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UNITY — Even before the gates come into view, your nostrils are filled with a pungent mixture of both the sticky-sweet of a candy shop and the decomposing, earthy smell of a country drive.
Of course, having traveled through miles of rural Maine to finally reach Unity, everyone in the crowd waiting to get inside was eagerly expecting the onslaught — after all, Common Ground comes but once a year.
Hundreds of people stood and stared or milled around, taking objects and ideas normally flung far and wide, now crammed together.
It was better just to ride the tide and absorb the surroundings. Otherwise, you might have been caught up in an impromptu bike parade or a traveling band of accordion players headed in the opposite direction. Or your toes could have been squished under the wheel of a wagon being pulled by a pair of goats.
The surprises never seemed to end.
Marking 35 years this past weekend, the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association’s Common Ground Country Fair celebrates all things organic, rural and traditional.
From workshops detailing use of herbs to protect against radiation to techniques for lawn-mowing using the European scythe, aisles snaking between white tents held answers to questions you may not have known existed.
Part sustainable agriculture festival and part gathering to support environmental activism, the fair hosted a number of guest speakers.
Saturday’s keynote address, given by MOFGA Executive Director Russell Libby in the oval field at the center of the spoke-and-hub-shaped fairground, sought to outline the past accomplishments of the American organic lifestyle movement and how lessons learned could be used to overcome present obstacles.
To Libby, the average person involved in a sustainable lifestyle strives to leave the world a better place.
“That’s the opposite of so much of what is going on in the world right now,” he said. “I have to say, I think the challenges we have faced so far are nothing like the challenges to come.
“We have to find a way around the anger.”
Bringing remarks closer to home than policy decisions made in Washington, D.C., Libby seemed to downplay advancements such as the restoration of Maine’s waterways. Citing a study that showed the dramatic, potential economic benefits to fishermen if the state’s aquatic species returned to their numbers from the 1970s, he speculated that the abundance available in the 1600s is a better standard to strive for.
While he recalled decisions made out-of-state that have allowed environmentally destructive processes, Libby spared no blame for Mainers, hedging the argument that people from away are the greatest contributors to in-state issues.
“There is no ‘away’ — we are the away,” Libby said. “We have to figure out how to stop creating the problems.”
For those not so inclined to hear political speeches on a Saturday afternoon, other events and vendor stalls had plenty to offer. But unlike most fairs, there was no line for the Zipper.
There were, however, multiple events each day showing how herding dogs can be used to control a diverse group of animals. Led by David Kennard of Wellscroft Farm in Chesham, N.H., the dogs performed a number of herding skills while Kennard related information learned in his 40 years of working with animals.
For instance, American herders will typically use border collies, which does not typically bark when moving sheep, while shepherds in New Zealand, who generally have several hundred more sheep to control, will use more vocal breeds.
To issue commands to his dogs, Kennard used vocal cues and a whistle designed for herding.
He never praises his pack while on the job. The possibility of a dog being injured by a swift kick from an agitated sheep while looking back for a visual command or encouragement precludes anything but auditory communication.
“You could play Beethoven’s 9th with this whistle if you wanted,” Kennard said before launching into a shepherd’s symphony, quickly ranging up and down the scale in an intricate pattern of specific commands.
Throughout this opening demonstration, the dogs merely laid in the grass relaxing without so much as a glimpse at the sheep or Kennard. Rather than indicating a pack of lazy, uncooperative dogs, this calm demeanor is the exact behavior Kennard and other shepherds look for in a working breed.
“My dogs know it’s pointless to move, because I’m just going to pick them up and move them back,” he said.
That is, until he issued a command to a single dog. From that point on, the pack circling the herd took on the atmosphere of a poker tournament, the dogs controlling the sheep, goats and ducks with nothing more than stares and slow movements, heads low to the ground like cats ready to pounce.
Of course, not everyone came to the fair to sit and watch demonstrations, as evidenced by the crowds milling in and out of booths where vendors explained the differences among types of wool or extolled the benefits of a newly developed farming tool.
Across the fairground from the dog-herding pen, a line formed for the annual Harry S. Truman games. Nearing the event area, the smells of handmade soap and fresh produce were quickly replaced by something far more noxious, more unsavory — more putrid.
Those sweet, floral aromas were replaced by poop stink. And trash.
Which only makes sense, considering the Truman games are two versions of a manure toss: one for distance and one for accuracy, with contestants trying to throw as much as possible into a basket.
The impromptu arena was set up next to the composting area of the fair, where heaps of fresh trash were added to already rotting piles of used paper plates and food waste.
Understandably set apart from the more populated sections of the fair, the compost and manure brought to light just how much is consumed in three days at the festival. Looking at those piles with the entire world population in mind, it was hard not to agree with the environmentally friendly messages displayed in every stall.
What luck, then, that Saturday of this year’s fair coincided with Moving Planet, a worldwide celebration and demonstration devoted to eliminating the use of fossil fuels.
Gathered at the center of the fair, hundreds of people snaked through the spray-painted outline of a gigantic “350,” representing one of the event’s chief sponsors, 350.org, which identifies itself as “a global grassroots movement to solve the climate crisis” and takes its name from what it claims is the safe level of parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
After a countdown, members of the group raised either a pumpkin or their hands. A photographer snapped a shot from a cherry picker in an effort to show their support for environmentally beneficial legislation.
Walking back to the parking lot, it was plain to see that not everyone came to Unity seeking the same thing. Some would carry a new ax, some would drag a wagon or push a stroller full of fresh produce, others would have pamphlets detailing solar heating techniques sticking out of their back pockets.
They all came seeking different things, parts of the same common whole: a piece of the simple life, as only the country can provide.
