POLAND — After moving from California to her family’s land three years ago, Ileshea Stowe bought a few chickens to wander the former dairy farm.

Then she bought a few pigs to eat the Japanese knotweed. She bought sheep to eat the poison ivy.

She bought a goat to keep her ram company. And three alpacas to guard them all.

“I think chickens are the gateway animal,” said Stowe, 40. “We kept adding and adding and adding; it seemed like a natural evolution to see if we could make a farm from the things we were doing.”

The Farm on Empire became official last year. It’s one of the few farms in Maine specializing in heritage breeds — animals that have dwindled in number and popularity and are now threatened or endangered. 

“Although it’s counterintuitive, a way to save an endangered breed is to eat them,” Stowe said.

If more people seek them out, more farmers will respond by raising them.

She raised 70 Narragansett turkeys for Thanksgiving and earlier this month traveled to New York and Massachusetts to pick up breeding stock for Berkshire pigs. Next year, the pigs will likely be dinner at Rails, the new restaurant coming to the former railroad depot in downtown Lewiston where she’s director of operations. 

“Right now, it feels like I have the best of all worlds — I get to farm and I get to work in a restaurant and help the menu,” Stowe said.

This past summer, she raised heirloom vegetables, including white kale, trumpet squash and lovage. Stowe sells directly to customers and through Farmers Gate Market in Wales. 

It’s been, in many ways, a learning-as-she-goes endeavor. Last year, she slaughtered and processed six chickens, figuring she ought to do that at least once.

“If I have to do it again, it’ll be too soon,” Stowe said. “It was terrible. It was definitely worth the experience.”

At her first attempt at sheep-shearing, she discovered her Jacob sheep, which can have as many as six bruising horns, were not into it.

“It was probably the worst shearing job in the history of the world,” she said, laughing.

She also discovered her guard-duty alpacas were not into guarding, or much else.

“They’re not friendly, they’re not charming; they’re just cute,” Stowe said. “They have no redeeming qualities.”

Humor and stick-to-itiveness have gotten her through a lot. She’d like to grow, but keep the farm sized to a one-woman operation unless she’s able to make the jump to hiring an employee. Her husband helps with feedings.

“I’m really a bit of a nerd and I like the idea that I’m taking something a little obscure and I have the opportunity to remind them it’s worth remembering,” Stowe said. “I like that I can, not save the world, but do my tiny part.”

kskelton@sunjournal.com

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