(gentle music) - [Narrator] For some, a map is a menu for those who lost after place.

For those who know the intimate details of every name, every contour line, a map is a kind of personal history.

If we know Maine at all, we can sense the smells and textures of those places.

But there are infact, many Maines.

These women give us tastes of regions out of sight, hidden from those of us who spend time only on the coast or the lakes and wilderness.

Much of their livelihood has come from the land either by producing a product or building a community.

These remarkable women share a common thread in their sense of community and legacy of family traditions of work.

In reaching out to women of Maine, I wanted to examine the idea of belonging to a place.

I see their environment through the viewfinder with an informed eye.

Over time, I have come to realize by looking at other people's landscapes, we can begin to ask questions about where we live and how our space affects us and those around us.

(gentle music) - [Raquel] Growing stuff in the natural state, as well as that which we plant in gardens is pretty pure and kissed by salt air which is a wonderful, wonderful enhancer to flavor.

(gentle music) As a child my love of the earth came from my grandpa most directly.

We were taught the respect of humus and earthworms.

I mean, you notice, I said, earth, not dirt.

A lot of people say dirt.

It's not dirt.

My grandfathers scolded me one time and he said, "No, no, no, this is earth.

"Life comes from this.

"This is not dirt."

(waves crashing) (gentle music) This Island could support hundreds and hundreds of people.

And of course, we think most of us now, and even when we came some 30 years ago, think we have to import all of our food stuffs.

You can forage, you can live from the sea, you can live from the land and this, with what my grandparents had taught me, sparked something.

Foraging after all is eating the things that were not planted by you nor tended by you.

They're in nature.

You might say it's like the lilies of the field philosophy that is in religion.

Everything is provided for you.

It is there.

We have become sophisticated.

(sea roaring) Foraging is what pushes me out often.

You have to go off the paths and you have to go far and wide.

I have been lucky to know it intimately.

I mean, I do know parts that are very private because they don't learn on pads but I came upon them and said, "Aha," and remembered that and thought, we must go back to that in the autumn 'cause this is where we see the monarch butterflies coming in clouds, clouds of orange.

And this is a place we'll go because this is where there's a book that comes that is so melodic in the spring because of the structure of the rocks that it trickles over in the light.

But it's gone in the summer.

You have to know when and where.

So yes, I think I have an intimate relationship with a lot of the land.

The house we have built, my husband and I, we designed it and built it so that I have a house here that is such a shelter that I can't imagine leaving it.

And we're in the tree level which is another wonderful thing about living on an Island where the land is so connected with your life.

There are trees and birds around us that are almost part of our living space.

Not because we've put in huge glass windows or anything like that, just 'cause we're up there and they're close to us.

And there aren't roads and highways and noises to scare them away.

It's pretty wonderful and very, very special.

(gentle music) In our travels, meaning mentally, Peter and I have come upon a concept that's called islandness.

And there is something about islandness that is so special on a deep water island.

I'm not speaking of a small one that is connected by a bridge of course.

That becomes a peninsula in a sense.

And I'm very aware that that space in this case about 10, 11, 12 miles to go depending on the landfall, a shore is getting shortened up by better boats, faster boats and more comfortable boats but we are still an Island.

When that last boat goes, you're stuck here or blessed by being here.

You can't go up.

The familiar landscape looking out and just having a dropping of the shoulder plates just to see this, what is it?

280 degree horizonit's astounding.

And the light, I mean the light on an island is unobstructed.

You don't have tall buildings.

We don't have huge hardwoods, so the trees aren't that big.

The light is all around us and artists I'm told come here to some measure because of the light, because it bounces off the ocean and is intensified as the salt air maybe does something to do with it.

I don't know.

(gentle music) (waves crashing) This is the kind of spirituality that has grown for me, much calmer, much sort of longer wavelengths than the high peaks of, "Let's do this, "let's do that this is time for," (mumbles) This is more, "Here we are."

And even if wrought up by something in the news or in personal life, my family knows that I keep saying the moon and sun still rise, we're still turning on this axis.

There will be high tide and low tide.

All of this still exists.

So I do confirm that there have been changes that have been more spiritual and more in the sense of being a part of life and universal life and all time even for this short period of time we're allotted as human beings.

But it is part of a big program.

(gentle music) So it's definitely a knowable place and I'm pleased to say that as long as my body allows me, I will go to the extremes and the edges and not stay in the center of the village but doing the things I like to do at the shore whether it's just drinking it in with my eyes or watching the moon rise or things that you don't do except on vacation often, but it's better for us to know we can do them all the time and actually go out and do them periodically.

(gentle music) (upbeat music) - [Belly] Somebody is always offering me $1 million for the farm and saying, "You can live anywhere you want to."

And I say, "That's what I'm doing now."

(gentle music) I've always been kind of proud to never mind that I heard that I was on the label rural farmer.

I was more of a do it for yourself person and have always thought that we should take responsibility for ourselves.

(tractor engine roars) (gentle music) This organic growing isn't new.

My great-great grandmother did it.

They had no choice.

They did not have the artificial fertilizers that were made largely from petroleum.

Some of the recent research on food is showing that the organically grown food has upwards of 25% more nutrition than the food that is grown conventionally.

So the Common Ground Fair.

That was an interesting thing.

This is the main organic farmers and gardeners and we had been getting together in small groups but we thought it'd be wonderful to get together as a large group.

So we had decided to have a fair where we would go and exchange information amongst ourselves.

(upbeat music) I realized of course, that the community is not within our own neighborhood, necessarily.

So we reached out and I've gotten people from all over.

That's a wonderful, uplifting, comfortable situation to realize that even though the people back in your own community considered you a little odd because you were doing these odd things in this organic manner, but here was a group that you were very comfortable with because they were doing those same odd things.

When I was a child, somebody with four cows could support their family on it.

They didn't have to have such huge amounts.

So, but then someone decided that if they got bigger they'd have more, but in having more, they also had more debt, more responsibility, more everything.

It changed life all together.

It's nowhere near as relaxed and enjoyable as it was.

(gentle music) If we don't protect the land, we're not goingto be able to eat.

And eating is very important to me.

It's I think today, people don't really realize how fragile their eating supply might be.

It's about 50 years now that I've had Toggenburg goats.

(goats bleats) Goats are prolific.

You breed them in the fall and quite often, they're going to get two babies in the spring, sometimes three, but usually two but that can increase the herd considerably.

(flute sounds) I want them to be creative and to be able to take care of themselves and to rely on themselves to learn to plant seeds and bring that crop in and cook it and eat it rather than rush to the store and buy a TV dinner.

It gives a reliance and a self-esteem and a self-respect that you can't get by expecting somebody else to do it.

And lots of talk nowadays about self-esteem.

Well, if you go up there and raise your own food and bring it in and cook it yourself and so forth you can do it for yourself.

You don't worry about self-esteem.

You got it.

It's satisfying to do something and have it real.

And you wake up in the morning and it's daylight and you think, "Wow, I made it through the night."

(Belly laughs) How many old people, are sure "Wow, we've got another day?"

(gentle music) - [Jenny] I ain't got much for a home but it's warm and comfortable.

And I can, do what I want to.

We laid in (mumbles) for either one or two weeks before we could get on that shower.

And mind you January come down the agenda where we got on 1916 the 16th day of January.

That was the only home I ever knew, you see because I was only, I wasn't four years old when I went on there.

That's probably didn't know much when I was three.

(Jenny laughs) Here I am 91, I don't know nothing anyway.

(upbeat music) The Lighthouse was built way back in the 18ths I think and they didn't last after that.

And then the coast guard took it over.

Today, you don't need the Lighthouse but that light house was a baka, same as all the fishermen used it as a baka.

And I've used it myself many a time.

(gentle music) I started when I was 10.

I had 10 traps when I was 10.

When I was 13, I had 145.

Me and my father together.

So I got my license, I've got my boat fixed and I got my lobster license.

So chances are, if I can walk, I'll be there.

When we got married, we lived down in my other brother's house under the wall.

Then we built this one in '35.

When I got married, I was supposed to try to be a housekeeper and a decent wife but I did not end up that way.

(Jenny laughs) I ended up, I did not end up that way, that's all.

I didn't get my first baby.

We was married almost four years for almost three years, so then we didn't get the baby.

They killed it.

Almost killed me.

Dr. Dua was gonna die.

Believe it or not I see part of heaven that time.

(upbeat music) We got two years old lambs they took over they are Bazougers.

They are a smart animals.

They are really a smart animal.

(upbeat music) When I first had the long lambs here, I had Ron and his name was doll and she was a doll.

(upbeat music) And another one, that was a devilish one.

He was just full of heck, he never wanted that now but all nothing He'd pull my ear and I let him out.

They didn't get that.

He'd pull my hair, it wouldn't lay down in the sheet.

And I said, "I ain't gonna take you everywhere I go "I don't buy it, if you don't behave yourself."

But after got ready, he'd lay down the sheet and go sleep with the rest of them.

Yeah they, are really as far.

But you've got to have patience.

I've watched him sheep all of my life.

Yeah that's all I have to get up for in the morning, if I didn't have them I wouldn't have nothing to get up for.

(upbeat music) - [Gail] It's all about time.

It's about attention.

It's about love.

It's about connection spending the time with a single plant a single ally and getting to know it through time.

Like you get to know a friend.

(birds shrieks) (upbeat music) I very distinctly remember sitting on the back of a pickup truck here.

And there was absolutely nothing around here.

There was no other neighbors in any of these houses.

It seems so isolated and so alone.

And I felt totally abandoned.

And I just thought to myself what am I ever gonna do here?

And right then I heard this voice in my head and it said, so crystal clear to me, "Relax.

"You're gonna love it."

(birds shriek) Eventually I began to feel like I had come to this piece of land almost like an arranged marriage in a way.

And I really didn't choose it but I deeply fell in love with it over time.

The plants themselves tell you in every way what they are good for what their energy is all about and how you can use them.

And when you learn the language of plants you very easily can understand how to make use of plants how to work as a partner with the medicinal plants.

You know, the hand on the flower, that's as basic as it gets that that is the foundation of all medicine.

It's the hand on the flower.

And if you can put your hand on the flower with intention, attention, and love, then I think whatever you've made with that follows through with that kind of intention and love.

So very much people tell me that the medicines they get from us, they feel that energy and that love and they feel the effectiveness.

And I really think that has a lot to do with the hands on the flower.

Basically one must approach, wild plants with a sense of reverence, a sense of respect, a sense of humility.

You approach, knowing that you are about to receive a blessing and never with the idea that you are there to take.

We created the circle many years ago from rocks here on the land.

We made an altar and ever since then, we've had special ceremonies in that circle.

Classes are often held in the circle.

It's a wonderful place to meditate on the directions and just on all the bounty of nature, which is all around us.

Many, many of my neighbors here in the community have come through here to ask for help or to ask for an herbal remedy or some information or knowledge that I might be able to help them with about the medicinal value of the plant.

And this has been a very nourishing role that I have been placed into.

And it's been a very special way of giving back to the people who I have learned so much from.

Wherever water is flowing out of a hole in a rock like the sacred spring we have down in the woods that is considered a sacred spot, the home of the goddess.

(upbeat music) ♪ Tend the soul ♪ Enter the joy ♪ Night fall slow You know I think of myself like a dandelion root, very deeply planted here.

And I have lot of seeds that go all over.

But my root is right here in this land.

And I think this is where I'll always stay.

♪ I have loved slowly (guitar music) - [Jackie] Lots of times when I'm in the legislature I would much rather be up in Aroostook County where the air seems so pure.

And it's just, like I said, I love the wide open spaces.

I was born in Mars Hill, went to school in Mars Hill.

My husband and I were high school sweethearts.

After we were graduated, we decided that we wanted to farm my husband, being the fifth generation farmer in the family, my children now the six generations.

And I have grandchildren who are working on the land, who are seventh generation.

(upbeat music) We're farming, about 800 acres of potatoes and the rest and grains for rotation.

We farm a pretty good sized farm and it's a family farm.

Farming is a way of life.

You have to look at it more than an economic proposition.

It's a way of life it strengthens rural communities.

And I love that.

I wouldn't have any other way of life.

(upbeat music) Today you have less farmers, less farm families.

And there isn't the closeness that it used to be.

We all work together as people in the community and helped one another.

And it just, it isn't that way anymore.

There's a lot of farmers who haven't made it and they're no longer farming.

And you've got the people who are here farming, have gobbled up all the land so that we still have family farms, but nowhere has many.

It's just tough to make ends meet on a farm.

You always eat well because you have your own beef and potatoes and gardens and whatnot, but it's very there's no room for mistakes anymore.

And you either get into it and work hard to stay into it or get out.

There's just no in between.

(upbeat music) My family is my life.

I mean, money can't buy happiness.

I'm very fortunate.

I have two of my children left here on the farm with us.

We're very, very close knit family.

And I have five grandchildren working on the farm now, too.

And it gives me a great pleasure when I go out and see my granddaughters working on the farm.

They love it and I have a grandson he's 15 now.

And we're of course expecting that.

He'll go to college and then probably come back.

If you need help in a small community, such as we live in.

And it still is that way today you can feel free tocall your neighbor.

Or if they know you have a serious problem, everybody shows up.

That's one of the advantages of living in a small community.

Everybody just looks after everybody.

Well, I've always been an outside person.

I've skied, I've snowmobiled.

I've done it all, outside is where I like to be.

And when I'd get up early in the morning, it was so peaceful.

The sun would be coming up.

The birds would be singing and it was just so peaceful to get out on a tractor and look around.

As I was preparing the ground.

I'm always glad to come home.

It's just the wayof life for me.

When I walk out on the farm, since I've come home from Augusta, after we ended the session, I just take a deep breath.

When I walk across to one of our farms is 200 acres across the road from where we live and I can go out there and walk across that farm and just stop when I want to and take a deep breath.

And it's just, a real way of life for me.

(gentle music) - [Mary] This is home.

This is where I was born and raised.

This is where I have my children.

This where my grandchildren live, this is part of me, this is who I am.

(singing in foreign language) Well, I was born and raised here in Presque.

This place, I think has its own spirit always did as any piece of land.

If you walk on a piece of property you've got to feel it, but there's something here that the spirit here, it stays here.

And when you step on the grounds, it warms you it conquered here and saying it's okay.

You're okay.

I think there are a lot of different spirits here.

I think the spirits that have come with others stayed here because they found it comfortable.

(flute sounds) Being native Americans, probably one of the most exciting parts of who I am.

(flute sounds) I always knew who I was because my mom reiterated it that I was a native American, that I was Micmac.

And a lot of my family used to come and visit kind of validating that and that it was okay.

I was scared a lot, I think as a teenager had low self esteem, I was scared of people and strangers, and now that's different.

And I've grown a lot.

I think not only as a woman, but as an individual because knowing full well who I am, where I came from and not forgetting that.

(upbeat music) (singing foreign language) Pow wow which is now what we call a Mawiomi is a gathering and it's open to the public.

Anyone can come.

It's a place to come and share, place to celebrate.

And we have talking circles that people can share sweat lodges that people share.

And we have the sweat keepers that come from all over and fire keepers are there to help to help people go through a sweat lodge.

Sweat lodge is a cleansing ceremony, is to celebrate women, is to celebrate natives, is to celebrate people as a whole and to share of yourself as you as you're going through that ceremony to cleanse yourself and pray for those that need that help and watchfulness it needs healing.

It's a place to heal.

So it's a very special, sacred ceremony.

♪ To you mother earth, we give you thanks ♪ ♪ For it is the greatest gift that one can be given ♪ From Micmac tradition I think you're taught to respect all things.

You give thanks and praise for all things, whether it's a deer that gives up his life for food on your table, to when the bear shows up, it's there to provide for you and give you strength.

Whether it shows that physically or in your dreams are there for a reason.

The very rocks on the ground, the flowers, they're not always there.

People and we all do we take things for granted and it's learning not to give thanks for that because it ain't gonna be here for long.

You're family.

It's like the elders, they're not there forever.

So you take advantage of that and you thank them just for being there, because they won't be there for long.

(flute sound) If we continue to delve into the negative part of our lifestyles and not remembering all the wonderful things that we have, the roof over our head, the food on our table, our family.

It's remembering that is the best thing you could ever have and no outside negative force can trim that.

(flute sounds) (guitar music) - [Deb] Well, I love plants.

And so to be able to live amongst and work amongst them every day brings incredible joy to my heart.

All these things are to come together for me as a teenager, like, "Oh, you can grow your own food.

"You can use some herbs to help prevent illnesses "or if you get sick "and then some of those plants also can help animals."

I mean, I was really excited as a 16, 17 year old.

(upbeat music) Going to Nepal when I was 21 was hugely impactful to me because in Nepal, I got to see a system of medicine that had not been destroyed and disrupted by other systems.

The allopathic system of medicine.

Now it's conventional Western medicine really severed people's knowledge of plants here.

And we're trying to heal that and piece it back together.

At 25, I knew that I really wanted to grow medicinal plants and that I really wanted to do work.

That felt meaningful to me.

I didn't wanna work for other people.

And I wanted to help people with plants.

I wanted to really follow that heart's calling.

So I have studied quite a lot of ethnobotanical information 'cause I'm very interested in the native plants that originally have been here for a long, long,long, long time.

And trying to piece back together stories of how these plants were used.

And that it's been a lot about piecing back together and a lot about respectful conversations with native peoples who have something to say about the plants.

(gentle music) I didn't really ever think about starting a business, but I wanted to support myself doing what I love.

And so that's why I started to teach.

And that's why I started Avena Botanicals.

(upbeat music) The garden's going into its seventh year now.

And there's over 140 different varieties of medicinal herbs and some trees and some shrubs everything which has medicinal use.

And then we've plant some different variety of flowers particularly that have significance for particular pollinators.

So everything in the garden has a purpose.

The first way that I started to think about and learn about community is by growing plants.

And I began to first learn about how plants grow which ones like to really grow in community which ones are more solo individual, which plants gravitate to grow near who?

It was just by gardening, that I began to observe how plant communities grow.

And I also began to observe how incredibly necessary diversity is both in the garden.

And also I began translate into my workplace.

The history of herbalists as women is what really moved me to work with all women, because it's just a natural thing that women have done for hundreds of years.

It made sense that women taught each other about plants and about healing.

I have a deep, deep love for women and a deep respect for women and our connection to the earth and our connection to each other.

There's tremendous difficulty in mixed workplaces for women.

And I wanted to have a place that felt a little bit safer and where women's voices are really respected and heard.

So I have created a working environment where I appreciate each woman's voice and her ideas and her thoughts.

And because I don't consider myself to have all the answers.

(gentle music) I could never live in a city.

I have to live onland in the country and feel the earth and go barefoot in the spring and all summer and listen to the birds return.

So the gardening has really broadened my connection to just the rhythms of life around me.

(gentle music) (upbeat music) (guitar music) - [Leitha] My name is Leitha Kelly.

I've lived in the Allagash for 63 years.

(guitar music) Both grandfathers were woodsmen.

My father also was a woodsman and he'd go in the woods maybe a month or two at a time.

Never had a swimming pool.

So we all were swimming in the Allagash River.

And if we wanted to go out and eat and to fish or whatever the morning, we could always go out in the Allagash and catch a fish.

So it was just, I don't know, it was just a very peaceful way of life, but that I couldn't, I don't know if I could find it anywhere else.

I married Tylor in '58, his father was a woodsman and he also was a woodsman.

Then we had five children and our two older sons became woodsmen.

(upbeat music) Tylor would on Sunday afternoon and then he wouldn't come back home until Saturday night.

When we first was married, he stayed in the woods all week And the pay wasn't very great.

So you had to makesure you had enough to keep your family home and then send him in the woods on Sunday afternoon with enough groceries to do him the week.

Tylor had an accident in '85 and what they called it was I think it's a widow's tree.

We've had quite a few accidents in the woods like that.

Some of the men were wasn't as lucky as Tylor.

In fact, my father's younger brother was only 19 and he was killed in the woods by what they calledthe widow's tree.

It was tough because everything that happened home then you had to take care of it by yourself.

Bringing up the children it was hard then because he wasn't always there to carry the load.

I took care of the camps.

We'd go up every weekend.

When the guys would come out then I'd go up and clean camps and get the bed ready.

And then I kept the books for them.

And lots of times we would cook for the guys that was in the woods.

There's a few that makes a living here, but it's not like it used to be.

At one time, it was a real busy place with the lumber?

'Cause you had different places that you could sell the lumber and that now it's only the one place.

(upbeat music) Because of the wood's work in that it went downhill so fast.

That the children, as soon as they get a high school, have to leave here and go away to work.

But I'd love to be able to see the children come back because you could talk to any one of the children, even if they weren't born here but their parents were, this is where they call home.

It was the centennial year.

They celebrate the a 100 years here and they asked us if we could put up something to just maybe sell hot dogs and hamburg to help the people.

And I said, "Oh, I'd love to do it," and we did.

We just made a little building and we started to sell them for three or four days on the 4th of July that year.

(mumbles) - [Leitha] So then the following year, we built on another little part and a lot of people just enjoy coming and sit and talk.

And then we decided that it was going to go good we'd build on because the children all said, "Mum liked to cook."

So then they built on a bigger place and that's where we've got the Two Rivers Lunch.

And it's been quite successful ever since.

(upbeat music) For the first few years of our marriage and bringing up the children, we was always out hunting.

We hunted together.

And when the children grow up, we hunted in the fall for deer and we canned the deer.

So that was our way of life.

And I'm to just loved every minute of it, of the outdoor I feel when I'm out one on the land, I feel the closest then to my mum and dad, because I know they walk the lands and work the lands So I just thank God for the memories that we had in the family life that we had that our mum and dad brought us up the way they did.

(upbeat music) The land and the love of the outdoors and the hunting fishing that will always stay in the family.

(guitar music) (upbeat music) - [Carol] I guess that's the whole thing of living in Maine probably began in my childhood.

When my family took camping trips to Maine then I always thought, "What a great place this is."

So at some point we decided let's go and we're I'm too young and idealistic to know that you can live off the land.

So therefore we were able to pull it off.

(upbeat music) The gardens the buildings, the houses, none of that was here.

It was just a big open blueberry field And the whole thing had been burned black.

So it was just black, but even so you could see Lead Mountain and Spruce Mountain in the bluffs.

And as you get further out in the field you can see Pleasant Mountain way off in the distance, on a clear day.

In a course, I'd heard all this stuff about how you can earn money with blueberry.

So just looking at the whole total picture it was just great.

And so little by little, we pieced together a system and the blueberries were already here in the infrastructure for the blueberries was here.

The factory was here.

We had an immediate market.

We found out about the farmer's market and brewer that were already existed.

All we had to do is join.

This is maybe 15 acres of blueberries and we're only dealing with half of it at a time as far as a harvest in the marketing goes and that's like a drop in the bucket By just call it Beddington Ridge Farm.

We do a variety of things.

We started out primarily in blueberries but it's no longer the single biggest part of our income.

It's just an important piece of it but it's not the only thing we tried to diversify.

And it's always a work in progress.

You never have it all figured out.

The blueberries have been creative by 100 years of people that came before me those big rock piles in the field they were made by generations of people picking rocks.

I feel like I'm just one piece of a big, broad continuum and everything that's been done here has been done with the help of a lot of different people.

By having Ron here as all the time backup partner I'm just one little cog in this whole bigger picture.

And we're just one little farm.

It is nice to see a new season start.

Sometimes I have a hard time getting myself going at the end of the winter.

'Cause winter is such a nice, quiet time.

We don't have that many deadlines and pressures on us.

And I leisurely take a walk with my dog Snowshoe whatever every day.

I mean, I got it made in the winter and then suddenly I have to start working again in the spring.

That's a bit of a shock to realize, "Yikes, "I got to just get out there and get going "first thing in the morning and keep at it "because it's the only way to get stuff done."

For me I liked the quiet, the fact that I can hear the birds that when I'm in the house, I can listen to the sounds of the woodstove and know whether it's getting too much ear whether it'll load down the fence a little bit, or if it needs more water, just listen to the sounds of the wind.

And in a lot of places in the world, you can't just listen to the sounds of the immediate earth.

(birds chirping) I don't think I'd ever wanna totally give up what I have going here because I've spent my whole adult life putting it together piece by piece, the gym business the wreath business, the blueberry business.

And yeah, I have a lot of emotional attachment to it.

Oh, I enjoy the coming back part.

I like going places no doubt about it.

But coming back is always a good part of the whole picture.

'Cause then I can better appreciate the nice things that are here.

This piece of land has supported us all these years and it'll continue to do so one way or another.

And I would love to think that whoever comes next has their chapter to play out here.

(upbeat music) - [Sylvia] 'Cause I was brought up on the farm.

That's where I wanna be .

I always loved the country, I've been here since 1932 I was born the February 26th, 1915 in New Vineyard, Maine In a house post Ohio now live.

'Cause you started making butter sooner after we came in here because you get some we would come here, August 5th, 1932.

And then we got a few cows and the we started making some butter.

Now the other day I had 51 pounds and sometimes I might have 60 pounds up to 60 pounds.

Me and my sister she used to tend the butter to help my mother.

That's how I learned how to do it on my own which I did for many years.

It's quiet up here.

And Buckfield you can just see for miles and miles and everywhere and beautiful.

In the fall when the least 10, you wouldn't believe it I just go out with Chuck and then sit down and look and look.

(chuckles) Yeah as its always, it's so beautiful up there.

They used to be all these farms and it then have a few cows and sometimes would come and help each other.

Like if say had silage corn and the failed to put in for a silage they'd come and help do it.

They used to help each other.

I don't know.

But they don't, it isn't like it used to be like that.

Everybody's for themselves, you are on your own.

Yes I have cows, chickens and cats now and a dog.

(dog barks) (cat meows) Oh yes they love me, 'cause I feed them, given them home and talk them.

Oh, I love my animals.

They seem like a big family.

(upbeat music) I love to see the vegetables grow.

I love pulling weeds too.

Now how many liked to pull weeds in the garden you don't find many that say they like to pull weeds.

Well if you pull weeds you have something going on a winch about it.

You pull the weeds you feel you've accomplished something.

I used to make quilts too, but stopped doing that now.

Well, I just get old and tired and I get tired dizzy and then when I get tired, I sit down and I used to go sleep in the chair.

Sometimes I don't compost too much in the daytime and sometimes I compost quite a lot.

(upbeat music) - Narrator] All of these women know that living in a place entails responsibility to it.

Though each expresses it in a different way.

They've chosen lives that are unforgivingly integrated with the land that involves an intricate give and take.

Although their experiences are varied.

One thing is the same.

They know where they are.