Oh my goodness! I almost forgot to post today! It's funny what habits I form and what habits I drop when I'm traveling ... For example, I touch and examine my face less and so my acne is almost nonexistent. When I go back home, it pops up again. On the other hand, I get lazy about my morning and evening quiet times, often just sending up a few quick thank you's to God, skimming a passage of Scripture on my phone, and calling it good. Schedules that are easy to keep at home are impossible to stick to when I'm traveling. And when I get back home, I'm disoriented as to the day of the week, which is why I nearly forgot to post and why I'm finding it really, really hard to remember that I need to take out the garbage today.
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| Birdhouse for purple martins |
Anyway, my second wwoofing experience was amazing! My mom pointed out that maybe it was a good thing that my first one was dreadful; it set the bar low, so almost any subsequent trip will seem wonderful by comparison. But this one really was wonderful. David, my host, took me to three different farms in the area so I could see some varying methods and lifestyles of farming. The first one was my favorite: Johnny moved from California to the Appalachians three years ago and started a farm on the mountainside. He's had to build everything from the road onto the property to his house to a pond.
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| On Johnny's land |
Our second visit was to Nathaniel, who built a straw bale house for his family. It was beautiful, but after hearing how it was built, I decided definitely to stick with cob construction.
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| Nathaniel's straw bale house |
Finally, we visited (another) David, a former Amish farmer who grows mostly greens, although he has a lot of fig trees and blueberry bushes, as well as a few goats and chickens.
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This bridge is the only way to access the last farm we visited.
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| I even helped out a little bit! |
I learned so much at Creeping Thyme Forest! How to make goat cheese, how to graft fruit trees, how to plant lettuce starts, potatoes, hazelnut trees, and peas, how to build a hoop house, how to inoculate mushroom logs, and more!
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| We made sourdough, too! |
I also ate a lot of really good food. Some highlights: homemade banana cake with homemade vanilla ice cream; sushi rolls (I even tried wasabi!); breakfast sandwich with a fried egg and a little honey from David's hives; egg, potato, Japanese spinach, homemade goat cheddar, and rice scramble; egg salad on homemade sourdough bread.
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| This is Brumley! He's a miniature Australian shepherd. |
I enjoyed talking with David and Michiko about various topics. I'm already planning to go back and visit them in ten years!
On our way back, my mom and I ate lunch at the Harvest Table Restaurant, which is owned by Barbara Kingsolver, one of my favorite authors. They had signed copies of her newest book in the gift shop, so I bought one. I definitely want to go back there as well someday, and try the chocolate torte! Or the blueberry crisp.
[Side note: Do you think the double O in "wwoofer" and "wwoofing" should be pronounced as the O in "woman" or as in "moon"?]
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