A Great Farm Diary: Womerlippi Homestead Annals

Saturday, December 8, 2012

Bentley, our purebred Romney ram, has moved on to a new farm. We'd used him for the regulation two breeding seasons, and didn't want to start breeding him back to his daughters so he had to go. He was the fourth ram we've had on the farm, and probably the mildest and the largest.

Even so, I can't say I'm sorry to see him gone.

Rams will be rams and they like to ram. In particularly, they will charge and butt you if they think you're coming between them and the ewes, or between them and their food. Or, just because.

Bentley never rammed anyone.

Instead he took it out on fences and buildings. He could walk right over a normal four- or five foot field fence, using his massive weight to flatten the wire. He could batter a full-depth cedar fence post, or even one set in concrete, until it keeled over. Any ordinary wooden structure had to be built very heavily, with thick plywood and cross-bracing.

The only solution was to build fences of cattle panels made of 1/4 inch welded steel wire, to connect these to very sound fence posts, and to join the fence posts together at the top with rails and plumber's strapping. Even so, he would still batter away at the cattle panels until they were perfectly concave.

So, once we felt more or less certain that all six ewes were bred this fall, we put an ad on Craig's List and in Uncle Henry's. We needed to shift him fairly quickly because of the upcoming holidays, so the price was reduced. We paid $200, but asked only for $100. This seemed fair enough, considering we have Shawn, his offspring, and so we are still up a ram, even if we're down $100. We also felt that a lower price would make it easier to place him on a farm. There are guys who make a career out of buying up sheep and goats from small farms to take to halal butchers in the big cities, especially around the Eid holiday, the "festival of sacrifice", and we didn't want him to end up slaughtered before his time. He's such a nice, well proportioned, well bred animal. He needed to live out his useful life as a ram.

Still, this quick effort to move him on happened only one year and one month, almost to the day, that we got him. Just enough time to breed two generations, and not a day longer!

People called and emailed and before we were really quite ready, a very suitable farm responded and sent out a delegation. We were at little worried to begin, because the visit was scheduled for a weekday and the people were over an hour late without notification, while we had to get back to work. Disorganized people don't always make for the best farmers, and Bentley is a serious animal, not for the faint hearted or disorganized person. But after talking to them for a few minutes we both decided they knew what they were getting into, more or less.

Of course, even this sensible plan required him to be caught one last time and sequestered in the barn before the people arrived, and I had a little fun with that. Bentley rammed his gate as I was getting the crush ready to halter him, shattering the gatepost. And once in the barn he rammed the gatepost and side fence of the lambing pen in which he'd been placed, shattering all that pretty nicely too.

He'd make a good rugby prop forward or football linebacker.

In the end I used a solid hardwood gate that we have to make a pen in one corner, and that held him. Here he is (above) being distracted by a carrot from the garden while I fix up the damage he'd caused.

We were both surprised, however, that the buyers showed up in a family van. The back seats had been taken out to leave a big cargo space, and so there was a fair amount of room. But this meant that the young boy who showed up with the group, about 13 or 14 years old, would have to ride home with Bentley sticking his head over the seats. Aimee got a picture.

I wonder how that trip went? Did Bentley ram the back of the seats? Did he destroy the van?

It takes all kinds to make a world.

Still, I expect that Bentley is pretty happy on his new farm where he has ewes to breed, and isn't going to be slaughtered.

All's well that ends well.

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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.