A Great Farm Diary: Womerlippi Homestead Annals: "Tango 3 to Tango Base, I've turned the Rover over, over."

Saturday, July 14, 2012

"Tango 3 to Tango Base, I've turned the Rover over, over."

That was the (alleged) radio call made back from a country bridge to the RAF Mountain Rescue Base camp at Mungrisdale in the English Lakes one fall in the early 1980s. I confess, I was the hapless young driver who skidded on the ice patch, and ruined one of Her Majesty's Land Rover cars.

Soon after that they took my military driver's license away, never to be returned. Ouch!

But here we are durn near 30 years later and there's another short wheely Rover sitting in my dooryard here on our farm in Maine. How did that happen?

It has a few problems and indeed the first thing we'll do is to strip it down to the frame and grind off some rust and old paint and weld some patches in here and there and repaint in some kind of very utilitarian rust-proof paint. We'll also need a compression test, a full tune-up, and possibly a complete rewire job.

All of which sounds like a very fun rest of the summer to me.

And at the end of it all we'll have a farm truck and local run-around car that ought to last for twenty more years. Much needed, since I just found terminal rust and a very poor set of brake rotors and calipers on our 1997 Ford Escort, and since the Nissan can't possibly last more than two or three more years.

That's way too many dollars to invest in the Ford's brakes, given that it also needs a clutch and a timing chain (based on the mileage -- both are currently working fine), so we'll do what we can with a $12 set of pads and some elbow grease and then just run out the remaining life in the car before scrapping it. One, at the most two more winters.

We'll put our money in the Land Rover instead. It should keep its value and even improve in condition and reliability over the years as I plug away at it.

One day we'll even send away to Sheffield for a galvanized frame.

I'll die before this truck does.

"It's never over with a Rover."

Hats off to Aimee for believing, or at least pretending to believe in the Land Rover project. I've officially used up my stock of wifely patience for the year, plus all my birthdays and Christmas presents for the forseeable future.

Although she did seem to have a wee moment when she saw the seats in the back and the holes in the floor.

"Adds character!"

By the way, don't worry: Those awful non-original equipment roll bars are going to be the first thing to go!

2 comments:

FrankJuly 14, 2012 at 12:24 PM
What was its birth-year?
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MickJuly 15, 2012 at 12:23 AM
It's a '71, so a late model Series IIA. It has the negative earth electrical system and the headlights are on the wings ("fenders" for American readers).
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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