We The People farm in Canaan

Over the years, We The People farm has done hay and has two large chicken barns. My grandparents had Texas Longhorns, chickens and even ostriches at one point! There was a newspaper article done about the ostriches where my sweet, very short grandmother is near one! It was a dairy farm until 1993 when my grandfather continued to hay the fields and raise sheep until he passed away in 2016.

I purchased the farm after his passing to keep it in the family. I spent a lot of my childhood on this farm, and wanted to give my children the experience of living the farm life on a dead-end road. Currently, my husband hays our fields, which my son thinks is the best thing ever with his love of tractors! We have a five-year-old, a three-year-old old and a nine-month-old and are so thankful they get to experience this wholesome, beautifully simple life. 

We raise Katahdin sheep, American Chinchilla bunnies, Khaki Campbell ducks and a wide variety of chickens! We utilize the chicken barns for hay storage and animal pens on the first floor because we believe in having our poultry free range. We are in the process of buying a milking goat from my friend’s farm and should have her in the next few weeks. I am also doing work currently to get a YouTube channel going to share farm life with children, and all the wonderful projects and parts of this lifestyle.

There was an apple orchard here that was already established with those beautiful, tall trees, but the trees were very old, so we have planted more apple trees here to keep the orchard going. We have added peach, pear and plum trees to add homemade jam with the breads I bake. We have expanded the berry patch to include more blueberries, strawberries and raspberries to try to aid in our desire to become self-sufficient. 

We have been members of the Canaan Farmer’s Hall in years past, which is a community center. According to the Canaan Historical Society, John and Mamie (Salisbury) Sanders bought the farm long ago. John was a logger in Aroostook County. He and his wife had lived in a dirt floor cabin to save up enough money to purchase 3 farms in Canaan; ours being one of them. Mamie was born in 1887, and gave birth to Harry in the farmhouse in 1905. The farms were divided for their three children: Harry, Maurice and Greta.


My grandfather, Robert Keaney, bought the farm from the Sanders. He left Massachusetts, wanting a farm on a dead-end road, which I loved spending so much time on as a child I purchased the farm after he passed away. From the research that I have done, this is the oldest farm in Canaan. I was fortunate to learn about this history from Robert Keaney’s daughter, Gretchen, my mother.