BS: Life on Robinhood Farm, Maine

Subject: RE: BS: Life on Robinhood Farm, Maine
From: Charley Noble
Date: 23 Jul 10 - 08:13 AM

Will Fly-

"Even now, the smell of a farmyard brings all this back to me instantly."

And now I recall how once a carload of summer visitors drove up to our farmhouse. Everyone piled out and then the kids whined "What's that smell?" Well, my brother and I were playing nearby, on top of the manure pile, and we were frankly puzzled.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Life on Robinhood Farm, Maine
From: maeve
Date: 23 Jul 10 - 05:29 AM

Will Fly, "In recent years, I've seen the circular bales covered in a jacket of black plastic - presumably to rot down into silage."

Here, those are known as "haylage".

Subject: RE: BS: Life on Robinhood Farm, Maine
From: Will Fly
Date: 23 Jul 10 - 04:30 AM

Just been looking at the definition of "stook" in a dictionary:

a number of sheaves set upright in a field to dry with their heads together

These would be your "hay-cocks", I guess. The stooks were tied in the middle, and the men would catch them up with their forks and toss them up to the wagon. All things change - the stooks were replaced with square bales, and now it's large circles like Shredded Wheat! These look quite surreal when standing in rows in a field after the combine's done its job. In recent years, I've seen the circular bales covered in a jacket of black plastic - presumably to rot down into silage.

My favourite job was feeding the hens which, of course, in those days ran freely in the field. The tractor had an open-backed trailer partially filled with feed, and us kids would perch on the trailer, scooping out handfuls while the hens scuttled after us like mad things! Even now, the smell of a farmyard brings all this back to me instantly.

Subject: RE: BS: Life on Robinhood Farm, Maine
From: Charley Noble
Date: 22 Jul 10 - 05:58 PM

Will Fly-

Yes, there's not too many of us who still have memories of working with horse-drawn hay wagons. Half the fun of riding home on top of a hay load was avoiding being brushed off by tree limbs.

And if the hay were wet when unloaded into the hay mow, there was the danger that it might ignite from spontaneous combustion. I remember one sessions where we were pitching hay down from the loft after it started to smoke, and some of what we found was charred black.

Never ran into the term "stooks" before. We stacked the loose hay into "hay-cocks" and then pitched them into the wagon. After three weeks of haying you built up strong muscles.

We did convert from workhorse to tractor in 1950 but we never got a hay-baler.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Life on Robinhood Farm, Maine
From: Will Fly
Date: 22 Jul 10 - 11:58 AM

Wonderful! The hay making photographs took me right back to the late 40s/early 50s when I helped out on a local farm as a boy. Us kids sat on the top of the wagon, caught the "stooks" thrown up by pitchfork by the men, and stacked them neatly.

When the wagon was full, everyone would climb up and the horses would trundle us all back to the farm. I suppose the art of rick making and tending has been lost. If I remember rightly, an iron rod was thrust into the rick to make sure it wasn't too hot (caused by it being too damp at making).

Subject: RE: BS: Life on Robinhood Farm, Maine
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 22 Jul 10 - 10:35 AM

Charley, I got that line from your mother back a few years ago when we came up to the late autumn party in the barn.

Linn

Subject: RE: BS: Life on Robinhood Farm, Maine
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)
Date: 22 Jul 10 - 09:10 AM

Wonderful pictures, wonderful stories! Thanks, Charley!

Subject: RE: BS: Life on Robinhood Farm, Maine
From: Charley Noble
Date: 22 Jul 10 - 08:57 AM

Linn et al-

Unfortunately, we don't seem to have a single photo of any of the song party gatherings. People were having too much fun singing and carrying on to take photos.

There were stories I heard later from Bill Bonyun of someone crawling along the kitchen roof with a whisky bottle in his hand howling at the moon. Someone asked "What's he think he's doing?" And my father's typically dry reply, "Why being inconspicuous." But no photo.

One of the local fisherman taught my father "Johnny Went Down to Hilo" and "Barnacle Bill the Sailor." One of our other neighbors carefully transcribed many of the songs, which was how years later I rediscovered "West Indies Blues."

We do have a few photos of family picnics and other family activities which I may post today as a separate album.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Life on Robinhood Farm, Maine
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 21 Jul 10 - 03:38 PM

And Dahlov has THE definitive chorus to "The Fire Ship" -- "She had a dark and roving eye and her hair hung down in ringalets. She was a nice girl, a decent girl, but BUILT ALONG RAKISH LINES." (Instead of "one of the rakish -- or roving -- kind".)

(Women were never referred to as rakes -- that was a male appellation. However, as she was being described in ship terminology, she was definitely "built along rakish lines".

Linn

Subject: RE: BS: Life on Robinhood Farm, Maine
From: gnu
Date: 21 Jul 10 - 03:28 PM

I googled her name... fascinating.

Subject: RE: BS: Life on Robinhood Farm, Maine
From: kendall
Date: 21 Jul 10 - 01:11 PM

I've had the pleasure of meeting many outstanding people, she is one of them.

Subject: RE: BS: Life on Robinhood Farm, Maine
From: Charley Noble
Date: 21 Jul 10 - 07:45 AM

Many of the better photos posted were shot by Life Magazine photographer Eric Schaal, for a story that was supposed to run the first week of December in 1941; Pearl Harbor happened and the photos were never published until now! Schaal sent us about ten 8" X 10" enlargements.

The photos do capture the spirit of what kept our family going on this hard-scrabble farm. The farm was the major source of income for the first twenty years, when my mother's children's books and painting began to earn real income. Father retired from farming in the late 1960's.

There is a new book published by Down East titled The Art of Dahlov Ipcar which provides an overview of her art career, with about 120 images.

I also think something more could be done with the photos and letters that would be more of a biography.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Life on Robinhood Farm, Maine
From: Michael
Date: 21 Jul 10 - 07:05 AM

Why what were the cows wearing?

Mike

Subject: RE: BS: Life on Robinhood Farm, Maine
From: kendall
Date: 21 Jul 10 - 06:04 AM

When I mentioned swimming bare assed in the creek I was referring to me, not the cows.

Subject: RE: BS: Life on Robinhood Farm, Maine
From: gnu
Date: 21 Jul 10 - 05:37 AM

I wish I could see them as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Life on Robinhood Farm, Maine
From: maeve
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 10:24 PM

I wish I could see the photos.

You already know I have great respect for Dahlov, Charley.

Subject: RE: BS: Life on Robinhood Farm, Maine
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 09:40 PM

Charlie, you come from an exceptionally talented family. Has anyone in the family published memoirs or has anyone written a biography of your mother? It sounds (and looks!) like you had a delightful childhood in a delightful part of Maine. You're fortunate, too, that your mother's books are still in print. (I need to start acquiring some of them.)

I didn't grow up on a farm, but I spent substantial amounts of time in the summer (winter, too) on my grandparents' farm (and the farms of other relatives) in north-central Wisconsin. Alas, that was a looooooong way from the ocean, which you had within walking distance. I treasure my time on the farm and I treasure my time living in Cape Porpoise and Kennebunk Lower Village, Maine.

How about an illustrated memoir from you? I'D buy it!

Linn

Subject: RE: BS: Life on Robinhood Farm, Maine
From: bobad
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 09:38 PM

Wonderful pics of farm life before the industrialization of farming.

Subject: RE: BS: Life on Robinhood Farm, Maine
From: Charley Noble
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 09:08 PM

Kendall-

I'm not sure I miss the hell of the hay loft on a hot humid day. Father would be up in the loft and we would be down below "harpooning" the loose hay in the wagon. We would try to bury father as we released the batch of hay but we never quite succeeded.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Life on Robinhood Farm, Maine
From: kendall
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 07:21 PM

I miss the farm. Going barefoot all Summer, pitching hay up onto a hay rack, then storing it in the hell hot loft with chaff and seeds sticking to my sweating hide, Cows stepping on my bare foot, then swimming bare ass in the creek.
Those were the days.

Subject: RE: BS: Life on Robinhood Farm, Maine
From: Amos
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 05:41 PM

GReat images, they swoop you back to a sweeter, if harder, time.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Life on Robinhood Farm, Maine
From: katlaughing
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 05:30 PM

Those are really precious relics, Charley. Thanks for sharing.

Subject: BS: Life on Robinhood Farm, Maine
From: Charley Noble
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 05:19 PM

Here's a Facebook link to some family photos of life on Robinhood Farm, Georgetown Island, Maine: Clink here!

You may have to be a member of Facebook to view the photos. All images will blow up to full screen size if you click on them.

My mother is still living there at the age of 92, and still painting fantastic pictures.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble