'Heritage' & 'heirloom' are words to live by at Belmont's Maggie Mae Farm

BELMONT — "If we don’t eat them, they will die.’’

That’s what Glenn and Maggie Crawford say about the heritage animal breeds and heirloom vegetables that they raise at Maggie Mae Farm on Bishop Road.

The Crawfords have for several years been raising ancient breeds and heirloom varieties that are no longer valued parts of an industrialized agriculture system that provides virtually all of the nation’s food and say that they are part of a growing awareness that something very valuable is being lost because of that system.

"We care about food, how it tastes and where and how it is grown. We don’t use chemicals, our only fertilizer is manure from the animals and we try to match what we raise with the natural ability of the land to support it. Everything we raise is consumed within a 30-mile radius of our farm,’’ says Glenn.

He says that their 18-acre farm is home to animals like pigs, sheep and chickens that can fend for themselves in a free range environment and are suited to the rigors of a New Hampshire winter. They grow some 29 varieties of heirloom tomatoes, four varieties of heritage potatoes, blue podded sweet peas along with lettuce, chard, spinach carrots, beets and dozens more vegetables and herbs.

They are strong supporters of the Slow Food movement and its Ark of Taste, which lists more than 200 American heritage foods in danger of extinction.

Those endangered breeds are well-represented at the farm by the likes of "Dally", a 450-pound Gloucestershire Old Spot, who is the farm’s breeding sow; "Captain Thomas", a Narragansett turkey who presides over a flock of seven hens and their offspring; New Hampshire Reds, which provide broilers as well as eggs; Chinchilla rabbits, raised for their meat, and Tunis and Black Welsh Mountain sheep, which provide both wool and meat.

A recent addition to the farm is "Okkoto", a five-month old Gloucestershire Old Spot, who will be the farm’s breeder starting this fall.

"I try to stay very friendly with him. Some day he’s going to weight 800 pounds,’’ says Maggie, who says that Old Spots, once a very popular pig breed, now have only around 350 breeding sows left in the entire United States.

"They’re great foragers and grazers and can live off the land and agricultural byproducts,’’ she says, noting that the breed, often called the orchard pig for its usefulness in clearing windfall apples from orchards, produces copious amounts of bacon and that the lard made from its fat is nutritious and finds many uses in cooking.

Narragansett Turkeys, another once-popular breed bypassed by industrial agriculture, are another heritage breed raised at the farm. The Crawfords say that they’re good foragers, finding grasshoppers, crickets and other insects much to their liking.

Recently while the Crawfords were mulching tomatoes, a parade of turkeys, including two of the hens with all their babies, walked between the gardens and went through the hayfield and into the woods.

"After a few minutes, Captain Thomas came down after them gobbling and scolding, trying to gather his wayward flock back up the hill towards the barns. He was pretty insistent and Glenn intervened on Tom’s behalf, helping him herd the girls and their small ones back up to more familiar territory,’’ Maggie recalls.

Shortly after that they heard the gobble-gobble of a solitary wild male turkey, known as a jake, calling from the edge of a hayfield, making a bid to have a harem of his own.

"Needless to say, Thomas has been keeping a very watchful eye on his flock since he heard that competitor trying to seduce his girls!’’ says Maggie, who is now counting the turkeys as she locks them in at night.

For the Crawfords, running the farm is a part-time operation because both hold down full-time jobs, Glenn as head chef at Tavern 27, an American tapas bar on Parade Road in Laconia, and Maggie at Resource Management Inc in Holderness, a firm which recycles sludge, wood ash and other materials as a soil supplement.

Maggie Mae Farm is owned by Glenn’s parents, Janice and A. Bruce Crawford II, who still live at the farm and want to see a second generation operate the farm.

"We’re fortunate. Land is expensive and the farm buildings would be very costly if you had to build them scratch today. There wouldn’t be any money left to buy farm equipment,’’ says Glenn, who says that he and his wife, like most modern day small farmers, face many challenges in balancing their busy lives.

"We used to own a boat, but sold it because when it’s boating season you have to be working the farm. The same with the motorcycle,’’ he says.

Maggie says they still have snowmobiles, because winter is the one time of year when they do have time for recreation.

"It seems like the `to-do’ list just keeps getting longer every day. By the time you cross off a five things at the top, you’ve added 10 to the bottom,’’ says Glenn.

The couple connect with their customers through a community supported agriculture program (CSA), which runs for 18 weeks, and also hold monthly Field Days and occasional Crop Mob gatherings, at which people pitch in on special projects, like removing rocks from the gardens.

And they’re active with local schools, providing hatching eggs so that young children get to se the chickens hatch and watch them grow for a week or two.

Both of the Crawfords grew up on farms and want to see an important part of American life, the family farm, maintained for future generations.

Glenn says that they are greatly influenced by the ideas of Joel Salatin, a Virginia farmer who has developed an economically viable and environmentally friendly model for small farmers which provides for a diversity of crops and animals being raised by striking a balance with what the land can sustain through natural processes.

"We let chickens be chickens. It may take longer to get them to market size, but they’re good and tasty and very healthy. Our fields are better for having the animals roaming in them. It’s balancing the whole farm, so that it’s self-sustaining for generations,’’ he says.

CAPTION: Maggie Crawford with "Dally", the 450-pound Gloucestershire Old Spot breeding sow at Maggie Mae Farm in Belmont. (Roger Amsden/for The Laconia Daily Sun)