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 Friday,
January 7th, 2022Volume 31 Issue 1
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In This Issue of The Wood Prairie Seed Piece: |
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Short Supply
Chain.
‘Cave Brand’ Fruit Crate Label Art. Pajaro Valley, California. Circa 1920.
Beautiful marketing art from a century ago. The
mostly agricultural Pajaro Valley abuts Monterey Bay
in California’s Central Coast and includes the city of
Watsonville.   Caleb,
Jim & Megan Gerritsen & Family
Wood Prairie Family Farm Bridgewater,
Maine
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 Shifting Gears: Winter Finishes Outside Work on New Wood Prairie Expanded Packing Shed & Office. Northern Maine does not deal in subtlety. When the Fall turns into Winter, it is apparent to everyone. No one is confused when snow and cold arrives, when the time for outside work passes, and the shift is made to sheltered inside work, such as grading potatoes. Our goal for this year was to button up the outside of our new building. We met that goal and made as much progress as the building season allowed. After the Amish-made Raised Seam Metal Roof panels were installed, attention was turned to strapping the building’s outside and applying green metal siding, also made and purchased from the Amish in nearby Easton. We got the East wall covered but the other walls will have to wait until Spring. In the photo which looks westward, Megan is driving a Clark Forklift back into its safe harbor inside the building after having moved around pallet boxes. Halle, our Great Pyrenees guard dog looks on, overseeing her realm.  Everything is Black and White. This is a shot taken from inside our new building. The vantage is looking upward through the wooden roof trusses and wood 2x4 strapping to which the completed metal Standing Seam Roofing has been screwed into. The visible outside of the roof is brown and the underside is white. However, that underside is hidden by the placement of black synthetic fabric over the strapping and under the roofing. The underlayment has the job of preventing moist air from condensing on the cold metal and then 'raining' inside the building. The 72-foot long free-standing wood trusses were built for us by a second local Amish-owned company. Their craftsmanship and fair pricing are unbeatable and we always prefer to spend our dollars in our local economy with other family businesses. 
Yes Northern Maine is Still a Safe Bet for a White
Christmas. Even with
the change in climate, it’s still an extremely rare year
when Northern Maine does not have a White Christmas.
However, gone is our past era of reliably White
Thanksgivings. Nowadays some Thanksgivings are
white, while others are not. In this photograph,
Caleb is plowing our yard early one morning last month -
before the crew showed up - with his 9-foot 'Boss'
snowplow mounted on a 4WD Diesel F250 Ford pickup
truck. It takes Caleb a full 4 hours to plow
everything out after a 6-8" snowfall. Every
week we have tractor-trailers come in to pickup or
deliver, and those big rigs need plenty of room to be able
to turn around without getting stuck.
Amy Gerritsen Rescues Neveah the Cat. We’ve
all heard of cats getting stuck up in trees and unable to
get down. During today’s snowstorm, Amy ventured
outside only to hear the cries of a somewhat desperate cat
stranded atop the snowy roof. Old-timer Neveah
(that’s ‘Heaven’ spelled backwards) had apparently
discovered an unfinished nook or cranny in the new
building through which she could slither to cold freedom
in the outside world. The impact of the
blowing cold snow seemed to have shocked her from the
ability to retrace her steps and find her way back
inside. So, Amy climbed onto some scaffolding
and came to Neveah’s rescue. Amy
is now on Christmas break after completing her first
semester at Husson University in Bangor, where she is an
eager Occupational Therapy major. She’s had a good
start and her hard-won 3.8 GPA earned her a place on the
President’s List. Over break, she has been working
steady and helping her mother Megan update, organize and
bag up thousands of seed packets of our growing
collections of Organic
Vegetable Seed, Organic
Herb Seed and Organic
Flower Seed. In another week she’s back
to hitting the books in Bangor.
 Photographer Russell French Begins His "About Organic" Series on 'Instagram.' Our friend, Russell French, longtime and talented photographer in Portland has begun a series on Instagram entitled "About Organic." Here is Russell's thumbnail description: “About Organic - Jim Gerritsen. 'The better we understand nature, the more we advance and the greater our success.' " You’ll want to read Jim’s full statement as he has contributed a great deal to the success of the organic community in Maine. See the link to my website in my profile. Farmers like Jim and Megan and now their kids are the cornerstone to many communities in our rural state. Thank you, Jim, for your patience and support over the years.” And so here is that referenced Full Statement:
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     Caleb & Jim & Megan Gerritsen Wood Prairie Family Farm 49 Kinney Road Bridgewater, Maine 04735 (207) 429 - 9765 Certified Organic, From Farm to Mailbox www.woodprairie.com |
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