Randall Cove Farm

   

                              

                                   "Dog-sheep"                                    Holly, Sean, and Mary Adore

   

  The route to Randall Cove Farm took us back through Boone, NC, and to a dumpster diver's dream. For those of you not familiar with dumpster diving, it is simply finding food that is not quite good enough to sell (bruised, dented, almost passed the expiration date, etc) behind local grocery stores. Even picky dumpster divers like ourselves are still able to find a plethora of perfectly delicious culinary options. We enjoy supplementing our diet with dumpster diving, it is satisfying to save food from going to waste, and get free food. 

     On our previous pass through Boone we had checked the dumpster of a local grocery at John's suggestion, and had found a cornucopia of produce and other tasty treats. We excitedly checked it again, but were disappointed to find it recently emptied. In order to cure our melancholy we decided to check another grocery store on our way out of town. By random chance we were met with the dumpster haul of the century. Loose on the bottom of an otherwise empty dumpster were dozens of still-frozen quarts of Breyer's ice cream, probably deposited minutes earlier. The tubs were a little banged up, but still maintained their integrity. Holly exclaimed expletives of joy and held the bag while Randy grabbed three of the tubs. The urge to grab as many tubs as possible was only tempered by our blatant lack of refrigeration possibilities, since we still had hours to go. As we made our exit two employees came out of the back door, any earlier and we would have been caught with our hand in the cookie jar, so to speak.

Bantam hen and chick

    

       To solve the problem of our rapidly melting ice cream, we filled a backpack with gas station ice, packed two of the quarts in with it, and leisurely ate the remaining quart of mint chocolate chip on the ride down.
Our GPS took us perhaps the most direct, but also the most treacherous route possible. Our poor little overloaded Volkswagon had to go up and over Glade mountain (the highest point in the Ellicott Rock Wilderness). Although the ride down wasn't quite "out of control," it certainly took a few years off the life of the brakes.
     Randall Cove is in Sandy Mush, a rural community nestled in the mountains outside of Leicester ("Lester"), NC. It was by far the most out-of-the-way farm that we've been to so far. Sandy Mush is made up of countless different "coves" (valleys between two ridges), most of them named after and still inhabited by the same families that first settled them. Many coves contained numerous "hollers," which are simply the small valleys formed when two large hills meet. Randall Cove Farm fills a holler within Randall Cove, a cove no longer inhabited by its namesake family. On the road in we passed falling down farms with peacocks, carved wooden creatures flanking a bridge, and had to pull over to let an old farmer on a tractor pass.

Kaitlyn feeding the goats

     After our slow, cautious, bumpy ride in, we were greeted by an overwhelmingly large and diverse animal population including chickens, turkeys, guineas, ducks, geese, sheep, dogs, goats, cows, horses, and hogs. We were also greeted by Mary Adore, Jared, Manny, and Kaitlyn. Mary Adore is the co-owner of the farm along with Linda, and has infinite patience with animals. Jared is the farm foreman, is incredibly well-versed in all things agricultural, and is completely ready to live independent of the unsustainable modern lifestyle. He is also an excellent cook. Kaitlyn is a fellow intern, who had been wanting to do an environmental internship for a long time, and she is planning on staying at Randall Cove through December. Manny is another intern who is also traveling from farm to farm. He has been doing it for three years now, and typically stays at farms longer than we do.
  

The "snood" in the unicorn position

  We got a brief tour of the farm, and were told about its various income-generating aspects. The agritourism consisted of trail rides, cabin rentals, and a gem mine, as well as farm tours. This was the first farm where we were camping, so after getting acquainted with the farm we set up our tent. Then Randy helped Manny, Kaitlyn and Jared plant squash at twilight while Holly rested. We built a fire, and Jared made yummy roasted beef hearts for all of us for dinner.

Milking

     Over the next two weeks we worked on various projects, working towards Jared's vision of a more self-reliant and financially viable farm. Every morning and evening we helped with chores, and since there were so many animals it took awhile to get everyone fed, watered, and taken care of. Holly helped Manny milk the Jersey cows, and occasionally some of the goats, and Randy helped Kaitlyn feed and water. Since the farm was in the mountains, we spent a lot of our time tossing rocks to clear pasture and garden space. This finally paid off when we were able to fence off three hog pastures for the heirloom Red Wattle hogs they are breeding. Red Wattle hogs are a critically endangered breed with super delicious pork. We also cleared pasture for "Rabbit Central," where rabbits will soon be kept. In addition to clearing rocks, we also erected deer fence around existing gardens, which was as much for the poultry as for the deer.

Chicken killin'

The guineas contemplating mortality

     The chicken situation was a bit tragic when we arrived; the balance   between roosters and hens was skewed, and all of the poor hens had bare backs from being mounted so often. We commonly saw two or three roosters fighting over one hen, or simply mounting her in succession. Something needed to be done, so one night while they were drowsy we grabbed a bunch of roosters, most of them bantams, and isolated them. The next day Joe came over to help with the slaughter, and in a few hours we killed, plucked, and gutted sixteen roosters.  The bantams were so little that it was hard to clean them, because we couldn't get a whole hand inside. After that the hens enjoyed a more peaceful existence, and we enjoyed roasted chicken.

Jared inspects the newest kids

     In addition to all of the killing, there were also quite a few births. Before we arrived one of the cows, one of the hogs, and numerous sheep, goats, and chickens had given birth, so there were plenty of babies running around. While we were there four barn cats birthed about sixteen kittens, two goats kidded four kids, and a couple of chickens hatched out some guinea chicks (this is a common practice since guineas are notoriously bad mamas). 

Guinea chicks are so cute; what happens?

      Although there were countless different barnyard animals around, they all got along great. The cats and dogs didn't bother the poultry, even though there were baby chicks running around. The animals were so comfortable in fact, that some had cases of mistaken identity. There was a goat who thought it was a sheep, and a sheep who thought it was a dog. The "dog-sheep" lounged on the driveway and ate dog food with the other dogs, refusing to hang out with the other sheep and their bland grasses. This close animal camaraderie also led to inter-species policing. When there was still a bunch of roosters around, the guineas and turkeys would break up the cockfights which occurred regularly.

The farrier shoes a horse

     They sold the raw milk from their cows and goats, though in North Carolina you can only legally sell raw milk "for animal consumption only" because of the ridiculous bureaucracy. But, there must have been many happy milk-fed animals out there, because they sold all that they had, and decided to buy more cows. While we were there they bought three more Jersey milk cow, one of whom was milking, and by this time next year there will be five milking cows instead of two. A few days after they got the cows and we moved them to pasture, which was a bit of an ordeal. We had to herd them up to the upper pasture, but with five of us nudging them along they got there without too much trouble. 

Proud mama

     Due to the abundance of milk, we were also able to learn cheesemaking. Joe's wife Caroline came over one afternoon and taught us how to make yummy goat feta, which mostly involved a lot of sitting around waiting for milk to be the right temperature. Mary Adore is a mozzarella master, and from her we learned the process for mozzarella and queso blanco.
     In addition to all of his other knowledge, Jared is also an excellent mycologist, and we went on a few forays with him. He has inoculated countless logs with oyster, shitake, and chicken of the woods, and already has restaurants waiting to buy whatever mushrooms he can grow or find.

Since it's still that time of year, we also did plenty of planting, including planting potatoes in the middle of the night by the light of the full moon. The full moon is a good time to plant root crops, and we all had a lot of fun gardening at midnight.

     Sean was a Connecticut transplant who helped out on the farm. He was hired to work the gem mine, but often helped out with whatever needed to be done. He and his wife have an impressive farm of their own that we were able to see when we visited one evening. We enjoyed a lovely evening of farm talk and popcorn, and hope some day to play that game of Scrabble.

    Dwayne and Kerry also worked on the farm, they were in charge of keeping the horses in order and leading trail rides. One morning we were fortunate enough to tag along on one of the rides, and got a few trail miles under our belts. 

Holly's market face

   Every Friday and Saturday the farm went to the Leicester tailgate market, where we sold everything from mushroom logs to llama poop. The cow poop tea was a great seller. This was the first farm where we got to sell at market, and we enjoyed interacting with the locals, as well as the free samples from other vendors. mmmm...cake.
     We hung out with Jared, Kaitlyn, and Manny quite a bit since we ate all of our meals together (mostly consisting of sausage and goat cheese) and spent all of our free time in the same place. Jared had a camper where we ate and hung out, taking advantage of the electricity and running water. One night we all went up to the guest cabins where we luxuriated in one of the hot tubs, soaking away our farming aches.

Manny strikes an angel pose with Kaitlyn

local restaurants. A passerby mentioned a local, organic cafe that sounded good, and we asked how to get there. The directions were epic, including turning right at the drummer and passing by the giant iron. Unfortunately, it was already closed, but directly across from a great little Indian joint. After scrumptious fare we headed to the Arcade, where Kaitlyn and Holly got their dance fix while Randy and Manny frustratingly threw quarters at Tron. A few stops later we were tuckered out and headed back to the farm.