Farmers’ Market: O’Meara Family Farm
“Team O’Meara” in New Sweden is an outfit with an organizational scheme that should be examined closely by any bank or business “too big to fail” (?!) or perhaps used as a model at a business management symposium where the participants want real, applicable, down-to-earth solutions to the potential problems a venture might encounter in its organization or management. Each member of the family has a role in the operation and a commitment to the success of the venture.
The management chain-of-command at the farm goes as follows: Four younger O’Mearas participate willingly in all sorts of daily chores and assist in all parts of the farming operation. Understandably proud mother Christine identifies them as “the best possible farm hands available anywhere!” though the oldest is barely elbow-high and they go down in size and age from there. Big Sister Anya at 10 is a role model for her three younger brothers. They are John, who is 8 going on 35, Tommy, who is 6 and trying hard to catch up to his older brother somehow, and 4 year old Jimmy, who addresses himself as Jim. Nothing about their diminished size carries over to their willingness to work and their seriousness about truly owning their responsibilities; these are high powered, industrious entrepreneurs who just happen to come in small packages.
The management team includes their father, John O’Meara, who takes responsibility for chores of the “Outside Man.” Many of the buildings on the property are the result of his design and carpentry skills over the past six years. Every few days during the summer months, he moves Dexter cattle from place to place around the farmstead to allow the animals to avail themselves to fresh pasture behind portable fences. Nearly every day, he climbs aboard a tractor drawing a variety of implements necessary to harvest and store feed for the animals during the winter months. He is the principle milker and feeder in the barn and tends the next generation of heifers growing in the calf shed. Twice every day, the milk cows are guided up to the barn (though the higher producers really need no encouragement and lead the parade—”For heavens sake, open the darned door and get me milked!”).
Rounding out the O’Meara team is their mother, Christine, who takes over when the warm, fresh milk passes from the milking machines to the pipeline and the pipeline passes through the wall into the milk room where it is quickly cooled and stored in the farm’s bulk tank. She monitors the tank and maintains the records required of all dairies that sell milk in the state and those specific to the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA), the organization that regulates the management of organic milk facilities like the O’Meara’s. Christine is also the chief cook and bottle washer in the making, bottling and/or packaging, and distribution of a plethora of organic farm products via a variety of marketing strategies. These include delivery to several specialty stores around the state, utilization of the Crown of Maine Organic Cooperative which offers transportation and distribution services for organic products the length of the state, shipment of products by the USPS in special insulated boxes, and participation in two farmers markets, one at TAMC on Thursdays and, of course, the Presque Isle Farmers Market in the Aroostook Centre Mall parking lot on Saturdays.
The family as a whole is committed to producing fresh, flavorful, healthful organic products for an eager, appreciative customer base … go, Team!
Editor’s note: This weekly column is written by members of the Presque Isle Farmers’ Market. For more information or to join, contact their secretary/treasurer Steve Miller of Westmanland at 896-5860 or via e-mail at beetree@xpressamerica.net.
