When I first spoke with Stacy Brenner, who runs Broadturn Farm with her partner, John Bliss, I asked about strategies for following the farm’s property lines during my run. “Oh, don’t worry. The boundaries are marked with red tape and blazes,” she replied. I took her word for it, though I’d gotten disoriented on every run so far. Broadturn is a 430 acre farm in Scarborough, Maine (100 acres of open fields, 330 of forest) that produces organic vegetables and cut flowers, in addition to hosting summer camps and weddings.

When I arrived for my run, I found Stacy and her crew in the farm stand quietly focused on cutting and assembling floral bouquets. Stacy took a short break to walk me over to the house so I could look at a mounted map of the property. Wanting some kind of a guide during my run, I scrawled a quick copy on scrap paper. 

My run began with the Silver Brook Trail, which I found behind two surprisingly charming outhouses on the edge of the farm. For the first half mile, I wove through the woods by the brook, eventually finding the southwest edge of the property where I began to look for the red blazes that would lead me west.

I trotted down a track lined with soft green ferns, until I spotted the back of a house. The Broadturn Farm jogs around a few private homes on the southern side, so I scooted around them and came out on a paved road. I quickly realized that Broadturn Farm abuts several other farms, and I wasn’t sure which fields matched those on my makeshift map. I began to run down the road in search of red blazes. There was a tractor working the field on the opposite side of the road, and I pondered the consequences of running onto someone else’s farmland by mistake. Deciding to risk it, I turned around, ran back by the tractor, and cut into the field next to a long dividing line of trees. Red blazes appeared halfway across the field–I was on the right track!

The rolling field dipped into wet lowlands, and by the time I reached the far woods, my feet were soaked. This theme continued as I entered a thick, damp forest, lined with meandering creeks and a boggy forest floor.  Through much of the woods, there was no path, so I scanned  for red blazes and tape, running from one to another as the terrain allowed. As I relaxed into a routine, the aesthetic variety of the blazes began to pull me along: single and multiple strokes of red, tucked into grooves or skimmed over the bark’s surface. I began to imagine drawing patches of red on paper and pondered how I might say something in my drawings about the experience of finding one’s path and marking territory. 

After a few miles in the woods, I veered down a path that led me to a residential district.

Sure I had misjudged, I ran toward the sound of traffic, hoping to find my way, and emerged on Rt. 22. It was a scorchingly hot day, and I ran, wet with sweat and mud, alongside the hot pavement, stopping to sip water when I could find shade. When I passed Broadturn Road, I began to look for the northern edge of the farm property. Another farmhouse came into view, and I turned into a field and began, once again, to hunt for red blazes. With some effort, I spotted red tape and began running the forest edge, alongside an orchard.

At the northeast corner, I cut into the dense woods. At that point, the blazes seemed to disappear.

Not sure of my direction, I crossed a brook, and after winding my way up a hill, emerged behind the plowed fields next to 2 beehives. I ran along the fields toward the long, white greenhouses and discovered that they were filled with tomato plants, each plant stretched tall with red string.

Back at the farm stand, I found John and Stacy’s daughter, Flora, playing with a young chick. Though she claimed to be making a leash for it, the chick wandered calmly at her feet without the need of one.

Flora pointed me in the direction of a nearby cabin where Stacy, John, and their crew were quietly eating lunch. I thanked them for the adventure, purchased some beets, snap peas, and baby bok choy, and walked back to where my car was baking in the sun. I drove away pondering how I would transform red blazes into marks on paper…