Open Farm Day - An Epicurean Elite Field Trip

I often forget Maine is home to hundreds of farms, actively producing a wealth of locally-grown products, whether they are creamy cheeses, stoneground mustards, ripe zucchinis, or soft angora yarn. I tend to think of “farmer” as being the trade of people in Aroostook county, that faraway place where potatoes are grown, or Washington county, where my family and I would pass by alternating blueberry fields and cranberry bogs on our way to my grandparents’ house. Today’s Open Farm Day, sponsored by the Maine Department of Agriculture, afforded me a chance to visit some farms that are more close to home, learn about how they’re run, and sample some tasty treats. Elise had created a bountiful itinerary which maximized our farminess, giving us “four hours, five farms, and nine kinds of awesome.”

Our first stop was Sweetser’s Apple Barrel and Orchards, run by Connie and Dick Sweetser, and their son Greg. The farmhouse will be celebrating its 200^th birthday in 2012, and has housed six generations of the Sweetser family. Connie was our lovely tour guide.

The trees had bunches of green apples here and there on them, but in sparse amounts. The crop has been hit hard this year by the early spring thaw and mid-May frost. Statewide, 50-60% of the apple crop is down, and the Sweetser farm is showing even deeper losses. Nevertheless, the Vista Bellas, a summer variety I’d never heard of before, were just starting to come out, along with some ripening Gravensteins. We strolled past neatly trimmed rows of McIntosh, Cortland, Red Delicious, and Golden Delicious apples. Their brochure has an impressive list of 39 different apples they grow, and their availability between July and November.

As we walked beside Connie’s rumbling John Deere, we learned about the 100-year-old trees on their property, the former slaughterhouse down the road that had “the best sausage,” and the man who’d stopped by their farm earlier in the year to put a whiskey bottle or two around some apples. One had shriveled up in its liquor bath, in faint reminiscence of B-horror film props of jarred placentas, but the other was flourishing in the trigonal glass bottle.

Our next stop was Pineland Farms. We drove past a portion of their lush, 5,000-acre fields with various barnyard animals frisking about and visited their market. There was a stunning array of fresh vegetables, cheeses, mustards, pickled things, breads, pies, and anything else a farm could produce. They had an abundance of cheeses (made on-site) for sampling. Unfortunately, their onion-garlic jack had no more samples left, but I was able to get my toothpick in some cubes of smoked jack, swiss, and salsa jack.

Then we drove a short ways down the road to an incredible alpaca farm, Queen’s Land Farm Alpacas. We were greeted by a young farmhand-in-training named Lindsay*, who told us all about the alpacas on her family’s farm. They were much smaller than I’d anticipated, and completely adorable, with names like UpperCut and Chief. There was a pregnant alpaca who was due any day, though it was hard to imagine an alpaca inside her svelte belly.

These were also the first barnyard animals, with the exception of cats, who seemed to really have a handle on their toilet training—they kept it to one confined area, leaving the rest of their pen relatively doody-free.

There was an incredibly sweet alpaca named T.C. (Tonka's Crown) who had a bit of a Parkinsonian handicap. The owners, Matt and Kate Tufts, weren’t sure if his head tremor was a hereditary defect or if it was the result of contracting a meningeal worm. They had him gelded just to be safe, which led to an interesting conversation with Lindsay:

Lindsay: “It’s not really like spaying. They make it so they can’t have babies anymore.”

Elise: “Like what they do with sheep?”

Lindsay: “I don’t know, but they cut it off.”

Elise: “I see.”

Lindsay: “And put it in a bucket of water.”

We couldn’t figure out what the bucket of water had to do with anything, but T.C. didn’t seem any worse for the wear. He sniffed us and gave little kisses whenever we put our faces up to the fence.

Lindsay gave us a little tour of their chicken house and found a hen named Rainbow to pick up and let us pet. (There was another named Sparkles, which lead to a sneaking suspicion Lindsay might’ve had a hand in the naming of these birds.)

She explained that a neighboring farm had had its chicken flock reduced from 200 to 100 because of a fox, and that the same fate had met the one rooster the Tufts had had on their farm. Now one of the hens has grown a comb and basically become something of a hermaphrodite.

Next, we went to Cashmere Cabin at Elmledge Farm, which had cashmere goats, angora rabbits, and some beautiful horses. A woman sat spinning cashmere into yarn on the front lawn as she chatted away with friends. Elise and I were shown around by a member of the Richards family, and were greeted by two massive horses in the barn. We got to pet Jim, the even-tempered sweetheart in the middle stall, while Pete gazed casually into the distance.

Behind the barn was a fenced-in area where the goats scampered about wherever they pleased, taking the time to laze about in a bathtub or two. They were extremely friendly and especially interested in nibbling any bit of skirt, jean, or purse they could sink their teeth into.

The family had four rabbits in their backyard hutch, two white ones and two grayish-black ones. The owner explained that, in the summer, their fur needs to be pulled out every week or so in order to avoid matting. I was surprised to learn they don’t shave them, they simply pull the fur out and use it for spinning. Elise was brave and petted a bunny of her own accord!

Our final visit was to Windy Hill Farm in Windham. We arrived a bit too late to see the miniature donkey and the pygmy goats, but still left with some excellent wares: honey (with a honeycomb!), beet greens, and a porterhouse steak for Elise, and some sweet potato butter for me. (I still can’t think about the words “sweet potato” without remembering that horrible Oprah moment.) We shared a tasty Needham in the car and headed back into Portland, just as some stray raindrops began falling.

*Lindsey, Lynsey, Lynzey, Lyndzay, Lyndsey, Lyndsay?