Farm Fever

My grandfather inspired me to become a farmer. I didn’t come from a farming family and my grandfather wasn’t technically a farmer. Most all my relatives ended up settling on cities’ rural outskirts. But from an early age, I admired my grandfather’s agricultural spirit. He had impressive gardens, grew an orchard, canned everything, and both worked and lived on various farms growing up in the mid-west. His heart was in the country despite where he lived and even on just a few acres he had an inspirational homestead. He’d come from the Great Depression era, fought in WWII, and had learned so much in his lifetime that his hobbies made average folks look lazy!

At ten years old, my farm animal-fever began. My family had moved out to an isolated country house and their sweet girl wasn’t just going to say, “I want a puppy.” She was into studying agriculture, history, and horses.

Our nearest neighbors bought me my first chickens that year. They heard I was studying library books and trying to prove to my father that I was a responsible caretaker so he’d let me raise my own flock. I’ll never forget those first cheeping chicks; and a year later, I got my first horse after a similar trial period showing how responsible I was with my flock and our family dog.

From Homestead to Farm

After college I ended up in the city. I slayed in the business world, met my husband, got married, and had a homestead on 2 acres in California.

One day I threw about a hundred moldy pumpkin seeds into a chicken-fertilized garden bed and literally said, “Do your thing or don’t, little seeds.” I had zero expectations. But they grew and I’d never seen more prolific plants! They covered the fence beside them. The pumpkins grew even in mid-air. I made pumpkin ice cream and pumpkin pie, froze pumpkins, pureed pumpkins, had pumpkin spice lattes, and shared pumpkins with friends and family. Right around that point, the farm bug hit us both. We could make money with growing food, we thought. The conversation changed from accidental vegetable gardens to let’s do this. Let’s go big. Let’s get a farmhouse, raise animals, and grow food to sell. Soon we dragged in my parents, with the hopes of wrangling in his.

Farm Life

America needs more farmers. It’s not just about a need for food, it’s about a need for wholesome, charming lifestyles which fulfills you and your family.

What We Do

I’m sure you’re wondering about what we do at our farm and you’ve got a picture in your head of a hundred muscular cows chewing cud in unison, out in a green field somewhere. As it happens, we don’t have cows – yet. Chisel’d Creek Farm is made up of 37 acres in Maine and a lovely 1800s farmhouse. We have growing orchards, a chicken hatchery (my dream come true!), and ever-expanding gardens.

So what’s with the chisel? The name “Chisel’d” actually has nothing to do with muscles (though I do enjoy seeing fit farm animals at work), and was the name we chose for our little creek here. It’s woven and cut through the land, and each winter the water freezes to cut new shapes in the bank. Hence it’s “Chisel’d Creek” which also fits perfectly with the carpentry we do. We design and build custom furniture. Fifty percent of all our projects are done from either wood from our own responsibly-managed forest or from recycled wood. In the coming years, we plan to up that to entirely recycled or responsibly self-harvested wood. Thus we can control and responsibly manage our land: we take down a tree, we plant five.

You can see our latest furniture designs HERE as we build them.

What’s Happening Now?

The trees here at Chisel’d Creek Farm are a vital part of our work here. We currently have apple, sugar maples and several varieties of pines, spruce, birch, oak, ash, and more. We’ll sell fruit in the coming years. Right now we offer arboriculture classes, and pruning services for fruit and ornamental trees. Our next building project is our barn from as much timber off our own land as possible, and I’ll share that journey with you as soon as it begins.

We have a small greenhouse for research and development to determine what farm-fresh produce we’ll be including in the coming seasons. Right now our growing season is filled with squash, blueberries, tea and culinary herbs, and we just added some coffee plants as a fun experiment.

Thanks again for visiting our blog page and our first post. We hope to see you here again. Go follow our social media accounts to get to know the family and the farm.

Cheers!

Mary & the Chisel’d Creek Farm Family