Back to the land again: Many Hands Organic Farm in Barre

Julie Rawson and Jack Kittredge, Summer 2015 Photo: Cathy Stanton
Julie Rawson and Jack Kittredge, Summer 2015 Photo: Cathy Stanton

Julie Rawson grew up on a western Illinois farm with parents who mixed agriculture, medicine (her father was a large-animal veterinarian), and activism (her mother was deeply engaged in civil rights issues). When she was pregnant with her first child, she said to her husband, Jack Kittredge, “I’m really sorry, but I think I have to raise these children on a farm.” Jack’s background was far more suburban. “I wasn’t a farmer and didn’t intend to be a farmer,” he recalls, “but I fully supported homesteading, raising your own food, having the kids have access to all the principles and lessons that nature teaches you.” Continue reading Back to the land again: Many Hands Organic Farm in Barre

FacebooktwitterredditpinterestFacebooktwitterredditpinterest

Slaughterhouse with a view: Adams Farm, Athol

Adams Farm, August 2015. Photo: Cathy Stanton
Adams Farm, August 2015. Photo: Cathy Stanton

There were five local slaughterhouses in Athol when Beverly and Lewis Adams began to sell packaged meat as part of a transition away from the increasingly unprofitable business of dairying. Lewis slaughtered the cows and pigs they raised on their Bearsden Road farm, an Italian butcher from Donelan’s market in Orange did the cutting, and Beverly packaged the meat for her husband to sell around town. The business grew, and after Lewis died suddenly in 1973, Beverly kept it going as a way to support her five children.

She was also continuing a trust from her mother-in-law, Hester (Comerford) Adams. Continue reading Slaughterhouse with a view: Adams Farm, Athol

FacebooktwitterredditpinterestFacebooktwitterredditpinterest
css.php