Wednesday, March 3, 2010

The Maine Farm house
































 For the past 6 months I've been living and working on Four Season Farm which is right down the road from The Good Life Center,  and this beautiful piece of property and farm house, belonged to Lynn Karlin and Stanley Joseph. Together they wrote Maine Farm: A Year of Country Life, which is a beautiful book about homesteading on the coast of maine. The land has been unoccupied since Stanley passed away but the house is rented out during the summer to vacationers. The house is a beautiful old farm house with a barn, a pond, beautiful fields, a shed and a stone walled garden. The pond, which has an island was dug out by hand by Scott Nearing. Scott was a political radical and the pioneer behind the back to the land movement  in the 60's. He and his wife Helen wrote many books on homesteading as well as politics. When the Nearings moved from Vermont to Maine they bought this property and cultivated and lived on it for over 10 years, then built the good life center and sold this piece of land to Stanley. This place is s beautiful but so sad at the same time.


The grounds and gardens have not been kept up and it's sad to see them in such dissaray. The Nearings built a stone wall around their gardens which in it's hay day was beautiful. Stanley and Lynn also had beautiful gardens and kept the property thriving. In their book there are many wonderful pictures of their gardens and the many wonderful creative projects they made. What I would give to be able to live here and bring it back to it glory days.

7 comments:

  1. I'm proud of you for being a farmer. I'm longing to farm our land in Washington. It wasn't in our stars right now, but we're on our way.

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  2. Does anyone know when and how Stanley Joseph passed away?

    I'm a fan of the book and I'm curious.

    wrensden@twcny.rr.com

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  3. I was Stan's BFF and US Army room mate in Germany in the mid-60s www.WilburMReeling.com -- Stan took ill and took his own life up in the back of his farm property. His brother owns the farm now and lives in VT .. his name is Jay Joseph.. some local teen used his sauna and let it burn to the ground. I am Wilbur M. Reeling in Maryland

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  4. Thank you for this post! I just picked up the book Maine Farm and now so sad to see the current state of the property. How does on get information on renting during the summer?
    Thanks, Pamela De Leon, pjread45@aol.com

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  5. Meg, thanks for the post. I was a good friend of Stan's and visited the farm many times. I am going to be in the area this week and will stop by the farm. Are you still in the area, maybe we could meet while I'm up there.

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