Webmaster’s note: The format of this column includes all of the Quill’s Endians participating at various times and in various ways! Phil writes this month’s column.
The Mother of Invention
Some years ago, Heather and I were asked to teach a portion of a class for beginning farmers. A portion of our presentation included listing a few ideal skill sets for a small farmer. We had a little fun with this. The list was usually long and included diesel mechanics, carpentry, electrical knowledge, plumbing, heavy equipment operating, chainsaw proficiency, butchery, basic veterinary skills, welding, computer skills, etc…
Mind you, I didn’t even get to the “farming” part!
One could spend a lifetime learning any one of these trades well, let alone being able to demonstrate a passing level of proficiency in all of them. So most of us get by. We hire out what we can afford and either dispense with the need or find a workaround for the rest.
I’ve been meaning to take a welding class for decades. Somehow, the time to do it has eluded me. Thankfully, we have seldom needed welding skills as we have not owned much equipment.
This is all changing as Carolyn and Benjamin are amassing tillage, cultivating, forage, and woods equipment for their team of horses. A lot of this equipment has been hanging out on rock walls or in barns around the peninsula for decades and requires maintenance and repair.
For Christmas, I gifted the farm and family an arc welder and an acetylene torch, two important components of metal working. The arc welder came to us from a dear friend whose husband has passed and, until now, has sat in our shop awaiting a 240v outlet. A store is still holding on to ‘our’ acetylene torch, unaware of my plans to purchase it.
Necessity is a good motivator. Last week, after cracking the loader frame on the tractor again, Benjamin and I decided to try and fix the issue. The professional welder we hired a few months ago had declared our problem fixed, emphasizing, “You can’t break that.”
We snaked the required heavy duty wire through an underground chase to the barn and found the correct outlet for the machine, wired it, and blew no fuses in the process. Thankfully for us, Benjamin has taken a welding class. Two days post-repair, the farm weld is holding!
We hope this will continue.
Meanwhile, Benjamin is practicing on other projects. Our ’96 Tacoma is on the shortlist for repair. Exciting.
It is apparent that more trade skills will need practicing in the near future as needs arise here. I read somewhere,”Maine only has one plumber (fill in the blank for other tradespeople), and he is not answering his phone.”
On to fence-mending this week so the cows can be turned out of the barn for the season. Now, that is a skill in which I’m well practiced.
Heather and Phil Retberg and their three children run Quill’s End Farm, a 105-acre property in Penobscot that they bought in 2004. They use rotational grazing on their fifteen open acres and are renovating thirty more acres from woods to pasture to increase grazing for their pigs, grass-fed cattle, lambs, laying hens, and goats. Heather is Vice President of Halcyon Grange #345 and writes a newsletter for their farm’s buying club of farmers in her area and has generously permitted us to share some of their columns with Grangers. Visit the Quill’s End Farm Facebook Page for more information.