Rural Routes & Ventures Blog

Another deep pleasure of winter comes when I give myself permission to open the seed catalogues and begin to plan for this year’s garden. I don’t make my New Year’s resolutions on December 31. I set my year’s intentions while taking inventory of last year’s leftover seeds and greedily browsing Johnny’s Selected Seeds and Fedco.

As I consider which seeds to buy, I plan my garden. It will, I resolve, be the best yet.  This will be the year that my crop of melons grows large and sweet, and the sweet potatoes fat and plentiful. This year, my careful timing will make the hoop house work to produce greens all winter long. In 2012, I’ll keep excellent records; I’ll test the soil in all the different parts of the garden; I’ll get scientific about compost. I’ll produce a winter’s worth of squash, and I won’t let any of it freeze or rot. There will be a bumper crop of cauliflower, free of green worms and fungus.

I love to thumb through the pages and dream of my perfect garden. It’s a time of such hope and eagerness – long before the battle with the quack grass and the hornworms commences; months before the spores of late blight settle upon the tomatoes; a long season away from the inevitable failures and disappointments. Right now, I contemplate only the certain triumph: the juicy, sustaining and delicious bounty that will feed my family and friends all year long.

Just lifting my head after a long bout with a grant proposal, and I look around to find that winter has finally arrived. The Maine winter for me brings great outdoor pleasures, especially downhill skiing.

I spent the long weekend in Rangeley, skiing at Saddleback with my 13-year-old son. There’s a special pleasure in spending time with Jesse right now; who knows how much longer he’ll be willing to hang out with his Mom? As it is, I’ve had to work hard on my skiing skills - and my courage - just to keep up with him. It’s worth it beating my body against the mountain for three days to watch my boy zooming with such confidence and glee ahead of me.

Saddleback for me is one of many special places in Maine. To begin with, of course, Rangeley Lake and the whole mountainous region are spectacular in any season. Looking out over the lakes from anywhere on the mountain offers a broad sweep of land- and skyscape that puts our puniness in perspective. But as a human endeavor, Saddleback is also special – family-owned and unpretentious, the mountain offers every kind of terrain, from the easy, view-studded curves of Hudson Highway, to the terrifying, adrenaline-pumping headwall of Tight Line, to the challenge and beauty of skiing in the tree-studded glades. Saddleback’s owners are conscious of their footprint on the land, and are doing what they can to be green (the warming yurt they added at the base of the Kennebago Steeps a few years ago has composting toilets).

It’s been a tough winter for snow-lovers so far, but flakes were falling this morning and there will be more in the mountains this week. Enough, I hope, to blanket not only the mountain resorts, but also our home hill, the Camden Snow Bowl, just 25 minutes away and offering its own incomparable vista of the Camden Hills and the long, island-punctuated stretch of Penobscot Bay. Some may be longing for the end of winter; I’m hoping for just a little more.

These are dark days for many. These days the work of CEI and others trying to create jobs, provide housing and health care and save homes, can feel like pushing water uphill. With Congress focused on drastic budget cuts, the Supercommittee stalled, and foreclosure maintaining a steady creep across the housing landscape, it was hard to feel hope this Thanksgiving. It's tempting in the face of these challenges to just crawl into a comfortable hole and wait it out. So I'm moved and inspired by those who are refusing to hibernate through this economic winter. Here are some examples:

•      The Occupy Wall Street movement, and Occupy Maine. I admire those hardy souls who are camped out in the cold to broadcast their message about economic and political inequities that have brought this country to an unsustainable place. I'm heartened when I see the encampment in Portland - glad to know that activism is alive here, and in Augusta and Bangor. I'm hopeful that the energy generated from this movement can spread and grow in strength until all of us - workers and farmers, politicians and bankers - are moved to work for a change.
  
  
•      Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz and his brainchild, Create Jobs for USA (http://www.createjobsforusa.org/). This initiative, a partnership with the Opportunity Finance Network (OFN) provides a way for ordinary people to be part of our economic recovery. "Create Jobs for USA pools donations from Starbuck customers, partners (employees) and concerned citizens into a nationwide fund, held and managed by OFN, for community business lending. Donors who contribute $5 or more will receive a red, white, and blue wristband with the message 'Indivisible.' The wristbands are individually handmade in the U.S.A. and all component materials are manufactured by U.S. suppliers, so the effort is also helping support American manufacturing jobs."
       Starbucks seeded the project with a $5 million contribution along with the pooled donations, is being channeled to community development lenders like CEI that invest directly in credit-strapped job-creating businesses. One hundred percent of these funds go directly into loans. I'm wearing my wristband with pride.
  
  
•      The foreclosure prevention counselors here at CEI, who worked with Bank of America to organize customer outreach days this Friday and Saturday (December 2 and 3) in Portland and Bangor, where borrowers facing financial difficulty can get direct, one-to-one assistance (click here for details).
       The counselors at CEI and other counseling agencies are overwhelmed daily with a never-ending stream of Mainers in crisis, but they took the time and the initiative to urge Bank of America to come to Maine to resolve homeowners' financial issues in person. We expect as many as 500 participants. For many, this may be their best chance for an affordable loan modification or another solution to their crisis.

For the past couple of weeks, a lyric from Bob Franke's "Thanksgiving Eve" rang in my head: What can you do with your days but work & hope/Let your dreams bind your work to your play. If we can all just keep working and hoping--together--we will get through these dark days. Together, individuals, not-for-profits and mission-minded corporations can put people back to work and help to save their homes. Maybe we can even be part of a movement to create more sustainable economic systems and close the gap between the 1% and the 99%.

Monday morning at 7 I’m out doing my farm chores – milking the goat, feeding the chickens, ducks and turkeys, in barn boots and pajama pants. On Tuesday I’m in a basement room, cleaned up and in business attire at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C., with about 40 other people interested in promoting access to healthy foods for low-income people. We’re talking about financing strategies, the best ways to understand where the need is greatest, the need for supermarkets in some areas and farmers’ markets in others.

Traveling to D.C. makes me feel disconnected. I spent the weekend preserving the last of my fall vegetables – making sauerkraut and kim chee and stowing beets in the cellar – and making goat cheese and sourdough bread. Now I’m in a windowless room shuffling papers and a PowerPoint presentation, having arrived, as Wendell Berry puts it, “By a sustained explosion through the air/Burning the world in fact to rise much higher/Than we should go.” [*]

But the discussion is rich, and really, the connection is clear. CEI is part of a growing movement that views the links between the food we eat, where it is produced and by whom, and human and economic health, as inextricable. We’re lucky that, in this time of shrinking resources, the federal government has set aside some resources to strengthen these connections. I’m lucky to live in Maine, where many people are connected to their food. My friends and neighbors grow vegetables, meat, milk and eggs, or purchase them from farm stands and local Community Supported Agriculture programs. We can and preserve and pickle.

Not everyone is so fortunate, though – certainly in more urban states and in big cities, but even in Maine. According to the US Department of Agriculture, Maine ranks 9th in the nation in “food insecurity” – a measure of how certain residents are of their ability to afford their next meal. We have the highest per-capita use of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (better-known as food stamps) in the country.  Not everyone has the land, skills or time to plant their own food, and folks with little disposable income may not be able to afford a CSA share or fresh local vegetables from a farmer’s market. The sad truth is that, calorie for calorie, sugar-laden processed food and fast-food French fries are much cheaper than the healthier stuff.

CEI is part of a larger effort to redress the food balance. With a recent award from the Treasury Department’s Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund, CEI will be able to invest in small and medium-sized healthy food retail businesses, including groceries, general stores, farmers markets, CSAs and other farm retail businesses. A smaller portion of the award can be used to finance non-retail food businesses that help to connect farms with retail and institutional markets, or help to make healthy, local food affordable to people with low incomes.

Financing, of course, is only a small part of the picture. We need education for consumers and federal and state policies that provide incentives for healthy eating and local production of fresh, healthy foods. Congresswoman Chellie Pingree has proposed some of these policies in a recent bill, and CEI will be working to support them. We’re committed to staying in this conversation and in this space. For me, it’s even worth leaving the farm once in awhile to be a small part of this movement.

 

 

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It's an irony of community development that places with the leanest economy can produce the greatest innovation--extreme need equals immense boldness and creativity. An August trip through Washington County, Maine confirmed this principal. Along Rt. 1 in East Machias we noticed balloons, festivities and a newly renovated industrial building with a wind turbine and solar PV panels. We'd stumbled upon a celebration for the Downeast Salmon Federation's new home. Inside this "green" building alongside the East Machias River, endangered Atlantic salmon were being reared for return to these waters, their nascent home. High schoolers from Washington County Academy, just up the hill, were here too. The biology of salmon restoration is now part of their curriculum.

The hatchery also happens to border the Washington County Rail Trail and on this Friday afternoon in high summer, it, too, was humming. Cyclists sped past or pulled into an adjacent and busy convenience store/gas station. Also converging on the trail were ATV enthusiasts carrying tents and coolers, heading off for a weekend's exploration. In this scant acre was renewable energy, fish rearing, habitat restoration, commerce, recreation and ecotourism, one atop another. Who could have expected such a buzz of thinking and doing at a rural crossroads?  

    

When I was last in Millinocket, Maine, it was in the company of two would-be outdoorsmen. There, at the gateway to the Golden Road and Baxter State Park, they stocked up on Swisher Sweets cigars and other North Woods staples before the fruits of civilization got thin. Maine towns on the edge of unbroken forest feel alike to me, there's a frontier quality whether you're in Rangeley,Greenville or Millinocket. You have the comfort of being "in town" mixed with the anticipation of wildlands and adventures they hold. In Millinocket, someone is always moving between these two worlds. The hiker coming off the Appalachian Trail (having started in Georgia in February) heads with quiet elation to the A.T. Lodge to SHOWER!, inhale some real food and crash. 

The town itself is in transition between worlds. The mills in Millinocket and East Millinocket are quiet while negotiations are underway, yet again, to find new owners and the return of pulp and paper jobs. Others look for economic opportunity is different directions, banking on sportsmen, tourists, thru-hikers and a Maine Woods National Park to bring a new day to Millinocket. It is hard to know what shape the economic future will take here and impossible not to respect those who stay and improvise--despite the uncertainty--out of love for the place.       

   

On the opening page of our website you'll find the heading CEI in the News and beneath it the newspaper story "Hand in Hand Apartments open doors in Milbridge." Coastal Enterprises, Inc. was more than pleased to provide financing to the non profit Mano en Mano for new affordable housing serving farm and fisheries workers in Washington County. The project took longer than expected to be realized. When first announced, it was embraced by some and disparaged by others who claimed it was a subsidy for Hispanics who competed with "native" Mainers for jobs and housing. Community conflict ensured. In time, it was resolved and now Hand in Hand Apartments is renting up with new and native Mainers whose common bond is the work they do and their need for a decent place to live. 

Below is an excerpt from a talk by Ian Jaffe, director of Mano en Mano, to high school students. For me, it is an oblique reference to the effort involved in building Hand in Hand Apartments as well as a statement of what it takes to accomplish nearly anything of value.

To become successful leaders, hay que bregar, you have to struggle. You have to understand regulations and follow them (to a point), you have to study things you don't want to study, and you have to form relationships with people you can't stand. When it comes time to change the world, we have to decide when to fight and when to conform--understanding that conformity can be an act of subversion. 

       

It is fortuitous for Skowhegan, Maine that its Abenaki name literally means "a place to watch." Sitting astride the Kennebec River and with an immense power dam, Skowhegan was clearly a 19th and early 20th century industrial powerhouse. The decades since have been less kind to the town, though it is still blessed with the nearby SAPPI paper mill and New Balance's athletic shoe plant. There for the Maine Downtown Center's annual conference last week, I took the opportunity to get to know Skowhegan a bit. The conference breaks were catered by The Bankery, a newish bakery located in a historic bank building whose breads and pastries are good enough to be stored in safe deposit boxes. Needing a new watch band, I found my way to Russoff Jewelers, in business here since 1907, and offering the kind of friendly, down-to-earth service that customers so appreciate. At the conference lunch, our setting was the brick Masonic hall where we dined at long cloth-covered tables reminiscent of a church supper. But the food served was much more refined and catered by The Maine Meal, a start-up, chef-owned venture doing catering and selling a line of frozen meals with locally sourced ingredients. Maybe some of those tasty vegetables and meats come from Grassland Farm, who sell at Skowhegan's growing farmer's market. And, maybe soon the flour for breads and rolls will be sourced from the Somerset Grist Mill, on the verge of reviving local grain production and milling in central Maine. There is lots happening in this place that can't be observed from a car following the famous "S" traffic pattern in the downtown. Skowhegan really is a place to watch.      

    

Escaping the drizzly gloom of another spring evening in Maine, I spent last night in a packed library room in Belfast. We'd all assembled to hear recollections of four veteran (female) workers who'd spent their days in the city's sardine and poultry plants. The talk was just what you'd expect--sharp, plain and direct with plenty of humor and not much irony. Some in the crowd were the workers' contemporaries, there to bask for a short while in the different world and community that the stories depicted. Otherwise, the audience was from away with professional backgrounds and hungering for tales of work that made you sweat.  There was a time when Belfast claimed two poultry processors, a shoe shop (factory), a frozen foods plant and a sardine factory. This concentration of industry meant, according to the panel of women, "that you could always get a job...pick up something, even if it was seasonal or part time." Of this cluster, only the frozen food packer remains. There are "other" jobs to be had in Belfast, entailing back office work for health care and financial services companies. But the speakers before us regarded this work as distant and unfamiliar as language translation in Central Asia. Could you do it if you were just an ordinary person who needed work? Did it require special education? What did it produce, exactly? So many of us have been acculturated to service work. But to these folks, work meant tasks a regular person could do that produced something real and tangible. The evening pointed up how much we've lost in the decline of production work, for the manufacturing economy created a job safety net far broader than what we survive on today.      

You know these journals as well as I, the liberally distributed free newspapers stacked just inside the doorway at markets, restaurants and shops. In the age of internet journalism, they seem as resilient as ever, though many also have an electronic presence. If your business, like CEI's, is community development, then these papers make for a tremendous resource--a way to learn what's happening in your place expressed with more color and character than the traditional press can muster. Here are a few of my favorite rags from coastal Maine and a little about why I like them.

Because I live in small town Maine, I particularly prize Portland's the bollard (thebollard.com) for its urban attitude and whiff of debauchery. Journalism in Maine is polite, the bollard is less polite. There's always something simmering here. Favorites are: "That's My Dump",  profiling abandoned city property and "One Maniac's Meat",  reminiscences from Matinicus and Eastport that make E.B. White's essays sound like Mr. Roger's Neighborhood. 

Island Institute publishes The Working Waterfront (workingwaterfront.com) a bright and balanced monthly compilation of news, reviews, ruminations, recipes and columns for natives, summer people and year-round summer people. The writing's intelligent, the mix is good and you always learn something--it's kind of like The New York Times on summer vacation.  

Fishermen's Voice (fishermensvoice.com) is just that, marine journalism from the harvester's perspective and often in his/her voice. Reports (depressing) from fisheries management meetings, some natural and human history, interesting profiles of clammers and boatbuilders and the occasional obituary/rememberance fill its pages. Not to be missed are the Classifieds: a parade of lobster boats, tuna towers and shrimp gear that will have you checking your bank account. And the Fishermen's Voice isn't muted, even in the Classifieds. Here's a listing under Services: Captain For Hire. Previously captain on scallopers. Government put me out of business.

Last but not least, The Free Press (freepressonline.com). With its increasingly progressive voice--read its feature on homeless teens--this fat freebie from Rockland is heir to the dear, departed Maine Times. It does for the midcoast what Maine Times did for the state--knits it together, and makes you realize that for all Maine's troubles, there's an awful lot of good happening here.

You can see these papers online, but they're made to be picked up while scoring a gallon of milk or a six pack. Read them from front to back with the scent of paper and ink in the air and some smudge on your fingers. When you're done, the freebies work great for firing up the wood stove.