UP IN THE NORTH COUNTRY
Living a happy, hardscrabble life with our son on the coast of Maine. We spend our days tending to our growing home pottery business, the family milk cow, flocks of chickens and sheep, and each other's hearts.
Nothing is simple, most things are good.
Our story, briefly..
Years ago in late summer, we put an offer in on a farm in coastal Maine and gave up the lease on our walk-up city apartment. We sent notice to our employers, let the renewal forms on our community garden plot turn to scrap paper for moving lists, and busied ourselves with dreams of fresh pies, clucky chickens, and gardens that damn near grew themselves. We barely even paused to say our goodbyes to the beautiful city we called home.
But then we lost the farm. A massive commercial chicken barn lay collapsed on the property and ultimately made it uninsurable. It's a long and winding story, one that had more farms fall through on us and eventually starred The Most Terrible Landlord, Ever, but it's a tale better shared at our kitchen table over tea and blueberry scones. The good news is, those scones are made with blueberries picked from our own fields and we love to top them with cultured butter from our family milk cow, Luella. And to boot, everything in the tea is fresh from our gardens and fields. Life worked out and we’re grateful to call a small and beautiful holding of 10 acres ours.
Over the years we've tried our hands at farmers’ markets- selling baked goods, wild foraged teas, and toasty Maine-grown oat granola, and we've raised pigs, sheep, cows, chickens, ducks, guineas, and rabbits. After pursuing many varied livelihoods on the homestead that didn’t quite fill our hearts, we’re thrilled to be covered in clay and tending the fires of our homestead pottery business. We're currently in an exciting stage of expansion and can’t wait to reopen our shop in the spring of this year.
A good number of seasons have rolled past the windows of our old farmhouse since first backing our moving truck up our little hill mid-blizzard. We have towed chicken coops chained to the captain seats of a minivan and brought home two calves in the backseat of our car. The garden has flourished and fed us well. We've learned a great deal, though never enough, and have succeeded as much as we have failed. Most years are better than the last and we find ourselves happy more often than not here in Maine, raising our family and animals, growing big gardens and big love.
With love, from Maine