Resident Steward Joel Walther
Joel Walther is our newest Resident Steward. He will be sharing this position with Juli, while Bob takes on the new role of Executive Director. Joel served as the Apprentice before returning to become a Resident Steward. Joel comes all the way from Minnesota.
He graduated in May 2007 with a BA in The Theatre of Ritual and Ritual in Life from Metropolitan State University in St. Paul, MN.
Joel has a history as an actor and puppeteer and has recently written a few plays of his own. He has also worked with children and teens for many years and worked for several falls as a tour guide at an apple orchard. He consequently found that he loves giving tours of Forest Farm.
Joel identifies with Helen’s spiritual side. He likes to connect the desire for simple living and sustainability to these spiritual issues. To Joel, caring for the earth comes from a sense of being connected to the entire universe through a spirit, whatever you choose to call it. He calls it God.
In his free time, Joel likes to read and, after this past summer, nalbind (thanks to Bill Coperthwaite for that.) Joel is looking forward to experiencing an entire cycle at Forest Farm, not just a summer, and hoping to have some time to write during the quieter months. He also looks forward to having ample time to play with Luna and Emma (and Bob and Juli as well).
Resident Stewards for 2006-07, Bob St. Peter and Juli Perry
Since moving to the Blue Hill peninsula in the spring of 2002, we have gotten to know intimately the legacy of Helen and Scott. We have had the opportunity to learn of their lives and work through conversations with their friends, our friendships with previous stewards Jen, Katie, Mike, Travis and Rebecca and the time that we have spent at Forest Farm. Through these second-hand accounts and reading their own words, we feel a personal connection with them, their home and their farm.
Being the stewards for the Good Life Center seems to be a logical next step for us. To make a long story very short, we began dating as sophomores at Caribou high school and somehow managed to make it through those years and eventually 4 years at separate colleges. We married in October of 2000, and have since lived in New Harbor, Portland, Deer Isle, Blue Hill and now Harborside. In late spring of 2002 we fled the bright lights of Portland for a quiet life managing an art gallery, tending vegetable and flower gardens and spending afternoons reading novels and 19th century political philosophy.
That lasted about five months.
After the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in the fall of 2002 our lives began to change. Having been too young and politically unaware to really comprehend either the first Iraq invasion or the war in Bosnia, we were for the first time faced with the reality of our world and the dominant role our government plays in creating that reality. What we read, saw and heard over the next few months saddened, frightened and appalled us. We made the only choice we could and willfully passed on our life of leisure. We choose instead to focus on finding roles to play in changing our society with hope that our generation will be the last to discover the sadness of a world gone mad.
Although we have chosen different professional paths, we have always encouraged one another to find their path on their own and to follow it with passion. Juli has known since she was a child that she would someday be a teacher and have her own school. She had the unusual opportunity to realize that childhood dream at the age of 27 when she opened the Children’s Garden in our home. After two successful years of nurturing and encouraging 4 and 5 year olds, Juli’s role as teacher now has a more narrow focus; our 22 month old daughter Luna Butterfly. In addition to being a devoted mom, Juli is an avid gardener and is excited about living the good life.
Bob’s path has at times seemed chaotic, but today it is clear and focused. After ten years of working in various areas of food production and distribution, he has found a passion for building a local food system that is just, sustainable and does not exclude people from high-quality food just because they can’t afford to pay for it. His work with the Independent Food Project is the physical manifestation of this desire.
As an agrarian and an intellectual, Bob is partial to the view that a life is complete when its work involves both the head and the hands. He is well aware of the history of radical politics among the farming class and is proud to carry on that tradition.
(October, 2005)
- Katie Prochaska and Mike Bollinger, 2005 - 2006
- Rebecca Hein & Travis Klami, 2003 - 2005
- Rachel Glickman and Henry Zacchini, 2001 - 2003
- Neha Shukla and Christopher Eaton, 2000
- Jennifer Jones and Jake Kennedy, 1998 - 2000
- Pam Lombard and Martin Spahn, 1997
- Becky Gould, 1996
Katie Prochaska and Mike Bollinger
2005 - 2006
Mike Bollinger and Katie Prochaska became Resident Stewards at The Good Life Center in March 2005.
Katie is from Dubuque, Iowa and graduated from Luther College in Decorah, Iowa with a degree in Biology. She spent the next two and a half years as an Agriculture and Natural Resource Management Peace Corps Volunteer in the Republic of Mali, West Africa. Living in a rural community, she spent most of her time working with the local health center by organizing peer educator trainings in AIDS and family planning. She also worked to establish chicken-raising associations and helped several families develop small gardens.
Mike is from Sioux Falls, South Dakota and also graduated from Luther College, studying Psychobiology and Philosophy. Throughout college Mike worked at a child and adolescent psychiatric program, assisting with daily activities and leading group therapy sessions. He continued to work there after graduating. He also worked at the Heisler Drug and Alcohol Treatment Center, where he assisted in tutoring and literacy training, as well as organized community development activities. In 2003 Mike went to the Republic of Mali, where he spent the next year living with Katie helping on many of her projects.
In March of 2004, Katie and Mike returned from Africa and started work at Seed Savers Exchange, an organic farm and heirloom seed company located in Decorah, Iowa. After finishing the season, Mike worked as a produce assistant at a local co-op and Katie waited at a local bistro. They were also involved in many local and regional issues, including protesting the potential start-up of a large tire-burning plant and the construction of a hog-confinement facility in a neighboring town.
They were married on May 1, 2004! After traveling around the US for several months, from north to south and east to west, Katie and Mike arrived at Forest Farm in time to feel Winter's sting, but with Spring on the way.
Rebecca Hein & Travis Klami
2003 - 2005
Rebecca and Travis came to The Good Life Center in March 2003, both originally from the sprawling suburbs of New York City.
Rebecca is a graduate of Bard college where she recieved a degree in Environmental Studies. She spent her junior year on a study abroad program which focused on globalization and its impacts on ecology and people around the world. She traveled to England, India, Tanzania, New Zealand and Mexico and met with many indigenous groups and grassroots organizations.
Travis went to school in Philadelphia and recieved a degree in photography. A few years later he returned to Philly to take a course with Training For Change called the Super-T: Training for Social Action Trainers, which delved deeply into racism, sexism and classism.
They both volunteered at Farm Sanctuary, working with animals that survived the factory farm system, as well as an organic CSA vegetable farm in California. Most recently they worked on a biointensive farm in central Pennsylvania with Steve Moore. It was here that they first learned of the Nearings and their legacy.
They are both politically active and volunteered at Eastern New York Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison in New York State.
Rachel Glickman and Henry Francis Zacchini
2001 - 2003
Rachel Glickman and Henry Francis Zacchini, arrived at Forest Farm on March 13, 2001.
A 1995 graduate of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., Rachel spent a summer in Haiti participating in Heads Together, a student delegation working in solidarity with the grassroots movement of Haiti. She then went on to the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague, The Netherlands, where she got her Master of Arts in Development Studies, Public Policy and Administration last December.
A graduate of Beloit College in Wisconsin, Henry's work and volunteer history includes the Bay Area Discovery Museum in Sausalito, Calif.; Peace Action Maine in Portland, the Children's Museum of Maine in Portland; and The Hague Appeal for Peace. He was a MOFGA farm apprentice with the Little River Flower Farm in Buxton, Maine last summer, following a year of substitute teaching at the American School of The Hague.
The couple welcomed their newborn daughter Amelia in October 2001. Amelia was the second baby born to Forest Farm stewards.
Neha Shukla and Christopher Eaton
2000
Neha and Chris took residence at Forest Farm, on March 17, 2000.
Both Chris and Neha have a background in working for the Appalachian Mountain Club in New Hampshire's White Mountains, where they were field supervisors, hut and shelter caretakers, and trail crew leaders. In addition, Neha brings landscape gardening experience, while Chris worked as an executive chef for a popular Portland, Maine restaurant.
Jennifer Jones and Jake Kennedy
1998
Adapted from an interview by Jenna Russell published in the Bangor Daily News, June 2, 1998.
When Jen Jones and Jake Kennedy made the trek to Forest Farm in mid-April 1998, they drove their belongings in on a truck. Then, the 22-year-olds turned around, returned the truck and picked up their bicycles to pedal the 60 miles in and start their year on the farm.
"We felt it was the best way to enter our new position and to earn it, in a way," Kennedy said, standing between house and garden in bare feet on a sunny day last month.
As the third participants in the Nearing Stewardship program, the young couple will live off the land for a year in the simple homestead style pioneered by Scott and Helen Nearing. They will care for the property where the Nearings once thrived, and – most importantly -- greet hundreds of visitors to the site.
All the history and worldwide notoriety was a bit overwhelming at first for Jones and Kennedy, who started cramming facts about the Nearings as soon as they won the stewardship. There was plenty of competition for the position, the stewards said: 12 applications from 10 different states including California, Arizona and Montana.
"They were all really amazing people," Kennedy said. "I think we were the youngest people who applied. We're really grateful that the board considered us so seriously."
Board member Patty Ryan of Somesville said the selection of stewards was important because the farm is the most visible project of The Good Life Center, a nonprofit group based on the Nearings' work. The fledgling organization will become independent this fall from its parent, the Trust for Public Land.
"I think what struck all of us about Jen and Jake was their spirit," Ryan said. "They're both really glowing people. It's not a spirit that takes you over, but a very generous spirit."
Growing up in northern Vermont, in a house that had an outhouse for half his childhood, Kennedy heard his father talk about the Nearings. As a kid, he kayaked and climbed mountains. Most recently, the thoughtful, bearded young man lived in Searsmont, kayaking and helping his father rebuild a house there.
"I was interested in the natural world first, and got interested in the harmonious use of resources out of that," he said.
Jones had a very different childhood, after starting out in a rural environment. She was born in a North Carolina farmhouse with no running water, but moved to Detroit with her family two years later. The family often talked of returning to the country, but never made it.
"In high school, I became aware of the ways I was dependent on things I abhorred," she said. "My power was coming from nuclear plants, the thing I'd been most afraid of."
For a while, the young environmentalist used candles to light her bedroom. But her discomfort continued. In art school, she found herself using kiln power to make statements about nuclear energy. Determined to live differently, she came to Maine a year ago to work on an organic farm, Wayback in Belmont.
"I felt really good at the farm," she said. "I used a hand pump for water, and we composted sewage in the woods. We grew all our vegetables, and I cut firewood to heat my cabin."
Last fall at the Common Ground Fair in Unity, she met last year's stewards, Martin Spahn and Pam Lombard. They gave her some literature about the Nearings, whom she had never heard of before. Right away, she felt a shock of recognition.
"I started reading this information, and it was talking about justice and peace, the environment, vegetarianism and feminism, sustainable living -- everything I was interested in," she said, her blue eyes wide at the memory. "I thought, these people must have really been something."
Friendly and low-key, Jones makes a natural, relaxed hostess. When a man and woman with cameras peer in from the road during an interview, she smiles and meanders over to welcome them – even though it's Wednesday, and technically the farm's closed. It turns out the tourists are from the Virgin Islands.
The stewardship opportunity presented itself just as Jones was wondering what to do next: "I was really enjoying eating food I had grown, and I was thinking, how can I go back to the supermarket?"
Jones had met Kennedy through his father's involvement in Wayback farm, and she shared her excitement with him. The couple set out to become a part of the Nearing tradition. That meant telephone interviews with seven Nearing board members, submitting resumes and writing personal statements.
They learned in mid-February that they had been selected and came to live at Forest Farm two months later. Kennedy said they have left the cape -- on bikes, of course -- just three times since. Most recently, they rode 30 miles round trip to a greenhouse to buy potato seeds. Before she took on the stewardship, Jones had never ridden a bike more than 14 miles.
There are lots of firsts at the farm. Kennedy had never really gardened, certainly not on a 50-by-50-foot plot intended to provide most of his food. They have learned about composting with seaweed and squatting in the dirt to pull destructive cutworms off their baby greens.
"This is the first time in my life I'm in charge of so many things," Jones said, looking over the farm's 4 1/2 acres.
They've had to learn to live in a place where people are always stopping by, looking for insight. They've learned to listen and teach and become an intimate part of the personal growth of total strangers.
"I was most concerned about the visitors, but so far it's been inspiring," Kennedy said. "They see two young people here and get really excited. We've already influenced people."
One couple came on their way to Vermont, trying to decide if they should buy a parcel of land there. They feared being overwhelmed by responsibility. "They saw us here doing it, and realized they could, too," Kennedy said. "We talked for a couple hours."
Jones and Kennedy like to tell visitors about the pond Scott Nearing built on nearby land, moving 15,000 wheelbarrows of dirt, one by one, over 20 years. They talk about the wall the Nearings built around a 100-by-100-foot garden, going out daily to lay stones instead of playing tennis.
"It's amazing to think of a task you think you could never do by yourself, and then to think of the power of community," Kennedy said.
The hope is that the stewards will continue making a difference after leaving the farm, that "a year of immersion into the Nearing life-way ... will enliven their capacity to make a future contribution to progressive social change," according to the mission statement for the stewardship program.
Wiser than their years, Jones and Kennedy have devised a set of rules to keep themselves from becoming obsessed with work, in a setting where they could labor from dawn to dusk with no one to stop them. They keep a journal (it lists three eagle sightings already). They read to each other, do stretching exercises and leave the property daily.
"There are days when we work all day, and days when we walk along the coast and watch the seals and ospreys," Kennedy said.
There are plenty of good places to sit back and think at the farm. A gentle cedar scent softens the air inside the wooden, UFO-shaped yurt out back. A spiritual spot with a Mongolian design, the yurt is used for Nearing board meetings.
Next to the house, big log chairs face the beach across the road, with a view of distant Islesboro over the water. The view is the same from the picture window in the house, where a table Scott Nearing made dominates the wide, stone floor. Built-in shelves hold some of the farm's 5,000 books. Books by the Nearings are sold out of Scott's study next door.
The farm's annual series of public Monday night meetings, a holdover from the Nearings' life here, began again June 1. This summer's speakers will include organic farmers, writers, activists and documentary makers at work on a film about Helen Nearing.
Pinkish, late afternoon sun gilds the wooden door frame in Helen's kitchen, where garlic braids she made still hang from the beams overhead. The stewards said her presence was strong in the house when they arrived. "Now, more of our energy is here," Kennedy explained.
"You feel her watching, and you wonder if she approves," he said. "It can feel strange, being in the house of someone legendary. I wonder what she would've thought of my music, my books."
Stay at the farm awhile, and you find yourself noticing small things, things you might have walked by a few hours earlier: a seashell used for a doorknob on the yurt, a spider web on an apple blossom, the heady perfume of salt air mixed with pine in perfect proportions.
At first, Jones was disappointed to learn that the stone house has electricity. But she has revised her view to find good in the mix of modern and primitive elements.
"People come thinking it's going to be that extreme, and they're thankful to see that the Nearings didn't do everything," she said. "It's a good place to see that you can do this in steps, little by little."
Pam Lombard and Martin Spahn
1997
Adapted from an interview published in the Bangor Daily News (by Stephanie Boyd) 1997.
Through a stewardship program run by the trust, Peace Corps veteran Martin Spahn and his wife, Pam Lombard, will occupy the farm for the next year, leading guided tours, and maintaining the property as it was.
"This is a very special place for some people. They're almost pious," Spahn said Sunday.
Originally from Denver, Spahn came to the homestead from Oregon, where Lombard had been studying at Oregon State University. Having done Peace Corps service in West Africa, where he'd lived contentedly in a mud hut, Spahn was wondering how to re-simplify his lifestyle, when he saw an ad for the steward position in an alternative magazine.
He had read "The Good Life," the Nearings' 1954 book extolling simple living. And he and Lombard hope to own their own small homestead one day.
Agreeing to follow rules of the stewardship agreement, such as practicing vegetarianism and abstaining from drugs and alcohol, the couple were granted the post, which they assumed a month ago.
On Sunday, Spahn led informal tours for a few of the 1,000 visitors expected at the center this year. He started with the famous 50-by-50-foot vegetable garden, the size the Nearings said was just right to feed two people.
Showing visitors through the solar greenhouse, Spahn pointed to a huge poppy said to have sprouted spontaneously shortly after Scott Nearing's death at the age of 100 in 1983. Helen Nearing believed the flower, in some sense, represented her beloved husband.
Likewise, said Spahn, a sunflower appeared in the greenhouse after Helen's death. Helen Nearing was crazy about sunflowers.
Next, visitors tromped through the woods to the meditation yurt, one of two such structures on the property. Circular in shape and topped by a dome, the yurt is considered by some to be a model of design efficiency.
The main house at Forest Farm, too, is simplicity itself. Each sparsely furnished room is swathed in dark wood paneling. Here and there an object recalls some distinct aspect of the Nearings' lives, such as in Helen's library, where a violin hanging on the wall attests to her onetime musical career.
In Scott's library, an iron rack containing worn work gloves hangs as though they are artwork.
One room contains hundreds of copies of the many books the Nearings wrote. Their sale not only helps fund the center's operation, but perpetuates the philosophies the couple espoused.
According to the new couple living at Forest Farm, it is rewarding to meet visitors drawn to the Nearings' legacy. "It reinspires you," Lombard said.
The photo above shows Martin, Pam, and their 6-week-old son George, who was born during their stewardship at Forest Farm.
Rebecca Kneale Gould
1996
Becky was The Good Life Center's first Resident Steward, beginning in the May following Helen’s death.
She is now a professor of nineteenth and twentieth century American religion, religion and ecology and concepts of nature in American culture at Middlebury College in Vermont, and author of a book which built on her time at Forest Farm, At Home in Nature: Modern Homesteading and Spiritual Practice in America. (--click on title for info--).
Executive Director Bob St. Peter
Bob St.Peter is a third generation Mainer from Caribou with a passion
for promoting and creating just, sustainable, and self-governing
communities. He has been the executive director since November, 2006.
Prior to servings as director Bob was a Resident Steward along with his
wife, Juli. In Spring 2005, Bob founded the Independent Food Project
(IFP) to promote community food security and to raise awareness about
the negative social, economic, and ecological effects of our
industrialized food system. IFP has since merged with GE Free Maine to
become Food for Maine's Future where Bob serves as a founding board
member.
Bob is the founder of the Local and Sustainable Food Conference,
now in its third yerar. In addition to his commitment to preserving
traditional farming in Maine, Bob has worked on food, poverty, and rural
sustainability issues internationally as the development director for
Sustainable Harvest International (SHI). Prior to working with SHI, Bob
worked with the Institute for Humane Education in Surry and believes
that humane education is an effective, positive approach to educating
people of all ages. He also serves on the advisory board of the Maine
Marijuana Policy Initiative (MMPI) and is an advocate for ending the
prohibition on cannabis as a matter of human rights and economic
justice. His recent work with MMPI includes drafting their position
statement on hemp cultivation in Maine. Bob is a freelance writer and
educator, subsistence farmer and seed saver, and devoted husband and father.
Recent Writing:
St.Peter, Bob, et al. _Marijuana and Maine: A Comprehensive Look at the
Issue_
“Cheap Food: At What Cost?,”/* */_Justice Rising_, Vol 3, No. 1 (Summer
2007): 3
“You Can't Eat Gasoline: Big Food's Lie About Feeding the World.”
/Common Dreams./ 9 Mar. 2007
<http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0309-22.htm>
“Who Stole the Soul?: The Decline of Food in America.” /Common Dreams./
7 Feb. 2007 <http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0207-20.htm>
“Chicken Pizza & Civil Disobedience: Reclaiming Our Food Sovereignty and
the Right to Choose What We Eat.” /Common Dreams./ 7 Sept. 2006
<http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0907-30.htm
"Economics of Peace and Justice," _Philosophy and Social Action_, Vol.
29, Nos. 3-4 (July-December 2003): 31-36