JAY – Tom Cerulli is no longer working on mergers and acquisitions around the world. Instead, the former legal secretary at a New York law firm is raising cows, pigs, chickens, goats, sheep and other animals at Noah’s Acres off Route 4 in Jay.
“I’m from Fifth Avenue, Manhattan,” Cerulli said. “This is a true Green Acres story,” referring to the former TV show starring Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor.
Cerulli moved to Maine five years ago and bought the Jockey Cap Motel and Country Store in Fryeburg and started a small farm there.
Now, he’s selling the business after buying the former Frank Purington farm on Purington Road.
The goal is to run the 90-acre farm and a farm stand. Eventually, he wants to open the seven-bedroom farmhouse to foster kids and kids at risk of being homeless.
Cerulli, 44, and his son, Gerald, 20, put in posts Monday under the hot sun to install more fence in the yard. They do the morning feeding at 3:30 a.m. and the evening chores about 6 p.m.
Farming is not easy, he said, but they’re learning.
“It’s still pretty rough,” he said. “We’re trying to get a fence in. We’re trying very, very hard to get everything in order.”
The animals sometimes go wayward and into the highway.
They’re building more pens to secure the animals and have put their goats in a trailer so they don’t escape.
Cerulli has asked the state to extend the 35-mph reduced speed zone span on Route 4 to include his property, which is south of the intersection of Routes 4, 17 and Old Jay Hill Road, so that it will slow traffic down and hopefully enable him to get his animals safely across the road. The current speed limit is 50 mph.
“It’s a challenge to get the animals across, even just walking the dogs,” Cerulli said. “It’s just too fast.”
Cerulli has also had trouble with people giving his dairy calves water while no one was home. It’s a problem because young calves are only supposed to have milk.
Three white, Italian livestock guard dogs, Noah, Bo and Sadie, followed Cerulli and his son around the field closely. The dogs are being trained for their duty of guarding the animals.
Meanwhile, the family is clearing the land to get the farm set up.
“We have a lot of different plans and hopes to explore,” Cerulli said.
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