Project Homestead

common ground or bust

I'm going to bed early tonight to rest up for the annual pilgrimage to Mecca: MOFGA celebrates its 32nd Common Ground Country Fair, beginning tomorrow through Sunday (Sept. 19, 20 and 21) in a town called Unity. The first time we ventured through the rolling hills near Waterville, to this folksy festival of organic farming, back-to-the-land know-how, local food, heirloom breeds, handcrafts and sustainable living, a friend warned us that the food inside was like no other fair food we'd tried.

The seriously good split pea soup and cheesecake and blooming onions aren't just organic. They must be made from at least half Maine-grown ingredients (by weight). That means that everything is fresh, local, and delish. It also means you can't find a cup of coffee inside the fairgrounds to save your life. (Luckily, a shunned organic java stand is parked near the parking fields.)

I drink my espresso en route and head straight to the Kids Area, where Owen and Caleb still talk about the "wall of sound" and the Vegetable Parade. We often run into friends there, too; this is a state full of small towns, and we live and send our kids to a Waldorf school in one of them. Next come visits to wool spinning, timber framing, green building and sheep-herding. Then gyros. And ice cream. Then chickens. And honey.

For burgeoning back-to-the-landers like us, there are few events we anticipate more ... except for maybe Fedco's Annual Tree Sale each spring. Or receiving the Fedco catalog in the mail each fall, for that matter. Connecting with other folks with dirt under their fingernails, who are familiar with the challenges and rewards of growing things in our short season, through cold winters, because we want to, is Common Ground. You feel like part of something growing and good and very much alive. And a bit drunk on patchouli.

buffs: beware.

One day this spring, a friend and seasoned chicken owner mentioned that our wooded property would be heaven for chickens. "They're really foragers, like pheasants," he told us. We could raise something (other than white pine) on this mountaintop, after all.

On his advice, we bought four Buff Orphingtons and four Rhode Island Reds. These blond beauties (that's "little buff" with Owen) are winter hardy up in these parts because of their downy parkas of fluffy feathers. They're also billed as being winningly docile and calm, so they're great with kids. A cuddly chicken? Perhaps.

After we'd picked up the chicks from the farm store and incubated them under a heat lamp in our basement for weeks, our friend stopped by and observed something else: The four-acre pond we overlook attracts every wild hunter—from bald eagles and osprey to foxes and badgers—that has ever migrated through Maine. On second thought, maybe letting tasty chickens roam free here wasn't such a good idea, after all. Foraging in the woodlands, it seemed, was out.

I'd describe our two fair-feathered chicks as skittish. I can't really blame them, since two of the four got carried off in broad daylight and silence while we worked in the garden nearby a month or so back. (As we searched for feathery evidence, Owen comforted me by saying, "foxes have got to eat, too, mama.") My theory: These blondes are easy to pick out and pick off by predators soaring above or prowling on foot. Meantime, our four lovely auburn Rhode Island Reds practically disappear in the pine straw forest floor all around them. Naturally, they are all roosting happily in their coop right now.

After more than a year of peaceful poultry ownership and a constant surplus of fresh eggs, our friend's family has lost six of their 12 chickens while vacationing this summer. (It seems that foxes who find an easy meal keep coming back for more.) And nearly all of the chickens they've lost to the wild were beautiful, blond Buffs.