There's Never a Wish Better than This

There is never a wish better than this.

When you only have a hundred years to live.

Female Moose resting in winter at Foxgreen Farm

The New Year at Foxgreen Farms will be full of new projects.  Craig and I have chosen to explore a basket of common goals together.  We hope to share the experience with all the questions that arise and the answers which appear. 

Foxgreen Farms is located in a very remote area.  We are six miles from the nearest year-round road, seventy miles round trip to a grocery store, and have 10 million acres comprising the largest undeveloped forest in the eastern United States on the north border of the property.  This is the New England Acadian Forest Ecosystem and we are part of it!

We will integrate community with options of solitude and meditation, living the education that a sustainable and resilient permaculture inspired lifestyle has to offer.  People will come to recharge themselves and participate in learning the rewards of a life less dependent on the wasteful industrialization of today's food and social systems.  This will be a journey with answers and with questions. 

“The man who has many answers

is often found

in the theaters of information

where he offers, graciously,

his deep findings.

While the man who has only questions,

to comfort himself, makes music.” 

― Mary Oliver, A Thousand Mornings

The New Year with Craig and Tom and You at Foxgreen Farm!

This is an exciting year ahead for the farm and our newer jiovi.com.  We will navigate the challenges of devoting all of our time to sharing our sustainable and resilient philosophy.  There is another important component as well.  We aspire to welcome visitors.  Imagine waking up in tune with the rhythm and comfort of the pure world we live in.  We are not opposed to technology but it will not consume your day.  Visitors will be free from the time sink of electronic connectivity and will soon realize the wonders of the world we live in.  The experience of hearing, seeing, and feeling the natural world which is ordinarily smothered in day to day modern life is eyeopening and the epiphany not forgotten after leaving (if you ever choose to leave!)   Most will return to work and family they are most familiar with and take with them a subtle influence, even leadership among the people they encounter.     

The following will be an outline of this year's vision.  I will be expanding on each in future posts. Please (in the right column) sign up for email updates and "like" Foxgreen Farms on Facebook.  

The colors of living surprise will surprise again.  Rainbows will no longer be colors out of reach and love will be seen everywhere, like the tender shadows in the morning sun.

The Next Dream to Come True - Deep Ecology, Deep Environment,  and Deep Community

“If we surrendered

to earth's intelligence

we could rise up rooted, like trees.” 

Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

We will explore the creative, nature-friendly and sustainable ways that will transform our planet. Earth can be a beautiful place covered with unpolluted rivers and oceans, a pesticide-and-chemical-free environment, natural and food forests, and permaculture gardens. And may these words become reality in our lifetime, and be repeated across the world improving the lives of people in the most nutritionally needy and (as a result) desperate regions.

This year's ambitions and projects:

• Seaberry orchard - The Sea Buckthorn experiment continues. Berries, tea from bark and leaves and roots and expansion of the orchard are on the agenda. 

• Food forest - permaculture and food forestry are the best ways at the present moment to solve world hunger and many environmental problems.

• Grazing areas - integrating rotational grazing with a succession of different animals with different benefits

• Berry, nut and fruit trees - expand the current plant panel

• Scottish Highland cattle - with the current 150 acres of field, bogs, and forest this animal is very well suited for success in the North Woods of Maine. 

• Icelandic Chicken Project - Our Indiegogo Project

• Sheep- Katahdin Hair Sheep

• Rabbit husbandry - 

• Baby Moose Rescue - This project will include habitat enhancement for this species in the area to minimize the need for all moose to travel to roadways to seek out food, salt, and mobility.

• Wilderness experiences - hikes/camping/canoe trips - These trips will be combined with Wilderness Survival Courses and Wilderness Medicine Education.

• Protective Education - First Aid Courses for families as well as responsible Firearms Training and Gun Safety opportunities. Instructed by one of the most experienced and globally in-demand instructors.
• Micro cabin design, development, construction, and workshops.                                                                                     
• Pond use, construction
• Energy and water collection and storage
• Heating innovations and energy efficiency
• Wood lot management
• Draft horse/highland cattle/donkey power and guard animal use
• Wilderness survival
• Wilderness medicine
• Great Dane friends, care, and breeding
  
• Veteran's retreat for emotional and physical recharge - As healing begins, Mother Nature speaks through her ageless wisdom. Each Maine day is diverse and her seasons are an endless combination of natural experiences. People can interact, sharing their common experiences to work through injury and trauma, to connect back into the society they have sacrificed to preserve.  Returning home can be difficult, we want to help the transition back home, to family, work, and most of all to feel excited to be home. Home again with the confidence the future is full of new extraordinary experiences with a sustainable and resilient network of support at their fingertips.

Nature is our origin and our destination...”.

Herbert Girardet

Join us on this voyage into the future.  As always, thank you for your support and advice.