Early August crickets are the loudest of the year. Just as the sun is the hottest and the flies the thickest. The crescendo of yearly growth has reached its peak. It’s all down hill from here. The berries will soon be mush on the thorn. The uncut hay? Straw. The garden, too well tended and carelessly over planted, will by this time tomorrow be a endless sea of greens, squash, beans and of course the damn tomatoes refusing to be teased from the tapestry. And the fruit…..incomprehensible. Was it stupid, blind, dumb luck? This abundance. Yes. Yes indeed. How then to account for such ignorant good fortune? If cultivation is the drug then this is the equivalent of your dad sticking ten cigarettes in your mouth and saying “alright then smoke away pal” when he catches you sneaking one from his pack. Collards. Collards at every meal for the rest of my life. We planted late. We didn’t think they all would make. We should have thinned more. Yet we still worry at over thinning the squash. It’s squash for god’s sake. Are we mad? Or are we simply addicted. Like feeding a just cured bale. We stir and season the ecologic stew with reckless abandon, convinced that next rattle of the cauldron will yield the flavor we seek. Superfluous yes. Ignorant yes. Loud of course. Each pause to taste cheered on by the crickets.

The mower re-build was successful; see the photos in the Farms section. We will finish Charles Reninger’s forest this week or so. Praise the Lord. The guys are deciding where to go next and are feeling blessed to have so many choices. The DRAFTWOOD CSF will make its first sale tomorrow. We are all very excited to be breaking the new ground of direct marketing a locally utilized restorative forest product. The happy client will walk away with a thousand board feet of hemlock siding and the knowledge he was the first in a long line of CSF members to make possible the dream of community-based restorative forestry. Ian and Kelly have been playing at small gigs in the area this summer and are extremely busy with wedding plans and of course the big garden. Chad Vogel has brought along his new team of horses as only Chad can; staunchly smooth. He will be part of Mountain Works’ doings for a little longer and we are oh so glad for that. Dusty Bradshaw will return to the woods tomorrow after a many month hiatus for a little globe trotting. Ian is actively advocating for Restorative Forestry in the Globe area of the Pisgah Nat. Forest among countless other things. The crew is looking forward to a mid-month trip to Floyd, VA to be a part of documentary on HHFF. We’ll let you know all the details as we get them. Ian is now working Frank with Chad’s horse Tray, full time. Jango has been worked lightly in the fields and will most likely be harnessed for farming over logging from now on. Ian just finds this new arrangement more productive and easier going. A new educational branch of HHFF will soon form and Ian’s teaching at ASU will be this spring. It will be here before we know it. Save those seeds. We wish you all the very best of summer.