A Great Farm Diary: Womerlippi Homestead Annals: Frozen adventure

Monday, March 9, 2009

Frozen adventure

I'm sitting in my nice leather armchair in the den with the oil heat cranked to 68 degrees, which we never do, and working down my second cup of hot coffee, with a pot of oatmeal on the stove, trying to get warm to my bones. After which I'll probably fall asleep, although it's only 9am.

The weather map says it was 19 F last night but it sure felt a lot colder than that when I walked home the ten miles or so from the Dixmont-Troy line. More like 10 F.

I was driving home from having dropped Aimee off at college to start her field trip to Nicaragua at about 5.30 am, when I hit one of our ubiquitous Maine potholes. A few minutes later the car started to vibrate and the front end began to wobble. I pulled over, turned the engine off, and got out with a flashlight only to hear the unmistakable hiss of a tire going down. No jack, and no lug wrench, in that car, I'm afraid. And we don't own a cell phone. There were houses around but I didn't want to wake someone up.

I was already cold from standing around at college, loading vans, having neglected my macinaw. Yesterday's sun had lulled me into false complacency. I could have waited it out in the car, I suppose. Someone driving by would have called 911 sooner or later, if I'd put my emergency flashers on. Or, once it was a decent hour, I could have walked up to a farmhouse and called AAA. And there was a sleeping bag. But I decided I could hitch-hike, so I started walking.

I got one ride, that's all. I don't mind a hike, but ten miles without a coat, in loose-fitting heavy snow-pac boots, is a recipe for soreness and hypothermia. Luckily there was a box of old hats and gloves in the car, and a flashlight.

After the first twenty or so cars blew by, and the first five miles were done, I started placing the hitch-hikers curse on them all. The one that goes, "don't worry, what goes around comes around. You too can be stranded hiking in the dark and the cold."

After seven miles I gave up, and decided, cussedly, to walk all the way. (As if there were anything else I could do!) In the last mile, I could have had a ride from a couple of different neighbors, but by then I wanted to make it home, just because.

Now I'm trying to warm up and waiting for AAA to bring the car back. I've had a hot shower, but I think it will take a little more than that.

I guess that's what I get for not keeping a jack in the car. I don't remember what happened to it. Probably I took it out for something or other and never put it back. Normally it wouldn't matter. Aimee drives that car, and she wouldn't be changing a tire. She would call me, or AAA, to come get her.

As it was, even when I made it back here where we have the pick-em-up truck, floor jacks and air-wrenches, and the whole nine yards of a well-equipped farm workshop, there was no sense in going back.

Can't drive two cars at once!

This is the first time I've used our AAA membership. The service was pretty good. I did get to see the sunrise from the pass over Harris Mountain. And I have been complaining about lack of exercise lately.

I'm at the tingly stage now. Skin bright red. Feels sort of good.

Just think, if Aimee hadn't taken herself off to foreign parts, I could have jumped back into bed and stolen all the heat I needed from her.

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Welcome to our Farm Blog.
The purpose of this blog is for Aimee and I to communicate with friends and family, with those of our students, and other folks in general who are interested in homesteading and farming activities.

The earliest posts, at the very end of the blog, tell the story of the Great Farm, our purchase of a fragment of that farm, the renovation of the homestead and its populating with people and animals. Go all the way to the last post in the archive and read backwards from there to get it in chronological order.

After getting tired of spam comments (up to a dozen or more per day), I required commentators to be Google "registered users". You can write me at mwomersley@unity.edu if you have a serious comment or question and are not a registered user.

Spammers -- don't bother writing -- there's no way I will post your spam to my blog. Just go away.

The Farm

The "Womerlippi Farm" is actually a homestead or smallholding where most of the food is grown for our own consumption and that of our friends and family. We raise Corriedale/Romney-cross sheep, feeder pigs in season, and Golden Comet, Aruacuna, Black Laced Wyandotte, Brahma, and Buff Orpington hens. We have wooded pasture, old apple trees, and a large kitchen garden. We build and maintain our own energy-efficient buildings, service and fix our own vehicles and farm equipment, and generally live a thoroughly self-reliant lifestyle. Our farm goals are less economic and more psychological/spiritual and lifestyle oriented. We like an independent, quiet home life with a lot of interaction with animals and the earth. Farming, building and energy-related engineering were also part of our education work at the former Unity College. Having said all that, we're practical people and grow a lot of pretty solid food and fiber. We're also happy to sell you some eggs or yarn or lambs.

PS: "Womerlippi" is a combination of our last names, "Womersley" and "Phillippi." The one is broad Yorkshire, the other Greek, although Aimee's ancestry and home culture is Pennsylvania Dutch/Shenandoah Valley Church of the Brethren. When Aimee and I married, she didn't take my name. She said she "wasn't trading up."

Why is this "A Great Farm Diary?"

Because the setting for the events recorded here is the "Great Farm" of Jackson, Maine, that's why. (Not because this is such a great farm, although we like it.)

Started by privateer and financier Israel Thorndike in 1806 as a vacation home, the famous Great Farm of Jackson was an agricultural showcase for this area of Maine, and Thorndike used it as such, an advertisement for his private land office business, as he disposed of the famous Waldo Patent, in which he was a part owner. Land purchasers could work off their mortgages as laborers on the Great Farm. Most deeds in Waldo County trace back to Israel Thorndike.

Thorndike, born to a family of modest means, went to sea to make his fortune. He captained a privateering vessel during the Revolutionary War, and tweaked the nose of the great Royal Navy more than once. He then settled to a life as a financier, merchant, and captain of industry in Boston. He remains listed as one of the fifty richest Americans of all time. He was the author, with Eldridge Gerry, of the first recorded gerrymander, and so his name went down in history for that peculiarly undemocratic deed too.

He was, in short, a rich, arrogant, unrequited arse, whose primary redeeming feature was impressive ambition. If you are such a person, you should feel ashamed. My work in academia has introduced me to many such wealthy people, and frankly, I'm tired of them. The world doesn't revolve around you and your silly ideas of what is important. Grow up.

Our own much smaller farm sits on a few acres of the original 2,000 that Thorndike developed as an agricultural showcase. As he was a famous Federalist, while Aimee and I are obvious neo-Jeffersonians, of sorts, I doubt he'd be pleased with what we've done with the place. But we don't give a rat's wotsit. As I said, we like it this way.

Read the very last posts in the archive for more details, or use search terms like Israel Thorndike or "Great Farm history" in the Google Blogger search engine (above, on the left).

How this Diary is Arranged:

From Mick:

The purpose of this blog is for Aimee and I to communicate with friends and family, with those of our students, and other folks in general who are interested in homesteading and farming activities.

The earliest posts, at the very end of the blog, tell the story of the Great Farm, our purchase of a fragment of that farm, the renovation of the homestead and its populating with people and animals. Go all the way to the last post in the archive below, click on the link provided, and read backwards from there to get it all in chronological order.

To find out what is happening right now, read the first post first.

Other blogs by Mick: UC SAR, UC Sustainability, Farm Diary

Enjoy.

Farm Produce

Purchasing Womerlippi Farm produce in season can be done by email arrangement, and/or by shopping at the Marsh River Coop in Brooks.

We sell yarn, fleece, lamb, and livestock for meat or breeding.

The yarn is Bartlett Yarn's 4-ply, a medium-thick yarn, in natural gray and brown, as well as natural dyes. It is soft and bulky, and makes nice old-fashioned knitwear. You can buy it for $7.50 a skein by emailing womersleymick8984@gmail.com. We ship priority mail, minimum four skeins at a time. The shipping is extra. We also have raw white and brown (natural colored) fleece in large quantities each spring, unwashed, untreated. Email us at mwomersley@unity.edu and name your price. Expect to pay shipping or pick up in person. Coming to the farm itself without prior appointment is not recommended. We have a child. We also have a dog who bites. We like that he bites, because we have a child we want to protect. If you come unexpectedly to the farm, stay behind any temporary hot-wire gate or fence, or park in the driveway, until someone comes. We'll know you're there because the dog will tell us. Loudly. Annoyingly. They will wake us or our kid, if we are asleep. We will be mad about this.

If no-one comes, we're not home. Go Away.

If you are yet more foolish and try to get out of your car and/or cross a gate or fence, expect to get bitten by a shepherd dog, rammed by a ram, or chewed out by a shepherd.

A Great Farm Diary: Womerlippi Homestead Annals