Disclaimer: this blog will not be in real time and will probably not be updated very frequently until the end of this adventure. Thanks for reading!
“Going to the country” by Canned Heat is blaring on the radio in my slowly decaying Mercury Sable. I consider this a good sign.
On this particular morning, Sadie Catalogna, 19 months; Eric Perkins, 27 years old; and I, 24 years old; are heading to meet the family that we will be living with and working with for the next six months. We were heading to Whitefield, Maine to live and work on an organic farm.
The ride was not bad at all (eventhough I had been looking forward to; for three years now, for Eric to do the one hour and 30 minute drive from his grandparents’ home in Wells, ME). The day prior to this one was spent getting licenses in Maine and health insurance. It ended up that Eric’s license, regardless of the fact that I had paid $244 for his old fines and a $100 reinstatement fee, had been expired for too long and he was unable to get a license. He only got a state ID.
So, as usual, I was driving.
We arrived at the farm in the late afternoon and the sun was shining and things were beautiful. Pulling up we saw a gorgeous mama- barefoot – carrying her one year old baby that I knew from e-mails, phone calls, and facebook to be the one year old boy. Tagging along behind mama was her three-year old son.
There were brief introductions and then we go over to say hellos to the cow called Liberty, then the sows; Hazel, Midnight, and Coco; then to the sows piglets (Hazel had 13 and Midnights had 11 and Coco is due the beginning of May), next hellos to the chickens and feed the chickens some bread.
We saw the layer hens , the great chicken palace and heard the rooster..."cock-a-doodle-doo."
After seeing these animals we headed across the street to the stunning barn that the woman's husband had built with a few of his buddies during the winter months. This barn was unbelievable, no nails, all wood and it was all wood that he had cut by himself. I was blown away.
At this point in time the husband was up north in Maine selling the horse.
We then watched Sadie and the boys pretend to drive a big blue tractor and finally saw the remainder of the pigs.
The last stop on our tour was the cabin, our future home. It is little, but it is cool. There are two floors including a kitchen area, living space and a bedroom downstairs. There is also an outhouse to boot. I am excited and super nervous about the future, but this is it.
After the tour we sit around the kitchen table to have some bread, butter, and cheese. The latter two coming from the cow. We also had some canned green beans. Everything tasted good, but i especially liked the green beans.
Next we sat out in the sun, the kids played, adults talked and we waited for the man of the farm. A neighbor woman came by for a visit and that is how it is up here...you are driving past a friend's house and you stop to see if they are home.
We give water to some of the animals and then the male farmer arrives home with his two dogs. We talk for a bit, get some sausages (at this point in time we are all vegetarians, but it looks like this may be a changing fact) and then off we go to have dinner with Eric's family back in Wells, Maine. Sadie is totally wiped out and falls fast asleep.
While we are all very nervous we are excited for the next six months of farm life.
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