News

Afterschool Farm Hands Program to Begin at the End of January

An afterschool Farm Hands program will start Tuesday January 24th and run twice a week until March 8th (winter break week off) at Aldermere Farm on Russell Ave. in Rockport. This hands-on program is for students ages 11-18 who want to experience working directly with the calves to halter train them and also learn what it is like working on a farm. Students in this program learn skills while also helping the farm have well trained cattle.

The program will be from 3:30 pm - 4:30 pm twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays, for six weeks. Students enrolled in the program should commit to being at both the Tues. and Thurs. sessions. Space is limited to 8 students, so sign up now by calling 236-2739 or email spost@mcht.org.

No transportation is provided and no instructor will be on site until 3:30 pm. We will meet in front of the main farm barn at Aldermere Farm at 20 Russell Ave.

Farm Hands is Aldermere Farm’s flagship program and has been running three- to-four times a year for almost ten years now! Please call or email us if you have any questions.

Hiring for the 2012 Teen Ag Crew Soon!

Teen Agricultural (Ag) Crew

Do you know a teen looking for a meaningful paid summer job? This program is an entrepreneurial program with two purposes: to support teens ages 14-18 in developing job skills by providing meaningful paid summer employment, and to produce fresh food needed by the Maine food relief system and public schools.

The deadline for applications is March 3, with interviews set up following receipt of application materials.

By April teens begin their work as a team learning basic entrepreneurial skills through planning a garden, marketing, and growing food for distribution to the food relief system, schools, and other markets. The season starts with part-time (4 hours per week) work in the spring when teens plan and do market research, moves to full-time (32-40 hours weekly) in the summer as intensive growing commences, and again moves to part time in fall when school starts, wrapping up in late October. Teens grow, cultivate, prepare, and deliver crops to local food pantries, schools, and other market venues. During their employment teens learn the essentials of business planning, marketing, growing, harvesting, and delivering produce. All work takes place at the Erickson Fields Preserve on Rt. 90 in Rockport.

In addition to learning the nuts and bolts of sustainable agriculture as they work together to plant, harvest and maintain the gardens, teens are introduced to the world of work. They learn how to make a work plan, how to work independently and as a team, and practice their public speaking skills by giving small presentations or tours to the public. See this Bangor Daily News article about last year’s Teen Ag Crew:

2011 Teen Ag Crew in The Bangor Daily News!

For more information on how to apply, see the attached document below or contact the Maine Coast Heritage Trust Community Program Manager Heather Halsey at (207) 236-2739 ext. 14 or Hhalsey@mcht.org.

Teen Ag. Crew Recruitment Letter 2012.docx

2012 Teen Ag Crew recruitment letter -PDF file.pdf

Aldermere Achievers Shine

Anticipation, anxiety, excitement, then pride, may well best describe the series of emotions Maine Coast Heritage Trust’s Aldermere Achievers 4-H Club members experienced on November 15 during the National Belted Galloway Society’s National Youth Show. They also describe the feelings of staff and parents in attendance.

The National Belted Galloway Society’s National Youth Show was one of many competitions presented in Louisville, Kentucky at this year’s North American International Livestock Exposition (NAILE), the world’s largest all-breed, purebred livestock exposition. Attending and competing at the National Show had been a goal of the Aldermere Achievers 4-H club throughout the year. Through persistent fundraising initiatives, generous community involvement, and supportive families, the first part of the dream was realized early last week, as eight Aldermere Achievers 4-H Club Members and ten head of cattle arrived in the Blue Grass State. By mid-week, the group of young farmers had risen to the occasion to not only proudly represent MCHT Aldermere Farm Preserve, but to taken home numerous awards as well.

The day of the competition began early and required a lot of preparation. After breakfast, the crew headed over to the Expo site for feeding, shampooing, drying, clipping, accentuating positive traits, and hiding negative ones - all critical components to an award-winning presentation.

The competition, when it began, was divided into two categories: showmanship and breed classes. Through showmanship, the judge determined how well the young trainers had worked with their animal’s hair, how well they lead them, and how knowledgeable they were about their breed. Through the breed class evaluations, the competition involved judging animals of similar age followed by a Grand Champion among all the age group winners.

There are two key awards in the competition and Aldermere Achievers received both: Erin Rollins won for National Grand Champion Steer and Addie Bragg took home the National Grand Champion Heifer. Following them was Frances Pendleton. She won National Reserve Grand Champion with her heifer. In total, three of the top four awards were achieved by Aldermere Achievers!

Fellow Achievers Tyler Leighton, Sam Leighton, Ellie Pendleton, Lucy Heal and Alice Flint all finished strong by using the best showmanship skills of their life at this National Show. With hundreds of eyes on them, each Achiever prepared their animal and presented it to the judge with calmness and focus while exhibiting the greatest respect for their fellow competitors from around the United States.

If you want to see the work of Aldermere Farm firsthand and its award-winning cattle, join MCHT on December 3 for a “Beltie Holiday.” This annual event is part of the region’s Christmas by the Sea. It will feature opportunities to pet a calf, make a Beltie keepsake ornament, and learn more about year-round programs at Aldermere Farm and the nearby Erickson Fields Preserve. The event is free and runs from 9:00 am to noon. Please bring your own camera and the whole family.

Fall Harvest and More Planting at Erickson Fields

Farmers are often asked, “what do you do in the fall and winter?” but despite fewer crops producing in fall, it is a very busy time in the garden.

The Teen Ag grew 2,000 pounds of carrots, and most of the harvest has taken place since early October. These October harvests bring the total vegetables provided by this 1/3 acre garden to 8,000 pounds. Carrots harvested after the weather has cooled and even under snow cover are sweeter and more delicious than those harvested in the summertime due to accumulated sugars. It is the terpenoids in carrots that can cause immature carrots to taste soapy or bitter, and the mature carrots being harvested at Erickson Fields are large, sweet and delicious. Both Camden High School and local food pantries have been delighted to receive hundreds of pounds of fresh carrots at a time of year when fewer fresh vegetables are typically available. This week will also bring a harvest of purple top turnips, and rainbow swiss chard.

Fall is also the time to plant garlic. At Erickson Fields Preserve we have planted two beds of garlic. The largest bulbs will be harvested for seed garlic and replanted next fall. Garlic planted in October/November before the ground is frozen will grow all winter and be ready to dig by early June. This member of the allium family likes to be planted in soil with good drainage, and it likes to be mulched with straw for winter.
Last week volunteers helped plant hundreds of perennial bulbs in the large raised beds in front of the preserve. In the spring we can expect to see bright yellow Daffodils, a rainbow of Tulips, purple globe Alliums, and stately purple and pink Iris. These early spring flower bulbs will brighten the medicinal herbs already growing in those beds including Catnip, Comfrey, Anise, and Horseradish.

At Erickson Fields Preserve we have been busy removing all the plant material that is no longer productive and preparing the bare beds for spring by raking them flat and covering them with compost and straw. Keeping the soil covered through winter will help protect it from erosion, and will keep weed seeds from sprouting in early spring. When we are ready to plant early crops like Kale and Spinach, all we will need to do is rake the straw aside. Next year’s Teen Ag. Crew will be able to get an early start with these already prepared beds.

Teen Ag Crew article in the Bangor Daily News

By Heather Steeves, BDN Staff Posted Aug. 24, 2011, at 2:47 p.m. Last modified Aug. 24, 2011, at 4:58 p.m.

Heather Steeves | BDN ROCKPORT, Maine — It was a squash day. Every day this week likely will be a squash day for four teenagers working on a farm for the Maine Coast Heritage Trust.

The land trust nonprofit is in its second year of its Teen Agriculture program, which grows new farmers on the old, conserved farm land, according to the programs coordinator, Heather Halsey. The program pays the young people to grow food from seed to harvest. The nonprofit then delivers all of the food to Good Shepard Food Bank.

By 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the teens had cut 280 pounds of squash off their stems, brought them down a hill to a shed, weighed them and placed them in buckets at Erickson Fields Preserve on Route 90.

This is one of their cash crops. The revenue doesn’t totally support the program, which also needs help from grants and donors.

The program donates potatoes, peppers, radishes and about 10 other types of vegetables to the food bank, which distributes the fresh vegetables to pantries all over the state. But for squash, cucumbers, carrots and tomatoes, the food bank will pay the Teen Agriculture program. The more squash, the better.

“Those are huge!” said Halsey as one of her workers triumphantly lifted a massive summer squash over her head, as if she were bench pressing the vegetable. The squash was at least twice the size of the teen’s arm. “We last picked on Thursday,” Halsey said. The squash grew mammoth in the worker’s four-day respite from those rows.

All of the vegetables on the one-third-of-an-acre farm are grown organically. The land has always been farmed, Halsey said.

“It’s some of the best soil in Maine,” Halsey said, scooping a handful of crumbly, chocolate-brown sandy loam dirt.

The land trust bought the old 93-acre farm in 2008. Most of the farm is hayed to feed Belted Galloway cows at another conserved farm in Rockport, but one corner of it is dedicated to farming, and the four teenagers and Halsey are the ones responsible for it. The young people are there eight hours a day, four days a week all summer and then part-time through October. The teenagers are responsible for planning, planting, maintaining and picking the field.

“This is part of the educational aspect of what Maine Coast Heritage Trust is doing. We’re growing new farmers and we try to connect people with land. It’s good to start them early to learn about conservation. These teens are forming this into their identity,” Halsey said.

For the most part, Halsey leaves the three girls and one boy alone. She will spend a couple hours a day helping them make a work plan and then begin the day’s work, but after that, they’re on their own.

When she started leaving them to their own devices on that farm back in April, she would come back later in the day to find them waiting around for her direction. They don’t do that now.

“Things get done,” Halsey said. “They’ve become independent and know what to do. Now they find what to do and do it. They used to wait and not engage in problem solving. This has changed a lot for them.”

For a couple of the teens, this is their first summer job. To be accepted into the program, which pays $7.50 an hour, they must make a resume and go through an interview process.

This was a first for Alexandra Dobbins, 14, of Camden. Sure, she once ran her own pet-sitting business, but that’s about it.

By 7:58 a.m. on Tuesday, Dobbins had helped pack potatoes, yellow wax beans, cucumbers and other veggies into her mom’s SUV and got in. Her mom, Teresa, then drove her to Camden Area Christan Food Pantry. This is the best part of the job, Dobbins said.

“Everyone who gets the food thanks us. Plus the food is a much healthier option for people,” she said. “And instead of getting a can, you get something we really worked hard for. It means more.”

When Dobbins and her mother get to the parking lot, they haul 139 pounds of vegetables to a sorting table. Volunteers quickly separate the food and bring it to the main room, where others help pack bags of food for the hungry.

“Green beans or yellow?” a volunteer shouts to a food bank client.

“Green,” a man shouts back.

Food bank worker Barbara Kurz of Camden said she sees 60 people on Tuesdays and they love the fresh food.

“It’s a special treat. You don’t get that all winter. It’s very special,” Kurz said.

Dobbins said she didn’t realize the need in her hometown was so great until she started this program.

The other teens in the program all say that donating the food is the best part of their work.

“It makes all the work worth it,” said 15-year-old Emily English of Monroe as she stood in the field, belly-button deep in squash plants.

“This is impossible to walk through,” she said to her work partner Autumn Dinsmore, 16, of Warren.

The girls typically pick vegetables on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays at this time of year. On Thursdays and Fridays, and any rainy days, the teenagers will read articles on organic farming, research different farm projects, prune plants and do odd jobs.

Dinsmore prefers to be outside. It’s why she likes the job.

“A lot of my friends applied for jobs this summer, but didn’t find work. The others are waitressing or work in the ice cream shacks,” she said. “This is more fun than an ice cream shack. It’s hard work. But it’s worth it.”

Volunteer Benefits

When you are a volunteer, there are usually perks to the “job.” At Aldermere Farm, the benefits are far and wide: from the ability to help name a calf, to discounts on retail items, to an invitation to attend the Member Appreciation Night which is a fun night of activities including a preview to the annual Aldermere Art Show and Sale in August. You will truly be a part of the farm and the wonderful family of staff and other dedicated volunteers. Aldermere Farm is gearing up for the summer and they need a variety of volunteers such as Visitor Center volunteers, to carpenters, gardeners, docents, event assistants, and grounds care helpers.

If you are interested in volunteering with Aldermere Farm, please contact the Program Assistant, Amy Dorsky, for a volunteer registration form or click on the link below. Send the complete form back to the farm so that you and the staff can then determine the best volunteer position for you.

The Aldermere Farm office is open Monday through Friday 8:00 am until 3:30pm and is located at 70 Russell Avenue in Rockport. FMI: call 236-2739 or email adorsky@mcht.org. Visit www.aldermere.org to learn more about this historic farm. Volunteer Registration Forms 2011.pdf

Aldermere Awarded 'Breeder of the Year'

2010 National Breeder of the Year Award-

Each year the United States Belted Galloway Society issues a variety of awards based on the results from “Beltie” shows at fairs and exhibitions around the country. In 2009, Aldermere Riga was named the National “Dam of the Year” based on the results her offspring achieved in the shows. In 2010, Aldermere Farm was recognized as the National “Breeder of the Year” based on the success that animals achieved that were born from Aldermere cows or bulls.

Teen Ag Crew = Four Amazing Teens

“Amazing” is the word that keeps coming to mind when we think about all that the Teen Ag Crew accomplished at the Erickson Fields Preserve this past year. In its inaugural year, the Teen AG Crew consisted of four teenagers - Cailand Sweeting, Adrian Jaques, Megan Wyllie, and Julienna Brooks - from three different local high schools. The “TAg Crew” worked part-time in the spring and fall and full-time during the summer, growing food and donating it to three local food banks. The Teen Ag Crew concept came out of the observed need for teens to have an opportunity to work in good agricultural jobs, for them to experience the values of contributing to their community, and also for Aldermere to capture an age group of students who are ready for experiences beyond the farm’s typical farmhands program. “Our 4-H program at Aldermere has a number of older teens, but most of them became involved at around 11 or 12 years of age and have stayed in the program. We wanted to really do something different at Erickson and offer something more than just a task-based farm job,” said Program Manager Sarah Post. These teens were given the opportunity to work under the social entrepreneurial model, build valuable skills, work outdoors on the land, and contribute to a great cause.
By the fall, the teens had grown and donated over 5,000 pounds of fresh vegetables to local food banks and the Good Shepherd Food Bank. Nancy Perry, Food Resource Director at the Good Shepherd Food Bank, has been excited about the program from its inception and once she heard about the harvest she told us, “The 5,000 lbs of donated food gives us 3,846 meals! So amazing! We so appreciate all you have done for us and the people of Maine. You all have made a huge difference in Maine this summer!” A big thank you goes out to all those involved in this program from the donors to the food bank workers. We’ve received feedback from the food pantry clients who have stopped us on deliveries and said things like, “Those carrots are so great, thank you.” By working together, we’ve made a difference to our neighbors in need and our Teen Ag Crew saw their hard work pay off in very rewarding way.

Dwight Howard Honored For 45 Years

Years ago, friends were asking Dwight Howard what future he thought he would have going to work for a man the age of Albert Chatfield. Forty-five years later Dwight is being recognized not just for his longevity at Aldermere but for the bond and connection he and Mr. Chatfield had over those first 35 years and how, together, they made Aldermere and its renowned Belted Galloways world famous. This summer a large group of friends, family, fellow Beltie breeders and Maine Coast Heritage Trust staff honored Dwight and his wife Nancy with a surprise gathering to recognize his outstanding work and tenure with the Farm. Heartfelt stories were shared by those in attendance and from many others who sent along their regrets but wanted to share their memories and good wishes. Dwight still lends a hand around the farm on a weekly basis during the summer, and as one guest shared, “Dwight, for 46 years from 1953 to 1999 Mr. Chatfield was the primary face of Belted Galloways at Aldermere Farm. In another year you will surpass even him!”

Conservation Photojournalism

During the week of September 20th, Maine Coast Heritage Trust collaborated with Maine Media Workshops in Rockport for a Conservation Photojournalism workshop. Two of the students, Al Martin and Diane Arjoon, were assigned to the MCHT properties- Aldermere Farm and the Erickson Fields Preserve, while other students worked with The Nature Conservancy and Coastal Mountains Land Trust. Al and Diane worked closely with Program Manager, Sarah Post, to understand all that goes on at Aldermere and Erickson and then through the photography, the story of these two properties unfolded. “Both students did an amazing job in both getting to know us and the properties and it shows through their photos,” said Sarah. “I appreciate the work that they put into getting the shots they did because working with kids, cows, endless fields of grass, and forest are not easy working environments.” Keep an eye out for photos from Al and Diane on our website and in future newsletter publications.

The Conservation Photojournalism workshop was taught by Bridget Besaw and Melissa Ryan. Photo above was taken at the Ericskon Fields Preserve by Diane Arjoon