our visionGuided by our lives of experience and application, the many teachings, lessons and wisdom of our elders and mentors, we envision a future where we live in harmony with the land, heal the land, and where all people are healthy, happy, resilient, and everyone’s needs are met. We envision ourselves as catalysts, helping people reconnect with nature, themselves, and growing into stronger community members, ultimately strengthening our communities to live abundantly in an uncertain future.
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our missionAs stewards of the land, we grow and sustain our food and energy, offer teaching and learning opportunities to build personal and community resilience, help build bartering networks to manifest resources within and throughout our communities, continue learning about the native ecosystems of the Southern Appalachia bioregion, the drought-ridden lands of California, and the many other lands we visit, create and share medicinal plants, foods, art, goods and skills and give thanks to the abundance and joy that surrounds us always!
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our farm story
Purchased in 1999, the 16 acre Woodland Harvest Mountain Farm has transformed over the years with the help of work traders, travelers passing through, workshops geared towards accomplishing specific projects, many family and friends, and by utilizing local resources like the University and area nonprofits to bring student groups to the land to carry out various research and hands-on projects.
The Farm operates on an evolving system based upon resiliency, mutual aid, radical honesty and common sense. We are a women owned & operated farmstead where not many dollars flow in or out of the farm, and we produce a modest flow of value added farm goods to feed our family with occasional surplus to trade and sell. We implement sustainable agricultural practices in our organic vegetable and herb garden, and restorative forestry practices to produce usable materials and maintain forest health. We heat with wood, cook with wood and propane, and use minimal electricity. A micro-hydro system and two solar panels produce enough energy to power most basic needs. As of December 2012 we are officially OFF-GRID! We are located near the North Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee border about 25 minutes from Boone, NC, 10 minutes from West Jefferson along Appalachia's Blue Ridge. We lie at the end of the end of our road, and our farm borders over 5,500 acres of protected forest.
We host work traders seasonally through wwoofusa.org, breakaway.org, colleges, and community organizations. We offer tours, internships, cabin spaces, and hands-on workshops & skillshares. We create and market value-added farm goods and offer design consultations to area residents. We are members of the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project and Blue Ridge Women in Agriculture, Animal Welfare Approved, and we are certified Appalachian Grown and Locally Grown. We are a private not-for-profit organization and we can accept tax-deductible donations through a partnership with the public 501c3 non-profit Alliance of Community Trainers.
The Farm operates on an evolving system based upon resiliency, mutual aid, radical honesty and common sense. We are a women owned & operated farmstead where not many dollars flow in or out of the farm, and we produce a modest flow of value added farm goods to feed our family with occasional surplus to trade and sell. We implement sustainable agricultural practices in our organic vegetable and herb garden, and restorative forestry practices to produce usable materials and maintain forest health. We heat with wood, cook with wood and propane, and use minimal electricity. A micro-hydro system and two solar panels produce enough energy to power most basic needs. As of December 2012 we are officially OFF-GRID! We are located near the North Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee border about 25 minutes from Boone, NC, 10 minutes from West Jefferson along Appalachia's Blue Ridge. We lie at the end of the end of our road, and our farm borders over 5,500 acres of protected forest.
We host work traders seasonally through wwoofusa.org, breakaway.org, colleges, and community organizations. We offer tours, internships, cabin spaces, and hands-on workshops & skillshares. We create and market value-added farm goods and offer design consultations to area residents. We are members of the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project and Blue Ridge Women in Agriculture, Animal Welfare Approved, and we are certified Appalachian Grown and Locally Grown. We are a private not-for-profit organization and we can accept tax-deductible donations through a partnership with the public 501c3 non-profit Alliance of Community Trainers.
many hands make light work!
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building a human pyramid at kids camp
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ASU students work on the microhydro reservoir
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honoring the earth & building community at woodland harvest
We hold sacred the earth, air, water, and fire. We are activists and organizers involved in social and global justice issues and spend many days each year actively engaged in building community with like-minded folks. We believe the only way to sustain our place on this planet is to build community through sharing visions, direct daily actions, caring for this land, loving one another and ourselves...we are delighted to share this magical space with folks and are so grateful for the help and support we receive from our friends, families, and volunteers.
We value family, community, equality, social justice, environmental stewardship, global peace, happiness, fun, & love for all. Our beliefs center around an understanding that we are part of the great circle of life. Our love flows from us to the land, our animals, our forests, our holler & our community and we receive a love back from the land we have nurtured, in the form of sustenance, harvests and profound beauty.
Since 2004, we have welcomed more than 2500 volunteers, held workshop gatherings with up to 45 participants, provided respite to activists, held healing space for our beloveds, had countless parties for both work, teaching & learning and leisure, opened our land to hundreds of "strangers" who we now know and love and honor as our community farm family and hosted family and friends who each helped create this dreamstead space to share. Each season we move closer towards self-reliance and resilience, and we are especially interested in sharing our space with fulltime stewards who have experience with alternative energies, carpentry, wildcrafting, rewilding, and interested in homesteading.
We value family, community, equality, social justice, environmental stewardship, global peace, happiness, fun, & love for all. Our beliefs center around an understanding that we are part of the great circle of life. Our love flows from us to the land, our animals, our forests, our holler & our community and we receive a love back from the land we have nurtured, in the form of sustenance, harvests and profound beauty.
Since 2004, we have welcomed more than 2500 volunteers, held workshop gatherings with up to 45 participants, provided respite to activists, held healing space for our beloveds, had countless parties for both work, teaching & learning and leisure, opened our land to hundreds of "strangers" who we now know and love and honor as our community farm family and hosted family and friends who each helped create this dreamstead space to share. Each season we move closer towards self-reliance and resilience, and we are especially interested in sharing our space with fulltime stewards who have experience with alternative energies, carpentry, wildcrafting, rewilding, and interested in homesteading.
elizabeth holding baby elvis, born here on the farm
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our sweet family
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lisa eating bee balm on the farm tour
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elizabeth & lisa
Elizabeth & Lisa bring their experiential education backgrounds to life at woodland harvest! Elizabeth has been an outdoor environmental educator since the late 80’s, worked as an Outward Bound instructor and with adjudicated youth in the wilderness; she has taught middle school, high school, community college and university writing courses, each with a focus on social justice. Elizabeth purchased the land in 1999 & began to steward the land as a self-taught permaculturist. She spent many days & weeks putting the methods into practice during her work in the global justice movement. she received her Permaculture Design Certificate as part of a barter and has been utilizing these skills at local, national & global actions & mobilizations, in urban settings, on the farmstead, and during travels. She’s a dynamic activist, teacher, mother and homesteader with a passion to promote social and environmental justice locally and globally.
Lisa, born & raised in the mountains of Appalachia, has been driven by her passion to "protect the earth" since she was a child. After becoming a widow in 2010, the importance and healing of nature was more clear to her than ever. She's worked in the local non-profit realm as a grant writer & community advocate, co-founded an international non-profit in graduate school, and has mentored numerous student & community entrepreneurs with a focus on agricultural entrepreneurship. She's trained as a butcher with Ann Rose of Ashe County and facilitates butchery workshops in your kitchen or on your farm. Lisa holds a Permaculture Design Certificate, and enjoys living life through an "abundance" lens. Lisa is deeply connected to her spiritual self and loves to share her love and wisdom with others through connecting with nature, wildcrafting, culinary arts, tarot & earth-based rituals at the farm, and through her budding "light-work".
Elizabeth and Lisa bring together their diverse backgrounds to help groups & individuals organize, facilitate, support and manifest workshops, trainings, and multi-day programs focused around anything from direct-democracy and agricultural-entrepreneurship to do-it-yourself skillshares & writing workshops, spiritual ceremonies, homestead living skills, event planning, and much more. We make every effort to provide groups a unique and holistic experience that is specially created to fulfill each group’s visions, needs and desires and delight in sharing this sacred abundant land.
Lisa, born & raised in the mountains of Appalachia, has been driven by her passion to "protect the earth" since she was a child. After becoming a widow in 2010, the importance and healing of nature was more clear to her than ever. She's worked in the local non-profit realm as a grant writer & community advocate, co-founded an international non-profit in graduate school, and has mentored numerous student & community entrepreneurs with a focus on agricultural entrepreneurship. She's trained as a butcher with Ann Rose of Ashe County and facilitates butchery workshops in your kitchen or on your farm. Lisa holds a Permaculture Design Certificate, and enjoys living life through an "abundance" lens. Lisa is deeply connected to her spiritual self and loves to share her love and wisdom with others through connecting with nature, wildcrafting, culinary arts, tarot & earth-based rituals at the farm, and through her budding "light-work".
Elizabeth and Lisa bring together their diverse backgrounds to help groups & individuals organize, facilitate, support and manifest workshops, trainings, and multi-day programs focused around anything from direct-democracy and agricultural-entrepreneurship to do-it-yourself skillshares & writing workshops, spiritual ceremonies, homestead living skills, event planning, and much more. We make every effort to provide groups a unique and holistic experience that is specially created to fulfill each group’s visions, needs and desires and delight in sharing this sacred abundant land.
Landrum and Aydan are two outstanding young men. They are both avid skateboarders, unicyclists, bicyclists, outdoorsmen and musicians. Landrum is an amazing guitarist and Aydan is a budding banjo & mandolin player. Aydan fancies himself as a fine chef and enjoys rock wrapping & drawing comics. Landrum is a certified Wilderness First Responder (WFR) & has become a fabulous engineer/mechanic & fine builder. They chose to take themselves out of public school to begin a more radical "unschooling" adventure both on the farmstead and as we travel the country to broaden our own horizons and share our abundance with others. They each have over 25 Junior Ranger badges, have visited over thirty National Parks or Monuments, and have only eight US states left to visit. They both believe in sharing their gifts, mutual aid and abundance. In 2016, they spent time with elizabeth at Standing Rock and enjoy speaking their truths around climate change, mountaintop removal, off-grid living & working to make another possible world for us all. They've begun to document their experiences as comic artists, writers and musicians. You can find them on youtube, instagram & snapchat.
meet our woodland harvest steward...
our awesome caretaker, Mike, first visited the farm in 2012 when he rolled up on a bicycle from baltimore as a work trader (wwoofer). he's been back each year since to work trade, and in 2015 began an off-grid cabin of his own while using only hand tools!! now he's an integral part of our farm family and our main wintertime steward. if you visit you may be greeted by him and perhaps be treated to a tour of his amazing hand-built, zero fossil fueled, off-grid tiny cabin!!
here's a short video that gives some insight around Mike's choice to homestead & live off-grid with us at Woodland Harvest.
here's a short video that gives some insight around Mike's choice to homestead & live off-grid with us at Woodland Harvest.