Here’s an iconic Maine “connected farmhouse” that I monitor photographically, although the experience is more like a death vigil for a once-important structure that dies a bit each day – in public, an embarrassment to us all. This was a home and part of a small farm at one time. It even housed the one-room North Brooklin Post Office, which E.B. White mentioned in one or two of his essays.
Dying and dead small farms are a symbol of the times: Maine land values are increasing, especially in coastal communities; insurers are refusing to insure old houses without extraordinarily expensive safety renovations; mortgage institutions are refusing to lend money for houses that don’t have adequate insurance, and many older homeowners do not have the heart or money to tear down their former homes. They move away and don’t look back.
There is a movement here in Maine to use land trusts to try to conserve some of these farmhouses by subsidizing organic and other small farmers to inhabit them, but it may be too little too late. There seems to be more effort and money being put into bringing high-speed Internet to rural communities than in bringing affordable housing to them. More computer capability means more business people moving onto what was farmland. Let’s hope that they respect the land. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on October 14, 2023.)