From the Mountain (WV Campus updates)

[David Pringle]

The first canned goods.... much, much more to come.



We began the recovery work on Dr. Pierce's trailer today. Its going to be a lot of work but it will be worth it. It's been a dozen years since anyone did work on our Founder's home. We've been planning this for two months and now we are making it happen. How do you eat an elephant?

Before:



After:



One bite at a time. One house at a time, one job at a time, one person at a time.

What inspires me is how much people are willing to give in this project. One of the weed-eaters we used today was recently donated by a member. He drove it up here along with some other nice things for us. He didn't have money to give but he has a very nice Stihl FS30 weed-eater. I didn't know about all this lawn care stuff a few months ago but I do now. This is a 350 dollar gift to us and the person who ran it for 8 hours of hard work today gave us something close to that. People donate what they can and I see it happening again...like in the old days.

Tomorrow we have someone bringing us a 60 inch wide pull behind mower so we can use our 4x4's to pull it in the areas our nice riding mower doesn't need to go. I've had to replace two blade spinals this summer at $90 each! I can only do that so often. Our riding mower will be for our golf course areas now. This will make keeping the 20 acres plus of grass land we have in all areas of the property more easy to maintain. Soon, we will have to worry about snow and cold and not grass.

Splitting a lot of wood is our next big project.

From the Mountain...

[David Pringle]

There's bears in them thar hills! We ran into some fresh tracks up by the bees. Electric fence...do your job!

[Will Williams]

The first canned goods.... much, much more to come... From the Mountain...

Great photos, David! The before and after of Dr. Pierce's old home are remarkable. It will take a lot of work to make that habitable again, but it is "high and dry" and some day someone will be lucky to reside there in such an historic landmark.

Nice canning. I'll have to remember to bring up some Mason jars. We need to get you a big freezer, too, for all of that venison you will bag this season.

Was that a large bear or just a small hand?

[David Pringle]

Small hands. We have several bear cubs running around the property. There is a very large male but he seems to stay by the rock quarry most of the time. Laura and I were driving to McCoy's earlier this morning and one of the cubs was dead on the side of rt 219. When we came back the highway dept and a trooper had just finished picking up the body.

As part of our on going improvement to The Land and our goal of becoming a self sustaining intentionally White community we began to "plant" our shiitake mushroom plugs. 300 plugs to start with. Pictured are the first half we inoculated and plugged the other day. These logs, once flowering should continue to flower for five to six years. The stump should flower for up to 50 years.

Our beehives play a role in the mushroom growing operation by providing the wax we need to inoculate the logs which keeps their sugar inside instead of evaporating. Every aspect of the farm and community here is meant to strengthen and compliment something else.

We places the log stacks in an 80% shaded area. The area we chose is under a very large and very old sugar maple tree directly across from Dr. Pierce's house. I measures the tree and uses an aging formula to estimate age. This tree is roughly 280 years old which predates the first White settler to the area, a man named Thomas Sewell who settled here in 1750.

We call this tree "the tree of life" because as far as we can tell it is the oldest tree on the property. There are a few Oak trees that are as large but not as old.

I think the name is fitting. In my mind's eye I imagine Dr. Pierce walking by this giant every morning on his way to the office with Hadley on his shoulder. Breathing in the fresh mountain air, perhaps contemplating something he was going to write that day. And then again in the evening or, late at night after his day of work.

Below are a few pictures of our latest project. Later today...I'll post pictures of another important proect we have recently completed. Here's a hint...bock, bock, bock...

[Wade Hampton III]

Bravo! May I offer a little inspiration?

good.jpg (148.3 KiB) Viewed 6002 times

[David Pringle]

Happy birthday Dr. Pierce. We have now completely secured your property and taken back our gatehouse.

[C.E. Whiteoak]

That's great news, David! I take it the squatter is squatting elsewhere. Back in New York, hopefully.

[Wade Hampton III]

Nice flag. I wonder what Dr. Bob thinks about it?

[David Pringle]

That's great news, David! I take it the squatter is squatting elsewhere. Back in New York, hopefully.

New York can have him. Anywhere but in our houses or on our property.

[David Pringle]

Nice flag. I wonder what Dr. Bob thinks about it?

Last time I saw Bawd was Saturday shortly after we took our house back. He was sitting on his deck facing away from me...but very aware I was there.

Bawd even sent his handyman, a nice fellow who does very professional work, on his horse to ride around and check the place out last week. And, I have no problem with the handyman riding around and reporting to his boss. I want Bawd to know we are doing what he could not. But what really had to be driving Bawd nuts is the steady stream of men, women, kids and teenagers coming up and working or simply enjoying The Land.

At some point Bawd has to be kicking himself for backing the wrong horse -- again.

This is a very positive development, they all are.

Right now Laura Lee's taking a few pictures of something else we accomplished this past week.