Almost forgot...the Honey Dewdrops played a benefit for the Scottsville Center for Arts and Nature...WOW! They won the latest 'Prairie Home Companion' competition for musicians...and they were amazing. So were the dancers and friends who performed with them...
The Center is being built on property nearly neighboring ours...trails connecting us are not out of the question - check them out at http://www.scottsvilleartsnature.org
Monday, May 12, 2008
May flowers already!!
What a glorious spring so far!! Except of course for the tornadoes and nickel-sized hail all round us last week...luckily for our peonies and iris, we didn't see any hail! The grass is growing so fast you can almost watch it...and everything is so GREEN.
Our little town had a meeting of more than a dozen people interested in 'local foodways'. There is a big idea circulating in Charlottesville about a multi-point need for our local food producers...a distribution center, processing/butchering/curing center, educational facilities/community kitchen, etc. We wanted to start to think about how Scottsville - with it's amazing history of agriculture and commerce, and current wealth of empty buildings - could play a role in this 'big picture'. For starters, our new Saturday Farmer's Market is going like mad! 2 weeks open, and it is already VERY strong. LOVE IT! Scottsville has acquired a $100k grant for a permanent farmer's market facility, and has the property set aside (exactly where the current THursday/saturday market is held under the tent). So, some of the discussion participants posed some bigger questions like - 'what is it that we WANT out of the market building?', and 'what role can we play?' We have a couple of great sites that could house 'satellite' distribution centers, or a retail space, or a community kitchen...and LOTS of great people to get involved with this. I would really like to see this happen - and my 'big idea' for High Meadows, as a non-profit garden/market/farm animal educational property as well as inn - could still fit right into this.
Since our gardens are so great, and we DO have a creek that flows into the James and the Chesapeake eventually - maybe our focus could be on JUST the water side of all this...could we show how to have gardens luch and pretty without chemical fertilizers, pesticides, etc. Can we show how to collect and use rainwater efficiently? What about wind/solar power for water pumps, etc. That side of responsible living, in addition to the chickens, goats, and other useful farm animals might make for a very interesting inn, and from Wednesdays through Fridays, maybe useful to local schools. Again, thoughts are still just floating around - nothing has come together yet as a formal 'mission statement' though I am getting closer!
For now, the ducks are happy, we are happy - and getting busier. Our guests continue to be interesting, well-read, informed and well-traveled people...just this weekend we had a couple get engaged in our gazebo, several others attending a wedding at Spring Hill (a 'commune' of sorts...I love the co-housing concept...Cobb Hill in Vermont!), and a couple who were making me drool with envy at their description of their trip to Portugal, in the wine country there and of the views of twinkling town lights over the vineyards that stretched as far as the eye could see in the river valley they were visiting. Which also happened to be in the port region, which I am sure made for some very nice wine drinking....but our conversation still kept bringing my thoughts back to little Scottsville - and the importance of local foods. The most memorable parts of their visit to Portugal was the food - local farmers, local foods, local cheeses and meats - the freshness was totally new for them, and very well-appreciated. Made me remember the beautiful cream from our friend's cow...and that if everyone did just a LITTLE bit to keep the food on their table as close to home as possible, it would make a difference in the big picture. I will continue to enjoy my mangoes in Virginia, of course - but no more store bought chicken eggs, thank goodness!
Our little town had a meeting of more than a dozen people interested in 'local foodways'. There is a big idea circulating in Charlottesville about a multi-point need for our local food producers...a distribution center, processing/butchering/curing center, educational facilities/community kitchen, etc. We wanted to start to think about how Scottsville - with it's amazing history of agriculture and commerce, and current wealth of empty buildings - could play a role in this 'big picture'. For starters, our new Saturday Farmer's Market is going like mad! 2 weeks open, and it is already VERY strong. LOVE IT! Scottsville has acquired a $100k grant for a permanent farmer's market facility, and has the property set aside (exactly where the current THursday/saturday market is held under the tent). So, some of the discussion participants posed some bigger questions like - 'what is it that we WANT out of the market building?', and 'what role can we play?' We have a couple of great sites that could house 'satellite' distribution centers, or a retail space, or a community kitchen...and LOTS of great people to get involved with this. I would really like to see this happen - and my 'big idea' for High Meadows, as a non-profit garden/market/farm animal educational property as well as inn - could still fit right into this.
Since our gardens are so great, and we DO have a creek that flows into the James and the Chesapeake eventually - maybe our focus could be on JUST the water side of all this...could we show how to have gardens luch and pretty without chemical fertilizers, pesticides, etc. Can we show how to collect and use rainwater efficiently? What about wind/solar power for water pumps, etc. That side of responsible living, in addition to the chickens, goats, and other useful farm animals might make for a very interesting inn, and from Wednesdays through Fridays, maybe useful to local schools. Again, thoughts are still just floating around - nothing has come together yet as a formal 'mission statement' though I am getting closer!
For now, the ducks are happy, we are happy - and getting busier. Our guests continue to be interesting, well-read, informed and well-traveled people...just this weekend we had a couple get engaged in our gazebo, several others attending a wedding at Spring Hill (a 'commune' of sorts...I love the co-housing concept...Cobb Hill in Vermont!), and a couple who were making me drool with envy at their description of their trip to Portugal, in the wine country there and of the views of twinkling town lights over the vineyards that stretched as far as the eye could see in the river valley they were visiting. Which also happened to be in the port region, which I am sure made for some very nice wine drinking....but our conversation still kept bringing my thoughts back to little Scottsville - and the importance of local foods. The most memorable parts of their visit to Portugal was the food - local farmers, local foods, local cheeses and meats - the freshness was totally new for them, and very well-appreciated. Made me remember the beautiful cream from our friend's cow...and that if everyone did just a LITTLE bit to keep the food on their table as close to home as possible, it would make a difference in the big picture. I will continue to enjoy my mangoes in Virginia, of course - but no more store bought chicken eggs, thank goodness!
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