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.	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.
This goose couple has been enjoying our pond, but they may feel too threatened by our dogs to nest here.	After Alena finishes her milking, "Butter" decides to go for a mountain climb.	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 batch of potting soil to plant more seeds 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.	Cindy is weeding the Eco Farm carrots in our field at Maple View Farm... in a T-shirt in December!
On a misty morning, Willie chainsaws logs to split for firewood.	This pig chews happily on a taste of clover she found.	In December, Nichole transports the split firewood logs into piles. Then we load it into our pick-up trucks to bring to customers.	Willie harvests collards, broccoli, and cabbage for the market.
Nichole harvests turnips in our fields at Maple View Farm.	Scotty tosses a log into the truck while he and John split firewood.	Willie and John split firewood, loading it into the pick-up for delivery.	Mark, John, and Scotty load pigs for slaughter and meat-packing.
Shane sprung-tooth harrows a field using Scotty, John, and Bobby to add additional weight.	John grows four acres of vegetables and flowers at Maple View Farm where their Agricultural Center demonstrates crop growth to students.	John trailers his tractor from Eco Farm to the assortment of other fields he leases to grow additional crops.	In the summertime heat, John cools off his boar and a sow by spraying them with cold water.
When the piglets are very young, they can slip their tiny bodies beneath their electric fence. They startle quickly and run en masse, which keeps them safe from the few cars on our drive.	Their muzzles dusted with corn, these piglets look up momentarily while enjoying their grain.	The porch fills up with strawberries!	Willie, John, Bengie, Alena, and Scotty fold strawberry boxes on our back porch in May.
Nichole, Scotty, Mark, John, and Willie plant garlic in the fall.	On a rainy morning, John, Nichole, Scotty, Alena, and Willie don rain gear before going out to harvest in the fields.	Nichole and Elsa cut shiitake mushrooms from the logs we've innoculated.	Our cold frame reflects a magnificent sunset.
	Spaghetti is a favorite poultry treat, maybe with the birds imagining they've just captured a juicy worm.	Nichole, John, Cindy, and Willie attend an earlier farmers' market.
		In our earliest days at the farmers' market, Cindy sold appliques she sewed of houses, pets, and people. In this 1995 photo, Cindy is accompanied by her niece, Amarandi, who was only three at that time.	This old photo was taken the week that Willie was born in their home in New York. Shane, Willie, John, Cindy, and Nichole pose in their first photograph as a family of five.