ABOUT US
“Goats have changed my life in ways I never could have imagined. They’ve connected me to the land, to my food, to my family.” –from Living With Goats
When we met at a party in Brooklyn nearly twenty years ago, we never would have imagined that we’d make our life together on a farm. At the time, Margaret was a manager of the original Magnolia Bakery in the West Village, back from a year in Tunisia after graduating from Wellesley College. Karl had worked as a photographer in Russia after his undergraduate years at Tufts, before going on to be the Photo Editor for Time.com, and teaching photography at the ICP and his alma mater, Syracuse. We fell in love with each other, and soon after with the idea of goats, and with the dream of a farm. In 2003, we left New York to make it a reality. We spent a year exploring the world of goats and small scale agriculture, visiting farms looking for a model of how we would want to live. 40,000 miles and one book later, we got married in 2004 in a lavishly goat-themed wedding. We landed at Ten Apple Farm, in Karl’s home state of Maine, in the winter of 2005. In the years since, we’ve welcomed three daughters—Charlotte, Beatrice, and Sadie—and as a family we raise Alpine dairy goats, sheep, pigs, assorted poultry, and an expansive menagerie of house pets. We tend a small apple orchard and large kitchen garden, and live an old-fashioned life, embracing hard work and self-sufficiency. For the last few years of his life, Margaret’s father lived with us, and we nursed him through his final illness. Since his death here on the farm in 2013, we have become passionate advocates for home-based end of life care, and for an approach to grief that’s based in the natural world.
Margaret Hathaway and Karl Schatz are the husband and wife team behind seven books on food and farming, including the memoir The Year of the Goat, the guide Living With Goats, two volumes of the Portland, Maine Chef’s Table, the Maine Bicentennial Community Cookbook and Maine Community Cookbook, Volume 2. Margaret is a writer who has worked in book publishing, corporate communications, and as manager of New York’s Magnolia Bakery. Karl is a photographer who has worked as the online photo editor for Time Magazine., and as director of Aurora Photos. Since 2005, the couple has lived with their daughters on Ten Apple Farm, a homestead in southern Maine, where they raise dairy goats, tend a large garden and small orchard, make cheese, teach workshops, and operate a guest house.
Charlotte came into our lives in June of 2006. She took to the farm right away. Her first food was squash from the garden and her first word was “goat.” Since she could walk, she’s helped with chores, taken the goats for walks, fed the chickens, milked the goats, dug in the garden, and eaten broccoli straight off the stalk. When she was three, she got to name the new doelings “Toka” and “Tonni” after her two imaginary friends. When not outside on the farm, she can be found doing schoolwork, skiing, running, and managing the Ten Apple Farmstand.
Beatrice arrived in our lives in April of 2008, and was born a farmer. At 3 days old she made her first trip to the Fedco tree sale to pick out the season’s seed potatoes. A few weeks later she was assisting her mama deliver the farm’s first baby goats. Since toddlerhood, Bea’s enjoyed eating raw corn (and everything else), climbing, picking up slugs, digging in the dirt, collecting eggs, and getting alfalfa treats for the goats. Bea is our resident 4-H’er and member of the Cumberland Country 4-H Swiners club. She competed in the pig races at the Cumberland Fair in 2017 & 2018, placing as high as 4th, and is now raising market hogs.
Sadie arrived in November of 2011. She came out with a full head of dark curls, enormously round cheeks, and an easy-going temperament. She is a born talker, explaining the goings on at the farm in copious detail to anyone who will listen. Sadie is our trusty assistant goat hike leader, and loves to demonstrate goat milking and goat milk drinking for visitors to the farm. In addition to assisting with the goat hikes, her farm jobs include gathering eggs, feeding the chickens, and leading the baby goats up and down the hill.