Patrons of Husbandry – a website dedicated to the Granges located in Maine
Due to a scheduling conflict, the April Spring Challenge Meeting will be held on April 9, 2022, at Enterprise Grange from 9 am until 2 pm. This is an “in-person” meeting! For more information, contact one of the Junior Directors.
By Heather Retberg, Quills End Farm
The light is strengthening and lengthening. The first smell of change wafted across the farm this week as winter begins to yield to spring. Mud replaces ice. The search for spring shoots has begun, the bare branches brought into the house to “force” spring where we can see the buds swelling with leaf and blossom long before they show up outdoors.
And…the sap is rising.
Phil found a spare hour on Monday to tap the trees and the first harvest of 2022–and a new daily chore–has begun. Each afternoon before evening milking now, Phil and Carolyn or visiting friends check the taps, empty the sap pails into 5-gallon buckets, bring the 5-gallon buckets to the wood stove in the house, pour the sap, ice and all, into the pan, keep the stove hot, and boil that sap down.
There’s a certain sound it makes when the whole pan reaches a simmer, a sizzzzzle loud enough it is its own voice in our conversations–the company of maple syrup. The sap that has dripped out of the buckets coats the stones on the hearth with a sugary shellac and we stick a little to the floor passing by the stove. It’s syrup time. The house smells and feels like a maple sauna, that time of year when we keep it cranking more for the syrup than the humans.
The wildlife returned to the fields this week, too. So long as the cows are away, the deer and turkeys will play. The non-domestic Quill’s Endians are first growth opportunists. The fox looks sound and healthy, the deer have emerged from the woods looking plump and well, the turkeys are still great in number. The winter was not too harsh for them. We hope the ticks and parasites have fared worse.
In the cow barn, Chirp’s little feller has gotten vibrant and spritely and has caught onto drinking milk from a nipple bucket. Good and clever for a 2 week old. Chirp is re-accustomed to the milking parlor and has taken it all well in stride. The next-gen Bonnie calf (sometimes called ‘Cube’ as she is our 3rd Bonnie) got weaned this week and filled the barn with wailsome protest. All else is well and spring fever has not set into cow realms in earnest…yet.
All told, we’re emerging from winter fairly well. Mud and mess and boiling maple sap, green shoots, and starlings in the birches, and, oh!, the smell of spring triumphing once again over the still sterility of winter!
May your week be filled with hopeful observations and peace-instilling reminders of constancy and life.
Heather and Phil Retberg together with 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 given us permission to share some of her columns with Grangers. Visit the Quill’s End Farm Facebook Page for more information.
It was recently announced Lowe’s is looking for nominations for this year’s “Lowe’s Hometowns Grants Program”. 100 projects across the nation will be selected to receive funding. Projects must benefit the community as a whole and not just a single group. Projects must be able to be completed on or before November 15, 2022 and be located within a reasonable distance of a Lowe’s store. Full rules can be found at https://lowes-hometowns.com/en-us/Rules.
Individuals can nominate up to two projects through the Lowe’s Hometowns Grant Program online portal.
The nomination period runs from March 1st, 2022 – March 28, 2022 at 11:59:59 PM ET.
Projects must fall into at least one of the following categories:
Note that recipients must be capable of being sponsored by a nonprofit entity recognized under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code (“Nonprofit”) or a government entity.
Saturday, March 26, 2022 – 11: 30-until gone
Public Ham Dinner, take home only, NO dine in. Menu includes ham with raisin sauce, mashed potato, green beans, coleslaw, homemade biscuits, 4 choices of homemade pies.
Kennebec Valley Grange #128
560 Main Street Madison, ME
$10.00 per meal
FMI- call Diane Pinkham 314-5135
Grange Month Resources are now available on the National Grange Website! In addition to the traditional sample press release, proclamation, etc. there are a number of graphics including customizable posters! These are all free for downloading and use.
Don’t forget to submit your events and news to the Maine State Grange Website!
Submitted by Sharon Morton, MSG Secretary
It becomes my sad duty to inform you of the death of Dorothy H. Shores, on March 4, 2022. The mother of Susanne Verrill, Dorothy was a former Flora of the Maine State Grange and Ceres of the National Grange.
Condolences may be sent to Susanne Verrill and her family at 270 Bailey Hill Road, Poland ME 04274. Memorial donations may be made to the Maine Alzheimer’s Association, 383 US Route One #2C, Scarborough, ME 04074 in Dot’s memory.
Okay, so these are a little different than the ones released by National Grange. As mentioned in her March President’s Perspective, Master/President Sherry has completed an inventory of items currently being stored at MSG Headquarters: seals, charters, and records of Granges that no longer exist. As some will recall, these are available to interested local historical societies. The list is sorted by the original Grange Name and is four pages long! A copy is also being mailed to Subordinate/Community Grange secretaries.
Check the list to see if there are items that might be of interest to historical societies in your area! These items certainly deserve a good home. There is a Historical Society Agreement Form that should accompany any items provided. Both the list and the form will remain available in the Historical Resources Page of the Program Books and Information Page.
“A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.”
Mahatma Gandhi
February 2022 was officially recognized as 211 Month by the Maine Legislature, with the resolution passing in the Senate and House with bipartisan support. Finding help for complex needs like shelter, substance use, mental health, or food access can be hard for many Mainers. Fortunately, there is a Maine-based resource that can help.
In addition to helping Mainers connect to the spectrum of health and human services, 211 continues its involvement in specific initiatives, including Maine’s Opiate Helpline to provide confidential referrals to treatment options, fielding questions about prevention, treatment, and mitigation of browntail moth caterpillars and moths, answering the Maine Problem Gambling Helpline, and co-hosting the first Maine Virtual-
Veterans Experience Action Center (V-VEAC) with Veterans Affairs, Bureau of Veterans’ Services, and other partners.
Specialists are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week by texting a Maine zip code to 898-211 or by dialing 211. 211 Maine is a collaborative effort of the United Ways of Maine, the State of Maine, and The Opportunity Alliance as the Contact Center Partner.
Webmaster’s Note: Good information to include in your Family Health and Hearing Report?