The Where and What

(the Why to follow)

       I have moved to Hatchet Cove Farm, a small-scale organic vegetable farm located in Warren, Maine. I’ll be working here for the next five or six months as an apprentice. I arrived yesterday with Mom, who stayed long enough to observe in horror the composting toilet (dubbed “Astrotoilet” for its likeness to sputnik) and the muddy wooded path toward my cabin

      Shortly thereafter Mom left, and I became acquainted with the other apprentices. We are an ambiguously intentioned group- variously freed from school obligations and seeking rusticity in some form, but not obviously with a farming future in mind. There are five apprentices staying through the season, and two WWOOFers moving on tomorrow.

      Wednesday means group meal, and the WWOOFers and other visitors mean a big crowd. The seven apprentices, farmers Bill and Reba, their two children, a visiting cousin, and another farmer friend fit around two tables in the farm kitchen. On the table were several enormous bowls filled with hot kale/bean/corn salad, a sort of hash of cauliflower/zucchini/tomato/cumin, fresh mesclun salad with dressing, corn bread, crumbly cheese, baked chicken. Emily, the cousin, had been cooking for the better part of the day exclusively from farm ingredients, save the flour in the corn bread and the oil/spices. She divided her attention between a finicky ice cream maker and a pot of strawberry/rhubarb compote for dessert. The windows were open, Bob Dylan playing on a radio, and Reba walked in with a gallon jug of local beer.

       This morning at seven I trekked from my cabin to the “L”, an appendage to the main house where the kitchen/common area and two apprentice bedrooms are located. I haphazardly cooked rolled oats in cow’s milk and went outside to see about chores. The farm day began and saw through a predictable series of tasks: harvesting of various greens, washing and counting, extended lunch, strangely idyllic weeding, deliveries to nearby natural foods stores, and finally a lesson in cow-milking. Immensely pleased with the work, weather, and the pace of farming camaraderie, and completely pooped, I opted for an outdoor shower rather that joining Reba for her roller derby practice. (Roller derby!)

      I didn’t fall in the compost toilet, I made it to my cabin with the help of a headlamp, milked a cow, and consumed the last of a cantankerous rooster for dinner.  Farm life is agreeable.