Monday, October 22, 2007

Falling leaves and other things

With beams of light through the front cafe door, we made it into the little downtown of Thomas, West Virginia. We have nestled into a little state park, pouring down yellow and red fall leaves into our shoulders with just a morning sip of coffee. We thought we would stay a few days here and gather our photographs and writing to post to you all, but there is not a fresh produce stand for miles. We have a half of a cucumber, one lemon and and a knuckle of ginger. As the season changes, as does the inner workings of our bodies and diet, but we are not yet ready to relinquish the freshness of some leafy kale and a cold and crunchy apple.

We have just one week left of the journey. We were delighted to have the invite to an extended friends wedding, tucked into the hills of West Virginia in the hamlet of Helvetia, a village of craftsman and artisans. With the spinning and calling out for square dancing steps, we partner danced into the night, accompanied by the whimsical fervor of passionate string musicians. An evening drive into the mountains, planted us into the welcoming home of the bride and groom, who have created a simple and beautiful homestead. Their porch was filled with friends, family, farmers and their
great big HUGE pumpkins. There farm is in it's first year. It is rich with their labors and their dreams, sprinkled with winter kales and the amazing chia seed from South America that may be able to help any runner up any hill with just a handful.

The evening and morning passed with tastes of homemade black walnut bread, fresh from the tree, popped amaranth and the warmth of a toasty wood stove that also toasted morning breakfast bread for a group of 15. We chatted about pasteurization, raw milks, art in Pittsburgh, recipes for amaranth and cover crops, browsed at the Small Farmers Journal and reveled at the chilies drying all throughout the house, just harvested before the first winter frost arrived.

We are headed to pittsburgh for a small imtimate interactive installation in collaboration with a new friend who is involved in one mile food installations. After that... to a small cheese making operation to learn the basic of raw milks and a large scale CSA farm whose operation is getting big enough to question small scale organics.

We look forward to giving you the full picture of the south. We have seemingly passefd from Santa Fe to West Virginia with a big of silence. Not to worry..we have many stories and discoveries to share.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey ladies -- it was great to meet you over the weekend. Dom and I hope to see you soon in New York!

-Crystal

EPM said...

some of the square dance calls that sounded so romantically timeless...

"dig for the oyster, dig for the clam. now jump through the hole in the old tin can"

"around you went, a brand new lady with the same old gent"

"and now head on back in the same old track"