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.
|
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!
|
|
|
|
|
|
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 with hopes of creating a cooperative land trust in the near future to protect this sacred woodlands & teaching & learning center.
The Farm operates on an evolving system based upon resiliency, mutual aid, radical honesty and common sense. We are a women owned & operated farmstead, 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 six solar panels produce enough energy to power most basic needs. As of December 2012 we became officially OFF-GRID as far as our power footprint! 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 are equally delighted to hold space & create infrastructure for your workshop ideas & can provide amazing food to satisfy a variety of diets. We create and market value-added farm goods and offer design consultations to area residents. We are members of United Plant Savers, 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 with plans to create a nonprofit support network for Woodland Harvest endeavors, 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, 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 six solar panels produce enough energy to power most basic needs. As of December 2012 we became officially OFF-GRID as far as our power footprint! 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 are equally delighted to hold space & create infrastructure for your workshop ideas & can provide amazing food to satisfy a variety of diets. We create and market value-added farm goods and offer design consultations to area residents. We are members of United Plant Savers, 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 with plans to create a nonprofit support network for Woodland Harvest endeavors, 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!
|
building a human pyramid at kids camp
|
ASU students work on the microhydro reservoir
|
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 4000 volunteers, held workshop gatherings with up to 45 participants, hosted a dozen students in 2020 then 7 in spring ‘21 for full semesters during covid, 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.
At Woodland Harvest we bring together folks with 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. We hope you'll join us in the wild and free...
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 4000 volunteers, held workshop gatherings with up to 45 participants, hosted a dozen students in 2020 then 7 in spring ‘21 for full semesters during covid, 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.
At Woodland Harvest we bring together folks with 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. We hope you'll join us in the wild and free...
elizabeth holding baby elvis, born here on the farm
|
our sweet family
|
sofia decorating Rabbit Pot Pie
|
elizabeth
Elizabeth brings her experiential education backgrounds to life at woodland harvest! she's 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 with dreams to steward land in co-created community. She spent many days, weeks & years putting these methods & her values 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 & friend with a passion to promote social and environmental justice locally and globally.
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.
below is a short video made in the spring of 2020 just as covid 19 began to consume our energies...