…and massage therapy student living on a 45-acre homestead in the remote Maine woods.
My Work – Massage Therapy Student
Everything changes. Five years ago, I opened a bakery beside my home. Everything was great until Covid hit. Inflation happened, and my expenses went up 110%. I threw in the towel at the end of 2023 and applied to massage therapy school. Now, here I am, a massage therapy student getting ready to open a studio.
I’m passionate about food, especially food that I’ve grown and raised on the homestead and foraged and hunted in nature. The menu is diverse – berries for jam and jelly; moose, black bear, white-tailed deer, turkey and ruffed grouse; mushrooms, fish and other ingredients from nature feed me well. Two colonies of honey bees help pollinate the orchard and gardens, and they keep me supplied in honey.
I worked as a market farmer, freelance writer, editor, and a photographer for four decades. My work appears in gardening, homesteading, farming (Lancaster Farming, Farm & Garden, Quoddy Tides) and outdoors newspapers and magazines (Maine Boats, Outdoors Unlimited, Bangor Daily News, Maine Woodland Owners, Nat Geo (Africa), to list a few). I’ve stopped freelance writing and photography and now write for myself. There are two trunked novels waiting for a rewrite, and they’ll probably stay there until I retire. Most of my writing is done during the winter when the weather keeps me indoors and the bakery is closed. I’ve always been a writer. My first story was written when I was ten and sadly, I didn’t save the story. A lot of my work has been published. George Smith, a well-known, respected, and now missed since his passing, invited me to contribute to a book he compiled called Maine Sporting Camps. Unfortunately, the publisher doesn’t mention that a lot of outdoors writers contributed to the book when you follow this link, but our bylines are included in the book.
Awards
My awards include a Maine Press Association award for my former BDN blog Robin’s Outdoors, recognition by FEMA for reporting on conditions during major flooding, and occasional photography contests.
A Love of the Outdoors
The outdoors is the base of my life.
“Bored people are boring people. I never want to be boring.” ~Robin Follette
It’s a tiny town, population 60, with three miles of paved road. I share our forest with white-tailed deer, moose, bobcats, lynx, coyotes, black bears, gray and red squirrels, pine martens, short-tailed weasels (ermine in the winter), fishers, fox, raccoons, skunks and other wildlife. There are peaches, pears, plums, hazelnuts, and apples in the orchard, and many wild apple trees on the homestead. It’s a nice way to live.
