Of course the only rain forecast of the week was on the 4th
of July. After my morning ab routine in
the barn (my bike ride was cancelled due to rain), I settled down to begin Born To Run, my long awaited summer
reading, over an early breakfast. Despite
it being a holiday, things did need to be done on the farm. After Jillian met Mary for the first time, we
went down to the fields to pick peas all morning. Everything gets done so much quicker and
easier with 3 apprentices working on it.
We picked our tastiest bunch of shelling, cooking, and snap peas in just
over 2 hours, a task that took me a couple days last week. With my stomach hurting from testing bad peas
and bitten up from the swarms of mosquitoes, I gratefully headed up to drive
with Kenya
to Hannaford’s. There are few things I
love more than grocery shopping, and I even was able to get a treat to share for
later on in the month (Hershey’s bar – wattup).
The house was bustling by the time we got home with everyone
wanting to help prepare for the picnic. I met Katie’s mom and aunt who had come down
from Bangor ,
and Mary set Katie’s mom and me straight to work chopping cabbage, carrots, and
kohlrabi1 for the cole slaw. I’d
say almost 30 people showed up for the picnic in total, including a family of
friends, who all I’d met at contra dancing, their in-laws, and a family who
spends their summer at a camp nearby. As
everyone brought dishes to share, there was plenty of food to go around, to say
the least. Mary kept insisting I try
dishes that friends had made as she introduced me to people, and I was eager to
try them, but I quickly became quite stuffed. I was watching the shop during the picnic
(pies are of course in extremely high demand on the 4th of July, so
Mary made a batch fresh this morning). A
couple visiting from New Jersey ,
near The City, wanted to walk around, so I gave them a tour of the farm. They were amazed at how we plow our own land,
grow such large tomatoes, and have so many animals – they aren’t used to such
lush ground. They said they lived across
from a veal factory in Wisconson for a while and it made them sick seeing the
baby cows taken from their mothers. The
man even said this was the first time he’s pet a horse. It was a pleasure to see such appreciation
from the visitors. As they were leaving,
they took turns standing on Sage’s tree swing and taking pictures. Everyone at the picnic had a laugh at the
adult couple playing like children in the yard.
Here on Winterberry Farm, every 4th of July, Mary
brings out her old tan ’52 Ford to drive in the Belgrade Lakes Parade. We piled 8 kids into the back of the pickup
truck, sitting on hay bales. The sky had
really cleared since the morning, and there was beautiful weather for the
picnic and parade. Last year there was a
surprise hail storm on the parade and everyone had to take cover in the bushes
and then drive home in a thunderstorm in the truck that has no wipers. Throughout the parade, instead of throwing
candy, we all threw shelling peas at people. We actually got candy thrown back at us
sometimes. It was a pleasure to see the
people laugh at such a clever idea, and I even recognized and exchanged knowing
waves from several customers I’d had yesterday and today in the shop. So many people came to Belgrade Lakes
After the parade was the frog jumping contest. I’d been imagining a leap frog contest all
this time, but this contest involved real frogs. Divided into age groups, kids would race their
frogs from one yellow line to another (~6 ft). Kids could blow on the frogs, speak kind words
to them, or thump the ground behind them, but the kids could not walk or stomp
around the frogs (in years past, frogs’ lives had been taken by a child
mistakenly stepping on one). Gil was in
the oldest age group and was the reigning frog jumping champion for the past 4
years, and this year was no exception.
We came back to the farm in the back of the truck – such fun
with the wind blowing in our hair at such a fast speed. We nibbled on food from the picnic and took
turns churning the ice cream machine to make strawberry ice cream using
strawberries Katie and I had sliced earlier today. This was followed by a game of Apples to
Apples in the barn while it rained outside. The rain postponed our bridge jumping off the
dam and the town fireworks until tomorrow, but we had our own little fireworks
show with an at-home fireworks kit. I
love fireworks.
Now we’re winding down the exciting day drinking Eli’s
Parrot Punch, brewed and bottled in Maine ,
and watching The Sound of Music, a childhood gem. What a fun 4th of July.
I enjoyed reading your blog.
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