on them still when the freeze up came.: so I started digging.  I couldn't have been more pleased.  we got about 600 pounds of amazing ginger from a 16 by 96 foot unheated greenhouse.

Here it is all cleaned up and shiny.  The flavor is superb!  Hot sweet, full, juicy!  No skin and no fiber at all.  You can cook and eat it like a vegetable.  The season is way over now as of the time I'm actually typing this... but summer's sweet and hot treat got frozen and put up by Duck Fat, and is featured as they're best selling soda, "The Ginger Farmer".  Go try it!

It's funny when you wake up one day (when the season is over) and realize "We don't have to work today. "  A farm is a place that will make as many demands on you as you'll let it.  You could work all waking hours day and night, and not run out of work.  So you have to take and seize free time.... especially once the dust has settled on the year, and you find you have the where with all to stop and breath a bit.  We put in all the way up to Gardiner, and floated down with the ebbing tide through late October's splendor.  17 miles I think, and we did it in just 4 hours.  Got to our neighbor's dock right at late twilight.  It was a perfect day.

This is where I give a shout out to some of my homies.  I don't miss Farmers' market one bit, but I do see my farmer friends a lot less than i used to.  These photos were taken at the Common Ground Fair , AKA the great Maine family reunion.  Come see all your friends in one place over one great weekend!  This is Lauren Pignatello of Swallow Tail Farm.  If you don't already know, she makes the absolutely best yogurt money can buy this side of the Atlantic.  And if you don't already know, she's everybody's mom, not just to her own seven kids...

This is the last time I saw the legendary Daniel Price.  He ran the tightest game is Market Gardening Portland's ever known.  Daniel and fam ran Freedom Farm for 10 years or so, before pullin up stakes, and moving to North Carolina to try over again in milder climes.  Daniel is missed here north side, especially his wry dry humor, and his ever bearing willingness to share advice with the rest of us amateurs.  Good luck Danny boy!

Simon Frost ladies and gentleman, winning the impromptu kraut taste test at the fair.  Besides being an OG OG grower at the market, he makes the best kraut and ferments this state has ever seen.  Thirty Acre Farm....  also featuring ingredients from Stonecipher Farm.  Simon had a pretty killer 40th birthday last week.... despite his reticence to jump through the flaming zero  in the giant "40" burned in his honor.





Do you have friends?  You should consider making a blog where you can share your feelings about them.

Catch as catch can. Or, Make hay when the sun shines.

      

         We did the married.  Or we got the hitch.  Or, it went off with a hitch, just one.

I highly recommend elopage... especially if you make it french like i just did...   

Then it's so fun and romantic and cheap.  There wasn't even a line in City Hall!  There was a rowdy dog in there that I couldn't quite get an explanation for.  Other than that, it was a fine time had by all. 

We are having our first coffee as a married couple.  

We were treated to a weekend in Bethel Maine.  Not bad for an elopement.  Here we are at the covered bridge up by Sunday River.

We cross country skied for the first time.  We highly recommend Carter's groomed trails up the Intervale Road!

In other news, Meggy Liebman married Ryan Mitchell at their new farm in Freedom, back in October.  I know this photo is a little racy for a family blog, but it was the only really good shot.  I was actually seated very far away... this was some mega zoom action.

Meg yelled at me "THIS BETTER GO ON YOUR BLOG!"  so here you go Meg.  Sorry the photo is blurry.


I don't really know how to use my blog.  As any of you who care enough to look at this thing know, I haven't updated this in a while.  First my camera broke, then my computer broke.  Now I'm back, but I still don't know how to type stuff in, or put things in order, or make multiple posts or how to make it funnier.  It's an odd format for me.  I have had this blog for 3  years?!  And yet I feel very foreign to it, and like an intruder here.  I wish that as I was typing this, it was right in the finished blog you see.  But I'm typing in a box, and it's white and the top has all these buttons and symbols, and if I mess up the whole thing could disappear before I post it.

This is all to say, I am going to make multiple posts here, to get "caught up"... but they re going to be non chronological, and probably non sensical.  And now even I'm bored by this , so it's time to move on....