Abigail Karter grew up on a small hobby farm in Winslow. At least so she says. It doesn’t sound all that hobbylike to us, frankly. The family has more than a dozen beef cattle. There are pigs and goats. They tap trees for maple syrup and “do blueberries,” more than 600 bushes, Karter says. There’s a farm cat – of course – and some rabbits, too.

(Incidentally, when we spoke, Karter had just picked 7 quarts of blueberries. Do you ever get sick of them, we wondered. “No ma’am!” she answered vehemently.)

Courtesy photo

In that bucolic setting, Karter learned to birth (animal) babies, set fence posts, tend gardens and handle herself calmly when an animal’s time has come. “The circle of life is a beautiful thing,” she wrote in her application to be a Russell Libby Agriculture Scholar. “Even in death there is much to be learned.”

She will use her award money toward college, specifically Unity College, where she starts in the fall with plans to study wildlife biology.

Karter has always been happiest in the woods. As a small child, she had a pet bullfrog of sorts, Phoebe, whom she’d chase in the backyard, capture and kiss. (How did the frog feel about the relationship? “I have no idea. Probably terrified.”) When she’s in the woods, Karter feels a connection to the animals who live there and to the natural world. “It makes me feel whole,” she says simply. “I feel at home outside.”

She feels very lucky, she repeated several times, to have grown up where she did and among people who taught her about agriculture and animals.

Karter is active in 4-H and has volunteered many times for the Common Ground Fair. She also walks dogs – and does less glamorous jobs like cleaning pens – at the Waterville Humane Society. Next month, she will graduate from the Maine Academy of Natural Sciences, and she’ll start college soon after.

Karter says she already has most of her school supplies, except for a new pair of muck boots.