Park wedding

Our welcome back to the cold/Chicago -- Hannah's wedding!

Curtis Buchanan

Turns out Curtis the chair maker is also a Christmas Tree farmer. In addition to starting/selling produce at the local market, and building $2500 windsor chairs, he also grows around 500 trees a year up in The Roan Mountains. After chatting for a bit when Joel said goodbye/Allie met the fam, Curtis mentioned he was the first in the country to be a certified organic Christmas tree farmer. He has since worked to change the norm of how the trees are grown in northeastern TN which involves 100 lbs of nitrates per tree, (this doesn't even count all the herbicides or pesticides). And as some farms have around 500,000 trees, the amount of chemical runoff can really do some damage to the surrounding area. Even Curtis's dad, an 87 year old longtime Tennessee farmer, is on board. Just another fascinating story about one of the friends we made this month.

Car Camping

The Roan Mountain park ranger seemed a bit surprised to see us. When he came by to collect our $10 fee he said we were the first ones he'd seen "in these parts" in many months. The lady at the small general store down the street also thought we were nuts. But she did sell us a gallon of water, bag of jumbo marshmallows, a fire starter log and 5 smartie suckers, all for $9.49. No snow = camping season. Plus we got the place to ourselves, if you don't count the deer.

One two three, goats!

Another contact from the Jonesborough farmers market invited Joel to come to visit for the day, this time in southern VA at Possum's Bottom Farm. Joel spent the day being stared at by the 50 goats, who are each individually named (his favorites: Simone, Gerty, Phillis, Dot and Helga). He fed and milked the goats, and built a barn structure for the upcoming kidding season. After the day was over, Joel decided he still loves goat cheese, but he likes hanging out with sheep better.

Ba ba white sheep.

This lamb is three weeks old. Without me she might be hungry. I feed her with a bottle, since she hasn't taken to her mom. She now looks for me when it's lunch time.

Lettuce eat.

Yet another Farmers Market hookup, Curtis Buchanan, a world famous Windsor chair maker, who happens to also have a few neglected raised organic gardens. Joel has spent the last 2 Tuesdays and a Friday with Curtis and his wife, Marilyn, who can make a mean lunch. His prize for the day: two gallon size bags of tat soy, one of fancy lettuce, and one of spinach.

East Fork Farm

Joel's dream world, and social life...and where he spends three days a week. Tucked in the blue ridge mountains of North Carolina live Dawn and Stephen Robertson, their daughters Autumn and Madison, a donkey named Buddy, 3 great Pyrenees dogs, 150 chickens, 30+ fat rabbits, around 100 sheep and more and more lambs every day. Joel's daily chores include herding the sheep out to the pasture, cleaning out the sheep shelter an replacing the hay, collecting 7 dozen eggs, aid in rabbit "family planning", tag and record the new lambs that were born, and neuter the donkey (which isn't exactly part of the daily routine).

A few Brews

Joel's new friend from Depot Street Brewing Co. Their claim to fame is the full size professional quality bocce ball court out back by the railroad tracks. Lucky for us, we happened to stop in on $2 sampler flight Wednesdays.

Mercado day!

Our first market pickup! Joel found this co-op of a handful of local farmers and producers who operate an online ordering system with a weekly pickup in Jonesborough, which is 10 miles from the VA. Jonesborough is the oldest town in the state of TN and boasts in being The Storytelling capital of the US.
Wednesday pickup is only from 5:30-5:45 so we had to be on time! The director of the market is a very nice lady named Karen, who emailed us to confirm that actually did mean to place an order in northeastern TN when our address said MI. She told us about about how the market has gone from $70 grossly weekly orders to around $700.
Our order this week includes: one loaf of harvest grain bread, Asian micro greens, 1/2 lb of Ziegenwald colby style goat cheese and 1lb of Shell's Mill fresh stone ground grits. When in Rome...