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MAINE TALES. ‘THE ASH HOOP BANK.’ Bridgewater, Maine. Circa 1979. Yes, sir! That’s gonna be a problem. No hoop


MAINE TALES. ‘THE ASH HOOP BANK.’ Bridgewater, Maine. Circa 1979.

Yes, sir! That’s gonna be a problem. No hoops, no barrels. Seems now in hindsight like it should have been predictable.

It was after World War II when Roy Wheeler started up the Barrel Mill in Bridgewater. During the war, the nearby Presque Isle Army Airfield was the closest base to Europe on American soil. It was used by the Air Transport Command as a major ‘North Atlantic Transport Route’ to ferry equipment across to Great Britain.

The Base closed after the war and Roy was able to secure some obsolete wartime wooden structures for re-purposing. He hauled the modest buildings down to Bridgewater and linking them together he created the barrel mill. In the heavy snow country of Northern Maine one might well have questioned the wisdom of frugal wartime measures aimed at conserving materials. However, the 2”x4” rafters spaced on thirty-inch-centers and the planed 1”x6” stringers miraculously served their purposes for decades, long past what anyone could have imagined reasonable.

At the Barrel Mill the active inventory of Brown Ash hoops (rhymes with “books”) used by the Coopers to make Potato barrels were stowed in a water-filled concrete-walled vat. Two-by-fours wedged against the ceiling were pounded into place to force the float-minded hoops to remain submerged in the swampy water. Once soaked long enough to become pliable, a Cooper would retrieve a bundle of fifty hand-shaved hoops which had been bundled with sisal baling twine. A homemade electric-powered “Hoop Bender” machine had been fabricated out of wood using a ten-inch flat-belt which snaked around three vertically-mounted pulleys. A Cooper would insert two or three soaked hoops at a time into the gap at the top of the middle pulley and a second later the hoops would be spit back out by the revolving belt from the bottom of that middle pulley. The Hoop Bender cleverly transformed the hoops from stiff into perfect fully pliable bands.

An enormous inventory of Ash hoops were always stored ahead in a nearby Barrel Mill shed. The Ash hoops themselves were split and hand shaved by independent, skilled members of area Mi’kmaq and Maliseet tribes. First, the workers would head into local swamps and cut down 6 ½-foot poles from Brown Ash trees. The sought after ideal diameter of Ash poles were from trees the diameter of a glass bottle of Coca-Cola. The best hoops came from the bottom tree sections which had thick, soft bark. Enough Ash poles would be cut to fill a car’s trunk and the accumulated weight was such that the car’s rear end sagged considerably under the load.

Once home, the hoop-makers would use metal wedges to split the poles into quarters. Homemade four-legged shaving benches featured a seat to sit down on and a pivoting foot-operated-dog which clamped down the hoop stationary while a sharp drawknife was used to carefully shave down and finish the hoop. The vast majority of the hoops used by Coopers were expertly and skillfully made.

Occasionally a joker would mix in inferior hoops split from poles located too high in the Ash tree trunk, where the diameter had become too small and the bark was young, smooth and hard. These loser hoops were the bane of the piece-rate Coopers. Either they’d break on a knot in the hoop bender, get mangled in the Cooper’s foot-operated hoop-notch-guillotine, or snap in half when being pounded home on a barrel by a Cooper’s adze and hoop-pounder-tool.

For decades Roy Wheeler had run a profitable Potato Barrel business. In that era, every farmer needed hundreds of barrels in order to plant, harvest and handle a crop of Potatoes. Farmers were of a mind that there were no better Potato Barrels built anywhere in Aroostook County than right here in Bridgewater.

Whenever a hoop-maker brought in his trunk-load of hoops, the terms of the deal were clear: Roy would buy all the hoops, and pay cash then and there. This reliable Ash-hoop-economy had been developed with old-school trust and unwavering reliability to the closely-woven community of hoop-makers. With hoops spilling out from car trunks, the hoop-makers often arrived in jalopies in rough shape, many of them bearing New Brunswick license plates. Broad hints indicated that many of these craftsmen lived on the economic edge. For decades, every hoop-maker far and near knew that if they ever needed to generate a quick couple of hundred bucks, they could earn it in a week of hard work by cutting poles, splitting and shaving hoops and showing up at Roy’s doorstep for an immediate fistful of cash.

By the early 1970s Roy had aged into retirement. The Barrel Mill changed hands a couple of times in this new era. During the 70s, the bigger farmers were shifting over to big machine Potato harvesters and bulk-body Potato trucks. The smaller farmers were getting left behind and ‘getting done’ in that many were dropping out of growing Potatoes entirely. With demand for Potato Barrels declining, the competing barrel mills, one by one, were closing their doors until Bridgewater Barrel was last man standing. Turning a profit in the Potato Barrel business was much harder now. Expenses came under heightened scrutiny.

One fateful day the hoop shed was pretty well-stockpiled with many thousands of hand-shaved Brown Ash hoops. Then, a fateful, unprecedented decision was made by the new owner not to buy any hoops until the inventory had been whittled down. So, in comes a jalopy with a trunkful of nice, shaved Ash hoops. The hoop-maker is told Bridgewater Barrel has plenty of hoops right now and is not buying. There was stunned silence and disappointment. Essentially, the ‘Ash Hoop Bank’ was on Bank Holiday and closed for business.

Word about the closure spread like wild fire through the community of hoop-makers on both sides of the border. When the shaved Ash hoop inventory was sufficiently depleted, the word was put out that Bridgewater Barrel was again buying Ash hoops. However, the system had been broken. Essentially, no one ever showed up again to sell hand-shaved Ash hoops.

Facing an existential barrel crisis, Percy Milbury, the Barrel Mill’s Canadian millright rigged up machines to saw out and roll hoops made from Elm (“L-Umm”) planks. These sawn Elm hoops worked OK if they were made from clear wood, free of knots. However, Dutch Elm Disease was raging and the area’s Elm trees were dying. So this lumber supply was endangered and disappearing fast. Sawn White Oak hoops were tried and while they looked pretty they were weak and brittle for the rugged and unyielding mistreatment of Potato barrels in a Potato field. Sawn White Ash hoops fared a little bit better, but the fact was well-known, no sawn hoop ever possessed the strength and durability of hand-shaved Brown Ash hoops.

In more ways than one, this shaved Ash hoop saga symbolized the end of the Potato barrel era and sped along the transition to the new idea of constructing and marketing novelty barrels for retail trade displays.

So, lesson learned. Think before you leap. Upsetting a community tradition may come at great cost.

Jim




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PLANTING ORGANIC SEED POTATOES THIS WEEK ON WOOD PRAIRIE FAMILY FARM. With dry weather, and despite it turning record h

PLANTING ORGANIC SEED POTATOES THIS WEEK ON WOOD PRAIRIE FAMILY FARM. With dry weather, and despite it turning record hot (high of 96oF on Thursday) we got a lot of Potatoes planted over the last week. Yesterday afternoon’s showers are holding us up a couple of hours this morning but soon we’ll be back to planting through this weekend.
Now our NEW Wood Prairie Seed Piece is now posted online.
If you can believe the Weekend Weather Crew at the NOAA Weather Station in Caribou, this next week will be shifting over to wet and cool.
In the photo below, we are hand-cutting Seed Potato Tubers on the back of our special farm-fabricated “Tuber Unit Potato Planter.” Left to right are Caleb, Amy (Caleb’s sister), Liz and Justin. Jim (Caleb’s father) is driving the Oliver 1750 Diesel which is pulling the planter. The view is from “Southeast Field #3” looking northeast.
By the time we’re done, we will have hand-cut and planted 32,000 lbs of greensprouted Seed Potatoes.
Caleb, Megan & Jim




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VIEW FROM THE TOP OF MARS HILL MOUNTAIN. ‘Big Rock’ ski area, located on the west side of local Mars Hill Mountain (ele


VIEW FROM THE TOP OF MARS HILL MOUNTAIN. ‘Big Rock’ ski area, located on the west side of local Mars Hill Mountain (elev. 1660 ft), features a one-thousand-foot drop – which is pretty substantial in these parts – and is located just twenty minutes from Wood Prairie Family Farm’s front door. www.woodprairie.organic
For many years Megan, Caleb, and Caleb’s siblings would all ski together on Winter Sundays thanks to bargain-basement season-passes which successfully targeted local Aroostook families.
Earlier this month – after the snow had left us and while we were waiting for the ground to warm up for planting – Caleb’s sister, Amy (left), Megan (right) and Jim hiked to the top and had the mountain all to themselves. It’s a two-mile, two-hour roundtrip starting from the lodge.
The view in this photo is looking westward. The three dark peaks on the near horizon are (left to right) Maple Mountain, Number Nine Mountain and Hedgehog Mountain. Our farm is this side of Nine Mountain.
If you look carefully beyond and just to the left of Maple Mountain, to the southwest you can see snow-covered Katahdin (elev. 5267 ft), Maine’s tallest mountain. Caleb, Megan & Jim




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CALEB RELEASING BROOK TROUT FINGERLINGS INTO WOOD PRAIRIE ‘SMALL POND.’ This Fish Story is excerpted from our NEW ‘Wood

CALEB RELEASING BROOK TROUT FINGERLINGS INTO WOOD PRAIRIE ‘SMALL POND.’ This Fish Story is excerpted from our NEW ‘Wood Prairie Seed Piece’ now posted online.
In the photo above, on a recent cool May day Caleb (green hoodie) releases Brook Trout Fingerlings about 5″ long into our Small Pond while Megan (buffalo plaid wool coat) looks on.
These Brookies were raised by members of the local Mi’kmaq tribe. The Annual Trout Sale was coordinated by our friend, Angie Wotton, manager at the local Southern Aroostook Soil and Water Conservation District. Caleb, Jim Megan




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MAINE TALES. “PUTTING HEADS TOGETHER.” FORT KENT, MAINE Fort Kent, Maine. Circa 2008. Worlds colliding, the las


MAINE TALES. “PUTTING HEADS TOGETHER.” FORT KENT, MAINE Fort Kent, Maine. Circa 2008.

Worlds colliding, the last thing I expected during that dinner break was for a debonair Canadian titan of industry in his three-piece-suit to make a fast beeline towards me.

We were all convened for a business gathering. Maine Governor John Baldacci was hosting New Brunswick’s Premier Shawn Graham for a Roundtable Business Summit in the tippy-top Northern Maine border-town of Fort Kent. The Summit was held during the buoyant, halcyon days of pre-Great Recession Springtime. The format involved the neighboring political leaders bringing with them a cadre of members from their business communities so that all could discuss common business challenges and opportunities.

It was a Saturday event. Being mid-May we had just begun to harrow our own Potato fields in the previous week. May is universally the most harried month of the year for North American farmers. That distills down to the fact that we don’t get around much until planting is completed in June.

On this rare May trip northward I was surprised by the stark difference latitude had made over the length of the eighty mile journey to this American side of French Acadia. Spring had not sprung in this historically francophone point of origin for US Route One. To use English Aroostook jargon, no one up towards Fort Kent had yet “spun a wheel”. My quick calculation was that if Fort Kent’s growing season was shaved by a solid week in the Spring as compared to us, they must also stand to lose another week in the Fall. With Northern Maine’s already paltry growing season to begin with, a reduction by another couple of weeks must present itself as a steep challenge for area crop production.

In the lead up, our Governor and the Premier were tasked with enlisting business representatives to attend this one-day Summit. For a Democrat like Bangor’s John Baldacci, the pickins’ are slim in Northern Maine as our Dem business bench runs thin. However, the good Governor did manage to roust up his necessary contingent.

On Team Maine represented independent businesses, including the owner of a backwoods sportsman camp, the head of a fabricating company which builds fire engine apparatus and one Organic farmer who grows a little bit of Maine’s iconic Potato crop. The Governor’s business group were all hands-on Maine small business owners. We showed up, as rural Mainers typically are wont to do, dressed casually with open-collar-shirts sans sports coats.

Weren’t we surprised to discover the high-octane team Premier Graham had brought with him. To a man, they were elite behemoths of New Brunswick industry. Attending were the CEO of New Brunswick Power, the head of Fraser Paper, and top executives from McCain’s Frozen Foods, JD Irving Ltd. and banking and mining interests. Power-dressed in Italian suits, starched white shirts and ties, they might just as well have been all on their way to a Canadian trade mission in Hong Kong.

Unrattled, our unpretentious Maine delegation offered our modest company thumbnails and perspectives on common challenges confronting our two similar and abutting rural colonies. In their initial presentations, the Canadians portrayed charm and were brimming over with confidence. Discussions soon ensued.

When it was my turn to talk, I offered an off-the-cuff rosy review of the recent rocket-like growth occurring in the Organic sector. Increasingly, consumers were thinking things through and concluding that the good life was an interwoven blend of good health, good pursuits and good eating.

Since Organic dairy farming was then flying high I choose to build my narrative around Organic milk and the hard-working organic family dairy farmers who then produced it. I made note that Organic milk had been identified as the primary entry point for new Organic eaters. So it stood to reason that continued robust Organic milk sales were a leading trend indicator of continued Organic industry growth.

Soon after offering my Organic ditty the Summit broke for dinner. That’s when the NB Power CEO in his three-piece suit walked briskly over to me. When within earshot, the first words out of his mouth were, “Why is the only Organic milk I can find always ultra-pasteurized?”

At first I offered an offhand reply. I remarked on the spread out geographic nature of the USA and its similarly sprawling Organic milk production and consumption, intertwined with the few-in-number concentration of dairy processors. In combination, these factors became inevitable economic pressure for concocting a distribution business model that would as much as possible free Organic milk from constraints common to this unique class of highly perishable foods.

Reassured that I knew something about what I was talking about, Mr. NB Power CEO soon loosened up and related his story. Not long before he had been headhunted in Toronto where he and his wife had become committed, gung-ho Organic whole-food aficionados. He had been successfully recruited to run NB Power. So, he moved wife, kids, whole kit and caboodle to a new home in the Canadian Maritimes.

His milk inquiry had been genuine. In the sophisticated and geographically-dense Toronto marketplace they had enjoyed the European-like availability of all things Organic, including raw and regular-pasteurized Organic milk. However, in sparsely-populated New Brunswick, Organic offerings were limited and his family could find nothing beyond semi-shelf-stable ultra-pasteurized Organic milk.

I related that in Maine for years there had been similar interest expressed for fresh Organic milk. Maine’s relatively compact size and good distribution of Organic milk production – at the time 20% of all dairy farmers in the State of Maine were Organic – made the fresh Organic milk alternative a promising possibility. In time, fledgling fresh Organic milk distribution attempts would be made in Maine. It seemed conceivable that given the right combination of entrepaneurial Organic dairy farmers in proximity to Provincial-capitol Fredericton, and its long established and thriving year-round Boyce Farmers Market, that there was no good reason why fresh Organic milk could not one day become a reality.

My CEO encounter at the business Summit once again provided a good reminder that you can’t tell a book by its cover.

Jim.




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NEW ‘WOOD PRAIRIE SEED PIECE’ NOW POSTED ONLINE! This Week’s Issue Features a Brand New ‘Maine Tales’ entitled “Putting

NEW ‘WOOD PRAIRIE SEED PIECE’ NOW POSTED ONLINE! This Week’s Issue Features a Brand New ‘Maine Tales’ entitled “Putting Heads Together,” about a Meeting of the Minds in Maine. Also, a Special Offer for FREE Organic Fertilizer, a Tasty New Recipe from Megan for “Roasted Beet Salad with Pea Sprouts” and a New Notable Quote from Solitude-Seeker Edward Abbey.
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Caleb, Megan & Jim Gerritsen, Wood Prairie Family Farm
Bridgewater, Maine www.woodprairie.organic




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GIVING A BOOST WITH ORGANIC INOCULANTS TO WARMED-UP SEED POTATOES. We’re big believers in the value of Greenspounting t


GIVING A BOOST WITH ORGANIC INOCULANTS TO WARMED-UP SEED POTATOES. We’re big believers in the value of Greenspounting the Certified Seed Potatoes we plant on Wood Prairie Family Farm.
So, all 25,000 pounds of Certified Seed we need for our own planting undergoes this beneficial – yet optional – seed pre-conditioning procedure.
After grading over the Seed tubers, we warm them up to 75ºF in our Hot Room for a week or so in order to break dormancy. Then, next step to is to cool the seed down to 50-55ºF and expose the warmed tubers to light. While inspecting the Seed a second time, we apply our own mixture of special Organic Biological Seed Inoculants to the sprouted tubers.
In this photo, using his right foot to engage the foot-pedal-control of the conveyer belt on the red ‘Haines’ hopper, Caleb controls the tuber flow.
If you look closely you can see two spray nozzles doing their job dispensing the inoculants as Seed tubers roll over and over on the ‘Roller Table.’ The goal is to wet 100% of the tuber surface with the inoculants solution.
At the end of the line, Justin fills Tulip Crates with spuds and stacks crates onto awaiting pallets for transfer into the Light Shed.
In Northern Maine we’re still emerging from Winter and some nights still hover near the freezing mark. This morning there are a few snowflakes in the air and soil temp has stalled at 44ºF. We like to plant Potatoes when the soil at 4” depth hits 50ºF, readings taken at 7am before temps get skewed by the sun. Caleb, Megan & Jim




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BRAND NEW ‘WOOD PRAIRIE SEED PIECE’ NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE! Experimenting with a Modified Mobile-Friendly Format, his Week

BRAND NEW ‘WOOD PRAIRIE SEED PIECE’ NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE! Experimenting with a Modified Mobile-Friendly Format, his Week’s Issue Highlights the Best Farm Stories & Photos From the Past Week. Plus a Special Offer for FREE Organic ‘O’Henry’ Sweet Potato Slips. Also, we share from the ‘Wood Prairie Archives’ a classic 1943 Publication, “Growing Potatoes in Missouri.” And More!
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Caleb, Megan & Jim Gerritsen, Wood Prairie Family Farm
Bridgewater, Maine www.woodprairie.organic




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HARROWING WOOD PRAIRIE POTATO GROUND FOR THE FIRST TIME. We began harrowing this week on the exact same date as we star


HARROWING WOOD PRAIRIE POTATO GROUND FOR THE FIRST TIME. We began harrowing this week on the exact same date as we started harrowing last Spring.
Here, looking over her shoulder is Caleb’s sister Amy, driving our 1967 92-horsepower Oliver 1850 Diesel tractor. Caleb and Justin completely rebuilt this electronic-free work horse American tractor eight or nine years ago and it’s still in prime condition.
This day was sunny but chilly and in the fifties. Amy is pulling a 19-foot-wide IH (International Harvester) 4500 Vibra Shank harrow which combs through the soil and kills developing weeds. This is one of the Home Farm fields where we’ll plant this year’s crop of Organic Maine Certified Seed Potatoes. www.woodprairie.organic
She is driving southward. Just this side of the thick Spruce trees ahead, ten days earlier, there remained the remnants of deep wind-deposited snow. Every year snow is slow to disappear because of that tree shade.
Thirty-two years ago we developed our Four-Year Crop Rotation. What this boils down to is that we last planted Organic Potatoes in this field FOUR years ago. In the intervening years these same Home Farm fields have been in soil-improving carbon-capturing sod.
Just home from college, last week Amy completed the second year of her five-year program at Husson University in Bangor. She is working towards earning a Masters Degree in Occupational Therapy. Again, she’ll be helping us plant this year’s crop of Organic Maine Certified Seed Potatoes. At age 20, she has never missed planting or harvest on our family farm. Caleb, Megan & Jim




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