Pickard's Hill

I spent a good portion of this past week camped out at Pickard's Mountain Eco-Institute, near Carrboro, NC. To my dismay, I was only on top of a geographical misnomer. Pickard's Mountain is not a mountain, but rather the highest hill in its county.

My reason for going (as stated in an earlier post) was to feel out the place and people, and consider whether it would be an appropriate place for me to propose a natural building project. This is what happened:

I arrived on tuesday afternoon, a day-and-a-half later than planned (due to baby Ian's unplanned sickness, and my duty to be his buddy). I traveled by bike, thinking that because of my cycling stint earlier in the summer, I would still be in solid shape. A sore back, a numb ass, and tired legs was instead what I entered the premises with. The first two people I saw were girls, so I played it cool.

Margaret, the garden manager, I had met on my original tour of the place. Samantha is from Ohio, and a participant in the WWOOFing program. They informed me that they had spent most of the day rolling around, and I was instantly unsure of how to feel. I set up tent in the forest, and then came back up to the garden to help pull out dead stuff, and spread leaf mulch.

You can see that the garden is a matrix of raised beds, many of which are covered by white frost cloth to keep the strawberries and greens alive through the cold nights. The soil was trucked in, because the site soil is unfit for gardening. Why? Because there is so much damn clay. The properties of clay that make it horrible for gardening - minimal organic matter content, and mostly impermeable to water - make it an excellent building material. And the clay in this area is especially beautiful in color:

but unfortunately guarded by fierce dogs.


I didn't realize that people staying at the institute are expected to bring their own food. Luckily, Sam(antha) lent my belly some "happy pork." We shaped it into patties and cooked it alongside some of Margaret's pasta, which was later doused in pesto. Only a couple hours in, and I already charmed my way into a satisfying dinner shared with (and paid for by) women. Afterwards, we strolled to Margaret's candlelit yome and relaxed and sketched to music. I went back to my tent around 8:30, read a bit of John Steinbeck's "To a God Unknown" (which I most highly recommend both because of the way that Steinbeck explores the quality of being human, and how intricate his descriptions of the natural world are), and fell asleep around 9:30.

The next day, I went back down to the kitchen (below the green awning) for breakfast.


I had heard that there were three guys also staying at the site, and as I walked up, I saw that they were sitting to breakfast. To my surprise, as I got up close to the table, I realized that Sam Cooper was sitting there. I met Sam Cooper at the strawbale design/build workshop that I took in Vermont a year and a half ago. Not only did I meet Sam, but I in fact nakedly joined him and 4 other men in a wood-fired hot tub under a starry Vermont sky one night. And I remember noting the humor in the situation: "we just met, and we're all naked, and I wouldn't do this with my friends from home," and Sam replied "well, yea, but we'll never see each other again after this course." How wrong he was.

As it turns out, I didn't see much of the guys, because I had agreed to stay at the institute and work, while they spent most of the week in town and visiting neighbors nearby. So I spent most of Wednesday pulling out more dead stuff from the garden, and getting to know Samantha and Margaret. We also harvested greens, and separated good potatoes from bad potatoes. The dinner that I made for Samantha and I celebrated this harvest. I made stuffed broccoli greens (stuffed with creamy smashed potatoes) and sauteed in a pool of meat fat, with sides of mashed potatoes and greens. A redundant, but filling meal. Red wine was a winning addition.

That night I agreed to go with Samantha to "Barb's Place," which was a farm down the road with a semi-transient community of young folk looking to learn about self-sufficiency. We got picked up by Melissa, who drives a car with no passenger seat (which I liked). When I walked into Barb's, I realized immediately I would not have a boring night. Barb fits the description of a crazed genius lady. She's a gray-haired stockpile of information about all sorts of things. She was undoubtedly a flower child in the 60s. Her types of standards might be quite strange to the general population. Her kitchen table is a display of "dumpstered" floral arrangements picked up by Melissa, but the canned pears from the same dumpster were a definite no-no because of their high-fructose corn syrup content. Interestingly, she makes documentary films, and even won an academy award in the early 90s. Before the night was over, I had been invited to friday's "chainsaw party" at Barb's, where the point is both to replenish a good supply of firewood as well as teach newbies how to tame the saws. Melissa was also a very interesting character, who does her own screen-printing with mostly found materials, hops trains, and has been living all over the country on almost no money.

Thursday began with more work garden work, and then at 1:30 I went to Carrboro with Margaret and Samantha to visit Margaret's sister, Anna, who is couched for 6 months after ACL surgery. I treated myself to a new t-shirt at the thrift store, and was blown away by the trendiness and eco-ness of the Weaver Street Market, where we bought food to cook dinner. We then went back to Anna's place and put together a feast for her and a bunch of friends who seemed to filter in and slowly fill up the apartment as time passed. There were baked sweet potatoes, pasta with homemade red sauce, toss salad with dressing options, garlic bread, and cookies. One of Anna's roommates was an art history major, and there were some great coffee tables books, including a healthy collection of Keith Haring work, which I really liked.


Friday I didn't make the chainsaw party because it was an all-day event, and I wanted to get on the road by 3:00, so that I wouldn't be biking in the dark. So another day in the garden.

My conclusion from the whole experience is that I'm glad I'm going back again next week, because I'm very unsure of how I feel as of now. The people were really nice and welcoming, and the land would be ideal for a natural building, but I'm not sure about the hierarchy of power. I really want to be in a leadership position on this building project. This is what I would look like as a serious leader: