Eco Farm Photos

These are images of who we are and what we do on Eco Farm. Check back weekly as we add more photos!

Eco Farm family workers are Shane, Nichole, Willie, Cindy and John. This composite photograph is to show who we are although we don't all work at one market at once; and lucky Willie is in Alaska now where he's not suffering the results of this heat wave.			As the sun sets, our lucky turkey tries to protect himself from nighttime predators by hopping up onto the hood of Cindy's Volvo. Beside him and to the left hang a string of Greek worry beads from the rear-view mirror, and behind him stands our solar greenhouse.
On Friday July 27th, we're out in the sun harvesting our vegetables for Saturday's market while the temperature is over 100 degrees.	In the late afternoon, Nichole sorts potatoes in the air-conditioned house.	Clapton rests by the tomatoes, which we're storing indoors where it's cool.	Slowly healing from dog bite, our turkey is once again prowling the grounds where he can gobble authoritatively at arriving vehicles and challenge his reflection in their shiny doors.
We've harvested lots of organic corn and squash for market. (Proof of our organic corn comes in the form of a happy worm.)	Nichole working at the Fearington Farmers' Market. This market is located on the grassy lot beside the Fitch Creations Administration building, and is open on Tuesdays from 4pm-6pm, April through Thanksgiving.	Our turkey, a broad breasted bronze, is recovering from his injuries after suffering the attack of a dog. We're all so grateful that our turkey friend survived.	On Friday morning, Willie finished tying down his canoe, and then left on his drive to Alaska. He brought both of his dogs, Hank and Soccer, and will be visiting his friend Joshua.
John is pleased with the harvest of Long Island cheese squash.	On Friday July 6th, Rocky looks on while Nichole and Cole harvest squash for the next morning's market.	We'll be selling lots of squash on Saturday!	When we have company, our turkey hangs out with us on the porch. He seemed to connect with John, who began patting him on the head, and now the turkey allows others to pat him.
Our turkey craves human company, and stands outside Cindy's office door waiting for companionship. He gobbles loudly whenever he hears a noise, like a shout, a tractor engine, or a telephone ringing.	John plowed up his carrots to bring a lot of fresh ones to the Saturday farmers' market on June 16th. (See our recipe section for Faith's Baked Carrots in Mayonaise Sauce.)	John gathers up the carrots.	Willie and Bengie rinse the dirt off our freshly dug carrots.
Ella and Chris bunch the carrots we are bringing to market.	Nichole mixes up a batch of potting soil to plant more seeds in the greenhouse.	To display his dominance on the porch, our turkey fluffs out his feathers and struts up to the sliding glass door to glare at his own image. He'll peck at his reflection in the glass, and also (beware, visitors) in the side of shiny new vehicles.	Bengie wipes down the squash before we'll be bringing them to market.
During one of our walks, Clapton and O'Neal gaze upon the ancient snapping turtle we chance upon occasionally over the years.	After living with us for 16 years, Vernon went to his final resting place on Monday, Memorial Day 2012. Vernon will always be remembered by family members and by anyone that has encountered him on the farm. Rest in peace, Vernon.	As in "The Story about Ping", Willie guides his ducklings onto "the wise-eyed boat on the Yangtze River" every evening .	Willie and WWOOFer Anna Pearl pound in posts to make a duckling yard.
Willie's ducklings are growing, and need to romp in the grass.	John and Cindy drove up to Pennsylvania on Saturday May 11th to attend the wedding of her cousin Craig's son, Cashius to bride Megan. They all had a wonderful time eating Greek "mezethes", drinking retsina, and dancing with Econopouly relatives.	Willie bought himself a flock of white Peking ducklings to raise for meat.	Ryan and Willie shovel gravel onto our driveway in preparation for the Piedmont Farm Tour this weekend.
Willie lets the goats out at night, and they sample leaves off the pear tree.	John offered to milk the goats when Willie took off work to attend the Shakori Hills Grassroots Festival.	Willie, Erica, John, Nichole, Alena, and Cole move the pigs' electric fence to give them more variety in their vegetables. The pigs in turn will till up and fertilize the garden.	Nichole takes two of our WWOOFers, Cole and Erica, to the far side of the property to cut greens for Tuesday's market. WWOOFers are Willing Workers on Organic Farms that volunteer on farms across the world in exchange for room and board and the farmlife experience. Our daughter Nichole WWOOFed on a dairy farm in Ireland after she'd completed high school. For information about WWOOFing, go to www.WWOOF.org.
At the end of March the first strawberries in our cold frame are peeking out from under their leaves.	Wes sharpens the chainsaw that Willie & Joshua are using to cut the logs to length.	Stacey and Willie watch as Wes knocks down another tree. Wes had first used the trackhoe to loosen the dirt around the trees top roots.	Willie and Stacey measure the log before cutting it to the required length.
After Wes has knocked down the tree, Willie cuts the root end off as he sizes the logs he's already sold.	Willie hires a trackhoe so that he and his friend Wes can clear the land that Willie just bought adjacent to our farm.	Vernon shares a breakfast of cracked corn with the black hen which Matt has recently named "Cluck".	Alena milks Rose in the new milking stand that Willie built yesterday.
After Alena finishes her milking, "Butter" decides to go for a mountain climb. He then tests his limits to see if he can climb higher, but decides not to.	Willie is milking his goat first thing in the morning.	This doe produces enough milk for her growing kid to thrive on and for Willie and Alena.	Nichole mixes up a new batch of potting soil for starting seedlings in the greenhouse.
Nichole and John harvest, wash, and bag collards, kale, turnips, and chard for Saturday's market.	On Friday morning we head out to the woodshed after a cold rainy night to discover with relief that the tiny kid is alive and well.	Willie bought himself three piglets to raise on the land he just bought adjoining the family farm.	Willie ascertains that his goatling is learning to feed on her own.
The full moon shines over our shiitake log pile. These logs have yet to be innoculated and stacked.	On the night of the full moon, Willie comes home with a goat and her fading day-old kid that had yet to learn to nurse; it's sibling had just been found dead. Nichole and Willie quickly get started teaching the kid to nurse.	Nichole, having learned about dairy goat care on a farm in Ireland, guides the kid towards the over-full teat while Willie offers milk to its weary mother.	Nichole and John plant cauliflower seedlings in March.
Nichole plants broccoli seedlings just after John tills the beds.	Nichole, John, and Cindy plant swiss chard into the freshly tilled beds. (Cindy photographs also.)	Willie distributes feathermeal onto the beds John is about to form beds with the plastic layer. Watching this process from outside the bed on the right is Willie's 18-year-old corgi-mix, Soccer.	Cindy walks daily with the dogs, and this March she found a pile of bones on the trail. She remembered the year previously discovering in that spot a dead buck. (She waited a year before walking that trail again.)
With the music playing from his truck on a warm morning in early March, Willie builds a new pig pen for the two piglets he's buying today.	This pig gets a bite of grain while his siblings sleep.	Willie slices potatoes into pieces and drops them into buckets so they can be planted in the earth.	In early March, John drives the tractor to hill over the potatoes Nichole just dropped into their trench.
As Willie hills the potato beds, a red hen looks for uprooted worms.	This lucky hen managed to fly out of the chicken coop so she is the lone worm-catcher in a sea of brown earth.	While the others watch from inside, one pink piglet steps out to eat some grain.	John retrieves the grain wagon after having it filled by an eighteen- wheeler down in the road.
O'Neal relaxes in the driveway as he gnaws on the relics of a past family meal.	John waters seedlings in the wintertime cold frame.	In mid-February, Nichole plants thousands of onions at Maple View Farm. Rocky, her new German Shepherd that she just got from an animal shelter, relaxes at her side.	John tilling his field at Maple View Farm.
Scotty and Nichole dump buckets of grain into the pig feeders in the woods.	Nichole gathers and bundles collards in the field.	We have walls of split wood to sell and deliver to our customers.	In the wintertime when we haven't many crops for the poultry to raid from the garden, we allow them to roam the farm freely. The roosters, turkeys, and hens enjoy each other's company and choose to hang out in a group.
In the wintertime when the gardens are mostly empty, we release our poultry from their chicken coop. This hen has chosen to roost in the fig tree where she can enjoy the sunshine.	Vernon, our pet Vietnamese potbelly, warns John's two pig escapees to stay away from his pear tree.	This tatsoy makes a nice salad mix when our lettuce is wintered out. It can also be sauteed with onions and garlic, or made into a cream soup (please see "Family Recipes" above).	Nichole cuts the last of the Red Russian Kale for a late January market.
Cindy bought an Australian traffic sign at the thrift shop, and in her wintertime leisure she painted in the addition of pigs to make it more Eco Farm-appropriate.	John sells high quality dry hardwoods for firewood.	In the wintertime we've got plenty of firewood and pork to sell at market.	John washes off the carrots he'll be bringing to Saturday's market. In late January it's so warm he only needs a t-shirt.
On a cold winter day, three large hogs lie side by side in the sunshine through the doorway of their house, sheltered from the wind.	Our newest and youngest piglets wander in their pen beside one of our firewood splitting stations. In the background is our solar greenhouse.	Showing off his masculinity, Alena's Royal Palm turkey puffs out his feathers and his face turns an exquisite shade of blue.	On a cold January day Willie, Nichole, and Scotty sit on upside down buckets in the greenhouse transplanting seedlings.
John, Willie, and Scotty are installing fencing for some new piglets.	Nichole harvests red Russian kale and tatsoy for a January Saturday market.	On a gusty January morning, Shane, Nichole, Scotty, and Willie work at innoculating shiitake mushroom logs.	On a misty morning, Willie chainsaws logs to split for firewood.