Farm Raised

The year is 2001. Kenya is 6 years old, Gil is barely 1, and Sage would come along 5 years later. I had just bought a farm in Belgrade Lakes and moved there from Connecticut. As I sat on the granite front step with the big twin maples towering over me while I nursed Gil, I knew this would be home. Home to raise my kids and feed my community. I knew I wanted to be a stay-at- home mom and raise my children on the farm. I knew I wanted to sell pies and jams at the side of the road and hang our laundry on an outside clothesline. All else just happened. A by-product of the fruits of our labors.

My oldest, Kenya, helped me start our farm. I came home with an arm load of winterberries from the side of the road, it made me smile so much - the color and the fact that I found something in the woods that I could make into something that customers would buy. Kenya said, “Winterberry Farm, Momma, that should be the name of our farm.” And so, it is.

We are a CSA farm, growing veggies and cut flowers, selling at 3 farmers markets weekly. We are also a full service, open year-round farm store, complete with a commercial kitchen where we bake pies, breads, and jar goods. We keep bees for honey, and sheep to spin wool and knit into socks that we sell. Kenya set up and designed the shop so it would be a beautiful selling space for our veggies and flowers.

Growing up, if Kenya had an interest in an animal, like sheep, we would go to Cumberland, and in the back of our Toyota SUV, bring home 2 lambs. Christened Baa and Socks, they were the beginning of our flock of sheep. Kenya showed the sheep at the local fairs in 4H. I would race her to the fair, set her up with another family, run home to my farm obligations, then race back up at the end of the fair to bring her home.

On the January morning in 2006 that Sage was born, Kenya, who was 10 at the time, headed out to the barn to milk our cow Dollie and do barn chores. By the time she came back inside, Sage had arrived, in a little blow-up kiddie pool we had set up in the living room, filled with nice warm water heated on the wood stove in the kitchen.

The next year, when Kenya was 11, she came down with a cold in September. By the 3rd of October, she was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. She begged me to make it go away; she begged me to find a cure with herbs. I would bring my herbal books to Boston each month and beg them to listen to us. They just told me to put the books away. I felt so helpless. I would do anything to keep my daughter alive, and yet I did not want to believe that there was not a cure. Diabetes was so hard for her to accept, and my heart continues to break for her because of it.

Kenya never missed a beat. Even with a painful back, type 1 diabetes, helping me on the farm, and two younger siblings. She still swam competitively, played softball, and skied hard. She hiked and cross country backskied for 6 months with all her food and tent supplies on her back from southern Vermont to Canada, and then biked home. It was the time of her life. She met wonderful people and felt empowered with all she had accomplished. She finished her senior year homeschooling on the farm. Her project was to have the 1870’s barn on our property accepted into the national registry of historic places. And that she did.

"MY YOUNGEST CHILD, SAGE, IS A WISE, POWERFUL, OUTGOING CHILD. SHE GREW UP WITH TWO OLDER SIBLINGS THAT SHOWED HER HOW TO BE A KID ON A FARM..."

She went on to college, after her two back surgeries, along with managing her diabetes. Kenya is off now, leading her own life. She met Eben, her husband of 2 1⁄2 years. They married on a buoy in Penobscot Bay off of Camden during COVID. We were in small boats and kayaks watching. They then had a big shindig at the farm a year later. They live in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, where Eben teaches at a boarding school, and Kenya has a doula business. They are full of adventures, backcountry skiing, mountain biking, traveling in their truck with a little pop-up tent in the back, and their two pups.

My youngest child, Sage, is a wise, powerful, outgoing child. She grew up with two older siblings that showed her how to be a kid on a farm, making soups, milking the cow, chasing sheep from one pasture to another, keeping the lawn mowed together. Bringing hens in the house when they were sick or losing feathers. They gave her all the basics for living on the farm.

She is a pile of curly hair, determination, and kindness. She is empathetic like no other human I have met. She is an old soul that I am honored to call my daughter. She has no judgment on herself or others ever, she takes one day at a time, lives to the fullest, and loves and cares for everything. I have never heard her say anything negative about anything - she always finds the positive to make herself and others feel good. No matter what.

All my kids have been aware of the challenges of raising a family with little-to-no money. They know to shut lights off in rooms that we are not using. They know how to grow and prepare their own food. They know how to give to neighbors that are lonely and without family nearby, and how to invite them over to join us in our fun-filled holidays. We have lived a lifetime together. We have watched animals' birth, and the agony of making the decision to put them out of their misery from old age or illness.

I have learned a life of lessons from my daughters. And I am the lucky one who gets to be with Sage every day, working together, traveling together, and playing hard. We started going to NOFA (New England Organic Farmers Association) held in Burlington, Vermont each February when Sage was 6. She decided back then she wanted to go to school there and become a vet. And in time, we will see.

My identity of being a farmer and mom of three is changing. Kenya helped me start Winterberry Farm, and this life of which I could never have done by myself. Sage is helping me close this chapter of our lives, while we plan and prepare to sell the farm and move to North Haven Island. This is a task I could never do mentally or physically without Sage.

My kids have learned how to run a family, run a business, never give up, how to love, how to take care of each other, how to be strong, how to be sensitive, how to grow food in the midst of climate change, and how to accept everyone - no matter where they come from. I have learned all those things too, from my children. My life is so full, full of them and their love. I am so incredibly lucky.

Once a farm family, always a farm family.

I STARTED OUR FARM AS A SINGLE MOM AND CONTINUE TO RUN IT THAT WAY. WE HAVE BEEN FARMING FOR 25 YEARS. WE ARE A HORSE AND OXEN POWERED FARM GROWING CUT FLOWERS AND VEGETABLES. OUR WEBSITE IS WWW.WINTERBERRYFARMSTAND.COM

– MARY PERRY

PHOTOS BY NATALIA PALIYNO OF PROVENCHER PHOTOGRAPHY