2010 was a year of delicious bounty.  Natural factors such as the intensity of last winter along with the mildness and wetness of the following spring gave us fruit galore. In personal orchards, on farms, and in the wild, we had our pick of tasty fruits from May until even now in late October. Strawberries, juneberries, Nanking cherries, blueberries, jostaberries, blackberries, wineberries, currants, gooseberries, figs, muscadines and scuppernongs, apples, persimmons!  Yummmmm!!!

Many folks supplemented their own garden produce with a share in Yellowroot Farm’s CSA.  The CSA provided 15 shares a week for 22 weeks.  Shares included beets, carrots, lettuce, escarole, turnips and cucumbers in the early season and later included tomatoes, okra, peppers, potatoes, garlic, more greens, and plenty of sauerkraut and kimchee (spicy, fermented, Asian sauerkraut).

Bee Happy Farm, run by Marjorie Vestal in the Bellavia neighborhood has been very busy establishing a large  thornless blackberry orchard which produced enough fruit this year for mead-making. In addition, Marjorie has been implementing a sizeable garden on her homesite including mushroom logs, herbs galore, more fruit, and a small pond.

Gateway Farm’s sheep flock produced 30 fleeces, 8 pelts, and 300-350 pounds of lamb. Unseen to customers, but another high value crop, Gateway also produced 1500, 50-pound bales of hay from an off-land lease nearby.  Fall is the annual stock-up-on-squash time. Gateway raised 2000 pounds of a variety of squash and 100 pounds of onions. We’re looking forward to fresh and as-local-as-it-gets turkeys for the holidays.

Many villagers got their pasture-raised and free-range eggs from Imani Farm this year. Pictured to the right are new chicks (came in the mail but being raised by a momma hen who adopted them upon arrival.) Imani also grazed their upper pasture with their second year steers. In the lower field Imani grew plenty of blueberries and about 1000 pounds of tomatoes (see our blog entry).

Jonathan Swiftcreek is an avid food producer, preserver and forager, always open to learning new forms of reverence towards food. He is a new member of Earthaven as well as the Village Terraces Cohousing Neighborhood and a participant in many of Earthaven’s farms. He and his partner, eli will be first-time parents in April.

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This is the second year of operation for “Yellowroot Farm,” the half-acre Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm we operate at Earthaven. This year we have 20 shares, five more than last year. We plan to grow food for the Hut Hamlet Kitchen and its 15 or so members as well. Our new name, “Yellowroot,” reflects a part of our sacred landscape at Earthaven. We love the yellowroot plant, which grows abundantly along Taylor Creek (less than 100 yards from our farm), because of the plant’s beauty and medicinal value.

Over the winter we built a large, 14 x 30 ft. greenhouse, designed around our great find of 8 large recycled 4 x 7 ft. windows. The greenhouse, financed by the two of us, was built by Mihaly, Robert, and Andy, with the site cleared by Cailen, and the lumber felled and milled on the land.

Starting plants in flats in the greenhouse has allowed us to get an earlier start with many more plants this year. Last year folks received kale, collards, lettuce, chard, dandelion greens, potatoes, tomatoes, summer squash,okra, beets, carrots, onions, garlic, peppers, turnips, and beans. This year the season will go into the fall and shares will include sweet potatoes, several varieties of winter squash and pumpkins, corn and some of our homemade kraut and pesto.

The season is now fully upon us, requiring long and wonderful days both in the field and the greenhouse. It feels so wonderful to have our hands in the dirt again! We have been working hard since mid-February filling the greenhouse with baby plant starts, getting the soil ready for planting, setting up irrigation, and making fence repairs. We have a variety of yummy greens already in the field that will be ready for harvest in mid-May.

We appreciate that our shareholders support local, sustainable, biodynamic agriculture. We believe this choice is crucial to creating positive change in the world, here and beyond! It gives people the opportunity to eat fresh and vital food, know who’s growing their food and where it’s coming from, the opportunity to learn about organic and biodynamic growing techniques, and much more.

If you’d like to help, Yellowroot Farm can use donations of large clean baskets, large plastic bins (2’x3′ or so), portable coolers, a digital camera, a chalkboard and chalk, volunteer labor, Leaps (Earthaven’s alternative currency), and of course money to help us keep doing what we love.

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During the school year, kids who attend the Forest Children’s Program can be seen scampering across the Village Green at least three days a week, while several, mostly older kids commute to schools in Black Mountain or to their other parent’s locale in Asheville.

Back in June, I became curious about whether these lucky younguns were going to stay around all Summer, or go off to other adventures, and here’s what I was told. In “the Brandon and Tanya family,” Brandon wrote: “Aleah [Tanya’s 11-year-old] has been visiting Kentucky and Missouri with her Dad, and will be going on a trip to Indiana and Massachusetts with us in July. Here one week and with Dad one week after that. Aurora [Brandon’s ex-partner Brandi’s 9-year-old] will also come on the trip to IN and MA; and while at home she is doing an outdoor leadership program called Task. (Willow, the baby, will, of course, accompany the family, as she approaches her first birthday in September.)

Mihaly offered this list on behalf of 7-year-old Tessa, who lives during the school year with her Mom in Nashville: playing troll under the new bridge, eating homemade raw ice cream, jumping on the trampoline, watching movies, building a fort, swimmin’ in the hole, riding bikes, sleeping late, picking blueberries, helping with chores and construction, massage nights, contra dancing, reading at bedtime, dressing up, playing cards, listening to her CDs, eating candy at the Trading Post, walking Bridgit (the Cow), collecting eggs, playing in the woods, double-slumber parties, writing in her diary, putting on skits.

Holly wrote from Main Street: “Rose is working one day a week at the Inn on Mill Creek, a B & B near Ridgecrest. She is also apprenticing with [our neighbor] Rainbow in order to learn how to paint murals, and going to the Thursday contra dances as much as she can. She practices her guitar every day. She was accepted into, and leaves tomorrow, for a program called CLIMBE (Center for Learning and Investigation in Mountain Backcountry Ecosystems), which is done through Montreat College. It’s a 6-day scientific backpacking expedition for rising 8th through 12th graders, in which they’ll hike from Mount Mitchell down to Montreat and test water quality as they come down. There will be 10 kids at a time and the program runs for 6 weeks total, so 60 kids were accepted from over 100 applicants from around the country. She is also helping around the house, working in the garden, and hanging out with friends at Earthaven. ” Holly continued: [Rose’s brother] “Eli is not doing much this summer! Aside from some EH and town playdates, he goes to work with me two days a week. It’s a little boring there, but he reads a lot. He has also done a math camp with the TLC director and math teacher. Both kids will likely spend some time in Indiana and Ohio with extended family this summer.”

We also got an update from Jill on daughter Mira’s behalf (although I’m surprised that articulate 8-year-old didn’t write her own!): “Mira’s first 2 wks at EH were great! She joined the Sister Stitch group, which inspired her to sew a purse for Fran, which was well received at Fran’s b’day party. Mira also enjoyed a great b’day celebration with Cory getting into the mud/clay pit!! Mira has been enjoying spending time with the other kids, bike riding, berry picking, going to the swimming hole, planting seeds, harvesting, picking up our harvest at the CSA, chasing the salamanders. She put together a 500-piece puzzle the A&A folks loaned her. She is a bookworm, and while Jill is at Qigong class, Mira is somewhere in the magic treehouse book collection off on adventures with the characters. Greg took her out on a library trip, and got her the new Peter Pan DVD. She has a charmed summer life, and we’ve only just begun. We make our rounds with dinner dates. Life is good!”

Seems like we got the goods on most of the girls, and on Eli, but we know our other fellas Gailen, Nick and Joshua, Cory, and Yeshua and Otus were out there swimming, picking berries, going to town with their folks, checking out the woods’ creatures, and playing lots of games, too.

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In Oriental metaphoric tradition, Spring’s direction is East, its color yellow (or green-yellow), its quality innocence. The time of day is sunrise, and it corresponds to the Wood element. Its animal image is an eagle, flying high over the landscape. Spring is a time of many possibilities, and springtime energy brings openness.

Spring begins with the Equinox, a few days’ relative balance of Sun and Moon power, the days once again as long as the nights. Here in Western North Carolina, there is the likelihood of warm temperatures and the potential for snow (of which we’ve had very little this year).

By this year’s Spring Equinox, Lenten Rose, Crocus and Daffodil had already flowered. When I knelt down to smell the Hyacinths (swooning), I saw the Irises already fanning out their broad, flat green leaves. Robins were everywhere, nests and birdsong appearing literally out of the blue.

On days like these, the heart leaps up to see the trees and bushes budding, while the mind sends a flash of fear for them and the weather they may yet have to survive. However, at press time, we can say that Spring temperatures stuck around and all the buds were saved.

In general, the last frost date for the Asheville area is May 10th, but Earthaven is tucked into the edge of a iso-thermal belt that runs through Rutherford County, so we often have frost-free nights several weeks ahead of Asheville and Black Mountain.

This Spring at Earthaven is definitely a time of new beginnings! Just come up to the end of Camp Elliott Road and see the cleared, graded, soon-to-be-seeded “big sky” reality at Gateway Ag Field. Major food production planned here for years to come, with several of our young men earning “sweat equity” during the establishment of the farm. (See “Sweat and Ye Shall Receive” in this issue. Gateway Farm will be featured in the Summer newsletter.)

Continuing along Another Way to Rosy Branch Creek (second crossing), you’ll soon be driving over our second bridge. On the far side, turn right to Imani Farm and meet new residents Carla and Hijo, a ewe and her lamb. (Don’t forget to say hello to Bridgit the cow, now almost a year old.)

More surprises: arrive in the Hut Hamlet and discover that ag field in its new incarnation as “Finally Farming CSA.”

And those are just the obvious things. Interiorly, Earthaven members are creating and recreating our community with every conversation, meeting, decision, and with a revitalized Strategic Planning Committee that has begun actualizing visions that have been nurtured for more than a decade.

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