On Friday mornings, the lawn and parking area beside an old farmhouse in Damariscotta comes to life and a tiny town of EZ-up tents and open ended vehicles pops up within a matter of minutes. Soon following — folks from town and the surrounding area. Before too long the place is hopping! This is my favorite place to shop…the Damariscotta Farmers’ Market. It’s exciting to connect with the farmers, growers & makers and get to know them. The selection of veggies from several different farms here is amazing and actually quite diverse. I don’t usually need many veggies on Fridays because we belong to a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) farm and our share arrives on Thursdays. But I love exploring the stalls for something a little different and this market has lots of other good stuff to take home…

Always my first stop...we're addicted to Debbie's cheese!

gorgeous mushrooms -- farmed and found

crusty breads

fresh shellfish

colorful carrots

More cheese -- mostly goat milk -- lots of choices!

Flowers by the stem -- make your own bouquet!

Handmade potstickers, spring rolls, rangoon and dipping sauces aka farm market fast food...and often our Friday lunch.

Buckets of ready made bouquets -- quick color to take home -- and inspiration for the dyepot...
and the view is a bonus!
If you look closely, you can see a tractor cutting hay in that back field. Finally we’re having a good hay year! These fields are part of Great Salt Bay Farm, home of the Damariscotta River Association and it’s in preservation so we can all enjoy it for a long time!
I’ve been keeping an eye on the nest in the barn. Mama bird almost immediately set about laying a new clutch after her first batch of babies had fledged. She’s built her nest so close to the loft floorboards that I can’t see how many eggs there are. We were trying not to bother her too much while she was setting. But then…
Difficult to see how [....read more]
About eight years ago, Jim and I heard about the Youth Conservationist Program (YCP) while we were at the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival. Right away we thought it’d be really cool to participate … what could be better than to work with a young person to foster sheep husbandry. It sounded like fun and we weren’t going to get the chance to do it at home. [....read more]
We all know I don’t post regularly so it’d be silly to say I hadn’t posted recently because our internet has been sketchy. But it is true that our cable was acting up last week and it got progressively worse until finally on Thursday, it pretty much died.
So while we were waiting for the tech & cable guys to show up, I got some shots of the critters [....read more]
A lot of what we do around here isn’t glamorous. Surprised?!
During the five or six months that the sheep have access to their shed, they deposit quite a bit of poop in there. Why? Well, because given the choice of pooping inside or outside, they’ll usually choose inside. I often wonder whether they’re marking their territory or just doing it to make us crazy. In fact, it’s probably [....read more]