roanoke cont.

on sunday, the day i had intended to begin riding towards DC, i was not ready to go. i worked on the blog, correspondence, and preparing food for the trip. i rode to a nearby park and laid in the grass of the playfield at sunset.

the next day i was still not feeling ready to go. i had found out about this center for holistic living, where they have an event on monday nights. that was one reason to stay another night. but it i found out, after going to the post office and realizing it was a holiday, that the event was not happening again until next week. shoot!
i'd also been having this itch to get involved in some kind of gardening/farming work. there was nobody around at the nearby community garden, and they did not seem to need help. i searched again for this farm which i had donated my token for reusing a bag to. i found this video of the first day of work at Lick Run Farm. at the end of the video rick's phone number is given, so i called it.

rick seemed understandably bewildered at first, but then became very receptive to my proposal of helping him out at the farm and/or his home garden. when i called he was working on some things at home, and he told me he would head over right away and meet me at the farm to show me around. he was not there yet when i arrived, so i took a little walk around and talked to one of the neighbors who was out walking his dog. i ate some mulberries from a hugely productive tree across the street.
rick arrived and we spent a while talking about different aspects of the farm. he explained what work has been done so far and what is envisioned for the future. i felt like i could imagine it as he was. this will be a bountiful farm where community comes together to create real value together.

his approach to restoring the land reminded me of bob connard, the instructor at green string farm, where i interned in tha fall as part of this trip. at bob's home farm he started with a degraded piece of land that had been a turkey farm for decades. though cover cropping, incorporating organic material, and using compost tea, bob helped the land to realize an incredible fertility.
in the training of young farmers at green string, bob passes on this approach to farming, where there is a focus on " aiding, rather than fighting, natural processes" in order to increase natural abundance. this hope arose in me for someone who has completed the course at green string, and is looking for an opportunity to put their new knowledge and skills into practice, to come and be the manager of Lick Run. i told this to rick and he said he was going to post his need for a manager on the attra site. i know that the right person will come along to help this project thrive. it is part of the greater shift happening right now towards holistic living.

rick and i spent the rest of the evening before dusk working at his productive home garden. i thinned a small patch of carrots and helped him plant some sweet potato slips. we talked about many things as we worked. we shared ideas and parts of our life stories. it turns out he practices the WAPF approach to nutrition as well! we shared a nice dinner of sweet potatoes (last years home crop!), local grassfed ground beef, his homemade sauerkraut, and a salad i picked from his super-abundant patch of mixed lettuce. the dressing was his special olive oil and vinegar with south river miso company's chickpea miso. you can imagine i was in heaven!

when i left he said, "well of course you are welcome to stay as long as you want..." and it was hard to leave, knowing there was so much more good work and sharing to be had. but i am sticking to my grand idea of completing this HOOP and experiencing just a little of all the amazing places and people along the way. my hope is that this will encourage a vision of the whole country moving together towards holistic, healthy, happy life ways. like we are all holding hands in a big circle of gratitude, about to share in a meal, the gift of great abundance from our mother earth.