2018
Newsletter
Nonprofit educational farm in Freeport, Maine
626 Acre Oceanfront Farm Open Free to Visitors Every Day in Freeport, Maine Transforming our relationship with farming and food for a healthier planet
We Invite You to Grow With Us Whether you are a neighbor or are on your first visit, welcome! Over the past several years, we have developed a vision to transform Wolfe’s Neck Farm into a leading center that is building a community of people who care about the future of food and the planet. By visiting our farm and campground, you can experience this firsthand.
few years. It serves to improve and enhance your experience here, while at the same time allowing our organization to join with others around Maine and throughout the country who share serious concerns about the state of our food system and are working together to strengthen it.
Non-Profit U.S. Postage PAID Portland, ME 04103 Permit #454
This year, we invite you to grow with us. Experience We are very excited to announce that since the a deeper connection to your food choices by Fall of 2017, Wolfe’s Neck Farm is now Wolfe’s joining in a farm program, like Afternoon Milking Neck Center for Agriculture & the Environment. or Harvest Your Breakfast. Become a member, find This reimagined name represents the breadth and us on Facebook for insightful articles, or embrace focus of our work and how it’s grown over the past your connection to nature through our walking trails. Learn more about our capital campaign goals, and how we continue to grow our roots to make our vision a reality. Thank you for being part of our community!
Dave Herring, Executive Director
Connect to Food on the Farm
Find this tagline throughout the newsletter! You’ll see how many ways there are to connect to the source of your food on your farm or campground visit.
184 Burnett Road Freeport, Maine 04032
When was the last time you bought food at a grocery store? This week, right? And when was the last time you bought food right from the farm where it was grown, or ate something from your backyard? We can be grateful for the convenience and variety of the supermarket, but it has led to a disconnect from where our food comes from.
Plan Your Visit
Wolfe’s Neck Center is always open free to the public, and we encourage you to visit the livestock, attend a program, and more!
Seasonal Activities:
• Oceanfront Camping • Kayak & Canoe Rentals • Bicycle Rentals • Farm Café • Farm Store • Weekend Hayrides • Fall on the Farm Weekends • Community & Visitor Programs
Year-Round Offerings:
• Barnyard & Gardens • Miles of Nature Trails • Educational Workshops • Group Experiences • Dances, Festival, & Events
A lot of effort goes into making that milk. Each milking cow requires nearly 90 pounds of feed daily and more than 40 gallons of water, so our farmers need to grow, harvest, and store high quality forage to feed the cows and balance the nutritional needs of the herd. They must also build fences, monitor grass growth, and rotate the herd across the farm in our pastures to ensure we meet the organic certification grazing requirements. Additionally, the farmers need to keep the cows comfortable by providing a clean, dry place to lay down, control fly populations, and manage exposure to weather conditions for the herd to produce plenty of high quality milk.
Join us as we take a closer look at the food you may eat or buy on your visit to Wolfe’s Neck. We’ll take All of the farmers’ attention to detail pays when you from the product in your hand, back to where when the cows put it to work making milk. They walk nearly half a mile out on barn to harvest their it all started on our farm... own meals from the pasture, and on their days in Yummy Yogurt the barn they sort through hay to find the tastiest The cows you see grazing out on pasture may look bites, laying down to taste it all again a second time relaxed, but they have a big job here. Milked twice when they chew their cud. It takes the majority of each day, they produce the organic milk used to a cow’s energy to make the 40-100 pounds of milk make Stonyfield yogurt. Here’s what Sarah, our she produces daily. Dairy Director, has to say about the process:
The herd is milked twice a day, at 5 a.m. and 4:30 “Where can I buy your milk?” It’s the most common p.m. Every step of the milking process is performed question asked at the end of a conversation with to ensure we sell a healthy and safe product. The one of our farmers. The Stonyfield sign on our cow’s teats are first cleaned with a peroxideorganic dairy barn proudly displays a cup of the based disinfectant, then dried with a towel. delicious yogurt our 40 milking cows help to make. Next, milk is hand stripped from each teat and continued on page 7 Wolfe’s Neck Center is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization open free to the public every day! Visit us at 184 Burnett Road, Freeport, Maine or at wolfesneck.org