It's the penultimate Saturday before graduation. One more week of classes. Easy classes, too: summarize, generalize, connect to the outside world, conclude, hand out evaluations, give early examinations to the seniors so they can walk at graduation.
Then another week of relative ease, punctuated by occasional panicky meetings, as committee chairs realize they haven't got all the information they need to write reports, tie a big bow on them and send them up, or down the pike.
Thank heavens for the chain of command. Decision making? Not my job, mate.
Even as worker bees in this particular hive, we are catatonic, and have been for days. We can't even finish a conversation. The penultimate week of class is always the worst.
This last week was definitely the worst for me. It included a 26 hour day, if you can imagine, and if you count being stuck in a rainstorm in an airport grading papers, and driving home from the airport at 3am, as work.
Which I most definitely do.
Every other day was a 10 or 12 hour day, as I struggled to write good memos and reports and do otherwise halfway-decent professional work for committees and for outside partners. I tend to do this work at 5am, which is when I have time and patience to think things through and solve problems. If the day before has been stressful, I tend not to sleep well and get up at 2am or 3am to try to make some progress, and so lose sleep all week. But that means I'm pretty dull by 5pm. Which is when Aimee usually wants to talk about how her exhausting day has been, and about which student or other faculty member did the most lazy or bad-tempered or otherwise outrageous thing today.
We made it home at 5pm Friday and fed the sheep and just stood quietly leaning over the fence watching lambs for a while, not talking much, letting the poison stress leak out of some secret drain hole in our lower extremities somewhere. At least that's what it feels like. Then we went in and fed ourselves and watched bad TV. I fell asleep during both the BBC news, and again during a detective show.
This happens a lot.
This morning the sun is shining and rising high, and we really ought to spread compost on the garden and till it in, and make the new vegetable and flower beds and fill them full of a mix of dirt and compost, and change the poor neglected ducks' filthy water in their paddle pool, and replace the fence that the snowplow tore up around our neighbor's veggie garden, which we maintain because the only reason they need it is because we have free-range chickens and ducks who would otherwise eat their plant sprouts, and castrate six boy lambs already too big to knacker, and we need to put up six-seven cords of firewood, and seed the upper paddock, and de-stump and rake and seed the big paddock where I logged off last years firewood, and take the dogs for the nice walk they haven't had all week and did they even get one last weekend I can't remember it was so long ago... and... and...
And....
And I think I might make it out of this nice safe armchair in my nice safe stress-free den, when I've had another cup or two of nice hot coffee and read some more papers and blogs online (cartoons!), and generally relaxed for another hour or two, had a nice breakfast and an unhurried stress-free bowel movement (yes, that too gets affected -- thank you for sharing, Mick) and a nice long shower, and put on my nice comfy overalls and soft worn t-shirt with stains and holes, and wellie boots, and generally made myself comfortable with life again.
Life in the fast lane. How many more years can we do this for?
No wonder old professors are supposed to be cranky and grumpy and distracted and dysfunctional.
Still. Only one more week of classes, and one of exams, grades and meetings, and then the bagpipes and shining happy families at graduation, and then we'll have time to get some of this farm work done. I cannot imagine how anyone manages to do this professor job twelve months a year, the way they do at for-profit and community colleges. The quality of the education and other work done must drop rapidly.
I honestly think we would die of this job if we had to work at this pace all year.
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Where are you from?
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."
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).
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.
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.
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.
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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.