April was alternately wet and dreary, bright and cheery. We savored our last few days with Amy and welcomed Kat, Miki and Justin to Trouts Farm. Edible Earthscapes held their end-of-season CSA work party and potluck and Tami and Lyle threw another memorable party at Shakori. Blooms are blooming, mushrooms are popping and all signs point to Spring.
AMY PREPARES FOR DEPARTURE
What better way to spend Easter Sunday weekend than with Family and Friends? Amy and Bob finished work on Amy’s camper shell, her friend Kat joined us en route for Asheville, and Justin and Miki came down from New York City to see Trouts Farm for themselves. See more at: Easter Weekend
EASTER WEEKEND VISIT
Spot was thrilled to meet Kat, Miki and Justin and we enjoyed a few days of entertaining conversation with our friends.
NEW FARMERS
Chef Geoff has joined Piedmont Biofarm from New York and Hannah from Viginia has thrown in with Edible Earthscapes.
TEMPEH
Bob, Brett and Geoff made a beautiful batch of tempeh with soybeans grown at Piedmont Biofarm.
KIND-HEARTED
Although Bob often plays the part of the intractable grey-haired guy, he has an empathy streak a mile wide. He has a telltale habit of stopping the car to move box turtles off the road.
APRIL SHOWERS
Dark clouds over the Chatham County Courthouse illustrate the kind of month we had in April; stormy and wet. It rained so hard, streams re-routed themselves, fences were washed over and, when the rain stopped the vultures sat with their wings open to dry out their feathers.
TAMI’S WET WOODS
Shelly stands amid the devastation of four inches of rain in Tami’s woods during her weekly walk with Camille.
MEN AT WORK
Malcolm mows at The Plant hours before a storm rolls in to dump four inches of rain, washing over a section of deer fence which Screech examines the next day.
MOTHER EARTH NEWS FAIR
Lyle and Bob presented the Mother Earth News Fair in Asheville April 11 and 12.
BLOOMING
April showers bring May flowers as they say and the Paw Paw and Red Tip prove the adage.
WORK PARTY
Edible Earthscapes’ annual end of winter CSA work party and potluck was a success. Chris and Anky stayed behind to share stories of their recent trip to Machu Picchu. See more at: CSA Work Party
DELECTABLES
Two of our favorite vegetables, asparagus and spinach are thriving in the Spring weather.
To top it off, the morels were poking their wrinkly fruit up out of the forest floor.
COMPOSTING 101
In preparation for our customary talk on composting at Shakori, we photographed the set up. This is how to successfully compost your kitchen scraps. Locate the pile within 50 feet of your kitchen door. Provide plenty of dry cover material and a staging area and you are going to do it right. Here is a pitchfork, covered water pail and brush for rinsing and/or brushing out the compost bucket, table for setting the bucket on while you reach under the tarp and get dry straw to toss on top of the scraps. Easy peasy.
SHAKORI
The sun came out on Saturday, the third day of Shakori Hills Spring Grassroots Music Festival, which just so happened to be the day we were scheduled to give our talk about Compost and Tami and Lyle had planned their Baby Blue Party. Find out more here: Spring Shakori, 2015
SPRING FLOWERS
The azaleas are particularly stunning this year.
As are the Irises and Columbine.
NEW RESIDENTS
A wren’s nest has shown up on our back porch, stowed carefully behind a roll of shade cloth in the table beside the door.
GOLDEN DAYS AT THE PLANT
Golden hour at The Plant and a Sustainable Spirits gathering made for a sublime evening after work. The best part about our jobs is getting to enjoy the fruits of our labors. We keep things running smoothly and then interesting people come out and enjoy what we helped create.
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THIS MONTH’S QUOTES:
“Amid the global cries of alarm over the deaths of African migrants in the Mediterranean has been a notable silence: Where are the impassioned voices of African leaders who, arguably, could be shouting the loudest?” – Adam Nossiter, New York Times April 28, 2015
“If people don’t have livelihoods at all, they are not going to sit and die of hunger, they are going to look for greener pastures,” Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, head of the African Union commission April 22, 2015
“It ain’t dying I’m talking about, it’s living. I doubt it matters where you die, but it matters where you live.” – character Augustus McCrae from Larry McMurtry’s novel, Lonesome Dove
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