It was 2015 we moved to the farm on Hostile Valley Road.
Known to the locals as “the old Whitaker place”, the one-hundred-acre farm had been in the same family since the fields were first cleared in the mid-1800s. The Whittakers farmed cattle, kept chickens, and sustained themselves on the remote farm for almost two hundred years, but by the end of the nineteenth century most of the family had moved off of the farm and the property had shifted to a summer getaway. Brother and sister Ed and Shirley were the last Whitakers to work the farm.
Over the generations, the farm was never modernized, and when arrived we found a quaint farmhouse with no electricity or running water and a three-hole outhouse in the woodshed. After several decades of abandonment, the fields were full of alders and pine trees, the barn had several feet of aging manure and moldy hay crowding its floors, and the home was a hodge-podge of broken chairs and forsaken calendars.
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Home Rebuild Gallery
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Barn & Garden Shed Renovation Gallery
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The first five years on the farm were a blur of construction and rebuilding. Using equipment scavenged from online classifieds, Patrick first rebuilt the barn to be suitable for our livestock. Stalls were built out and floors replaced.
We began work on the restoration of the fields, which would take years to return to open pasture. Extensive stone walls were uncovered that lined each field, and steadily the land was opened up. When we arrived we brought our flock of chickens, ducks, and geese, and quickly added a small herd of Nigerian Dwarf goats, a Livestock Guardian Dog named Stanley, and after a few years a flock of Southdown Babydoll Sheep and two Tamworth pigs. Our animals helped us to clear land, with the goats eating poison ivy along the walls, the pigs turning up and clearing out wooded areas, and the sheep helping to keep the lawns mowed. Animal power was not enough for this restoration, however, and our tractor, chainsaws, and muslces were put to the test over the years.
In 2018 Patrick oversaw the rebuild of the farmhouse. After gutting the house and adding what used to be a woodshed to part of the living space, the home saw the addition of plumbing and electricity to make it more comfortable. Until the home was rebuilt, three years after our initial move, we showered outdoors and used a small makeshift kitchen in the barn to prepare meals.
An old chicken coop was moved from next to the house to a new location near the garden, and built out to be a cozy garden shed with wood heat, where we press cider every fall. We dug out a small farm pond and added trails through the woods for long walks and winter snowmobiling. An extensive apple orchard of heritage varieties of trees that thrive in Maine has been cultivated.
Gardens & Trails Gallery
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Livestock & Animals Gallery
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Who can argue with fresh food from the garden and goats in the back yard?
It came as a surprise to some of our friends, but over the years our priorities have changed and our lifestyle has shifted. Kirsten now works full time as a freelance journalist, traveling the state and the world for stories about sustainability. As our families grow and change, we have found ourselves needing a little more time off the farm.
Thanks to the generous efforts of neighbors we’ve been able to take a few farm vacations and enjoy a balance of farm life and city days. Looking forward, our priority is to keep this land workable, preserving a little piece of history and hopefully helping the future of food in Maine while we are at it.
We are working with the Maine Farmland Trust to put our property in farmland conservation. Local farmers have helped us to hay the fields and our orchards continue to grow. In the right hands we believe this property can serve as a proving ground for climate-friendly farming practices and the exploration of hardier crops that will thrive in the Maine of the future.
