Nobody photographs the fence. If you think about it—we photograph the garden inside the fence. The cute lambs. The goat kids. But the fence is just there in the background. Sitting stolidly, overlooked and under-appreciated. Yet—without that infrastructure, you couldn’t keep livestock in. Or keep them out of the garden. Fencing is unglamorous work—unsung labor that has to happen before the beautiful stuff can. And that’s what I’ve been working on this week…
Hefting the new garden gate off the ground, I settled the peg into the hinge attached to the t-post. Constructed of two-by-fours and a piece of cattle panel, it’s a solid piece of work. There was just one problem…
And seeing it in place, I realized just how crooked the t-posts at the garden’s entrance really are. The gate hung lop-sided and leaning.
“This is not going to work,” I said to no one but myself.
This garden fence project has presented one obstacle after another, and I’m more than ready to move on to the next thing. Of which there are plenty. But the weight of my fabulous gate would eventually pull the fence out of alignment, and after all this work, I’m not about to half-ass it.
Casting a wide net, I posted to half a dozen Facebook community groups in hopes of scoring a length of steel pipe (the kind used in chainlink fences), and added a bag of Quikrete cement to my list of things to pick up.
And as of yesterday—my community came through for me. A former CSA member had exactly what I needed, and it only cost me a couple of loaves of homemade bread.🍞
When I’m done with it, this gate ain’t goin’ no where!
AN UNEXPECTED DELIVERY
On Friday I was blown away when the UPS truck left a stack of packages on my front step. A generator. A food processor. A roll of fencing. Hoof shears. Feed tubs. A tripod waterer. AND a copy of Paul Stamets’ book that’s been on my list forever.
😱Somebody found my Amazon Wish List and sent close to a thousand dollars’ worth of stuff to the farm! Anonymously—no name, no note, no way to thank them directly. I was ridiculously overjoyed, lol…
I don’t have words big enough for that kind of generosity. So I’ll just say thank you, and I’ll let the work speak for the rest.❤️
MORE SEED SOWING
🌱I started a respectable number of both kale AND cabbage seeds during a rainy Monday morning, and on Friday my zinnias and cosmos went onto heat mats. These grow fast and only need a few weeks before they’ll want to be moved outside, so they’re always the last to be started. For me—they are the two-minute warning announcing the final stretch before the official start of planting season.
PRUNING ROUND 2!
🌳After cleaning up the messes from my first rounds of pruning, I spent Tuesday morning working on the lilacs on the island bed out front. Overgrown and spreading beyond where I want them, the lilacs had become more of an eyesore than an attraction. Pine saplings had grown up in the middle of one cluster, noxious sumac had crept in (I seem to have it spreading everywhere these days), and a few other saplings had snuck in amongst the lilacs.
I managed to remove all of the imposing offenders, thin the lilac shrubs so they were no longer leaning over the driveway—and I even hauled all of the debris out to the burn pile before I called it quits for lunch. Very satisfying.
GROWTH SESSIONS
🚀I feel like I’ve been growing all over the place lately. Like the Plumber’s Pipe in front of the barn, lol. Liz’s Farm Marketing Workshop was illuminating and a powerful motivator to revisit my business plan and those neglected back-end marketing tasks that drive any business. The Substack Growth Sessions with David have been amazing—so informative and I can’t wait to implement the strategies he’s shared.
On a personal level, I’ve been journaling more, reading daily on my lunch break, and I think I’m finally overcoming some of my camera-shyness. Or—not so much overcoming it—as doing the thing anyway.
OFFICE HOURS LAUNCHES MAY THE 4TH!
🕐Speaking of learning together—Maine Homestead Life Office Hours is officially launching Sunday, May 4th at 10 AM ET right here on Substack Live. No Zoom links to hunt down, no apps to install—just click the notification when it pops up and you’re in.
The whole idea is a rebellion against the notion that you have to figure this homesteading thing out by yourself. You send me your questions beforehand, I go live and work through them—no filters, no polish, just real talk. May’s topic is Spring on the homestead—because even Jedi have to get their seeds in the ground.
This first session is open to ALL subscribers—free and paid—so invite a friend and come ready to talk. (After May, Office Hours becomes a paid-subscriber exclusive, so this is your chance to see what you’d be getting.) Full details here.
May the 4th be with you. 🪖
DAILY FARM-VLOGS
📹The idea that you have to present your message in different formats to reach different people resonated hard with me. I heard it first in the Farm Marketing Workshop, and again in the Substack Growth Sessions—and I guess I always knew that, but this time I actually heard it.
So I’ve been playing with video this week, making these “Daily Farm-Vlogs,” and I recorded another podcast episode for those who prefer to listen over reading. I still forget that I need to turn my phone horizontally for YouTube videos, but I’m practicing and maybe getting better at the whole video-thing. Here’s the gate saga in vlog form—give it a watch and tell me what you think:
➡️Let me know what you think, would you? Are the daily vlogs useful? Interesting? Anything you’d like to see more of? Less of? I’m listening.
Next Friday is Shearing Day at Runamuk! One of the biggest days of the year—when the flock will trade in their winter wool for their summer haircuts, and I’ll be left with 14 beautiful fleeces to figure out what to do with.
Shearing Day is also a good reminder of just how much goes into keeping this small farm running. The shearer’s fee, the winter hay that got these sheep to shearing day, the fencing that keeps them safe on pasture, the vet care, the grain—none of it’s free, and most of it happens behind the scenes.
This week reminded me—in the most generous, unexpected way—that this farm doesn’t run alone. Whether you read, share, donate, or just keep showing up to walk the trails: you’re part of how this place keeps going. 🙏
And if you’d like to be part of it more formally, here’s how…
If you’re just here for the stories and the mud and the magic, free membership is a wonderful place to be. You’re already part of the community, and that means a lot to me. It gives me the courage to keep going, and I thank you.
If you’re ready to go deeper—paid memberships, virtual consultations, and Founding Membership options are all laid out here. There’s something for wherever you are right now.
A farm is held up by a hundred things nobody thinks about. The waterline running to the barn. The gate hinge that got replaced last fall. The compost bins in the corner of the yard. The tools hanging on the wall—sharpened, oiled, ready. None of it photographs well and you don’t see it in the farm-life highlight reel. But pull any one of those threads and the whole operation starts to wobble.
Once I get the garden-fence squared away, the next infrastructure project is to roll out the irrigation and connect it to the water supply on the backside of the farmhouse. After that, I’ll have to see to the fence on the field so that I can start moving the sheep out for grazing.
I’ve been thinking this week about how much of any life worth building happens in these quiet, unglamorous stretches. The fences we put up. The foundations we pour. The systems we set in place when nobody’s watching. It’s not the stuff that gets celebrated—but it’s the stuff that holds everything else up.
So if you’re in a season of unsung labor right now—building something nobody’s photographing yet—this one’s for you. Keep going. And in between—we garden.
Until next week, farm friends.
—Sam
This post was last modified on April 26, 2026 6:02 am
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