Day 11: ME IV

Today was another beautiful day with warm sun, cool breezes, and the humidity low enough all the warm people around me were happy. It's the first day I've needed to wear a light jacket outside.

Did you know...

• Maine provides nearly 90% of the nation’s lobster supply - roughly 40 million pounds annually.
• Maine’s State Berry is the blueberry, and with good reason! Maine is the country's single largest producer of blueberries - over 90% of the nation’s blueberry crop, in fact! 

About half of the produce today is from a farm called Fresh Start Farm, a collective of immigrant and refugee farmers participating in the New American Sustainable Agriculture Program (NASAP). These growers sell produce to restaurants, grocery stores, farmer's markets, and through a CSA. Produce is grown with soil health, environmental well-being, and consumer happiness in mind. The person I purchased the greens, carrots, and cherry tomatoes from is a Bantu Somali farmer who was displaced in 1991 and moved to refugee camps in Kenya and Tanzania. They have an interesting story about how they eventually came to Maine. You can learn more generally about the Somali Bantu here: https://ethnomed.org/resource/somali-bantu-refugees/

Have a wonderful night.

Sending oodles of love,

Tawnia

11 bird species today. And there was bird drama to report. At the farmers market were 2 juvenile Cooper's hawks hunting squirrels (really, trying to hunt without success). And then came a teen-age bald eagle, who with equal unsuccess tried to catch ducks. Both squirrels and ducks were strangely blasé about the whole thing, shifting slightly to avoid them.

1 Canada Goose
1 Mallard
1 Rock Pigeon
1 Herring Gull
2 Cooper's Hawk
1 Bald Eagle
1 Blue Jay
1 Common Raven
1 Black-capped Chickadee
1 House Sparrow
1 Northern Cardinal