Haflinger Horses, Fjord Ponies, and Organic Farms

Bill's Haflinger
8" X 10" woodcut

2009

Wew! Finally back to wood carving, print making, and blogging. I really got blogged out there for a while. Couldn't write or read a one. I think all my face-to-face time at the farmer's market filled up my quota for personal interactions.

Anyways, this handsome horse is Gus, one of a team of Haflingers from Darthia Farm in Gouldsboro, Maine. Bill and Cynthia Thayer own and run this organic farm, and they do a slew of other creative things as well--theater, music, fiber arts, fiction. Cynthia writes novels (Strong for Potatoes, A Certain Slant of Light, and A Brief Lunacy) in her spare time. I'm taking a fiction-writing workshop from her every Saturday this June.

I also had a drawing on the cover of this summer's Brooksville Breeze, our town newsletter. It shows David's Folly, another organic farm, this one right here in my town.

I've started a pencil sketch of the Norwegian Fjord ponies at Darthia Farm and I'm eager to start inking them in.

First Farmers' Market of the Season

The Brooksville Farmers’ Market opened with a flourish this morning. I think there were more vendors that customers there, but we all had fun admiring, sampling, bartering, and buying each other’s wares.

This little cutie, Dennis, a bottle-fed lamb, did double-duty attracting folks to Deborah’s Bagaduce Farm stand for a taste of her sizzling pork sausages and to my PenPets stand next door for a selection of my fresh farm animal greeting cards. Everyone had to pet him. And everywhere that Deborah went, her lamb was sure to go. Wew! He was one worn out little fellow by the end!

I came home with a pound of Deb's pork sausage, a bit of goat cheese from Sunset Acres, a set of cucumber seedlings from Fairview Farm, and my favorite Royal Bee face cream, and I still came out ahead.

Soon the Windjammers will start dropping anchor in Buck's Harbor Monday nights and all of their passengers will flock to our market the next morning. I've made enough cards to last the summer and will be happy to get back to my drawing board and carving blocks now.