MEGAN SKIING PAST POPLAR PULPWOOD ON WOOD PRAIRIE FAMILY FARM. Accompanied by energetic Australian Shepherd, Oakley, Megan is decked out in her snow suit.

She cross-country skis across a snow-plowed field road. Beside Megan is a pile of ‘semi-tree-length’ Poplar which Caleb and Justin recently cut down near our power lines to reduce the threat from our increased winds.

The field beneath and beside the pulpwood will be one of the home farm fields where we will be planting our 2023 crop of Organic Seed Potatoes. Our piles of pulpwood are headed to the mill to be chipped and made into Maine paper.

We’ve been waiting our turn for our local independent pulp truck driver to come out and load it onto his truck with his grapple loader. The pay price is up this Winter and true to supply and demand theory, there is more Poplar being cut. So the waiting line has been longer to get it hauled away. Pay price is based on a weighed 5000-pound-cord.

There isn’t much evaporation this time of year with the wood being frozen. Come Spring and Summer evaporation becomes a factor and loggers like their wood picked up fresh to minimize weight loss and a resulting thinner paystub.

Caleb, Megan & Jim

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MEGAN’S KITCHEN RECIPES: POTATO AND CELERY ROOT GRATIN.

1 1/4 c heavy cream

1/4 c whole milk

1 small Amber Onion, halved

2 large Red Russian Garlic cloves, smashed

Butter, for greasing baking dish and foil

1lb celery root, peeled and halved

1 1/2 lbs Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled

Sea Salt and freshly ground pepper

2 ounces aged Gouda cheese, grated

Bring the heavy cream, milk, onion halves, and garlic to a boil in a medium saucepan. Remove from heat and let steep for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 400ºF. Generously butter an 8-inch square baking dish and one side of the foil. Using a sharp knife or mandolin, thinly slice celery root and potatoes. In prepared dish, arrange a layer of celery root and potatoes. In a prepared dish, arrange a layer of celery root slices followed by a layer of potato slices; season to taste with salt and pepper. Repeat layers two more times.

Remove onion and garlic from cream mixture and discard. Pour mixture over casserole. Cover pan with prepared foil and transfer to oven. Bake for 40 minutes.

Remove foil and sprinkle top of gratin with the cheese. Return to oven and bake until bubbly and golden, about 15 minutes more. Allow to rest 15 minutes before serving.

Megan

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REMEMBERING THE BLIZZARD OF 1978. A calamitous three-day storm hit the Great Lakes region during January 25-27, 1978.
An “explosive cyclogensis” – or ‘weather bomb’ pounded the States of Michigan Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky. Thirty inches of snow of snow, 100 mph winds and drifts up to ten-foot high created a major life-endangering event. Caleb, Megan & Jim

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MAINE TALES. CAREENING TO EXTREMES. CARIBOU, MAINE. Circa 1994.

No sir! Sure-as-shootin’ it CAN snow at minus eighteen.

The old-timers were keen observers and prognosticators of the weather. They had to be. Sea-faring mariners took their lives into their own hands when they left safe harbors and set out to fish ocean waters. Before the days of satellites, internet, television, radios and telephones, for those who lived and worked on the land or sea, the need to understand the weather was critical and much more than pleasant chit chat for amiable conversation.

In 1900, 40% of the people in the United States lived on farms, and 60% lived in rural areas. Nowadays, we’re down to 1% of Amercians living on farms and about 20% who reside in rural America. To those who work outside in the elements, getting a handle on the weather often separates success from failure, and sometimes life from death.

An unexpected rain would spoil hay, a surprise frosty Fall night could ruin a Tomato crop and early snow might even prevent a Potato, Corn or Soybean field from getting harvested. And so, drawing upon a vast wealth of experience – their own and those who came before – and as keen observers and skilled distillers of patterns, the old-timers coined phrases which tersely summed up the weather at hand. “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight.” “As the days lengthen, the cold strengthens.” “It’s too cold to snow.”

With relentless cold from beginning to end, January 1994 was destined to become a monumental month for the record books. That month’s lowest temperature dipped to -32ºF on January 26, tying the sixth lowest temperature on record. But the truly big story was that days and nights remained cold during the entire month without relief. For the first time ever, since weather records began to be collected in Caribou in 1939, the average temperature for the entire month fell below zero, to -0.7ºF. To this day that prize for the coldest month ever remains intact.

We remember that January well, because for four consecutive weeks we were shut down and unable to ship our perishable, freezable Organic Seed Potatoes. Prior experience had taught us that our packages would either freeze before they got out of the State of Maine or they would freeze somewhere in transit. And so we sat. When that February arrived, the weather began to break. It took us that whole month to catch back up shipping out new orders plus the ones we couldn’t ship in January.

Our old-timer farmer-neighbor Doss Morse (born in Bridgewater in 1899) was fond of repeating a phrase he had learned from his father, “It’s too cold to snow.” This phrase utilizes the truism that Maine cold typically comes in association with clear and dry weather. Here, snowstorms warm things up and some of our best Winter weather will be a sunny day warmed up nice just ahead of a new snowstorm. In fact, from a Mainer’s vantage, the difference between North and South is that snow in the North means warming weather, whereas snow in the South means it’s turning cold.

We never took issue with Doss’ mantra of it being “too cold to snow.” That had been our experience as well. But as Cicero implied over two-thousand years ago, the “exception that proves the rule” will one day come. The exception happened to arrive in Maine during the month of January 1994. One cold evening, before bedtime the temperature had already dropped down to -18ºF. And it had commenced snowing ferociously.

It can’t hurt to look over your shoulder every so often to try and avoid getting smacked in the head by an unexpected exception.

Caleb, Megan & Jim

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BRAND NEW ‘WOOD PRAIRIE SEED PIECE’ NOW POSTED ONLINE! Did the Old-Timers get it WRONG? Find the answer in our NEW ‘Maine Tales’ called “Careening to Extremes.” Plus, Megan’s Winter-appropriate Recipe for ‘Potato & Celery Root Gratin.’ Also, NEW Organic Herbs, FREE Potato Handbook, NEW Farm Photo Stories, OLD Winston Churchill on History and Much More!
Catch our new ‘Wood Prairie Seed Piece’ here:
https://www.woodprairie.com/newsletters/021023.html
Caleb, Megan & Jim Gerritsen
Wood Prairie Family Farm
Bridgewater, Maine www.woodprairie.organic

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“WINTER, CALIFORNIA.” Circa 1872. Oil on canvas by American painter Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902). A native of Germany, Mr Bierstadt was raised in Massachusetts. He traveled for the first time to the West at age 29 and became recognized for his Western American landscape paintings.
A monumental trip to the West in 1871 included a tour of the “Yellowstone Forest region.” Paintings of the region became instrumental in inspiring Congress to establish Yellowstone National Park in 1872, the world’s first National Park. Caleb, Megan & Jim

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MAINE TALES. WINTER HOT SPOT. BRIDGEWATER, MAINE. Circa 1910.

If you somehow imagined that no one would ever aspire to plan and spend their leisure time in our in our quiet little Maine farming town during Winter, you’d be mistaken.

Not that we’re anything like Florida. Being as how northern Maine has a lot more trees and a lot less people than they do down in the Alligator State. Plus, we don’t have Rattlesnakes.

Customary in all farm country, it is a given that a lot of time here in northern Maine is spent thinking and talking about the past. That past might not have been too awful astounding. But after all, we did get through it, and who knows what the future may bring? Truth be told, we have very little hard experience to go by about the future. As an unknown, the future can be a might bit scary to just about anyone, most especially a Mainer. Mainers know the past well and endlessly continue to make our peace with it.

Farmers’ particular fixation on the past is well-known and has made our people the butt of the occasional joke. “How many farmers does it take to screw in a light bulb? Three. One to do the the work, and two to talk over how good the old light bulb was.” It’s not that we’re chained to the past. No, we’re just happy being connoisseurs of bygone eras.

Now one observation about the past is that it has an unwavering tendency to get better with age. The pains of hardship and humiliation just seem to melt away with the passage of time. The collective mind dulls and glosses over events that some participants would just as soon have everybody forget. Like that time one wet Fall when during Digging, that young feller just barely missed the McKinnon Farm bridge and drove that truck full of potatoes clear into Whitney Brook. On account of ratcheted-up community excitement during harvest, that mishap could have happened to anybody. But most especially, if that anybody was young and inexperienced and in too big a hurry.

Sometimes, the past is chockfull of goodness through and through. One of the popular features in the local weekly paper, the ‘Houlton Pioneer Times’ (“The Only Newspaper in the World Interested in Houlton, Maine”) is “From Our Files – News From 100 Years Ago.” Here, stories are lifted verbatim from an issue exactly one century prior, and accurately brought to the attention of us modern-day readers. News which is raw, cutting and untainted by any rewriters of history.

Bridgewater (Pop. 532) today no longer has a railroad station, no more a jewelry store, no Milliken’s general store and no gas station. No hotel, like “The Central House” of yesteryear, aptly named because by fate of history it was the halfway point on the primitive and rough ‘State Road’ (now US Route 1) between Houlton twenty-one miles to the south, and Presque Isle twenty-one miles to the north.

But one little nugget reprinted a few years back originated from the HPT issue of January 7, 1910. Succinctly hinting that Bridgewater was the rare pearl possessing the allure, fun and excitement evoked by utterance of the word ‘vacation.’ Offering prima facie evidence that despite occurring during the depths of a snowy, subzero Maine Winter, our humble little frontier potato town was once considered a Winter destination hot spot for light-hearted frivolity by at least one young adoring Houlton school marm.

“Miss Adelle Burpee, teacher at the grammar school returned
from a week of vacation in Bridgewater.”

Bridgewater may well have a future, but for now forgive us if we just keep on being pleased with savoring our past.

Caleb, Jim & Megan

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MAINE WEATHER REPORT – UNPACKING THE UNUSUAL. Normally when it’s cold in Maine it’s also calm. But the temp has held steady at -20oF since last evening. The wind (now 21 mph) has been blowing nonstop, all-night-long, ever since it began blowing 24 hours ago. And the wind is coming from the East – that direction normally is a storm wind – and not from the NW which you’d think would usher in the cold.
So, it’s not safe to ship Organic Seed Potatoes (www.woodprairie.organic) until this cold snap let’s up! Caleb Megan & Jim

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‘LAZY DOG FARM’ PROGRESS REPORT ON GREESNSPROUTING ORGANIC SEED POTATOES. Following the advice Jim gave ‘Lazy Dog Farm’ in a recent interview, Travis is “Greenspouting” his Wood Priaie Seed Potatoes https://www.woodprairie.com/category/the-organic-garden/certified-organic-maine-certified-seed-potatoes/) before planting in his south Georgia garden.
The first half of this new video is a great tutorial on the easy steps involved in Greenspouting and why you should consider doing it. Caleb, Megan & Jim

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THREE WOOD PRAIRIE DOGS ENJOYING AFTERMATH OF LATEST SNOWSTORM. In recent weeks, multiple storms have been making up for lost ground and have been hitting Maine in rapid succession. One storm was heavy, dense snow topped with 2+ inches of freezing rain pellets. That was hard plowing and took Caleb most of twelve hours to finish the farm’s big snowplowing job.
During this most recent big snowstorm we got a foot of snow and had told the crew to stay home and stay safe. Shipping Organic Seed Potatoes could wait for another day.
As was forecast, the storm ended abruptly, and humans and dogs were happy to venture outside again, even as a stiff north wind blew strong and cold.
Here, all three dogs are having fun chewing on packed-snow-clods left behind by Caleb’s snowplowing. From left to right, Caleb and Lizzi’s gentle hulk 20-month-old Rottweiller, ‘Ralph,’ weighing in at 150 pounds; Amy’s energetic Australian Shepherd, ‘Oakley’; and Sarah & Megan’s middle-aged Great Pyrenees, “Halle.”
In the background, our snow-encased 132-foot long ‘High Tunnel’ before Caleb took at its snow with the monstrous Michigan Payloader.
Just three more months of Winter, then the snowpack melts and we’ll be farming again! Caleb, Megan & Jim

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