Forestry Bliss: n. The experience of pure delight in a woodlot setting The task of Chewonki farmers and students this time of year is a straight-forward one: produce firewood. The reality of how that plays out is a tad more complicated: farmers fell trees, take off limbs, and cut them to eight to twelve foot …
Spring has sprung. Our lambing season began early this morning when Patches (#19) delivered a single ewe lamb. Phoebe and Josie – two Semester 52ers who had signed up for volunteer lamb watch – found the dark, speckled babe already standing when they arrived to the barn at 3:00 am. Mom and baby are both …
I’d like to share one of my favorite passages from Wendell Berry. It’s taken from the essay “Elmer Lapp’s Place (1979),” from the book Bringing it to the Table: on farming and food. “Standing in the stanchion barn while the cows are being milked, I am impressed by how quietly the work is being done. …
From Aaron Laflamme, Chewonki’s Outdoor Equipment & Logistics Coordinator: Long a staple of Chewonki trips, the Wilderness Trip Cookbook has traveled throughout Maine, the Northeast and beyond dispensing culinary wisdom. Loaded with nutritional facts, cooking methods, and recipes, it has everything the backcountry chef needs to prepare adventure ready meals. Check out the often overlooked …
Semester 52 students headed out on spring break this morning, but the words “break” and “spring” don’t go together in the world of the farm. During these two weeks, the farm crew will continue to crank out firewood. With changing ground conditions this time of year (it’s raining and muddy today, but was frozen and …
This spring several Semester 52 students led by faculty members Pete Sniffen, Esther and James Kary, and Steve Kerchner have tapped 18 maple trees on Chewonki Neck to collect the sap for syrup making. After the first three days of collecting, the group had amassed 21 gallons of sap. The sap was then frozen and …
A reflection from Hilary Crowell, Assistant Farm Manager There are certain tasks that we complete and routines that we follow every day and every week at the farm. In these tasks I am reminded that when we take good care of our farm, the farm takes care of us. We cycle the root cellar produce …
Hermione was the last of the ewes to deliver, though we thought she’d be the first judging from her gargantuan belly. But, at long last, the Chewonki lambing season ended on Saturday evening with the birth of twins, one male and one female. Here is the roster of new lambs in total: Patches: 1 mottled …
Here are some observations on cheese making and Chewonki by Clare Churchill-Seder, one of our Outdoor classroom instructors: I just have to tell you, the feta Bill and I made last week is wild. It’s delicious. It has a smoother texture than the traditional sheep or goat’s milk feta and tastes tangy, salty and fresh. …
Here’s another great fish from Salt + Sea in Portland: Atlantic Pollock (Pollachius virens). We’d catch these guys occasionally when we were fishing for mackerel as kids and my mother would cook them up for the dog or cats to supplement their daily ration of dried food. The fillets that Jay delivered last night were …
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