Last week found me in Bowdoinham, Maine, a little town on the Cathance River. Sarah and Pete are gearing up for this season of vegetable farming, with a greenhouse brimming with starts. I came to volunteer for the week of repotting, transplanting and prepping beds.
I’ve known Sarah since we were 3 years old. We grew up on the same street in a small town in Southeast Alaska, both from fishing families of Scandinavian heritage. We’ve been side-kicks and partners in crime, and her adventures have inspired many of my own. Small Wonder Organics is her latest adventure, motivated by her deep commitment to living lighting on the earth and the belief that all people should have access to healthy, organic food.
Sarah and Pete met at a natural foods coop in Honolulu, HI. After they got married, their shared interest in growing their own food led them to an apprenticeship on an organic farm in British Columbia followed by a search for a place to settle and give the farming life a try. They chose well when they decided where they should begin their organic farm. Much of Maine’s soil is rocky and nutrient-poor, but their land borders Merrymeeting Bay, where 2 major rivers - the Androscoggin and Kennebec – and four smaller rivers converge, depositing nutrient-rich silt into a shallow ‘freshwater tidal bay’.
The ‘bay’ lies 17 miles inland, but the tide still manages to push all the way up through the lower Kennebec River estuary. The tide backs up the flow of the 6 rivers, resulting in an average tide of 5 ft. in Merrymeeting Bay. The narrow opening between the bay and the lower Kennebec, a 100 ft. deep boiling swirling 250-yard cut called ‘The Chops’, allows only a small amount of salt water to enter, preserving the freshwater characteristics of the bay. This allows local farmers to draw water directly from the bay to water their crops, although in some cases the pumps only work at high tide!
Sarah and Pete are not the only young farmers who have been attracted to Bowdoinham. At least 4 other young families are farming plots of land in the immediate area. In this rural agricultural region there is a vibrant community of passionate colleagues and friends committed to a way of life and way of production. They gather socially, share resources and ideas, and provide each other with friendly competition.
It was a cold spring, so Sarah and Pete had only just begun to transplant starts into the ground from the greenhouse while I was visiting. Sunday morning, as I was preparing to leave Maine, you could feel the excitement in the air and see a spring in Pete’s step, because the weather was warm and sunny the time had finally come to harrow the fields. As Sarah put it, the race was about to start… Good luck you guys!
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The past two days I’ve been in New York city visiting my college roommate Vicki and her fiancee, John, as well as several other friends and relatives. Yesterday Nina and Vicki took me on a walking tour through Chinatown and across the Brooklyn Bridge. And this evening I fly to Europe!
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And I leave you with a joke submission from Bonnie Loshbaugh!
Sven & Ole had been doing some construction work and ended up with a big pile of stuff to take to the dump. Sven pulled over to the side and said, “Ole, get back there and make sure things don’t fly out.” Obediently, Ole climbed in the back and lay down spread eagled, holding on to as much as he could, and they continued to the dump. One the way, they passed under a bridge, where two Swedes were walking by. They looked down at the truck, and one said to the other, “Look at that! Someone’s throwing out a perfectly good Norwegian!”
Wah wah…. Norway here I come! (Although as I found out, Norwegian jokes like this don’t actually exist in Norway…)
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