French breakfast radishes, Hakurei turnips and Swiss chard are for sale at the Andrews Farm display in the Augusta Farmers Market at Mill Park on a Tuesday afternoon in early May. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal

AUGUSTA — Rain patters on the pavilion at Mill Park on a Tuesday in early May.

It’s nearly the end of the day for the Augusta Farmers Market, but the energy is high. Kids stomp around in muddy yellow boots, vendors chat with each other and somewhere, a family is boiling fiddleheads for the first time.

Farmers market season takes root in May with the promise of sweet vegetables and sunny days ahead. Vendors change, products trend in and out and markets shift locations, but the interest in buying local remains strong each summer in Maine.

This summer, after some uncertainty, the Yarmouth Farmers Market is back — right in front of town hall. Fiddleheads are available for a short stint in Augusta, and farms are extending their growing seasons. On top of the usual ebbs and flows, recent warehouse E. coli outbreaks and Avian flu-related egg shortages mean more Mainers want to know where their food is coming from.

Mike Perisho, farmer at Andrews Farm in Gardiner and a vendor at the Augusta market, said Mainers are especially tuned into growing season.

“In Maine, people aren’t that removed from having a big family garden or growing up on a farm themselves,” Perisho said. “And so they know when to look for in-season vegetables. We can surprise them with early tomatoes, but they know already when rhubarb is coming, beet greens, asparagus, peas, stuff like that. It’s a good thing, because people are on the lookout.”

THE GOODS

Caitlin Jordan, owner of Alewive’s Brook Farm, brings vegetables, fruits, baked goods and seafood to markets in Portland, South Portland, Saco, Scarborough and Yarmouth.

She said she is planning to increase this summer’s stock of value-added products like apple-cinnamon muffins, zucchini bread and carrot cake — all made from crops grown on the farm in Cape Elizabeth.

Caitlin Jordan, pictured in 2022 irrigating her family farm in Cape Elizabeth. Now the chairperson of the Portland Farmers’ Market, Jordan says she plans to increase the farm’s value-added products, such as baked goods and soup. Ben McCanna/Staff Photographer

“I mean, I know everybody loves vegetables and whatnot, but people have less time on their hands,” Jordan said. “So us being able to create some of those favorites that people don’t necessarily have the time to do themselves — you might not want to make an entire carrot cake yourself, but being able to buy a piece of carrot cake right from the farm is fun.”

Jordan took over the farm from her father in 2023. The change has allowed her to experiment with different varieties of crops and find creative ways to package farm products.

“We’ve been making stuff for years, but really trying to come up with new and fun things each week,” Jordan said. “We’re talking about making different kinds of soups, like, we raised turkeys so we could make a turkey soup, or just so simple as to make a vegetable soup later, once we have more veggies available. Just stuff like that, getting more creative beyond just the farm fields.”

Other farmers are also experimenting with their products. Perisho said this year will be the first time Andrews Farm can offer cucumbers and tomatoes when demand is high.

“Once the weather really gets nice, people start asking for tomatoes, and in the past we wouldn’t be able to supply those until late July or August, and now we can have them by middle of June — cherry tomatoes at least,” Perisho said. “We’ve added heaters to some of our formerly unheated greenhouses, and we turn up the thermostat in April, plant about a month earlier than you could otherwise.”

Then there are the crops with a season as short as it is sweet — to some. A wild fern that unfurls each spring, its taste like a cross of broccoli, asparagus and green beans, fiddleheads are a nutrient-rich, spring delicacy in Maine. They’re also an acquired taste, said Lee Brown, who forages fiddleheads and sells them at the Augusta Farmers Market as an independent vendor.

Fiddleheads are a sure sign of spring in New England. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal

Brown — better known as “the mushroom man” because of the wild mushrooms he sells the rest of the year — said people also recognize him from his nine years of selling fiddleheads at the market and wheeling them around near Shaw’s and other spots in Augusta.

“People look for me this time of year,” he said.

In a matter of weeks, fiddleheads will be out of the season and all eyes will be on tomatoes, cucumbers, potatoes, corn and summer fruits. Vendors must plan far ahead to meet seasonal demands, but Perisho said new growing techniques provide some flexibility.

“We just have the ability in Maine, with some modern growing techniques, to grow fresh food 12 months out of the year,” Perisho said. “And I think that’s the future. It’s better for you. It’s better for the economy. I can keep staff on year round. So that’s where we’re headed, at least.”

EXTENDING THE SEASON

Andrews Farm has produced lettuce 52 weeks a year for the last three years, but other products will be available earlier than ever, Perisho said, sold at markets and at their new farm stand Wednesdays through Saturdays in Gardiner.

“Our game plan is just to have popular things early,” Perisho said. “It seems like there’s always that early enthusiasm about produce, but if you don’t have season extension, you’re really limited to salad greens until almost July. So trying to have some of those popular summer crops early has been well received by our customers, for sure.”

Customers are increasingly choosing farmers markets over supermarkets, according to Jordan, who said she sees new and old faces shopping each week.

“You have the people that come every week and you get to meet them and get to know them as as regulars, and then it’s always uplifting to see the new faces that come out, week after week,” Jordan said, “and see that more and more people are becoming more aware and more interested in where their food is coming from.”

Sean Mulkern restocks the display at the Wild Fruitings booth in the Augusta Farmers Market under the gazebo at Mill Park. High season approaches for Maine farmers markets. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal

For many customers, buying local is not just a matter of sustainability and support for Maine’s economy, but health, said Nathan Swett of Ash Hill View Deer Farm in Carmel. Swett sells venison and related products at the Downtown Waterville Farmers’ Market and also frequents markets in Orono, Hampden and Bangor.

“Just knowing the farmers that are producing it and what’s being put on the crops seems to be a lot more important to people,” Swett said. “They want to know where their food is coming from and how it’s processed. Because people are getting tired of all the pesticides and everything else that’s being put on foods, the growth hormones and all these other things that we keep learning more and more about that shouldn’t have been in our food to begin with.”

Peggy Totapley, clerk at the Augusta Farmers Market, hands out vouchers for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, a state program offered at many farmers markets that allows customers to buy crops and food with vouchers. Augusta’s program means a lot to people who need extra help to afford groceries, she said.

From greeting vendors at the beginning of the day, handing out vouchers and watching crops cycle through the season, Totapley said working at the farmers market feels meaningful.

“I like the people and I like the customers,” she said. “I’ve worked at other shop sort of situations, and I prefer this. The farmers market seems more meaningful to me, more basic. We are very lucky to have this roof. It’s a nice place. You can see the birds.”

Under that roof and many like it, vendors spend several days of each week together as they hop from market to market. Perisho said he took a break from in-person markets last year but found he missed the community.

“I actually was hiring out our farmers market staffing this last year, but I really missed it,” Perisho said. “It’s really cool to have that face-to-face interaction and get off the farm. We’re a really tight-knit vendor group. Most of these vendors have been selling at this market for at least five years, if not ten. It’s a cool community gathering, once a week.”

Jordan’s father sold products at Maine farmers markets for 20 years. She said the community has been invaluable — especially as she continues his legacy.

“He’s not able to go to the markets anymore. And people ask, every week, how he’s doing,” Jordan said. “They genuinely care. Like I said, you become a family.”

Copy the Story Link

Break out the bats and gloves as high school softball season is upon us across the country, especially in the Pine Tree State. One of the tops when it comes to high level softball, Maine features several teams that are among the New England region’s best around and the regular season is officially underway.  

Taking over the No. 1 spot out of Maine is the defending Class A state champion Cheverus Stags, who are off to a 5-0 start. Who else is in the conversation, though?

Besides them, who else is among the elites when it comes to high school softball in Maine? Take a look at our Maine Power 10 high school softball rankings as we give you our list, as we see it.

When looking at what the Stags did last season, going 20-1 and winning the Class A state championship, we vault them to the top of our latest rankings because of the hot start. Addison DeRoche is the team’s ace on on the mound after a terrific 2024 freshman season. The Stags have notched a pair of victories over Thornton Academy and Noble by a combined 27-3 to start the season.

It’s hard to see how dominant the Eagles were in 2024, but ended up falling to Cheverus in the Class A playoffs. Windham only yielded nine runs against five different opponents. With the bevy of talent back in the fold, the Eagles will contend for a state title. Windham’s lone loss on the season so far is to the team ranked above them in Cheverus, 6-2.

We know the Golden Bucks didn’t finish the assignment of winning it all out of Class C, but this team boasts a strong roster and plenty experience. Expect Bucksport to be right there at the end once again. Scoring runs has been no problem for the undefeated Golden Bucks, compiling 94 over the first seven games.

Entering our rankings at No. 4 is last year’s Class C state champions, the Bulldogs, as they went 18-2 in 2024. There’s a lot to like about this team as they make a run at a repeat. Hall-Dale has looked good through its first six games, upending Dirigo twice, Madison and Mountain Valley. Lucy Gray has been solid on the mound, striking out 50 batters so far.

Honestly, Gorham could be higher on this list because of its first two losses coming against a couple of Rhode Island’s top softball teams. Since losses to nationally-ranked La Salle Academy and Cranston West, the Rams have rattled off seven straight wins.

Entering the rankings after a solid undefeated start are the Hornets of Leavitt. Reeling off nine straight victories, with every game except three where the Hornets scored more than 10 runs, this team has started things off impressively.

Having ace senior pitcher Isabella George returning to lead the way makes the Falcons a viable contender in Class B. Freeport has looked good out of the gates, out-scoring opponents 40-11 through four games.

Yes, Medomak Valley lost their first game of the season recently but it was a 2-1 decision against an undefeated Leavitt squad. We think the Panthers certainly deserved to make the jump into this week’s set of rankings.

There’s been little doubt behind why the Panthers are undefeated to this point and that’s because they’re putting up plenty of runs paired with steady pitching. The team is batting nearly .500 and freshman Lily Fortin has been impressive with a 5-0 record and 44 strikeouts.

The Lions dropped their first game of the season against Camden Hills, but is still in our minds one of the top clubs in Maine. Jordyn MacKay has impressed on the mound through nine games, compiling a 7-1 record with a 1.83 earned run average and 68 strikeouts.

Follow High School On SI throughout the 2025 high school softball season for Live Updates, the most up to date Schedules & Scores and complete coverage from the preseason through the state championships!

To get live updates on your phone – as well as follow your favorite teams and top games – you can download the SBLive Sports app: Download iPhone App| Download Android App

— Andy Villamarzo | villamarzo@scorebooklive.com | @highschoolonsi

“Kissy face, kissy face sent to your phone, but I’m trying to kiss your lips for real (uh-huh, uh-huh),” Rosé croons as 24-year-old Jordon Hudson struts down the runway. She’s wearing an emerald-green bikini, a gold bracelet snaking around her bicep.

Hudson flashes a confident grin at the audience, tosses her hair, and turns on her heel to head offstage — but not before winking at her boyfriend, the 73-year-old former New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick. He’s seated in the front row next to his bodyguard, a Navy veteran who goes by “Dutch” and resembles a young, head-shaven John Corbett. Belichick doesn’t applaud. He doesn’t cheer. He just sits there directly in Hudson’s eyeline, chewing gum, looking very much as he did when the Packers beat the Patriots 27-24 on a field goal during overtime.

Hudson — and, to some extent, Belichick, and to a much lesser extent, Dutch — is in a strange position. She’s in the State of Maine Grand Ballroom at Portland’s Holiday Inn by the Bay competing for the title of Miss Maine USA, a subsidiary of the Miss USA beauty pageant. Hudson’s been on the pageant circuit for years, and last year, her first competing for Miss Maine, she was crowned first runner-up. This time around, however, is different. Hudson isn’t just Miss Hancock, the tiny Maine town where she was born. Thanks to her relationship with Belichick, she’s the star of the show.

A few weeks ago, there would have been minimal media interest in a small pageant held in a Holiday Inn conference room. Other than Hudson, the most noteworthy contestant was Isabelle St. Cyr, a statuesque blonde 24-year-old who made local news for being the first trans contestant in Miss Maine history. But over the past month, Hudson has been besieged by negative media attention. She made headlines after a Belichick CBS News appearance with Tony Dokoupil, where she sat in on the interview and repeatedly stepped in to decline to answer questions. And after the sports podcaster Pablo Torre reported that she had become so involved in Belichick’s career at UNC (where he’s coached since leaving the Patriots) that the university barred her from campus (which UNC has denied), reporters flocked to the pageant, camping out in the lobby to catch a glimpse of Hudson.

The pageant was a two-day event, starting with preliminaries on Saturday that included a private interview with the judges, an evening-gown competition, and a swimsuit competition. Finals, where the 17 competitors were whittled down to the final five, took place on Sunday; save for a brief Q&A with the top-five contestants, the show was virtually identical to the prelims, from the skintight dresses the contestants wore to the music selection during the swimsuit portion. (“Espresso,” by Sabrina Carpenter, played not once but twice during both shows.)

“We expected a few reporters, but nothing like all these big cameras,” the parents of a first-time pageant contestant said. “Whatever.” Others were similarly restrained in showing their annoyance. “All the girls know each other in this community,” the boyfriend of another contestant put it. “It can be hard when someone comes in and steals the show.”

Still, Hudson handled the mêlée with grace, waving and smiling at reporters as she strolled through the lobby, wearing an ombré blue off-the-shoulder sheath. During an interview segment on the second night of the pageant, she made a not-so-thinly veiled reference to the attention. “I’m feeling an immense amount of pride right now,” she said. “I’m hoping that anybody who’s watching this finds the strength to push through whatever it is that they’re going through and embody that hate never wins.” (She, like all the other contestants, declined to speak with any media.)

The Clemente Organization, which puts on the pageant, however, seemed less equipped to handle it. It banned reporters from taking photos or video during the show and prohibited them from speaking to anyone affiliated with the event. “Members of the press, please LEAVE so the contestants can have some PRIVACY,” emcee Sal Malafronte shouted at the end of the first night’s preliminaries as Clemente reps yanked stragglers from the room. “We’ve never heard them tell the press to get out before,” one mom of a former Miss Teen USA competitor told me, laughing.

The interest wasn’t surprising. As the coach with the most Super Bowl wins in NFL history, Belichick is a vaunted figure in Maine, and the nearly 50-year age difference between him and Hudson, whom he met on a plane when she asked him to sign her philosophy textbook, was bound to attract scrutiny. “They’re literally like royals,” said one Patriots fan, who happened to be in town for her son’s graduation and was trying to spot Belichick. Hudson briefly considered dropping out of the pageant, the Daily Mail reported, but she clearly thought better of it.

Following her near victory last year, Hudson seemed determined to redeem herself. “She wants to win,” a source familiar with the relationship said, comparing her drive to that of the famously competitive Belichick. Some attendees expected him not to show up, but he wanted to support his girlfriend, and following the fallout from the UNC story, it likely would have “looked worse” if he didn’t go, the source speculated.

Throughout the pageant weekend, Hudson mostly traveled solo or accompanied by Dutch, arriving at a “pizza and pajama party” clad in a floor-length, feather-trimmed purple robe. (She seems to have been quite busy: A source told me Hudson was not involved in Miss Maine preliminary activities, like a Valentine’s Day volunteer event, and during the finals she was the only contestant to not record a Mother’s Day message for her mom.) “All the girls were so worried about her,” one source told the New York Post. “They’re all friends and she’s been so quiet all week.”

But Hudson put on a solid performance during the first night of preliminaries and finals the next day. In an introductory dance number, she shimmied, clapped, and stomped at the edge of the stage. Though she stumbled slightly during the evening-gown competition, she looked regal in a sparkly purple dress. In the past, she’s chosen the “rich indigo-ish-royal-purple,” she wrote on Instagram, because it’s the color of the oyster bushel bags she grew up surrounded by (her father was a mussel dragger). She’d carry them around as if they were purses and made them into dresses for her Polly Pockets.

In the interview portion, Hudson promoted her platform of fishermen’s rights, which she’s always been vocal about. When asked what childhood moment she would want to return to, she talked about being on her family’s fishing boat in Hancock. “I think about this really often, because there’s a mass exodus of fishermen that’s occurring in the rural areas of Maine, and I don’t want to see more fishermen displaced,” she said. “As your next Miss Maine USA, I would make it a point to go into the communities, to go to the legislature, to go into the government and advocate for these people.”

Not everyone was charmed by her performance. “I don’t think she was anything special,” Julie Rose, a former competitor on the Massachusetts pageant circuit, told me. “She was low-energy. I wouldn’t look twice at her if she wasn’t Bill Belichick’s girlfriend.” Like many other attendees I spoke to, Rose thought the real front-runner was Mara Carpenter, a vivacious, willowy Cumberland County native and longtime pageant contestant.

Nonetheless, Hudson had a strong cheering section: In addition to Belichick, her father Heath was there for the finals, as was her friend Miss Massachusetts USA Melissa Sapini, who warmly greeted Belichick in the front row. After the finals, Laurie Clemente, the co-founder of the Clemente Organization, came onstage to embrace her.

The consensus among the beauty-pageant crowd seemed to be that there were simply too many “distractions,” as another source put it, for Hudson to win. After lengthy deliberations and a four-way tie delayed the final decision — the emcees awkwardly improvised a Miss USA trivia game to stall for time — Hudson made it into the top five. But she ultimately nabbed third place, with Carpenter winning first runner-up and Miss Bangor, a statuesque, deeply tanned blonde named Shelby Howell, claiming the Miss Maine USA title. “I wasn’t surprised she was third place,” the mother of a former contestant told me. “I think all the press really hurt her.”

Hudson appeared to take her loss in stride: Though the pageant organizer was seen comforting her after the show, she quietly snuck out with Belichick through a side exit just moments later. Most of the attendees I spoke with afterward seemed more critical of Howell’s win as a newcomer than of whatever impact Hudson would have had on the results.

“Obviously, there was outside media attention, but I don’t think we let that rattle us,” Kwani Lunis, one of the five pageant judges and a reporter for NBC 10 Boston, told me. The Clemente Organization “approached it the same way that they have done in the past and were able to ignore the outside noise.”

But as the pageant organizers quietly packed up Miss Maine USA promotional posters, the press loaded up their cameras, and the representatives for a wastewater management convention filtered into the Holiday Inn lobby, the reputation of the New England royals still hung over the event.

“Wait, Bill Belichick was here?” I overheard one of the attendees say. “Why was he competing in a beauty pageant?”