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William “Bill” Thayer and Amanda Caron, interviewed by James Moreira, September 20, 2003, at the Common Ground Fair in Unity, Maine.

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Identifier
NA 3065 (local)
Date
September 20 2003 (Date created)
Summary

Thayer talks about early life in Massachusetts; being in the insurance business in Boston; moving to Gouldsboro, Maine in 1977 and into a 10-room farmhouse on 33 acres; getting into farming; his farming practices with livestock, which included sheep, pigs, cows, turkeys and chickens; vegetable gardening; selling and buying straw from Canada; MOFGA farm apprenticeship program and his role as coordinator with Cynthia Thayer in the 1980s; spinning and weaving wool; sheep quality; Wednesdays Spinners group; Cynthia Thayer’s novel 10 Great Writers; working pony demonstrations; organic farmers and farming; marketing organic products; soil testing; obstacles of organic farming; mail-order business and catalog; the farm store they opened ca. 1995; Caron describes being an apprentice for Darthia Farm; attending the Putney School in Vermont, which is on a working farm and how she got interested in the apprenticeship program through the Darthia Farm web page; what impact it had on her and its benefits; a brief description of her seasonal duties including logging and harvesting and wood, splitting firewood, carding and spinning wool; gaining a broad foundation of skills, self-sufficiency and alternative living; Bennington College in Vermont. 

Creator and/or Contributor
William "Bill" Thayer (interviewee), Amanda Caron (interviewee), James Moreira (interviewer)
Language
English (Languages)
Other Subject Headings
Suburban life (Ethnographic Thesaurus (ET))
Rural life (Ethnographic Thesaurus (ET))
Back-to-the-land movements (Ethnographic Thesaurus (ET))
Organic farming (Ethnographic Thesaurus (ET))
Apprentices (Ethnographic Thesaurus (ET))
Textile processes (Ethnographic Thesaurus (ET))
Mail-order catalogs (Ethnographic Thesaurus (ET))
Marketing (Ethnographic Thesaurus (ET))
Sheep (Ethnographic Thesaurus (ET))
Soil science (Ethnographic Thesaurus (ET))
Universities (Ethnographic Thesaurus (ET))
Maine Organic Farmers' and Gardeners' Association (Ethnographic Thesaurus (ET))
Self reliant living (Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH))
Livestock exhibitions (Ethnographic Thesaurus (ET))
Community involvement (Ethnographic Thesaurus (ET))
Alternative schools (Ethnographic Thesaurus (ET))
Canning (Ethnographic Thesaurus (ET))
Wood (Ethnographic Thesaurus (ET))
Temporal Coverage
1975 - 2003
Geographic Coverage
Gouldsboro, Maine (Geonames)
Unity, Maine (Geonames)
Boston, Massachusetts (Geonames)
South Portland, Maine (Geonames)
Cape Elizabeth, Maine (Geonames)
Conway, New Hampshire (Geonames)
Putney, Vermont (Geonames)
Bennington, Vermont (Geonames)
Hancock County, Maine (Geonames)
Related Entities:
William "Bill" Thayer (interviewee)
Amanda Caron (interviewee)
James Moreira (interviewer)
Related Subjects:
Cynthia Thayer (subject)
Russell Libby (subject)
Related Objects
First page of the transcript for NA 3605