The point of going through Buckfield was to go to a talk about growing raspberries, blueberries, grapes, and other small fruit at Hedgehog Hill Farm in Sumner, the next town north. Arlene had checked out their web site (and directions to get there!) It turns out to be a small but influential organic farm, run by a Mark Silber, 75-year old guy who also is a professional photographer and anthropology professor.
We walked past some rows of flowers growing —
…and sat down on rough-hewn benches in the shade of the grape arbor — that’s the sort of rectangular bunch of foliage on a line to the right of Arlene’s hat brim — with maybe three other couples and Mr. Silber. He told us a lot about soil requirements for raspberries and blueberries (well-drained, acid soil suits both of them), pruning raspberries (the second-year canes produce berries, and third-year canes should be cut back) and grapes (start with three stems, cut back one the second year and one the third year to leave just one), and how he has tried to keep birds, raccoons, and deer from consuming his crop.
We’re optimistic about our grapes after that, and I’ll tell you about the raspberries shortly.
That was about a 100 mile round trip, between going to Narramissic and Sumner. We went through Norway, home of The Irish Ewe LYS, but (a) they’re not open Sundays and (b) I hadn’t realized at the time that we went right past them. It’s sort of a lot of miles unless you remember that it’s a very pretty drive in the country. Except for the stretch between Norway and South Paris going, and South Paris to Oxford coming home.