Over The River and Into The Woods

This afternoon was one of the best that I can remember in quite a long time. The Sustainable Agriculture group for this area of Western North Carolina sponsored a Family Farm Tour with over 25 farms that you could visit. Of course, that would have been virtually impossible--even though you can also go tomorrow afternoon (which we will). We (I) chose 3 farms to visit today--2 in Barnardsville and 1 in Mars Hill. I didn't choose these farms with anything in particular in mind--other than the descriptions sounded good. And they were more than good.

The first place we went to was owned by a couple in their 60's (which me feel good being as I'm there, too!). This is the wife and she was certainly a very interesting person. They run a bed and breakfast, also but I think she has done most of the gardening. What they have done with their place is like stepping into the Garden of Eden--flowers everywhere--at their peak, as you can see with the white hydrangeas here.

This farm and the 3rd one we went to had bee hives. And you will notice that there are electric fences around them. Papa Bear came to visit the farm one night and the next day the fence went up. This particular one is solar powered which is nice when you're not too close to an electricity source. I'm not sure how well these two hives were actually doing (as you may know our entire bee population is in trouble and they are VERY important for all of our food crops). At the 3rd farm, the bees were zooming all over the place and bringing pollen into the hives. These here were far more quiet--so I don't know.

And through all this walking around and oohing and aweing, my faithful companion Smokey followed patiently along. He is not quite as enthusiastic as I am but, as always, a good sport. (He didn't know I was taking his picture).

To me, one of the wonderful things about the farms in Western North Carolina is that so many of them are owned by families and not by mega businesses. Today's family farmers are, by and large, nothing like the farmers of old. They are educated and use modern methods to achieve their farming goals. BUT, they are still centered around individual ownership and live a life based on connectedness with the earth. They know where their food comes from because THEY grow it. And the biodynamic farms we visited today preserve the goodness of the soil as they bring forth its bounty.

It was a great, great afternoon.

And for those of you who may think that I haven't been doing any quilting up here in the mountains . . .you're just about right. However, a friend did come over last week and we each made this table runner called A Touch of Summer from the June 2009 issue of McCalls Quilting Magazine. It was fun to make and provided a lot of practice for accuracy in piecing.