I came to Seven Springs Farm because I needed to change my life.  It was not an easy coming.

Since childhood I have had a dream of being a gardener.  As a child, I read backwards and forwards a Time-Life series of books on gardening that sat on my parents’ bookshelf.  I can still remember many of the pictures, especially the flowers: climbing roses overtaking a fence, diagrams of how to dig up your rose bushes and bury them in the ground to overwinter in harsh climates, etc.

When I was in sixth or seventh grade, I started my own garden on a rocky, clay-filled patch of soil next to my parents’ driveway.  I had purple coneflowers that did wonderfully, snapdragons and petunias (planted at my mother’s recommendation, and which I hated pinching back—their stickiness, and then what to do with the wilted pinchings?), and one pink oriental poppy, which I could not resist buying based on the beautiful picture.  Its one bloom was short-lived, as advertised.

Later we moved into a house in the woods, and I had to leave my sunny garden behind.  I entered high school, and did not start another garden.

When I was in twenty years old and in college, I took a job one summer on an organic family farm in western Massachusetts.  The name of the farm was Peace Valley Farm, and the farmer who owned it was Bill Stinson.  It was a dream job, one of those summers when you drop into yourself unexpectedly, and find a perfect fit.  Bill was not a farmer who was sophisticated in technique, but he was fast and efficient in everything that he did.  It was a good season with plenty of water and sunshine.  The crops were a success.  The rhythms of the farm suited me well, I bonded with Bill and his family, and when I finally left there in the fall, I put a seed in the back of my head—a dream of farming for ‘someday.’

After graduating from college, I lived in my hometown of Roanoke (about an hour from Seven Springs Farm), working in nonprofit administration for two years.  As an educated young woman, I was immediately successful in my career.  I bought a house and settled in.  I planted a small garden in my backyard, but I was busy and preoccupied, and it got neglected.  Vaguely in the back of my mind I sometimes remembered that there was a “someday” when I might get to farming.

In January of this year, I decided that someday needed to come sooner rather than later, and that I was going to have to go out and get it.  I felt like my life was a blur of working, scarfing down meals, driving home and catching some sleep, and working again.  Work had devolved into trading labor for money.  I spent all the money on the necessities of life that I didn’t have time to create for myself.  I bought most of my meals at restaurants—no time to cook.  Bought lots of gasoline because I was always shuttling myself from here to there.  Paid someone to clean my house.  In the evenings, I spent money distracting myself from a consuming job.  I increasingly did not want to go home and face a neglected house and yard, which represented to me more work and responsibility for which I didn’t have the energy.

I did some soul searching to figure out what I should do.  I knew that I was sucked into a cycle, and I didn’t want a small solution.  I didn’t want to get a “better” job, which for me meant more money but the same darned life.  I didn’t want to read a magazine article about balance.  I didn’t want to hear anyone else tell me about the importance of making time for myself.  I didn’t want to take a yoga class once a week, or stretch for 15 minutes each day.  I wanted to break out of the cycle in a big way.  I wanted to change my life.  All of it.

I took a week off from work with the intent of searching for a job.  On the first day, I sat down at my computer.  Not sure where to start, I fell back on instinct.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I could work on an organic farm again? I looked up the Seven Springs Farm website, and a few days later I visited the farm.  I never looked any further.

Once I set my sights on apprenticing at Seven Springs, there were still hurdles to go.  I gave notice at my job, moved out of my house, and put all of my things in storage.  At the same time, I ended a long-term relationship with a partner that I loved dearly.  By the time I arrived at Seven Springs in April, I was ready for simple living.  I wanted it as simple as I could get it.

It was simple, especially the first two or three months.  It rained most of April.  It was also cold.  Many days I would come to work in rain gear, and spend the day huddled with Polly and Ann Shrader, another farm employee, in the greenhouse with the heat on.  We started seedlings for all the crops we would grow that spring and summer.  Slowly, we filled up all the tables in the greenhouse, and then the available floor space.  Eventually we moved the hardiest crops outside and began planting.

Spring lasted into July.  The longest the rain let up was maybe a week at a stretch.  Good sunny days were scarce, and the temperature remained unseasonably cool.  We planted many crops in the rain and the mud.  Although spring greens and radishes came in, the spring broccoli and many of the summer crops were stressed and stunted by pounding rain, which packed the soil down and compacted their roots.  Only in August were we able to pull off a good crop of tomatoes and cucumbers.  The fall crops look like they will flourish.  Most were planted later in the season, avoiding the most excessive rain.  Now the weather seems to have turned golden, and these new crops look good.

Although the growing season has been a weaker one, the learning experience here at Seven Springs has been valuable for me.  Simple farm living has been an antidote to my city life.  The tactile, physical work has been rewarding and enlightening.  I have gained much technical farming knowledge and many new homesteading skills.  Equally valuable, the farm itself with its very simple and alternative way of life has stimulated me to think about how I want to live.  I have honed my focus on what I want to do, the life that I want, and how I can get there.  Below is a brief description of my major areas of growth during this apprenticeship.

• Organic Gardening:  My gardening knowledge has increased substantially in the areas of biological pest controls, organic fertilizers and soil supplements.  Ron and Polly are a wealth of knowledge in this area.  They have an overall strategy and ethic for approaching pest problems and soil and plant fertility.  From them I have learned how to use many complimentary techniques simultaneously.

• Greenhouse Work:  Before I came to Seven Springs, I had not been exposed to greenhouse work.  After working with Polly and Ron to start seedlings for most of the crops on the farm, I know skills for basic greenhouse management for a small farm.  These skills include creating a potting soil from compost, starting different types of seeds successfully, keeping the greenhouse at an appropriate temperature and moisture level, keeping different types of plants at appropriate heat levels, and preventing problems with the seedlings such as insect infestations and excessive moisture.

• Equipment:  Before I came to Seven Springs, I had never mowed a lawn.  Now I can operate a variety of small machines for maintenance and farming, including a lawn mower, a weed whacker, and several small tractors.  I have also used the larger tractors and driven the backhoe and the dump truck.  This area of improvement, although seemingly minor, is very important to me.  Girls and women are hard pressed to find an opportunity to learn to use these machines, and generally must depend on others to have that knowledge.  In my eyes, my new knowledge of equipment is empowering.

• General Farm Maintenance:  Although it would be impossible to master all of the related skills related to general farm maintenance during a short apprenticeship, I have gotten a good general sense of what is involved.  Much of this knowledge has come from observing and assisting Ron in maintaining the infrastructure of the farm.  Areas to which he has exposed me include equipment and vehicle maintenance; fencing maintenance; creating and maintaining irrigation systems, erosion and drainage systems, and road and trail systems; pruning and orchard maintenance, landscaping; pond maintenance; some small building projects; and last but definitely not least, growing, harvesting, baling and storing a large hay crop.

• Compost:  I have learned basic procedures for making compost, including building the pile, using biodynamic preparations and mineral supplements, good ratios of animal manure and plant matter, appropriate moisture and temperature for the pile, and how to turn it.  I have participated in making piles, observed raw piles transform into finished compost, and have used the finished compost for potting soil and directly in the gardens.

• Alternative Power Systems and Building Materials:  I have learned about alternative power systems and building materials on this and neighboring farms, and have been exposed to books and people who are engaged with these alternatives.  Some examples: Several of the buildings on this farm are powered with solar panels and run on DC rather than AC current.  This farm and many others utilize well water as the drinking water source on the farm.  On this farm we also catch and utilize rain water for non-drinking purposes.  A neighbor has a well that is powered by a solar pump, and is building a straw bale house.  Another neighbor developed a spring on his property this year for drinking water.  Several of the buildings on this farm have been built or sided using locust logs timbered on this property, and milled locally.  Firewood gathering and log splitting is a major fall activity here, and all of the houses on the farm use woodstoves for heat in the winter.  Seeing this efficient use of resources is inspiring.  They are also cheaper!

• CSA Concept and Operation:  I have learned about the CSA concept and its origin and history.  I have read books from the Seven Springs library on this concept, and I have heard Polly, Ron and Mark speak extensively to CSA sharers, tour groups and classes about the concept and the development of this CSA.  I have also given farm tours and have explained to many people the workings of the CSA.  I have helped bring in and divide up the harvest on every distribution day, and have helped Polly and Mark to make decisions and plans about harvesting and distribution.  I have recently been responsible for running the Tuesday distribution, including managing volunteer helpers and record keeping.  In times when Polly has been out of town on a distribution day, I have helped to plan and execute the harvest independently.  Through the CSA, I have also met many wonderful and interesting members, and have had a chance to work side by side with them, and sometimes their children, families, neighbors and friends who have come along for the ride.  What a treat it has been to hear about how so many different people have come to be involved with local organic agriculture!

• Budgeting:    A major theme of my Seven Springs experience has been how to survive on a $100/month stipend.  I have learned much more about money management than I expected from this apprenticeship.  The monetary pressure has been more intense for me than for some other apprentices past because I carry a house mortgage and fixed expenses such as health and car insurance, among others.  For the first time in my life I have a strict written and categorized budget.  I use cash for all of my living expenses such as food, gasoline, etc., and I record and categorize every purchase I make.  I have simplified and honed my fixed expenses as much as possible.  Ron has worked with me to tighten my budget and save money on various insurance expenses.  I have also done part-time work off the farm in order to have a higher cash flow.  Although financial pressures have at times been a stressor and a distraction to me, through this experience I have become much clearer about how much money I want to earn and how I want to use it, and I have learned how to be disciplined about day-to-day money management.  Overall I have gained significantly more focus and direction in the area of my personal finances.

• Exposure to Different People and Lifestyles:  One of the most valuable parts of my experience at Seven Springs has been getting to know an interesting alternative community in Floyd County.  It has been refreshing and educational to find people nearby who have managed to make different life choices.  I have met people in Floyd county who have chosen to live without electricity or running water.  Many live off grid and some plow their fields with horses, trying to reduce as much as possible their use of fossil fuels.  Others have chosen to live in intentional communities (aka communes), or to return to the large family structure that was traditionally part of farming in this country.  I have met many who have made a choice to trade off some income for quality of life.  I have watched carefully how everyone deals with hard issues like sickness, health insurance, and old age.  Although I haven’t learned all the answers to these types of life questions, it’s nice to see that there are many options.

• Confidence, Direction and Resources:  Perhaps some of the most valuable results of my experience at Seven Springs are that now I have the confidence to pursue organic farming as a career, and I have many resources to turn to for knowledge and help.  I have realized that I can make the leap into this career area without first knowing everything there is to know about it.  I know enough to get started, and after all, you can only gain experience by getting out there and doing it.  I have also gained direction.  I have more knowledge about the life that I want to live, and how to get there.  I know that after this experience, I will not be drifting along with somebody else’s program.  I have my own program now. I am grateful to have met many farmers and others to whom I can turn for help.  I fully intend to buy organic gardening products from Seven Springs, and to consult Polly and Ron in the future when I run into gardening problems that puzzle me.  In addition, when I venture into farming I intend to work with Mark Schoenbeck, the soil scientist on staff at Seven Springs who is a valuable resource for interpreting soil tests and consulting to small farmers on soil and other issues.  I have met other farmers in the Floyd area that I will likely consult with for season extension tips, general gardening advice, and marketing assistance.

I hope to market the flowers at local farmers’ markets, health food and other high end grocery stores, and possibly even through the Seven Springs CSA.  I am also planning to do some research on traveling weekly to high-dollar, larger farmers’ markets in Washington DC.

I am hoping to start my flower business as a part-time endeavor, and will be returning to the nonprofit career that I left in a part-time capacity.  This will lend me income stability and balance.  This fall and winter I intend to write a business plan, do extensive market research, create a budget, and plan my garden.

I am, to say the least, happy and excited about the future and grateful to have had this experience at Seven Springs.  It was the big change that I was looking for.

I have always associated land with stability.  For my goals, ownership of a piece of land is as much a final destination as a beginning.  However, spending time at Seven Springs has helped me to understand the dynamic nature of what it means to “own” land (Native American wisdom aside, for the time being).  There are the obvious things:  Last year there were cows grazing the fields, this year we cut hay in those empty fields and next year they will be occupied by mules.  There will be a new resident, as Ron’s sweetheart moves in during October.  Whereas last year, watering the gardens was a constant necessity, this year we have spent many a workday digging trenches in the pouring rain to channel water away from crops, only to still find our topsoil deposited hundreds of feet away in the pond.  Ron and Polly are continuously developing their personal lives; new interests and new observations replace old ones and promise exciting possibilities for the future.  And of course, having two different apprentices each year brings a change of energy as well as new backgrounds, experiences, and ideas.  I suppose that while there may be an underlying stability, for example each year we know our land a little bit more personally, on an operational level things are in a continuous flux.

Spending my first 17 years in the suburbs and the next three in Boston, I had entirely lost that visceral connection with the earth that is, for so many people, a primary source of joy, hope, and meaning.  It is interesting that in this day and age, a city-dwelling “environmentalist” who wants to eat all organic food needs only to shop at
Store A instead of Store B.  It is not necessary to even set foot on anything other than grey pavement and dull linoleum.  My generation is perhaps the first that can survive without any direct link to the Earth, in the sense of “the source of all our resources”.  Of course, no generation will survive for long that abandons this connection.  Many a social commentator has mused on the causes of today’s large population of disaffected youth, of which I was once a member:  too much television, “material culture”, lack of meaningful careers, and poor parenting (always by other kinds of parents, I’ve noticed) are all commonly cited.  Whatever the reason, I tend to think the root cause is this dislocation from the soil and the earth’s energy.  Aldous Huxley had it right in Brave New World:  our cultural contempt for nature is not borne out of any malicious intent; rather, it is the inevitable side effect of our embracement of the new Gods: convenience and (terribly short-sighted) economic efficiency. (I love to discuss these issues in greater depth ? email me at meatloafgame@yahoo.com if you agree or disagree, but for everyone else’s sake I will stop ranting and get on with it)…  The outcome of these converging influences is manifested in many, particularly younger people, chiefly as a lack of passion.  Seven Springs Farm is the kind of place that can put the PASSION and MEANING back into the life of even the most cynical or frustrated person.

The chief passion here is obviously a passion for good food.  As food is no longer an “innocent” commodity, with nearly universal use of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers in commercial fruit and vegetable production, and hormones and misuse of antibiotics in meat and dairy, the most expedient way to get good food is to grow it yourself.  The Community Supported Agriculture garden takes this even a step further, providing local organic food to over 100 families in a manner that is far less energy-intensive than the dominant production and distribution systems.  This passion can be felt best by attending one of the on-farm potluck lunches and observing people as they search out the creator of that amazing eggplant dish or loaf of bread to give thanks and maybe, just maybe are able to coax out that secret recipe.  The role that food plays in our lives here is very whole, from the experience of growing it to taking the time to prepare it and sharing with other people.  Quite a different role from that played by the drive-thru window or frozen reheatable dinner.

Another passion to be found is in belonging to a community in the truest sense of the word.  A great many Floydians have banded together in their search for fulfillment.  After being here just over three months, I’ve made scores of friends, some in elementary school, others retired, and everywhere else in between.  A common thread that holds the community together is a desire for sustainability (interpreted differently by nearly everyone), with a basic value of improving the land that is our habitat.  Everyone has their own goals and ideas, and there is room for differences politically and in practice, but the cohesion remains strong.  Above all, I have met a number of people who are willing to take time out of their schedules to teach me things or simply to talk about life.  I am confident that I will be learning from these people for a great many years, even if I reside somewhere else.  I have noticed an interesting thing about the community of Floyd because it has largely accomplished something that I, with a degree in music business, think is extremely important and an all-too-rarely found achievement: the marriage of self-reliance with self-expression.  Typically, it is in the “cosmopolitan” urban centers where self-expression is at its height, in the form of a thriving scene of music, art, and culture of all stripes, though most residents have little or no practical part in producing for themselves.  On the contrary, many rural areas seem to be working towards self-reliance, but self-expression is limited to the dubious realm of bumper stickers.  In the suburbs, incidentally, I have found little of either.  Floyd boasts a thriving local arts scene (as demonstrated especially well at the annual FloydFest) with a broad base of support, and there is abundant local production and supply of fruit, vegetables, eggs, dairy, and meat, all organic, of course.  I derive much of my inspiration and optimism from the quality of wholeness that prospers in Floyd.

One of my particular passions, as you may be able to detect, is politics.  This passion finds its healthy outlet here as well.  Henry David Thoreau, among the other wisdom in the brilliant “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience”, says “Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it.  It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail.  A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority.”  In this sense, every action that I take here, every carrot that I eat, every hug that I give or receive IS the revolution that I once envisioned.  On a pragmatic level, we have witnessed Ron and Polly struggle both physically and emotionally with the recent development of Jerry Lane.  Ron was able to find two organic farmers to save neighboring land from further development, ensuring a buffer along almost the entire property line and preserving that all-important agricultural land.  The new neighbors have become good friends and important additions to the community.

Education is ever-present at Seven Springs Farm on many different levels.  For starters, as farmers who are committed to being “stewards of the land in the most ecological way possible,” as Ron and Polly put it, we are continually evolving and applying new knowledge and ideas to the gardens themselves.  Sometimes this results in failure, others in success but always the idea is to learn a little bit more.  The apprentice program itself is a far more potent educational experience than anything to be found from a high school or college.  The amount of time and energy that goes into teaching us the full range of activities that happen on the farm is staggering, and the opportunities for us to utilize that knowledge are encouraged.  I am continually impressed with Ron and Polly’s openness as far as accepting visitors and answering questions from friends and strangers alike.  Many a soul has wandered this way to spend an enlightening afternoon planting lettuce or picking cherries, and our experiences all commingled into a lively discussion. Mark and Ann, the two other common faces here, have led such fascinating lives and have both positively affected the course of the apprenticeship immensely.  Working with new neighbors is always fun, the exchange of knowledge fantastic. I am greatly appreciative of all that the Cabell Brand Center does for us here, as I was able to attend a valuable weeklong Principles of Organic Horticulture class at Virginia Tech, among other things.

Everything that I have learned and will learn yet at Seven Springs is precious to me.  The value of this type of knowledge is so much more meaningful than any diploma signifies, and I look forward to the days ahead, applying knowledge in my backyard gardens, perhaps starting a community garden, and hopefully culminating in the purchase of land that will be the ultimate fulfillment (and dawn) of my hopes and dreams.  By combining my experience with that of friends and learning from our mistakes, one day we envision for ourselves all of the positive attributes that we have found at Seven Springs and in Floyd County.  My eternal gratitude to all those who have helped me along the way goes without saying, but it will mean so much more when I try to realize my dream and be able to repay it ten times over.

I have always been interested in the outdoors and plants, and recently have become more interested in growing my own food.  From working in the gardens here at Seven Springs, I feel like I have the experience to get started in doing some of my own gardening.  I am majoring in Environmental Biology and Sustainable Development at Appalachian State University where I took a Planning class that focused on sustainability.  I realized the need for things like buying locally grown food and the importance of full circle composting.  I found that the Community Supported Agriculture here is a great way to do that.  I have learned about how a CSA is run and what goes into producing the food.   It's really wonderful to see people supporting a local organic farm by sharing the risks with the farmers by buying a share at the beginning of the growing season and then reaping the benefits of the harvest.  It is also a great way to educate sharers about where their food comes from by having them come and work on harvest days before delivering the food to the distribution sites.  The farm here also does a good job of composting and I've learned about building compost piles so as to return nutrients back to the soil rather than throwing them away.  Another aspect of organic farming that I've learned about is insect control.  I grew up eating food that had been sprayed with pesticides not really knowing there was another way.  It was very enlightening to find that there are natural ways of dealing with pests.  I've learned about the use of beneficial insects that parasitize or eat pest insects.  We've planted flowers and plants that are food for beneficial insects to attract them to the gardens where they are needed.  Using beneficial insects rather than spraying chemicals increases biodiversity and makes use of the natural predator/prey relationship found in the food web.  This idea is based on nature and the connections between every living organism.

While learning about growing food, I've also picked up some skills in preparing it.  Through recipes from books and people we've talked to here, as well as through our own creativity, my fellow apprentice, Ezra and I have come up with lots of different ways to cook vegetables.  One of our favorites is zucchini bread, which we've found to be a good way to use up some of the surplus summer squashes.  I'm not a vegetarian and was surprised to find that I hardly missed meat at all.  There's so much good food here that is healthy.  We're never without something to eat.  Along with cooking we've learned how to can and have made jelly and canned green beans.    Ezra and I were also interested in learning about wild edibles.  This farm is a wonderful resource for these wild foods.  We have found out that some of the weeds in the gardens are edible such as purslane, lamb's quarter, and wood sorrel.  Surrounded by forest, we've also been trying to learn to identify edible plants in the woods.  We are hoping to purchase a book for future apprentices on wild edibles.

Coming to Seven Springs I knew it was going to be a lesson in simplicity.  The apprentice quarters are very modest.  Learning to live simply in nature is something I've wanted to do ever since reading Henry David Thoreau's Walden.  Here I live in an old camper with not much walking space, which encourages me to spend most of my time outdoors.  I have lights in my camper that run off of solar power.  We have an outdoor kitchen shelter that is open on one side.  The kitchen is my favorite part of the apprentice quarters.  We have a stove and oven that use propane gas and our water in the sink comes from rainwater collected in a milk tank from the roof and pumped to the sink using solar power.  We can't drink this water and have to fill up our drinking water containers down at the barn.  Since we don't have running water we don't have showers or a flush toilet either.  Instead we have an outhouse and solar shower bags that we fill in the sink and hang in the sun to get warm.  This, I must admit, was the hardest part to get used to, but now I think nothing of it.  I like this way of life and feel good about learning to conserve water and living without conventional electricity.

Another part of the apprentice experience is learning to live and work with someone else.  I am thankful to have had Ezra as my fellow apprentice.  We've gotten along very well and I have learned a lot from him.  It's nice to have someone to talk to about the day and with whom to share experiences.  We cook our meals together and share in the clean up tasks.  We also buy much of our food together and try to buy in bulk to save money and packaging.  I think it is good to learn to live and cooperate with someone that may be different from you in a lot of ways, but someone with whom you're able to find common bonds.  It is good to be able to learn from other people and to see different viewpoints.

One of our big projects this summer has been working on a small cabin at the apprentice site to take the place of one of the campers.  In what seemed to be a short period of time, we had the subfloor in, the walls framed out, and the roof put on.  Now we are working on the insulation for the walls before we put the siding on.  Building has been a learning experience for all of us.  I have learned to use a bucksaw and have seen what goes into building a house.  With some of the grant money we are going to buy a futon bed for the cabin.

One thing I've really enjoyed and learned from this summer is the local community.  There is a great feeling of community on the farm and in the Floyd area.  Floyd is such a great mixture of people, a lot of which are dedicated to preserving the environment and working together to provide each other's needs, while building the local economy.  The farm community is made up of Ron and Polly who own the farm, Ann and Mark who are both paid workers, the apprentices, and CSA members who come to help on harvest days, including Chris and her kids who come every Tuesday to work.  People who come to the farm all share a love for this place- for the beauty and the serenity as well as the gifts of the harvest.   Something I look forward to is our weekly potluck lunch on the farm.  Whoever is here for the day brings something and joins in for a lunch that is always really good.  I have also enjoyed getting to work with different people on the farm and getting to know Polly, Ron, Ann, Mark, and Chris.  I am thankful that Ron and Polly allow apprentices to come to their beautiful farm and take the time to teach us so many things.  Seven Springs Farm is a wonderful place to live, work, and learn.

The draught has been intense this summer, despite a rainy spring. The potato harvest has been small, most of the winter squash plants died early, and there has been an ever-increasing feeling of underlying stress and worry among those of us who live here on the farm.  The stream that runs across the driveway has gone completely dry.  Ron told me that this has never happened before in the thirteen years that he and Polly have been on the farm.  We have been concerned about where to move the cows next, with the draught having slowed grass growth almost to a standstill.   There has been discussion over the need to buy a new pump to take water from the big pond, since the two irrigation ponds have been dangerously low at a time when irrigation has been so crucial to the crops’ survival.  Ron’s lawn was mostly dead, my watermelons were very stunted, and the one acre swimming pond appears to be down almost two feet.

This being the situation, when the sky opened up a couple weeks ago and dropped an inch and a quarter of rain on us in an hour and a half, it was a very emotional experience.  Ben and I were picking tomatoes in the drizzle that preceded the storm when the rain accelerated.  There came a moment when we knew that it was about to come pouring down, so we rushed to finish picking our last row, and did so just as the rain began coming down in sheets.  We ran to the truck with our boxes of tomatoes and got in to take them back to the barn.  But as we turned around I told Ben to let me out.   The rain was almost unbelievable after the summer of relentless dry heat.  So I walked slowly back to the barn, delighting in every drop, feeling my heart fill with gratitude.  Polly said that she almost cried when it started coming down so hard.  That was one of the defining experiences of my summer.  I felt, and continue to feel, a strong sense of connection to this place.

Today is September 2, and it is the first sunny day for a week.  About eight days ago we had rain again, for the second time in August.   The draught is by no means over, but our little bit of rain looks like it may have been enough to prevent us from having to buy a new pump.  The water is flowing across the driveway again (for now), the upper irrigation pond is almost full, and the general stress level on the farm seems much lower.  The outlook for the rest of the season is good, because this last rain was followed by a solid week of constant overcast.  Much of the time, a slow mist was falling or the farm was shrouded in dense fog.  The weather cooled down a lot and seemed to me to be the first hint of the coming autumn.  This week has been a period of general recuperation and rest for the land, which has seemed to have been under so much stress this summer.  This sleepy, mushroom-sprouting weather has affected me as well.  These last couple of days I have gone into a thoughtful, retrospective mood, thinking a lot about my stay here at Seven Springs Farm.

Last night in my bed, and this morning at the pond before work, I sat and thought back over the experiences I have had here this spring and summer.  I remember during the first week transplanting in the greenhouse, planting broccoli seedlings in the cold early spring weather, and watching the sunset every night down at the pond.  From the beginning, I have been aware that I am learning constantly, although seldom on a very conscious level.  As those days passed into weeks and months, and I picked up more skills and more knowledge of how to run an organic farming operation, I needed fewer explanations and less assistance in performing garden tasks.  In the past couple of months, Polly, the head gardener, has gone out of town a few times, leaving us (Ann, a part-time gardener; the other apprentice, either Melissa or Ben; and I) in charge.  Just a week or so ago Polly left for a full week when Ann was on vacation, leaving Ben, the new apprentice, and I in charge of the CSA gardens.  What is amazing is that I have developed enough confidence through hands-on experience this year that I felt pretty comfortable covering for Polly.  This general sense of confidence and comfort in the garden is probably the gift for which I am most grateful.  This growing season has brought me from being a tentative, unconfident, often incompetent gardener to a comfortable, mostly competent, and more experienced gardener.  I am thoroughly amazed at how much I have learned in my time here.  I feel that the apprenticeship has prepared me enough to where I can begin doing some of my own organic/sustainable farming next season.

In addition to hundreds of memories, and a heap of practical knowledge and experience (from food preserving to seed saving to construction to tool maintenance to plant identification), I have gained many ideas and inspirations for potential avenues towards a cleaner and more earth-friendly form of agriculture.  I knew when I came here that it was a step in my pursuit of a more natural, integrated, biodiverse form of agriculture, but I had few concrete ideas of how to go about it.  But Polly and Mark (a part-time worker who runs distribution and writes the garden plan) have implemented in the CSA gardens many different strategies for maintaining and replenishing the soil, controlling pests without highly toxic chemical biocides, and conserving soil water.  I have learned similar strategies from working with Ron in his personal gardens.  Many of these strategies are delightfully simple alternatives to conventional "solutions".  Mulching, crop rotation, cover cropping, no-till, biodynamic preparations, composting, and "biological islands" (planting certain kinds of flowers in small sections of the gardens to attract beneficial insects that prey on pests) are some of the techniques used here that have been the most inspirational and thought-provoking to me in my search for a more natural and sustainable food production system.

As they say, sustainability is a goal to which you can always get closer rather than an actual destination.  I have seen and come to more fully understand that this is true.  While Seven Springs Farm is one of the most progressive and earth-friendly farming ventures I have ever seen, and Community Supported Agriculture is the best commercial farming setup with which I am familiar, I have been witness to the continued drive for learning and improvement here.  One of the areas into which we have been delving most deeply this season is pest control by integrating more biodiversity into the agroecosystem.  We had Dr. Richard McDonald, an expert entomologist, out for a consultation, teaching us ways that we can reduce pest problems with natural predators rather than sprays.  He even came out and did a field day here on the farm in July.  All of us working on the farm attended and were very interested.  This drive for continued self-improvement has made an impression on me.

Along the same lines, I have been in the position to observe and learn from the problems that still arise.  For example, while we are very conscientious about soil conservation and take a variety of measures to reduce erosion, when hard rains have come this year, erosion rills still show up in some of the gardens and in other spots on the farm.  Some of my most central learning has been from these problems that still linger.  Similarly, I have learned a lot from slowly realizing the practices that I would do more of or less of in my own operation.  Whereas before I came here I simply didn’t know enough about the ins and outs of agriculture to realistically begin forming concrete ideas and plans for the style of farming that I wish to pursue.  As I became more and more familiar with the reasons behind the way we do certain things, I developed a more distinct idea of what things I found exciting and felt drawn towards and what things I was less interested in.  Over the summer I have begun to envision a farming system with heavy emphasis on no-till, polycultures, mulching, pest control primarily through biodiversity, integration of crops into gardens that better suit their needs, etc.  Many of these ideas came from what we do here, and the others came from my personal preferences—all of them were filtered through my observations of what is successful here.  My personal aversions to dealing with money very much and towards machinery have defined some of the mental evolution of my ideas, plans, and future experiments.

One important thing that I have begun to understand, to which Seven Springs Farm is a shining testament, is that what many will tell you is impossible can actually be realized.  I don’t mean that in a sappy or sentimental way.  What I mean is that your standards of what is acceptable, your personal beliefs, and your worldview govern the things that you do.  Your reality is filtered through these things.  For example, when the "organic" food movement began, the conventional camp said that it would be impossible to successfully grow food organically (although before the 40’s or 50’s, that’s essentially what everyone had done for millenia).  But those that felt strongly enough that it was immoral and intolerable to spray persistent toxins simply did not do so, and along the way they developed their own, more sustainable and earth-friendly methods.  If certain actions aren’t consided real possibilities, then one simply won’t do them.  It is my opinion that we must continue to strive towards that goal of sustainability, going beyond the modern organic standards to improve on its shortcomings.  If there are some of us that believe that we should do all that we can to eliminate unnatural erosion, foreign sprays, excessive tilling, and the like, then we will find our own ways of farming.  I have seen that persistent evolution here at Seven Springs even in this one season, and it is an inspiration.  I am deeply excited about what the future may hold.  And deeply grateful for my experience here in Check, Virginia.

As my departure from this beautiful place, my home for almost half of a year, approaches, I have mixed emotions.  A large part of me feels sad about having to leave and apprehensive about having to readjust, even temporarily, from the comforting community feel of this place to the generally impersonal city life.  It will be very difficult.  But there is another part of me that feels content and ready.  It is similar to the contentment that one feels upon completion of a meaningful and inspiring chapter of a book.  This growing season at Seven Springs has been one of the most beautiful and important chapters in the book of my life.

We came to Seven Springs for a six-month apprenticeship, hoping to learn about organic farming techniques. What we didn't realize was that we would be learning more than just a trade, we'd be learning a lifestyle. On our first day at the farm, we were confronted with solar powered campers, a rainwater-fed sink in an outdoor kitchen, and an outhouse. We realized that we were going to have to make some changes in the way that we lived. A large part of our early learning experience at the farm consisted mainly of figuring out how to live comfortably within the facilities available to us. This presented a happy challenge. We embarked on a quest to see just how sustainable and self-sufficient we could be.

Our project focused on finding ways to live, and live well, within the limits of our resources. We concerned ourselves mainly with the most basic resource of all---food. The need for food is universal and food is at the center of many other social issues. We are programmed to believe that we need to buy basic items such as yogurt, bread, fruits and vegetables in the store. We are disempowered, believing that we have no basic production skills. The only way we can survive is through entities such as General Mills and Kraft bringing us sustenance. This, of course, is false. Brought up with these beliefs, most of us have never taken the opportunity to experience the ease with which one can produce basic and nutritious food items. Almost anything that can be found in a grocery store can be made efficiently and effectively at home.

Throughout our time here at Seven Springs Farm, we have been fortunate enough to gain first hand experience in a number of homesteading skills, many of which were completely new to us. In environmental matters, our culture is governed by a certain mindset that is composed partly of inertia, partly of ignorance, and partly of a feeling of powerlessness. It has become very difficult to discern cause and effect in today's global economy. The environment has become a separate entity, an elderly grandmother whom you love and vaguely appreciate, but who annoys you with her constant nagging about things you feel you have no power to change. The largely capitalist global financial system of today is not set up in a way to give people control over their own resources. Shoes are shipped from China. Fruit is brought in from Chile and Argentina. Cars come from Japan and Germany. And Westerners can get almost any item they could possibly desire, at any time of the day, during any season of the year. It is no surprise that we often forget that our resources are limited and often times nonrenewable.

Marketing convinces us that we need to buy things that our grandmothers used to make themselves or do without. It is extremely difficult for the average person to take control over their resources. Homesteading is a newly reclaimed art that has existed since the beginning of civilization. When thinking about homesteading in the United States, most people would think of early European settlers. However, people in this country today use homesteading as a tool to escape the corporate system and empower themselves with choices of how to live their lives. Many people create homesteads in which they build their own homes, construct their own water and sewage system, power their land completely independent of the grid and grow, preserve and cook their own food. We baked bread for everybody living on the farm. Though we endured a handful of failures, such as fallen bread and brick-heavy loaves, we finally settled on a tasty loaf of bread. We also experimented with a few recipes of yogurt, finding delicious success and substantial monetary savings. Farmer Ron educated us in the fine art of winemaking, using what ever was available to us, from blueberries to blackberries to the not so sweet elderberry. We canned tomatoes and peach preserves, an important skill for anyone living through a winter. We realized the importance of paying attention to detail there, lest we encounter a nasty case of botulism. We have also dried vegetables, herbs and flowers, along with freezing and root-cellaring produce. We built a simple shelter, giving us knowledge of very basic carpentry skills.

While a complete homesteading lifestyle is not for everyone, these skills give us more ways to take our choices out of corporate hands. We all have the ability to grow a garden. Even in the city, community gardens and porch top gardens exist for our use. We can save money by buying basic ingredients to make our own bread, yogurt, cheese and even beer and wine. We can freeze, dry and can fruits and vegetables so that we have food into the cold winter months. These are just a few ways we can truly move towards living within the earth's means.

We have become well aware of our resources, as we have been off the grid while living here. With our rainwater catchment system, we have as much water as our large milking trough will hold. We must be sure to conserve enough to get us to the next big rain. But while rain is the source of our water, we also rely heavily on sunshine to power our solar charger, which brings us light and pumps water through our sink. The sun is also key in our sanitary habits, as we shower using a solar shower bag. This is a black bag that we fill with water and place in the sun for a few hours to heat up, giving us toasty, warm showers. No longer can we turn on the light switch or sink faucet without paying attention to why we are able to have such luxuries.

While a large part of our experimentation with sustainable off the grid living and homesteading was self-taught, we were fortunate to have enjoyed many off and on farm educational field trips. Ron Juftes, one of the owners of Seven Springs, took us to several different farms in the area. He also brought us on a number of on farm "walk and talks" where we learned to identify many native wildflowers and medicinal plants. We visited an old time Appalachian dairy in Floyd County, which we were later able to compare to a New Zealand model rotational grazing dairy and cheese-making facility in Galax, Va. We toured a naturally raised beef, poultry, and swine farm five miles away as well as a small-scale cut flower operation. At the winery we visited, we saw firsthand how farming can be a constant territorial battle between deer and humankind. Not all of these farms were organic. They ran the gamut, and we found it very useful to see all of the different strategies in use for food production.

In mid-July we attended the Second Annual West Virginia Sustainable Fair in Buckhannon, WV. We experienced everything from a federal grant-writing workshop to a presentation on solar electricity, from a class on how to process different herbs to a soap-making lesson. It was very educational to interact with all of the fair participants, to see that there are people everywhere trying to figure out how to live responsibly and sustainably and that there is so much that we can teach each other.

Since we were so fortunate to learn from all of the vast knowledge in this area, we felt a responsibility to pass this knowledge and resources on to future apprentices. Therefore, we created a journal, which is to remain in the apprentice quarters. This journal is filled with ways to make this lifestyle easier, things we learned along the way, contacts in the area, fieldtrips and projects we found useful and other information that might come in handy to those who will be in our place in years to come. We placed this information in a binder with space for people to add their input in the future.

The Cabell-Brand Foundation has helped us to build an apprenticeship program here at Seven Springs Farm that enables apprentices to gain homesteading skills that can be used at the farm and in the future.

Living in a small trailer is not a bad thing.  The small quarters demand a simplification of one's living arrangements.  I am quite comfortable in this situation and am happy to be given such an incentive to live in a minimalist manner.  As such a small living area quickly becomes cluttered, it forces me to live efficiently and conserve space as much as possible.  It can be a blessing to live with little more than the essentials, but it's still nice to have a tape player and a good stack of books.  The spans of solitude that I am sometimes confronted with necessitate a modest collection of the latter.

A large portion of the time that I am in my trailer is spent cooking.  Much of the food that I cook is gathered from the gardens around the farm or collected from the surplus of harvests that we make on the two distribution days we have each week.  This is one of the advantages we enjoy living on the farm.  Cooking space is tight, but this is in the process of being remedied in the form of an outdoor kitchen we are currently erecting.  Eating seasonally, I get all of my greens and vegetables from the farm, as well as a bit of fruit and a loaf of locally baked bread each week.  The rest: pasta, rice, peanut butter, etc. buy overpriced from the local health food store.  A sacrifice I have been willing to make in order to maintain an almost completely organic diet.  Food is a basic need for humans, and here I am constantly aware of my connection to where it originates.

So now I've come to the real business here.  The work.  Well, the work includes a large variety of things continuously going on that extend over every aspect of the farm.  We obviously have to plant.  With this naturally comes the necessity of watering.  We have a special irrigation system here that pumps water up from a large acre pond to a much smaller pond several hundred feet uphill.  From there it is pumped to spigots strategically located around the gardens.  This system plays an integral role on the farm as it prevents us from being completely at the mercy of the weather.

Weeding is a huge responsibility here because it is one of the primary threats to developing crops and we are trained to be able to identify all kinds of "weeds" that jeopardize the health of the desired plants.  Because we do not use herbicides and the weeds are incessantly growing, it remains a large part of the garden work to pull them up, hoe them up and otherwise eradicate them from the growing fields.  Mulching is an important process that we often find ourselves doing in order to prevent weeds from ever surfacing, hold moisture and encourage organic activity in the soil. We also must always pay close attention to the progress of gardens and problems that might be developing in them.  Often we identify insect pests that are destroying crops and we either have to squish them, spray organic pests controls, or release beneficial insects to control the pest population for us.

Aside from squishing the insects, the methods we use for controlling these problem bugs are carefully monitored and recorded.  We learn that it is always best, organic or not, to use as little pesticides as possible, and it is important to keep records to make sure that we are not overusing certain elements.  Even though our pesticides are organic, we have to remember that many of them are still poisonous and in the interest of health and conservation, it is best not to use them in excess.  In addition, we also spray natural fertilizers every so often to help the plants on their way.  Spraying can be a fun activity because we wear the containers that hold whatever were spraying on our backs, and it gives the sensation of being an astronaut or spaceman of some sort doing something futuristic.  I think this may just be my take on it though.

A large portion of the revenue here is generated by the organic gardening products retail business.  Work in this area of the farm includes writing receipts for customers, transferring products such as kelp and bone meal into smaller quantity bags for resale and restocking the barn from the warehouse up on the hill.
Maintenance is another part of the job that is of continual importance.  This involves most of the machine work like mowing tall grass, weed eating certain areas or using the chain saw to clear larger trees selectively of course.  Tractor work also falls under this category I think, but the interns are not really a part of this.  It is an indispensable resource, but it requires a bit more training and practice than it is worth teaching in one summer.  This presents the idea that on a modern farm of our scale, it is not really feasible to operate without certain articles of machinery.  Even in the ideal world of organic farming, some bit of industrial technology is almost impossible to do without. Composting is yet another part of farming that is regularly on our minds.  Most of our organic waste goes into the compost piles on the farm.  It is interesting to note the cycle of the food that we contribute to by returning organic matter to the earth.  We occasionally have to actually build a compost pile out of layers of manure/decomposed organic matter and hay along with added kelp and rock minerals.  This is an interesting process that was done with the aid of the backhoe and us farmers all oddly enough wearing sandals and pitch forking manure into a flat surface.  We use the finished compost for the gardens as well as potting soil in the greenhouse.  In the greenhouse we start many of our crops from seed and later on transplant them into the fields.

The foundation of our farming is based around the program that we are essential members of, community supported agriculture.  The farm is also economically based on this program of selling shares of food to local people with an interest in buying fresh, organic, locally grown vegetables.  This program is one of the most important aspects of the farm for me.  It is here that the relation of the farm to real people becomes clear.  This is where it is easy to understand that farming is not some abstract concept that is carried out far from the reach of the average person.  Two times a week, Tuesdays and Saturdays, we have members who have committed themselves to working a certain amount of hours for a price reduction on their shares come to the farm to help with the distribution of food.  These days always include harvesting, and then allocating the harvest into the different shares for the surrounding towns by way of weighing and dividing the vegetables into equal parts.  Much of the work is done inside the barn where all the scales and bags are kept. It is always interesting to meet the people who come out to work and converse with them to understand the different kinds of people who are drawn to organic food and why they have such an attraction.  It's also nice just to meet and work with new people, since for the better part of the week we are confined to the company of only three or four fellow farmers.

I think I've managed to cover most of the things we do here.  We're required to work forty-two hours a week and receive a small stipend for each month that we work here to help cover food costs.  The exchange here I think is a fair one as the experience and skills that I have gained here are invaluable.  I have realized through observing the connection of nature to the farm that although we try to control elements on the farm we are not isolated from the world.  We are a part of nature, and the deer, insects, rain, and "weeds" constantly remind us that we are a part of a much larger system than that presented on the farm.  Nature doesn't stop where we've tilled the earth into bare soil.  It continues and surrounds us and is us.  This idea has contributed affirm to my belief that the delicate balance that keeps the earth healthy and beautiful must be sustained by responsible farming practices, and sustainable forms of development in general.  I have a greater appreciation for food now that I know firsthand the work that goes into producing it.  I have gained a stronger sense of self-reliance from living in a tiny trailer on my own and have seen the way to truly live efficiently both through my own experience and from the glowing example that Ron and Polly have provided me with.

The ability to grow my own food is something that I will most definitely benefit from in the future and the techniques that I have learned her e will supply me with new ideas that I can bring to any farm I work on.  I cannot forget the physical strength and endurance that this kind of work promotes either.  I also should have mentioned earlier that this farm would not be nearly the same without the two cats, Lily and Pumpkin, and the most lovable dog, Gretchen.  The pond we have here is also good for more than irrigation.  It is a convenient place to bathe, and I often wonder on hot days whether it was dug here for swimming or watering plants.  The plant and wildlife identification skills that I have picked up along the way are quite valuable, especially the ability to identify edible plants (I'd rather not consider the wildlife edible, even though the dog and cats on this farm seem to revel in the idea).  I can now operate heavy machinery and got to brush up on my manual transmission driving.  There were even a couple of times when I was given the opportunity to herd an escaped cow back into the fenced in pasture.  I'll never forget those times when I had to face down that cow that I've dubbed Frisky because of her friskiness.  She was a damn fast runner and could make razor sharp turns at top speed to avoid being corralled.  She even had me on the run a couple times, when I got a little too frisky with her.  The electric fence we installed to deter deer from the broccoli garden was another of my greatest challenges.  Keeping in mind that I in no way represent the views and opinions of Seven Springs Farm, I would have to recommend touching the electric fence at least once so that you too can experience what the deer are so cruelly tricked into experiencing.  The shock is completely temporary, but it gives one an idea of what is possible to endure, and in a sense creates a bond between you and the deer.

Now I look back on my summer here and wonder where the time went.  It has been filled with so much learning and lots of laughter.  I learned all aspects of an organic farm and the Community Supported Agriculture.  It was hard work but the kind of hard work that you look forward to.  Both Polly and Ron were always open to taking time to show and teach me whatever I wanted to learn, from plant identification/herb walks, to compost piles, and tons more.  I got to see the whole life of the plants from working in the greenhouse planting seeds all the way to harvesting the plants to feed families.  It is a wonderful process.  There is a ton to learn about organic farming and Seven Springs is a very comfortable loving place to learn it.

I am sad that the time has come for me to leave this magical place but I give thanks for the time I got to spend here.  I leave here with: a solid understanding of organic farming along with tons of other knowledge, a reconnection to my dreams and visions, a stronger connection to mother earth, and many loving relationships with beautiful people and beautiful animals.  Seven Springs will always have a place in my heart.