Returning to Runamuk

What has been quietly gathering underground can no longer stay hidden

Mar 21, 2026

Eyeing the enclosed porch space, I mulled over the idea of bringing back the Runamuk farmstand. When life changes at the drop of a hat, there’s nothing to do but roll with it—moving forward is the only direction I know. It’s what I’ve always done.👒

The front porch is cluttered with 5-gallon buckets and new fencing equipment still in the boxes it arrived in, stacked under the clothesline at the far end. It needs to be swept out and I’d have to haul the spare refrigerator in—but it wouldn’t take much to bring it back into operation.

For a while there I thought I was just going to grow food for my own family. It was a wonderful dream, but now that Dan and I have gone our separate ways I need to generate income on my own—and I’m ever-thankful for my own resourceful nature.

With BraeTek in transition to adulthood—gainfully employed but still working on getting his license and saving for a car—I’m committed to shuttling him back and forth to work. Prioritizing his schedule makes taking off-farm work tricky, even if I could find something in the area suited to a farmer with 30 years of experience. Which I can’t. And honestly? I’m not sure I’d want to.🤷‍♀️

HI. I’m Sam from Maine Homestead Life, a newsletter that teaches the skills our grandparents knew: how to grow, raise, and make REAL food and live independently from corporate food systems.

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In This Post:

☝️Happenings on the Farm
🌀Returning to Runamuk
👀Sneek Peak at Next Week’s Projects
👣Moving Forward into Spring
🫂Community Updates

☝️Happenings on the Farm

WILD & LOCAL POT-LUCK
It’s not often you have the chance to meet a fellow Substack writer in real life, so I took myself off to John Gonter’s “Wild & Local Pot-Luck” at the Farmington Grange last Sunday. I’d spent Saturday afternoon and evening prepping two loaves of sourdough bread (one plain loaf and one fairly fabulous rosemary and parmesan loaf) and an authentic shepherd’s pie made with my own homegrown lamb. 🥖

In spite of my tardiness, I was greeted heartily and joined a small congregation of community members who all had one thing in common: a passion for REAL food—wild and locally produced.

🦃Sampling John’s “Wild Bird Cassoulet” and the “White Chocolate Bread Pudding With Cognac Rum Hard Sauce”—I determined they were both fantabulous! If you’re like me and not a fan of bread pudding—John will convert you with this dish.

moving forward into spring — Click the image to get John’s recipe for this delectable dessert!

Chatting it up with some other movers and shakers in our local food community, I was invited to join the Farmington Farmers’ Market, which is desperately looking for more vegetable vendors. Having spent six-years as a vendor and market manager for the Madison Farmers’ Market, I’m not keen to get back into that—but it did get me to thinking about falling back on my growing skills once more to help fill the gap in my finances.

🐑LAMBING PREP
Our 2026 lambs are not far off now! Helen’s udder is growing and the other expectant ewes are not far behind, so I’ve been making ready here at Runamuk. The lambing bin was brought out, emptied, scrubbed, and filled with all the necessary supplies: clean towels, rubber gloves, iodine, the new tube feeder I just bought, the Nutri-Drench solution I like to give newborns, and a pencil case of first-aid supplies just in case things go wrong.

📸The lamb cams were brought online this week, the shallow rubber water trough was replaced with a bucket hooked to the wall to prevent lambs from falling in and drowning, and just yesterday I re-attached the gate to one of our two lambing pens in case Helen went into labor early. Bag-watch is on as I monitor the pregnant ewes for signs of labor—and if you follow me on Instagram you’re already seeing udder pictures in my Stories. Check in frequently over the next couple of weeks for videos, pictures, and stories from our 2026 lambing season!

🌳PRUNING GIGS
It was still chilly Thursday morning, but the ground on the sunny hillside was exposed, the snow receded closer to the tree line, and BraeTek and I were able to make a start on one of the pruning gigs I’ve lined up for early spring work. The property owner invited us back for the second year in a row, which makes me super happy. I advocate a three-year plan to rehabilitate sorely neglected fruit trees, removing no more than 30% of the canopy per year. After that it’s just annual maintenance, removing water spouts or dead limbs as they develop.

Before heading home I popped in to see another client about their project—seven smaller, younger trees right in-town Kingfield. I’ll be working on these projects for the next few weeks, along with some pruning and landscaping work to be done here at Runamuk as well.🪚

You should have seen these trees last year when I first arrived on scene!

🌱SEED STARTING
Nightshade crops went onto the heat mats this week to germinate. This was especially fun because I had a wide array of varieties sent to me by Claire of The Goaty Thistle —varieties propagated by locals out west in Minnesota. A few I recognized, but most I’d never even heard of, and I found myself looking them up as I narrowed my selection from “What I Wanted to Plant”—which was everything—to “What Was More Realistic.”

I ended up with an entire flat of green bell peppers (72 cells), a modest selection of frying peppers, jalapeños, and hot peppers all in 6-packs. With the eggplant I showed more restraint, sowing only a handful of seeds since I seem to be the only one who likes it.

When it came time to pick which tomatoes to grow this year, I fairly lost it. Salivating over varieties like the “Japanese Trifele Black,” “Nano’s Meatball,” and the “Sneaky Sauce” paste tomato, I ended up seeding eighteen four-inch pots with a combination of slicers and paste tomatoes. The cherries I’ll wait another two weeks to sow because they grow so darn fast.

BRAETEK’S FIRST PAYCHECK
Putting BraeTek’s schedule ahead of my own hasn’t made things easy, but seeing his face when he walked out with his first-ever paycheck made it worth it. That shy sense of pride as he held the envelope containing check and paystub (that’s right, an actual paper check!)—tells me I’m doing the right thing.

Emergence isn’t just for seedlings, you know.

🌀Returning to Runamuk

If I had known in 2018 that buying my own farm would cost me the chance to share this life with a partner, I still wouldn’t change a thing. Time and again I’ve tried to build something with a man—and time and again, I end up here. Alone on my farm, and supremely grateful for the stability and security it affords me as a woman.

Who could have guessed that my impulsive marriage wouldn’t work out?

Still—I can honestly say I have no regrets about giving it my all. I don’t live my life standing outside the fire, and that’s something of a balm as I let Dan go and return my attention to Runamuk, where I am needed most.

moving forward — The humble farmstand-on-the-porch at the Runamuk Acres Conservation Farm!

BRINGING BACK THE FARMSTAND
Yes—I am bringing back the Runamuk farmstand on the porch. I’m going to focus primarily on fresh vegetables, but also breads and likely some baked goods too. At the moment I am still determined to avoid anything to do with chickens—so NO EGGS. The demand for fresh local eggs is ever present, though, and my stance on that may soften in time. Stay tuned.

Locals interested in purchasing a farmshare to help me get up and running again can PayPal or Venmo a deposit—or stop by the farm with cash or check—to establish credit at the farmstand, just like the good old days. The only caveat this time around is that your credit MUST be used up by the end of the season. Funds cannot be carried over from one year to the next.

Click here to learn more about our Farm Shares.

YOU SHOULD DO THIS
When my sister sent me a Facebook event link for lamb-cuddling days at a farm in southern Maine with a note that read “You should do this,” I knew she was absolutely right—not that I’d ever tell her that. We have a long-standing tradition at Runamuk Acres of inviting the community into our little sheep nursery for lamb-cuddling, and it never gets old—for the visitors or for me. There’s something about watching people melt over a tiny lamb that’s enough to restore your faith in just about everything, and I’d love for you to come experience that for yourself.

👀Sneak Peek at Next Week’s Projects

Repair gate for the second lambing pen and re-attach
Replace bluebird houses ahead of the springtime crush for nesting sites🐦
More pruning sessions - including Runamuk!
Start even more onions and greens now that I am stocking a farmstand
Do I need another grow-rack and do I have lumber on-hand to build it?
Freeze seeds requiring stratification in ice cube trays and then “plant” them in the garden

👣Moving Forward

Ostara teaches us that what has been quietly gathering underground can no longer stay hidden—and watching BraeTek walk out with his first paycheck, I felt that deep in my soul. I’ve had a lot of hard days as a solo lady-farmer, but that moment made every one of them worth it. After all, that’s what it’s all been for—so that I can rest easy knowing I did everything I could to give my son a good start in his adult life.

🐇Now, as the light returns, the lambs draw near, and seedlings grow bigger in the Propagation Room, I’ve never been more certain that I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. One day, maybe, I’ll find my way to that fabled cabin in the woods with some bearded fellow—but until my son is ready to take the training wheels off, I’m not comfortable letting go completely.

With that in mind, I am moving forward into this season with my whole heart—giving myself over to the work that has always sustained me during hardship, and to this farmish life that, try as I might, I could never live without.👩‍🌾

Sending love and good juju to you and yours.

Your friendly neighborhood farmer,

—Sam

🫂Community Updates

THIS WEEK’S HOW-TO ARTICLE:

➡️Check back next week for a 2-part feature on garden layout!

Maine Homestead Life

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