Lone Bee Farm in Freeport, Maine
We are so excited to introduce you to the incredible family behind Lone Bee Farm, who is working hard to make positive changes in accessible green energy, community food projects, educational & affordable travel experiences & regenerative farming.
"We really want to create a space where folks can get out of the city and experience the plants that grow here and we also believe that everyone despite their class should be able to travel and have a nice place to go to. We have been hosting people from all over the country and some international travelers over the last three years. We love meeting the types of people who are excited to stay on a bus or tiny cabin in the woods. Unfortunately some folks on our town board lack the ability to appreciate alternate type dwelling units so we may need to find a more creative approach to sharing the land with travelers. We might turn our rental spaces into spaces to host apprentices or wwoofers."
Lone Bee Farm joined the Meeting House Farm herb growers collaborative in 2020. They hope to offer a lot of fresh and dried root crops and are most interested in contributing to the bulk part of the collaborative. Their fresh burdock root was super popular last year and sold out quickly! Currently, we have their gorgeous dried goldenrod and their mint blend in stock in the online farmer's market and we look forward to adding more and more from them throughout this year's harvest season.
We asked Lone Bee about being a farm partner in the MHF collaborative; "We have really enjoyed meeting Emily and seeing her gardens and really look forward to getting to know more growers and sharing knowledge."
Tell us who you are, and your relationship to healing plants:
Kristen was highly influenced by studies in sustainable culture. She has a background in art, and has worked in soup kitchen farms, organic and native landscaping, and metal and fabric sculpture production. She volunteers a lot for events that try to change access to food in personal and public spaces such as permablitzes, cooperative farming and public orchards. Kristen learned about healing plants in her twenties from elders and peers at events like the burdock gathering and the common ground fair. She really came to appreciate and practice the use of herbs through pregnancy and raising children. Her relationship with herbs is more through growing and watching them than processing or using them. She enjoys the role they play in the ecosystem and food forest type settings.
Ian is an engineer with a strong interest in green energy. He’s the owner and sole employee of a small business; ‘community solar solutions’. He helps homeowners and community projects install solar at a wholesale price and teaches folks how to install the system with him so they understand how it works and how to fix it. Currently most of his time is spent at university Maine Orono working on a system the converts wood and paper waste into home heating oil. He has worked on farms and spent a lot of time studying wild plants and foraging. Ian learned about medicinal herbs from intensive solo immersions in wild crafting in the white mountains of New Hampshire. He felt a kinship with the plants from a very young age from practicing and studying pagan culture. He spent years ID-ing and sustainably harvesting plants and mushrooms and using them to heal himself and friends. He loves to encourage the plants that were already growing on the land when we arrived. He likes to study the different properties of the plants and how they work in our bodies depending on how they are processed.
Seamus is in middle school and loves all things technology related as well as biking and snowboarding.
Bearach loves helping on the farm when he’s not busy training to defeat his nemesis, the big bad wolf.
What is your favorite herb right now?
"California poppy is our most used and favorite plant that has gotten us through the wild years of raising a toddler."
