“You know farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you’re a thousand miles from the cornfield.” Dwight D. Eisenhower
The farmer and I always enjoy checking out the agriculture whereever we are. Farmland and its use is precious to us. I guess you can send a farmer on a trip but you never get the farm out of his heart. We’ve seen every kind of tree imaginable here and on the way here. As we drive the highways we have often commented on the scenery. “You’ve seen one tree, you’ve seen them all!” 🙂 You can tell we come from the wide open prairie!
On our adventures we stopped at one of those dome houses that was painted blue and was called blueberry world. We felt this was one of God’s great gifts to us as we visited two of the farmers there and sampled some blueberry goodies.
Maine has wild blueberries and we were blessed to visit with a farmer whose family tends to the wild blueberries. We had fresh hot blueberry pie at her store ala mode. Yum! We had a great visit with her about farming and the struggles they face with their product. The wild blueberries are indigenous to Maine and are, therefore, naturally resistant to many pests. One farmer we spoke to said that his family has been tending to the blueberries for 200 years. There are 38,660 acres of wild Blueberries in Maine. They are grown on a two year cycle. Each year half of the grower’s land is managed to encourage flower bud growth and the other half is prepared for harvest.
“The farmer is the only man in our economy who buys everything at retail, sells everything wholesale, and pays the frieght both ways.” John F. Kennedy
We traveled north of here this weekend and found more farming communities. We drove along the north edge of Maine right against Canada to Fort Kent, ME. We drove adjacent to the St John River for many miles. Canada was two blocks away but we didn’t try to crossover as we were told it is quite an ordeal to do that.
Finally, the trees opened up and we saw farms and farmland. I had one very happy farmer on my hands. He breathed a deep sigh of total relief. One thing he hates is ground that is unable to be productive. Many of the farms looked in good shape and there were multiple small stands along the way selling new potatoes, peas, cucmbers, etc. Crops of beets, oats, sunflowers, wheat ready to harvest and prairie hay were seen. We even saw one Zimmatic circle for irrigation. The fields are small and hilly compared to Kansas but beautiful. One farmer was working ground in the US and we could see his counterpart in Canada also working ground. We wondered if some farmers have land in both countries.
“ I think having land and not ruining it is the most beautiful art that anybody could ever want to own.” Andy Warhol
Due to the smaller fields we saw many smaller tractors, potato harvesters, and blueberry buggies. My IHC guy was so happy to see the older tractors still in use. It was delightful to see agriculture thriving in this state in many ways. Some of the land appeared to be worked with a moldboard plow. The sod turned up and productive is a wonderful sight to see.
Where the Dutch Ovens Roam 