Montville farmer carves out living

BELFAST — What started as a hobby has turned into a nice little sideline for John Spinney.

The Montville farmer has been making wooden cooking utensils for about five years, and business couldn’t be better. The utensils are hand-carved from wood found on his Half Moon Farm property in Montville.

“It started as a hobby and took off from there,” Spinney recalled while showing his wares at the Belfast Farmers’ Market on Friday. “They’re all native hardwood. I’ve got cherry, apple, birch, beech, elm. Most of the wood I get right off my property.”

Spinney’s selection ranges from spatulas to spoons. Besides Belfast, he also sells his utensils at the Camden Farmers’ Market and the Common Ground Country Fair. Half Moon Farm also has herbs, vegetables and canned jams, jellies and chutneys.

Spinney said splitting tools, such as “a real old-fashioned hewing hatchet,” are used to craft the utensils. They are shaped and smoothed using an adz and draw knives. Many of Spinney’s customers are on macrobiotic diets, a discipline that forbids the use of metal or plastic utensils, preferring those made of wood instead.

“Other people just like them,” Spinney said. “They appreciate the feel of them. [Wooden utensils] don’t conduct heat and it’s more natural.”

When asked if one of his thin-bladed birch spatulas could handle the tricky job of an egg over easy, Spinney chuckled and replied, “Well, I don’t know. I use a metal one.”