Maine Tales. That Cold October. Bridgewater,Maine. Circa 1979.

    Some years, Winter can arrive early in Aroostook County, during the second half of October. Sometimes with snow and sometimes without.

Tough Fall

     It had not been an easy Fall. Persistent rain had prolonged the Aroostook Potato Harvest long into October. Weeks before, ‘Potato Harvest Break’ had ended and area students were back hitting the books and in their classrooms studying their Ps & Qs. After Harvest Break ended, harvest help was hard and getting harder to come by.

     It was the end of October and neighbor Grover Patterson and his son, Scott, were still struggling to dig their potato crop which was planted on the west side of what map makers call ‘Estabrook Hill.’ Back in 1880, Wilson Estabrook came over from Canada and bought 500 acres of wildlands for $2 an acre. This plot was in the middle of nowhere but located in the ‘Portland Academy Grant’ on the south side of Bootfoot Road. Never marrying, ‘Wils’ worked hard, cleared off the trees and succeeded in establishing a productive farm.

Wilses Hill
 
     Back in pioneer days, times were friendlier and first names sufficed. The local kids attending the nearby one room ‘Bootfoot School’ called it “Wilses” Hill. The Winter attraction which gave Bootfoot kids purpose and a good reason to get out of bed on cold Winter mornings was the fun of sledding down nearby Wilses Hill before school and during recess.

     Compared to the flatlands of Aroostook, Wilses Hill is high and offers the best views in our corner of the Township of Bridgewater. On top you could see numerous farms, and out to the west and north, the Maine Woods for miles and miles over to Number Nine Mountain and Maple Mountain on the horizon. Wilses Hill was high enough that there was nothing to obstruct the arctic air blowing in from the northwest. A gentle breeze on our Wood Prairie Family Farm - protected by the Maine Woods - nearby to the west might be a near gale up on the highlands of Wilses Hill.

Help Wanted

     So, Grover came by one late October morning relating that he had virtually no crew left and wondered if Jim could help him and Scott get out the last of their potatoes. He could.

     Knowing that it would be cold Jim prepared, only he didn’t prepare enough. Those end-of- October days that Fall were uniformly overcast, with daily high temps in the upper-thirtys. Up on Wilses Hill the bitter Canadian air blew as a relentless blast from sunup to sundown. Still in his mid-twenties Jim had not yet figured out that the only hope of cutting the wind and staying warm was to wear one-piece insulated coveralls. His layers of wool clothing were effective for the calm of the flatlands, but no match for the daily tempest on Wilses Hill. But there was work to be done, so no choice but to just soldier on.

John Bean Harvester

     Grover and Scott dug their crop one potato row at a time with their old John Bean Mfg ‘Barrel’ Harvester. Dug potatoes exited the ‘Secondary Lag Bed’ and funneled into sturdy 12-peck cedar Potato Barrels which hold 165 pounds of potatoes. When the barrel was full a foot-operated pedal allowed the floor to drop, the barrel to then kiss the ground and gently get left behind as the harvester steadily crept forward. The aftermath was a straight row of potato-filled-barrels awaiting their turn to be picked up later on by the flat-bed barrel truck with its hoist and barrel grapple.

     Harvesting potatoes directly into accompanying bulk body trucks was the coming thing. However, some smaller and traditional farmers still back in those days held fast to the potato-barrel-centric systems that they and their fathers and grandfathers knew well and trusted.

Fall to Spring

      That cold Fall we succeeded in digging every Potato we could get off of Wilses Hill. The wet holes never dried enough to surrender their cache. Rain that comes to Northern Maine in October doesn’t evaporate, it just accumulates there in Potato ground and gets in the way. The straggler potatoes left behind got froze solid with Winter’s approach. They thawed the next Spring and then decomposed down to again become one with the earth.

     And during planting that following Spring, with past hardships forgotten, amidst the sunny, bright mornings there was universal, infectious optimism among farmers that this year has all the makings for one fine crop of potatoes.

Caleb, Jim & Megan

Roasted Fall Vegetables.

Wood Prairie Family Farm Photos.

The Last Day of Potato Harvest 2022. After digging our main crop Organic Maine Certified Seed Potatoes  from farm fields, the last step for us is to harvest the seed plots protected under our ‘Tunnels’ covered with special Aphid-Excluding netting imported from France.  The extremely-fine-mesh netting prevents entry by destructive Aphids which can transmit yield-crushing Potato Virus.  Here, Megan (right) and Cassidy finish up the harvest of our tissue-cultured disease-free Potato "Minitubers" which were grown out from lanky alfalfa-sprout-like 'Potato Plantlets.'  The Plantlets were planted back in June into gray 'Mushroom Totes' filled with top notch 'Vermont Organic Compost’ and grown inside our hundred-foot-long ‘Short Tunnel.’   Harvest from the Plantlets consists of small disease-free Maine Certified Seed Tubers known in the potato industry as Minitubers.   Next year these Minitubers will be planted into the soil inside our portable 600-foot 'Long Tunnel' which is similarly protected with Aphid-Excluding netting. It’s after further multiplication in our rotated Organic Potato fields that our Organic Maine Certified Seed Potatoes are offered for sale for you.  In the background, the 'Lockwood' Rock Picker is hooked to our White 105 Diesel tractor.  Beyond the Rockpicker, our Tarp Barn houses a winter’s worth of Organic hay and protects our small herd of Organic Dexter/Low-Line Angus cattle from the elements on stormy Winter days.

Irony on the Wood Prairie Road to Climate Change Adaptation. Farmers tend to think long term and that attribute benefits them and society both.  The drought year of 1991 and the severe drought of 1995 convinced us to dig irrigation ponds so that we’d have reliable-on-farm sources of water.  We kept a stiff upper lip when our pond digging was followed by a decade of wet weather.  Then the pendulum swung yet again and over the past decade the growing season in Northern Maine has trended from dry to very dry.  With farm help harder and harder to find, in recent years we’re investing in systems which make us more efficient, more productive and more resilient.   For the past two years we’ve been installing underground irrigation main lines so that we can more easily and quickly get water to parched Potato fields.  This week, in the photo above, Caleb (right) and Justin are making concrete “Thrust Blocks” at key pipeline connections.  Thrust blocks securely anchor the weak links in irrigation main lines and prevent the system from blowing apart under the high pressures – about 160 psi – of modern irrigation pumps. We use 6” thick-walled SDR 21 Schedule 80 PVC underground pipe.  In the photo below, Caleb is on the edge of one field pouring a thrust block for a spur-line irrigation hydrant. ‘Ralph,’ Caleb & Lizzi’s one-and-a-half-year-old Rottweiler watches from beside the gas generator needed to sump-pump-out some of the 4” of rain water we’ve had in the last week.  Brindle-colored ‘Rudy,’ their six-month-old Cane Corso is in the foreground taking in the action.  After all that rain, the ground was too wet and muddy for the Redimix concrete truck to get anywhere close, so Caleb had to ferry concrete over in the bucket of our New Holland Skidsteer Loader.  Concrete has been in short supply and orders must be placed at least a week in advance.  That morning the local concrete plant had called.  Due to a cancelation they had an opening that same afternoon.   Caleb & Justin jumped at the chance and rearranged their work day.  So, on a brilliant, sunny October day in the 50s, they constructed thrust-block-forms.  Late that afternoon they savored their reward enjoying the good fortune of unexpected concrete.