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In This Issue of The
Wood Prairie Seed Piece:
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This edition of the Seed
Piece may be
found in our Wood Prairie
Seed Piece Archives.
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Yep, Still Winter.

Our ever popular HUGE Colossal
Collection contains Twenty Varieties of the
outstanding Organic Certified Seed Potatoes we grow on
our farm in Northern Maine. Winner of the Direct
Gardening Associations' 'Green Thumb Award'. Better
order TODAY before we sell out!
With this new issue of our Wood
Prairie Seed Piece we are
reformatting our newsletter. Beginning today, we’re
dividing our Seed Piece into Two Parts.
The favorite Departments which you don’t see in this Wood
Prairie Seed Piece Part 1 will appear as
Brand New content in a Brand New Wood Prairie
Seed Piece Part 2 one week from today.
That means you’ll be receiving a New Seed Piece
with fresh content EVERY FRIDAY. Plus
we’ll also be continuing to send you Special
Offers designed to save you money!
So, in this issue of the Seed
Piece, enjoy an all new ‘Maine Tales’
entitled Heeding Good Advice about a
peculiar late Winter New England phenomenon which may
be news to you, too!. We also share Megan’s delicious
Recipe for Wonderful Carrot Soup. Plus, we
encourage you to take advantage of our new FREE
Offer for Organic
Caribou Russet Seed Potatoes.. Plus,
towards the end of this issue, you’ll find a humdinger
of a Notable Quote from wiseman George Carlin.
Of course,
Wood Prairie Family Farm is 100%
Organic – and always has been - so please count on us
for all your Organic needs, including Organic
Seed Potatoes, Organic
Sweet Potato Slips, Organic
Vegetable Seed, Organic
Herb Seed, Organic
Flower Seed, Organic
Cover Crop Seed, Organic
Fertilizer, and Tools
and Supplies.
As always, thank you for
supporting our Maine Organic family farm.
Stay Safe & Stay Warm!

Caleb,
Jim & Megan Gerritsen & Family
Wood Prairie Family Farm
Bridgewater,
Maine
Special
Offer! FREE Organic
Seed Potatoes.
Place a NEW Order and
Receive a FREE 1 lb. Sack of Organic
Maine Certified Caribou Russet Seed Potatoes
($14.99 Value) with a Minimum $70 Order. FREE Potatoes
must ship with order and no later than 5/15/23.
Please
use Coupon Code WPFF238.
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Maine Tales. Heeding Good
Advice.
Bridgewater,
Maine. Circa 1979.
It
Started Out Being Such a Good Day. The
trucking life is not an easy one and there sure are
lots of moving parts. So, the risk of a break
down is ever present. Farmers, by
nature, tend to be home-bodies. While used to
breakdowns, we enjoy the mighty comfort of our
breakdowns occurring on home turf. We have
plenty of empathy for independent truckers when
something goes wrong for them far from home.
There’s
no doubt, had he to do it all over again, the second
time around he would do things differently.
Experience is the father of wisdom.
First Time to
Aroostook
Hauling a
tractor-trailer load full of Maine Certified Seed
Potatoes south from Aroostook County back to North
Carolina probably seemed like it should be an easy,
run of the mill trip. In order to avoid
deadheading he likely hauled a load of something or
other north to Boston. A truck broker had
encouraged him to head on up to Northern Maine
where there were hundreds of loads of Seed Potatoes
waiting for a ride down to anxious Potato
farmers in North Carolina and Virginia.
Heading north for the first time
through that long, lonesome stretch of woods north of
Bangor it is plausible he began to wonder what had
he got himself into. But then in time, he would
start seeing the trees thin out and he’d come across
the snow-covered Potato fields and their farmsteads,
and other minor signs of civilization.
June New Potatoes
After following his
scrawled directions and landing in at the appointed
Potato House the farmer, who had been expecting him,
would have him back up his rig to the loading
dock. The farmer would have explained it would
take a couple hours for him and his crew to finish putting
up the load of 50-pound-Potato bags, stacked fifty
bags onto a pallet. Twenty pallets which
would fill his 44-foot-long trailer. That same
50,000 pounds of Seed would be enough to plant 25-30
acres of Tablestock Potatoes for Americans hungry for
New Potatoes come June.
Making use of the lag time,
the truck driver would climb up into his cab and get a
little shuteye before heading south. The
farmer had promised he’d pound a wakeup bang on the
cab door when the trailer was loaded.
Home for Supper

Once the Certified Seed
and business paperwork was sorted and stowed away, the
driver would wind his way on side roads over to US
Route 1, Aroostook County’s north-south artery.
Then, beginning at Houlton, the newly-opened
northernmost section of four-lane Interstate 95 would
make driving south a relative breeze. With the
need ahead to drive twenty hours, he could pull over to
a rest stop in Connecticut to catch some sleep and then
be home for supper after delivering the seed to the
awaiting North Carolina farm.
But first he’d have to navigate
Route 1. It is a quirk of New England roads that
in late Winter they suddenly sprout seasonal obstacles
locally known as “Frost Heaves.” New England, with
its plenteous supply of water, clay soil and freezing
temperatures allows residents to experience frost
heaves, these formidable frozen abrupt rises in the
roadway. It is easy to imagine that our
frost heaves became the inspiration behind engineered
“speed bumps” strategically placed to slow-down hasty
drivers in front of busy stores and entrances to
National Parks.
Not to Brag
One of the more
notorious and recognizable frost heaves in all of
Northern Maine is on Route 1 in our fair farming town
of Bridgewater. Not to brag, but reliably in the
Cedar swamp north of Bunker Hill, all the
constituent elements come together flawlessly in
late Winter for our blue-ribbon frost heave,
achieving unrivaled attention from those heading
southbound.
Now, spying a big hill ahead,
one common trick of truck drivers hauling a heavy load
is to gain valuable momentum by speeding up on flat
ground while the going is good. Sadly, this
tactic functions in opposition to the northern world
of frost heaves. However, if you are from
North Carolina and have never experienced - or even
heard of - a frost heave, you might be forgiven for
being oblivious to the phenomenon which causes the
Maine DOT to unceremoniously place a temporary, terse,
understated International Orange sign at the exact
point of impact.
Law of Gravity
Hitting a frost heave
at high speed can cause a truck’s cargo to go
airborne. Truck frames are made from aluminum
and engineered to meet load requirements, as opposed
to frost heave requirements. Adding additional
frame thickness would mean extra weight which
equates to lower fuel mileage which will add up
after a million miles. The problem comes not
with the load going airborne. The real
problem is when the law of gravity kicks in with
determination to bring those goods back to terra
firma in a big hurry. Shocked,
eighteen-wheeler aluminum frames simply become
overpowered by the effects of gravity. The
result is one massive mess and the sudden grasp that
you’ll be late for supper.
It’s hard to think of
anything more discouraging than having to finger off
a thousand roughed-up bags of Potatoes from a truck
with a busted up frame…unless it might be stooping
over and hand-picking rocks from a Potato field
during a rare 90ºF heat wave in June when the
Blackflys are thick enough to carry you away.
That job having to do with Maine rocks
we have experience with.
Caleb, Jim & Megan

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Megan's Kitchen
Recipes:
Wonderful Carrot Soup
Makes 8 servings
4 T (1/2 stick) butter
2 Amber
Onions, sliced
1 English
Thyme sprig
2 1/2 lb Chantenay
Carrots, peeled and sliced, about 6 cups
Sea
Salt
6 c vegetable or chicken broth
Melt the butter in a heavy-bottomed pot and add the onions
and thyme. Cook over medium low heat until tender, about 10
minutes. Add the carrots and season with salt. Cook for 5
minutes. Cooking the carrots together with the onions for a
while builds flavor.
Add broth. Bring to a boil, lower the heat and simmer until
the carrots are tender, about 30 minutes. When done, season
with salt to taste and puree if desired.
Megan |

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Notable Quotes: Carlin
on Power.
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Quick Links to
Popular Products.
Caleb & Jim & Megan Gerritsen
Wood Prairie Family Farm
49 Kinney Road
Bridgewater, Maine 04735
(207) 429 - 9765 / 207
(429) - 9682
Certified Organic From Farm to Mailbox
www.woodprairie.com
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