Family Farm

BELFAST, Maine - Penny Chase, 61, rattles down winding roads from her family's farm in Freedom, Maine, to Chase's Daily - their grand farm-stand restaurant on Main Street here. Before noon she pulls up to the back door and unloads produce grown by her husband, Addison, 61, and daughter, Meghan, 32. From crates in the back of the old white-panel truck come heirloom tomatoes, slender haricot verts, crisp arugula, fingerling potatoes, exotic herbs, ripe melons, flowers, ornate cabbages, and an earthy rainbow of beets, chard, and carrots.

The Supreme Court says a farming family has to pay tax on the bankruptcy sale of their farm. The high court on Monday voted 5-4 for the IRS in its fight with Lynwood and Brenda Hall over their bankruptcy sale of their 320-acre farm in Willcox, Ariz. The Halls were forced to sell their family farm for $960,000 to settle their bankruptcy debts. That sale brought about capital gains taxes of $26,000.The Halls wanted the taxes treated as part of the bankruptcy, paying part of it and having the court discharge the rest.

The owners of an 11-generation family farm in New Hampshire are closing up shop for the season, and it's not clear when they will reopen. The 135-acre Tuttle Farm in Dover has been up for sale since the summer of 2010. The farmstand had been open year-round in the past, but this year sales were held outside. Business is wrapping up Sunday. It's one of the oldest continually operated family farms in the country. Lucy Tuttle tells Foster's Daily Democrat (http://bit.ly/tTTwFa)

During 2010, the Tea Party got the attention, but the election revolt against bailouts, subsidies, and spending came from all sides. Voter sentiment hasn't changed much — but you wouldn't know that from the action last week on the US House floor, where renewing Export-Import Bank subsidies for big business was the order of the day. Compared with big-spending Democrats, Republicans still have a long way to go before losing the mantle of...

Some 15 years ago, Jane Brox, a young poet and essayist, returned home after an absence of a dozen years to help her aging father run the family farm in Dracut. Within a few years, her essays about the labors and rituals of a New England farm, lyrical but precisely observant, began appearing in literary journals, and in 1995 were published in "Here and Nowhere Else: Late Seasons of a Farm and Its Family. " Four years later, a second collection was published as "Five Thousand Days Like This One: An American Family History.

NEEDHAM - You may have heard that both the family farm and home cooking are dying institutions, but you couldn’t prove it on a recent Saturday here. It’s the 4th annual Farm Field Day at Volante Farms, and as part of the festivities, customers are invited to compete in a cooking contest, vying for $100 in gift certificates. Each entry has to include at least one fruit or vegetable from the farm; three local restaurant chefs are judges. Events like these raise awareness about the farm’s operation.

On the edge of the Newmarket District in Roxbury, you can buy Mack Truck parts and have your car windows tinted. Amid the warehouses, you might catch a waft of something sweet and roasty. Will and Dave Willis are making mash, a combination of hot water and grains that they'll ferment and run through a still. They'll end up with whiskey or vodka. The brothers are the founders of Bully Boy Distillers, which they launched in June. On a recent visit to their high-ceilinged warehouse, they measured alcohol and temperature levels of the clear spirit trickling off a...

The Supreme Court says a farming family has to pay tax on the bankruptcy sale of their farm. The high court on Monday voted 5-4 for the IRS in its fight with Lynwood and Brenda Hall over their bankruptcy sale of their 320-acre farm in Willcox, Ariz. The Halls were forced to sell their family farm for $960,000 to settle their bankruptcy debts. That sale brought about capital gains taxes of $26,000.The Halls wanted the taxes treated as part of the bankruptcy, paying part of it and having the court discharge the rest.

MILLEDGEVILLE, Ga. - Tattered cotton balls on withered stalks appeared in the fields, and then a row of weathered signs advertising “moonshine jelly’’ and “fried pecans’’ as we reached the outskirts of Milledgeville. In the hard, unforgiving light of a winter afternoon, we drove between the small, cottage-style homes banked up on either side, past the Piggly Wiggly, and after making our way along the ubiquitous retail strip, located the entrance to Flannery O’Connor’s farm, Andalusia.

FALMOUTH — “What time is it?’’ Melaine Hines asks Christopher Blackwood. She is cafe manager at Coonamessett Farm and he is the chef. In a tiny kitchen below the farm’s store, she’s kneading dough for dumplings and he’s chopping a mountain of onions, garlic, and cabbage for a stir-fry. “Twenty of,’’ he replies. It’s 5:40 p.m. on a Wednesday evening recently. In less than half an hour, 300 people will descend on the farm for the weekly Jamaican Buffet and Grill.

‘When you shine a torch at night," writes British novelist Graham Swift, "it lights your way, but makes the surrounding darkness several times darker. " In his latest book, "Wish You Were Here," the Booker Prize-winning author illuminates the life of a sullen, Devonshire farm boy struggling to endure stark, personal tragedies amid the encroaching pall of family history, rural decay, and the global war on terrorism. Living in what feels like exile on the Isle of Wight, Jack Luxton learns of his brother Tom's death in Iraq, which precipitates an emotional row with his wife, Ellie.

The owners of an 11-generation family farm in New Hampshire are closing up shop for the season, and it's not clear when they will reopen. The 135-acre Tuttle Farm in Dover has been up for sale since the summer of 2010. The farmstand had been open year-round in the past, but this year sales were held outside. Business is wrapping up Sunday. It's one of the oldest continually operated family farms in the country. Lucy Tuttle tells Foster's Daily Democrat (http://bit.ly/tTTwFa)

*½ FARMAGEDDON: The Unseen War on American Family Farms Written and directed by: Kristin Canty At: Boston Common Running time: 86 minutes Unrated ‘Farmageddon: The Unseen War on American Family Farms" marks the directorial debut of Kristin Canty, a Concord mother of four. Canty's more interested in advocacy, though, than filmmaking. That isn't to say the film is negligently made. Canty intersperses appealing shots of green markets, small farms, and the like with numerous talking-head interviews.

On the edge of the Newmarket District in Roxbury, you can buy Mack Truck parts and have your car windows tinted. Amid the warehouses, you might catch a waft of something sweet and roasty. Will and Dave Willis are making mash, a combination of hot water and grains that they'll ferment and run through a still. They'll end up with whiskey or vodka. The brothers are the founders of Bully Boy Distillers, which they launched in June. On a recent visit to their high-ceilinged warehouse, they measured alcohol and temperature levels of the clear spirit trickling off a...

Andy Geddes can't stand to eat blueberries. All summer long, his dreams are ripe with them. "I see little blue dots whenever I close my eyes," he says, a grimace growing on his round face. Teenage Andy, one of the Geddes clan's younger generation, has been enlisted to work on the family's farm in the town of Gilmanton, tucked into the folds of lower New Hampshire. "Blueberries are our job," he explains. "It would feel weird to eat them. " This is a sentiment I do not share. Since I was 7 years old, I have spent my summers in Gilmanton and, come July, make regular...

On a sweltering July day, a group of chefs and young culinary students in T-shirts and shorts trails after Jim Ward, co-owner with brother Bob of Ward’s Berry Farm in Sharon. He leads them through his fields, showing off burgeoning rows of beets, greens, tomatoes, potatoes, and more. They pause to eat spicy radishes yanked straight from the ground. They shake their heads at how much work it takes to grow corn. “One ear per stalk,’’ a tall, skinny kid marvels. “Isn’t it crazy?

During 2010, the Tea Party got the attention, but the election revolt against bailouts, subsidies, and spending came from all sides. Voter sentiment hasn't changed much — but you wouldn't know that from the action last week on the US House floor, where renewing Export-Import Bank subsidies for big business was the order of the day. Compared with big-spending Democrats, Republicans still have a long way to go before losing the mantle of...

On a sweltering July day, a group of chefs and young culinary students in T-shirts and shorts trails after Jim Ward, co-owner with brother Bob of Ward’s Berry Farm in Sharon. He leads them through his fields, showing off burgeoning rows of beets, greens, tomatoes, potatoes, and more. They pause to eat spicy radishes yanked straight from the ground. They shake their heads at how much work it takes to grow corn. “One ear per stalk,’’ a tall, skinny kid marvels. “Isn’t it crazy?

FALMOUTH — “What time is it?’’ Melaine Hines asks Christopher Blackwood. She is cafe manager at Coonamessett Farm and he is the chef. In a tiny kitchen below the farm’s store, she’s kneading dough for dumplings and he’s chopping a mountain of onions, garlic, and cabbage for a stir-fry. “Twenty of,’’ he replies. It’s 5:40 p.m. on a Wednesday evening recently. In less than half an hour, 300 people will descend on the farm for the weekly Jamaican Buffet and Grill.

MILLEDGEVILLE, Ga. - Tattered cotton balls on withered stalks appeared in the fields, and then a row of weathered signs advertising “moonshine jelly’’ and “fried pecans’’ as we reached the outskirts of Milledgeville. In the hard, unforgiving light of a winter afternoon, we drove between the small, cottage-style homes banked up on either side, past the Piggly Wiggly, and after making our way along the ubiquitous retail strip, located the entrance to Flannery O’Connor’s farm, Andalusia.