I was working in the garden, weeding and planting, and suddenly saw an unknown car wander up the driveway.

In the summer, it isn’t uncommon to see such unknown vehicles come for a visit. We have a small farm with sheep, an alpaca, a llama, an Angora rabbit and chickens – lots of chickens! We welcome people, especially from away, who want their kids to see a working farm where food is produced and animals are kept humanely. It’s a fervent belief of mine that people (including kids) need to know how their food is raised and delivered. Any farm that can’t show people that is not doing it right. Take that, big beef industry!

But this day I wasn’t feeling it. I was behind in my gardening chores. I had a large garden bed overrun with weeds. I still had several trays of seedlings badly in need of planting and the sheep’s stall needed cleaning out. But I went up to meet my unknown guests.

They began by explaining they had been to 50 Local, a restaurant in Kennebunk we have been working with for 10 years. They had ordered the cheese board, which comes with a drizzle of our honey and had been so enamored, they sought us out to get a jar of honey to bring back to Virginia. They had been in Maine for two weeks and were slowly working their way south, sporting Acadia T-shirts and a really cool moose shirt.

I can’t help myself – I introduced them to the farm.

I showed them the beehives, explaining how they work and how the honey is extracted. I told them about the sugar shack my husband built, and they eagerly bought a quart of maple syrup as well as a pint of honey.

They wandered through the gardens, never seeming to notice the bed of weeds I was trying to eliminate. They marveled over the thyme bed, the sage growing larger by the day, the kale, which was 2 feet tall. They cooed over the chickens and patted Dottie, my sheep ambassador for the farm.

For 45 minutes they reveled in the farm life that I live every day, thanking me over and over for sharing the farm with them. Their 12-year-old son was so effusive about the farm that I wanted to steal him. But that wouldn’t have looked good on my website so I made him promise to come back, which they assured me they would be doing – they had fallen in love with Maine!

We sometimes forget, especially in the summer when we are overrun with tourists, just how special our state is. There is a reason our license plates herald us as “Vacationland.” I prefer the newer slogan “Maine – the way life should be.” After the coronavirus year we have survived, it’s important to realize this and share it with those not fortunate enough to live here but still smart enough to seek us out!

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