THE BASS PLAYER
THE BAREFOOT FARMERS BAND
PAULI'S GREENHOUSE IN WINTER
Our stay at Wogg Holler Farm was pretty short lived. If you blinked, you might have missed it. Pauli is super laid back and is very into the biodynamic farming approach. He believes in the spirituality behind plants. He says energy is interactive between humans and Mother Nature, and that if you lick a seed before you plant it, your energy and the nutrients your body is lacking will be transfered into the plant. If you eat the harvested plant, you will receive the nutrients you most needed. This morning we helped his neighbor cut up a tree that fell during yesterday's storm. It would have taken the neighbor several hours to clear the fallen tree alone, but thanks to our crew showing up with four chainsaws, and some sort of mechanized wood splitter, we made short work of the job. Flurries began falling as we finished, and that was about all we did for Pauli. He made us good meals, did a blessing over us and our car wishing us all safe travels, and joked about making sure we all had proper safety equipment. But he was serious and was always looking out for our well being. There wasn't much more to do since he is going to New Orleans for Mardi Gras in a few days, so we left Pauli, and followed Randy, Riley, and Will who help Jeff out at his farm.
Long Hungry Farms is where we are now. The name comes from the nearby creek, which is known as the Long Hungry Creek. The name came about hundreds of years ago when white American settlers pushed Native Americans out west and herded them for miles along the creek with no food.
The Long Hungry Farms is just as laid back as Wogg Holler Farms was. There is a sense of community here, and everyone seems to enjoy working and learning with Jeff. First we dropped off our belongings at the intern house where we are lodging for the next few days. Next we drove a few miles down the road to where Jeff lives, and when we arrived, he joked we should make ourselves at home, clean the house and make dinner. We didn't take him up on the cleaning, but we did make dinner for what we were told was going to be 2-20 people. We fed 10 and everyone enjoyed the meal, and we did feel at home in the kitchen. Randy took us to gather our ingredients. We picked kale, red leaf lettuce, and also found tsotsoi, an asian green similar to bok choy in Jeff's garden. We also went exploring in his small nearby cave where we found beets and a plethora of potatoes in storage for the winter. To accompany these ingredients, we used rice, dried mushrooms, jarred tomatoes from the summer, a loaf of bread baked in his mud oven from the freezer, frozen red bell peppers, a butternut squash, sweet potatoes, and onion and garlic he had in a huge wicker basket. We sauteed kale and garlic and topped it with candied toasted pecans and butternut squash seeds, made a pesto bruschetta with the tomatoes, peppers, and bread, cooked the rice with onions and the dried mushrooms, and served that all with floral beets, and a squash stew, and roasted sweet potatoes.
After the feast, we listened to live music. Jeff is in a band and they are performing in Nashville Saturday and they were rehearsing at his house this evening. Tomorrow promises to be a day heavy of shelling black beans, or pork sausage making. Egad.
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