A Great Farm Diary: Womerlippi Homestead Annals: Soggy sheep and Earl-y endeavors

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Soggy sheep and Earl-y endeavors

Here's one of this year's poor ewe-lambs whose Q-name I can't remember because the names Aimee had to choose from this year were all so weird. Queira, maybe, or something like that?

I could find out from Aimee's Facebook page, but then I'd be exposed to the evil Facebook virus and when would that stop?

She's looking pretty soggy, heading for one of the small sheep shelters we have dotted around the place, photographed through a rain spattered window.

The rain is from the western edges of Tropical Storm Earl, formerly Hurricane Earl, which ground its way very slowly all the way off the east coast of the North American continent, and will hit land properly for the first time today just east of here in Nova Scotia.

So we dodged another one. Lucky. All those warnings weren't wrong, although a lot of people will say they were. This was a very big and powerful storm. It just happened to stay offshore.

Those Nova Scotians are pretty tough buggers, most of them ex-Highlanders or Acadians or Irish or Tories from the Revolution. This is now only a big storm, really, not a hurricane. I doubt it will cause very much difficulty. Volunteer fire departments will be out, as well as linesmen. There will likely be at least one old lady or old gentleman that wanders away from their home or nursing home because they forgot there was a storm and so the police and SAR will get some exercise in the rain.

That's my job, actually, in all of this, to sit by the phone for a few more hours in case we do get a similar call-out here. We did this time last year too, or was it the year before, driving to the Blue Hill peninsula in the pouring rain or a tropical storm to look for an older lady. We got lucky and she was found by another asset, search dogs, if I remember right, before we were directed to leave the SAR HQ on our first assignment.

But we got pretty damp just going from the van to the HQ, even wearing full rain gear, the rain was so heavy.

As for the Womerlippis, all my powers of reason were not enough to convince my lovely wife not to undertake her long-awaited last research trip of the season. Aimee loves her peace and quiet, and she loves the ocean, and she loves her research. She'd been looking forward to this for weeks. Luckily she works with some very good people at this particular site, many of whom are actually in Maine SAR, so while I thought that heading right towards the path of a predicted storm for the weekend was not exactly the best choice, I wasn't worried about her safety.

Not much, at least.

And now the storm has bypassed her, or will do so later today, she's going to have some very nice post-storm weather, cooler and clearer and a nice ocean breeze. Big swells, though, for a few days. That doesn't matter too much since she works at low tide in sheltered anchorages.

As for me, I'm bone tired today after the first week of class and expect to sleep some more. I slept pretty good through the most of the rain last night. I'm going to go to Newport town later and get a haircut and some gear I need for my work at the Bale House, I'm going to listen to my favorite Saturday radio shows, and then I'm going to take a nap on the couch. I may can some tomatoes later.

Small ambitions, easily achieved.

1 comment:

Deanna StopplerSeptember 6, 2010 at 3:39 AM
Have a great weekend. Aimee will be back before you know it! By the way, Dave and I were married two weeks ago. We had a wondeful wedding. I'll send you a photo.
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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