Tag: Maine
Endless apples
My corner of the universe is laced with apple trees gone wild. This time of the year, they especially remind me of my years in the Yakima Valley of Washington state. These, though, have a distinctly New England air.
Mention ‘The County’ in Maine, and everyone knows what you mean
The Pine Tree State has 16 counties, but only one is recognized as The County, a place also known as “the crown of Maine” or even the most northeastern point of the USA.
It’s Aroostook County, set right along the border with Quebec and New Brunswick, Canada, with a population of 67,000 people and who knows how many moose.
It’s also the largest county by landmass east of the Mississippi, though
St. Louis County, Minnesota, is larger though much of it is waters of Lake Superior. With more than 6,800 square miles, Aroostook is larger than the states of Rhode Island and Connecticut combined.
Now, for ten more considerations.
- It’s famed for potatoes, which are being harvested about now. In the 1940s Maine topped the nation in potato production but by 1994 had fallen to the eighth-place in production and the seventh in the number of acres devoted to potato cultivation in the United States. In 2024, Maine grew 54,000 acres of potatoes (behind Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Wisconsin, North Dakota, Colorado, and Michigan) and nearly 90 percent of that was in Aroostook County. Potatoes are still far and away the state’s largest (legal) crop.
- When the county was created in 1839, border conflicts with Canada threatened to erupt into the “Aroostook War,” explaining the town names of Fort Kent and Fort Fairfield.
- It’s hard to spell, but not nearly as much as the Wolastokwey (or Maliseet) language that originated it. It means “beautiful river” and refers to the St. John River. The Maliseet, still present in the county, are affiliated with the Wabanaki Alliance that includes the Mi’kmaq, Penobscot, and Passamaquoddy tribes.
- The county was a stop on the Underground Railroad carrying fugitive slaves to freedom in Canada. The secret network carried freedom seekers from ports around Bangor to wilderness waterways, where Natives canoed them to havens like the Quaker community in Fort Fairfield, one of the last safe places before reaching Canada.
- During the Cold War, Loring Air Force Base in Limestone, vital because of its location close to Europe, had a major impact on the county’s economy. Its closure in 1994 is still deeply felt.
- The county is becoming a major producer of wind power.
- Many people in the northern part of the county speak both English and Acadian French (which is different from Quebecois).
- As the agricultural activity changes, Amish are moving in and establishing communities. Somehow, the county does feel a lot like Pennsylvania to me, so it seems fitting to see horse-drawn carriages (they don’t call them buggies) on the roads, dark blue and green laundry on the lines outside plain farmhouses, and lively one-room schoolhouses as you drive through.
- Much of the county is forest, including a significant moose population. Drivers, beware.
- A stretch along U.S. 1 presents the measured-to-scale solar system. Created with high school and college students plus adult volunteers, it really is mind-boggling. The results can be viewed in the October 2023 archives of this blog, should you wish to explore more.
Fit for flight
As seen at our local airport.
Bodies of water attract us, naturally
Walking along rivers, lakes, and ocean shores seems to have healing powers for the soul. Just consider.
- “If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water.” — Loren Eiseley
- “Rivers run through our history and folklore, and link us as a people. They nourish and refresh us and provide a home for dazzling varieties of fish and wildlife and trees and plants of every sort. We are a nation rich in rivers.” — Charles Kuralt
- “To put your hands in a river is to feel the chords that bind the earth together.” — Barry Lopez
- “The wise man knows that it is better to sit on the banks of a remote mountain stream than to be emperor of the whole world.” — Zhuangzi
- “Have you also learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time?” That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past nor the shadow of the future.” — Herman Hesse
- “I’m an old-fashioned guy… I want to be an old man with a beer belly sitting on a porch, looking at a lake or something.” — Johnny Depp
- “When anxious, uneasy and bad thoughts come, I go to the sea, and the sea drowns them out with its great wide sounds, cleanses me with its noise, and imposes a rhythm upon everything in me that is bewildered and confused.” — Rainer Maria Rilke
- “There’s nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline, no matter how many times it’s sent away.” — Sarah Kay
- “Some people could look at a mud puddle and see an ocean with ships.” — Zora Neale Hurston
- “Despite the ferocity of the current, a river is always moving but it’s always in the same place. And much like a river, while we should surge forward with great ferocity, our principles should never move.” — Craig D. Lounsbrough
There was an old farmer who lived in Maine
Actually, there are a lot of them. A recent Census of Agriculture found that of Maine’s 13,053 farmers, half are over the age of 57½. Not only that, but there are more farmers over 75 than under 35. Do we see a shortage coming soon?
Now, for ten more tidbits.
- Four-fifths of the farms are family owned-and-operated. Corporations account for less than a tenth, 677 farms, while another 474 are partnerships.
- A bit over two-fifths of the respondents said farming is their primary occupation. The majority of the farmers rely on other jobs or other income.
- Women farmers comprise 43 percent of the workforce, 5,638.
- As the Census observed, “Male producers had higher rates of involvement in land use and/or crop, livestock, and marketing decisions than female producers. Female producers were most involved in day-to-day, record keeping and financial management decisions.”
- USDA-certified organic farms = 412.
- Black farmers: 132 operating 2,238 acres.
- New and beginning producers = 4,681.
- Renewable energy-producing systems in use = 907 farms.
- The state leads the nation in wild blueberry production and ranks second for maple syrup, but potatoes lead the way as the largest crop. Other leading agricultural products potatoes, milk and other dairy products, chicken eggs, and floriculture.
- Of special interest to Washington County, where I live, was the Maine harvest of 24,735 acres of blueberries on 703 farms in 2022, an increase from 20,473 acres five years earlier.
I’m delighted to know Indigenous petroglyphs are found here
Previous posts this year have presented my curiosity in petroglyphs and petrographs even before I relocated to the Pacific Northwest and saw them in the wild. That time in my life was accompanied by a growing appreciation of tribal mythologies, which I believe enhances an understanding of the region’s unique biosphere. Living at the edge of the Yakama reservation meant the ancient stories I was reading were local news.
The Indigenous spirit was something I missed in my dwelling-places since in my moves eastward across the Midwest, Baltimore, and then New Hampshire.
Eastport, however, with its Passamaquoddy legacy and presence, has revived that. The tribe somehow survived oppression and is rediscovering and reclaiming much of its culture, thanks to the pioneering efforts of individuals like the late Wayne A. Newell, who wrote more than 40 books in the supposedly dying Passamaquoddy language before his first book in English in 2021, Kuhkomossonuk Akonutomuwinokot, Stories Our Grandmothers Told Us.
The late Fredda Paul was doing something similar within herbal medicine and healing lore, while also continuing the storytelling tradition. They are both deeply missed.
Tribal historian Donald Soctomah has furthered their work. These days, he’s part of a circle documenting and preserving the local petroglyphs in the face of rising sea levels. His online presentation earlier this year with the Border Historical Society in Eastport had me realizing I may have been overlooking impressions here – many are stippled into the rock surface in a way that they’re visible only early in the morning or late afternoon, especially if the stone is wetted. A video, A Song of the Drum, and several short YouTube videos from Machiasport can be found for free online.
Another wonderful video, Rhythm of the Heart, on the life of birch-bark canoe maker David Moses Bridges, is also available for free online. It’s a moving testimony. He passed way too early.
What is it about fresh snow?
A snowy winter like the one we’re having reminds me of Upstate New York and the Poconos back then. The season’s longer and more intense than what I had growing up in southern Ohio and later in college in southern Indiana.
Here, though, I also have the Atlantic, as Passamaquoddy Bay, and Canada beyond it in the mix.
Welcome to my world, now and back then.
How about your winter?
Typical comments from our cruise ship visitors
In season, we like interacting with the passengers from visiting cruise ships. Eastport does limit the ships to no more than one a day, and most of the ships come after the summer season and many of our retailers had traditionally closed up. For the restaurants and stores, the ships more than doubled the retail season and often provide the best days of the year. What a relief!
So here’s a sampling.
- There are no yachts! This is a real working harbor!
- Where can I find a lobster dinner? Or a fresh lobster roll.
- It’s so lovely. (Or, quaint. Or, charming.)
- Is this typical weather? (Think of June with temps in the lower 50s.)
- What are the winters like? Is snow a problem? How much snow do you get?
- Your garden looks great.
- This is an island?
- Do you have schools?
- That’s Canada?
- It’s not like other ports, we feel welcome.
Some inquire about lighthouses or the Bay of Fundy.
The crew members, meanwhile, want to know how to get to the IGA and Family Dollar, where they stock up on snacks and junk food. They quickly establish a kind of ant trail moving in both directions.
Why we really dig Fedco seeds
In my household, like many others in northern New England, the Fedco seed catalogue and ordering from it are something of a fond ritual this time of year, even a devotion.
Here’s some background.
- The company is a co-op founded in 1978 by back-to-the-earth followers of self-sufficiency gurus Scott and Helen Nearing, who had moved to Maine from Vermont in the mid-‘50s.
- At first, it functioned as a resource for food coops and sold to no one else.
- Heirloom apple trees were added in 1983 and autumn bulbs the following year. Seed potatoes came next,, and in 1988 Fedco took over the organic supplier role of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association. (Many people know MOFGA for its big, hippie-infused Common Ground Fair every September. You may have read about that here.)
- In its first year, with a one-page mail-order page in a food-coop newspaper, Fedco and its part-time staff handled 98 customer requests. The initial list had 81 items, mostly vegetables, some herbs, liquid seaweed fertilizer, and no flowers. These days it handles more than 38,000 orders from all 50 states for an estimated $4 million revenue.
- The catalogue is funky, black-and-white on newsprint or similar stock, rather than the glossy photos of big commercial garden retailers. The illustrations lean toward sketches and 19th century printers’ images. It carries more than a thousand seed listings alone, along with a host of other things gardeners and small-farm operators find useful. The descriptions reflect careful study, helping buyers make reasoned decisions, especially regarding what’s new. It’s inspirational. You can also order online, using a catalogue that does have color photos and is easy to navigate.
- Legalization of cannabis has generated new business, even though Fedco has so far resisted selling its plants or seeds. Much of the business is in organic fertilizer, especially for home growers.
- Rather than growing the seeds itself, Fedco repackages from 100 to 150 seed growers, and other suppliers, mostly in Maine. Other products are more widely sourced.
- Fedco concentrates on a unique niche, mostly in the Northeast, and deliberately stays small, out of direct competition with large corporations.
- Its 60 full- and part-time employees own 40 percent of the company, while the consumers own the remaining 60 percent and get small discounts on their orders.
- The company’s charter aims at pay-level equity, preventing wage extremes between high and low.
Details from the company’s website and from Jeffrey B. Roth in Lancaster Farming.
