[Snakeroot Organic Farm logo]
 • HOME
 • What's New Here
THE BASICS
 • About Our Farm
 • Annual Farm Tour
 • Community Supported
    Agriculture Plan (CSA)
 • Directions to our Farm
 • From a Run Out Hayfield to
    a Prosperous Organic Farm
    in Ten Easy Years
 • Get Real. Get Organic!
 • History of Our Farm
 • Pictures of the Farm
 • Where We Buy
 • Where We Sell
 • Our Yearly Work Schedule
 • Just Pretty
 • Subscribe to our e-newsletter.
OUR PEOPLE
 • Working Here
 • Our Apprentices
 • Our Farm Workers
 • Pictures of Us at Market
WHAT WE GROW
 • Fresh Vegetables
 • Fresh Fruit
 • Fresh Herbs
 • Perennials
 • Aloe - a magical plant
 • Our Bird Houses
 • Lupines
 • Maple Syrup
 • Rosemary Plants
 • Lovage, Tansy & Yarrow
 • Celery & Celeriac
 • Sunchokes
 • New Eng. Long Pie Pumpkin
 • Dried Vegetables
 • Dried Culinary Herbs
 • What We Will & Won't Ship
TOMATOES
 • Tomato Seedlings
 • Tomato Seeds We Offer
 • Tomato Seed Production
GARLIC
 • About Garlic
 • Garlic for Sale
 • Garlic Year Round
 • Mulching Garlic
 • Growing Rounds from Bulbils
 • Planting Garlic
MULCHING
 • Using Mulches
 • Combatting Witchgrass
    with Mulch
 • We Want Your Leaves!
 • In Praise of Chips
FOOD & FARMING INFO
 • Buying in Bulk for
    Storage, Canning & Freezing
 • Winter Storage Tips
 • Crop Rotations
 • Drip Irrigation
 • Low Pressure Water
 • Planting with Spreadsheets
 • Greenhouse Vegetable
    Production
 • Let-tuce Begin
 • Our Outbuildings
 • The Story of Our Cooler
 • Recipe Favorites
 • Our "Remay Roller"
OPINIONS & IDEAS
 • Being Green
 • Digging Potatoes by Hand
 • Farmers' Markets in 2012
 • History of Pittsfield
 • Hybrids or Open Pollinated?
 • Making Websites
 • Open Source Software
FARM TRANSITION…
    Our Retirement Plan
 • How Should a Farmer Retire?
 • Impediments to the want-to-be     farmer
 • Reducing the Value
    of the Land
 • Who Will Farm Here When
    We're Gone?
 • Apprentice Terms and Stages
 • From Apprentices to Partners
 • Transferring Farm Ownership




…and now for something completely different…

At dawn
Canoe bow waves are quickly lost
    on the shoreside
But go on out of sight
    on the lake side.

-1986

The constant swish-swish of skis
    On a day long ski.
The constant swish-swish of wiper blades
    On a day long drive.

-1990

My dog, trotting barefoot
Steps on a garden slug
And thinks
Nothing of it.

-1999

Word spreads quickly
as I approach the pond.
All becomes quiet.

-1997

Hidden in the vines
a large warted cucumber
jumps out of reach.
A toad!

-1997

Delicate puffs
of marshmallow snow
carefully perched
on a branch,
await the trigger of my hat
to melt their way down my back.

-2010
Deep in the tomato jungle
Fruits of yellow, purple and red
Tell of their readiness
To go to market.

-2010
free counters 		 

We suggest you . . .
Upgrade to Open Source Software

What is Open Source Software?

Software generally comes in two types, proprietary and open source.

Proprietary software is created by a private company which guards their source code as an industrial secret ("intellectual property"), and the software saves files in closed formats that are most usually also a secret. In a software company, a group of employees work on designing, improving and upgrading the software, and the software and it's upgrades are sold, hopefully making a profit for the company.

In Open Source Software, the source code is open and freely available for anyone to use and modify, and the software is also freely available and freely distributable by anyone. All around the world, there are folks who enjoy coding and sharing their skills for the public good, and there are literally tens of thousands of them modifing and improving open source software all the time. Open Source programs also save in accessable file formats, the description of which is also openly available.

Read how the Firefox website describes it here.

There is also free software, which is freely available and distributable, but whose source code is still considered "intellectual property" by its authors.

Wikipedia has an extensive list of Open Source Software available. Also see the entry there for free software.

The Open Source Programs we use:
At Snakeroot Organic Farm, we use as many open source programs as we can. Here are some examples of the ones we use and are enthusiastic about.

Web Browser:
Firefox. Available for Mac, Linux and MSWindows, and are available in English and many other languages.
Email:
Thunderbird. Available for Mac, Linux and MSWindows, and are available in English and many other languages.

Both Firefox and Thunderbird are products of the Mozilla Project, which is "A Global Community. The Mozilla project is a global community of people who have been working together since 1998 to create world-class open source software. Those involved in the community believe that openness, innovation, and opportunity are key to the continued health of the Internet. The projects on this page are just some examples of what the community is doing."
Office Suite:
Word Processsor, Spreadsheet, Database, Presentation, Drawing.
Open Office. Available for Mac, Linux and MSWindows, and are available in English and many other languages.
OpenOffice.org is a multiplatform and multilingual office suite and an open-source project. Compatible with all other major office suites, the product is free to download, use, and distribute.

owned and operated by
Tom Roberts & Lois Labbe
27 Organic Farm Road, Pittsfield Maine 04967
ph. 207-487-5056
Tom@snakeroot.net or Lois@snakeroot.net
http://www.snakeroot.net/farm
Gardeners to the public since 1995.
© 2008 Snakeroot Organic Farm


File name: OpenSource.shtml
Version: Thursday 31 December, 2009