Carolina, one day i'll, someday i'll come home

In charlottesville to see the Avett Brothers - amazing as can be expected. Their energy, enthusiasm, sincerity is inspiring and heartbreaking at once.

Moved from Circle Acres where I'm pretty sure we became cob-enthusiasts for life, to Blue Heron Farms where we've fallen in love with warmth and wonder that exists in their community. Our wonderful host Tony and his son Jasper have made us feel at home in their home and their hospitality will forever be with us.

I'm pretty sure at this point, nearly a month into our trip, that it takes a certain kind of people to be interested in organic farming and trying to live as sustainably and without waste as possible. Those people are certainly for us.

Off to bed, to wake and drive to our next farm in the morning - Prodigal Farms, a goat dairy! Details to come, for now though, check out pictures at Cait's!

it sounds like, rockabye, rockabye baby

"i said today i am leaving, in every sense of the word - but i'm in love with your memory already, everything i've seen and heard." Ani DiFranco

San Ysidro Farms - how we'll miss it! Michael, Kaitlin, River and friends, let's not forget Rodeo, Nema, Obie and James!

From the beginning, the amazing hospitality and generosity we were greeted with couldn't have made our first stop any better. Granted, I don't think we helped much with their farming duties (and may have distracted them a bit from completing them!), but we certainly have nothing but the highest hopes for them and believe whole-heartedly that their hard times will pass and they'll be able to achieve all the goals they have for the land.

They've only been farming for less than a year and managed to start and maintain a 30 share CSA from the ground up on land that hadn't been farmed in ages! It's difficult though - between pests and droughts, farm maintenance expenses and general living expenses, it's a wonder many small farms are able to eke out a living. In the case of San Ysidro, they've resorted to jobs outside of the farm to help them sustain their desire to farm their land and from what we understand, it's what many farmers have had to do.

So why farm? When I asked Michael this question one night, he started talking very openly about how he felt it was important to eat something that's alive. You receive a life force, a certain energy when you eat fresh vegetables, and you're not strong unless you're eating something that's alive. In other conversations we had about the same topic, he spoke very passionately about how important it was to support small local farms, to allow people to live off the land and use the land in a healthy and productive way.

When the pests overtook San Ysidro Farms, they lost the rest of the crops and therefore the rest of their livelihood. However, Kaitlin informed me that when the corn farmer down the street lost most of their crop due to drought - they were still paid in subsidies by the government. They are neither organic, nor do they sell to the local community. Does this make any sense at all?

So it is with many well wishes that we left San Ysidro Farms early this week and traveled down to North Carolina where we've been for a full 48 hours and are already a little sunkissed and sore! We've been helping Danielle at Circle Acres build her cob house (learn more here.). It's an amazing, tiring, inspiring project that even in the two days we've been working on it with her, has brought together such a variety of people, all wanting to help pour more love into Danielle's future home!

Right now, we're at a co-op in Pittsboro North Carolina that provides the locals with delicious produce and a ton of great local and organic food options. Not to mention it has a great little cafe with ample indoor and outdoor seating plus dundunDUUUUUN wireless :) Loving Circle Acres so far - great people great food and great barn that we get to sleep in the loft of! Am settling much better into life on the road and looking forward to figuring out where we'll be next. "And I will go singing, as the solitude sets in, in time with the rhythm, of everywhere I have been!"