A Great Farm Diary: Womerlippi Homestead Annals: A whole free day, but cold and windy

Saturday, December 12, 2009

A whole free day, but cold and windy

Here's pictures of the aftermath of the first storm, last weekend. The next storm dumped a good bit more.

This is the first Saturday in quite a while that I haven't had a big job to do. Last Saturday and the one before was barn work at college. Before that there was car work: Aimee's truck to be precise, which took three consecutive Saturday trips to the auto shop. And before that we were still in harvest and sheep-grazing mode, so there were lots of things to do: get hay, get hay, get wood, put up food, cut meat.

Etc.

&c.

I can think of some jobs I might like to do today, but I'm not going to think too hard. And I'm not going to do anything involving heavy work or outside work except to feed and water our critters.

There's been too much of that cold outside stuff lately, and I'm sore and tired from it.

Also because it's really quite cold, colder than the proverbial female sorcerer's breast out there, and still blowing a gale. Brass monkey weather. Bitter.

About 6 F, to be precise, right now. Minus 15 C. It gets a good bit colder around here, but this is the coldest I can remember before Christmas. The jet stream has bulged way to our south and we're in air that really belongs up over Hudson Bay right now, and is trying to get back there.

Hence the wind.

"A thin wind" or "lazy wind," because it goes right through you.

Blame Canada.

Today would be a good day to make a nice hot chili, which would make good eating next week. I might use up some of our Abraram-burger, getting my final vengeance on that mean old ram.

That's rotten of me.

He was a good ram most of the time. He was only mean in breeding season. But there is the small matter of Aimee's arm that he nearly broke. I don't mind eating him at all. Especially as he tastes quite good, it turns out. Not ram-tainted at all.

So, make hot ram-chili. Bring in firewood. Clean house. Fix up the electrical heater that was out in the greenhouse and got moldy (!). Keep the stoves going full blast.

And wait for this cold wind to subside.

Sounds like a plan to me.

2 comments:

ShayneDecember 12, 2009 at 10:23 AM
Thanks so much for sharing the view from your window. Your snow is beautiful, though I can say I'm happy we don't have it today. We're still trying to finish projects before winter. Our 38 degrees suddenly seems much warmer, compared to six.

I've only recently found your blog, and can't wait to read the older posts about Womerlippi Farm. Thanks for sharing.
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MickDecember 13, 2009 at 4:36 AM
And thanks for visiting. I checked out "life under a blue roof" and your site is also very interesting. I'll check back in from time to time. I built a bale home in 2003, before we married, but Aimee didn't like it much, even though she helped build it quite a bit -- off-grid, not much space, poorly finished, remote -- and we gave it over to some folks we know when we moved into this old farmhouse. I do a lot of green building work in my professional life, and am pleased to see that someone has made a better success of a straw bale home. The straw bale coop should be nice and warm for winter chickens.
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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