I left Virginia for the fair last Friday around 8:00 a.m. I had planned my route to Western PA on secondary roads to better enjoy the scenery, and they didn’t disappoint as they wound along rivers and over ridges covered with reddening trees.

I had driven through a snow of chicken feathers for several miles near Broadway, VA, when I overtook a truck on its way to a chicken processing plant.

As I passed the truck I could see that the condition of these birds was appalling: they couldn’t stand and were battered and dirty and missing huge patches of feathers over raw skin. And, sadly, this glimpse I got of them is only the last chapter in lives that we all know aren’t pretty. Seeing those birds made me even more firm in my conviction to not eat commercially produced poultry and to support the farmers who are raising birds in the ways that I would no doubt learn about at the fair.

I cruised up West Virginia valleys and over several mountain ranges before stopping for lunch at Warner’s German Restaurant outside of Cumberland, Maryland. A delicious brat and a mug of beer topped me up to continue on to Seven Springs.

I relied only on my iPhone’s mapping system—Google maps, not the much-maligned IOS6 Apple Maps—and it got me there with only one small operator error. But I was back on track in less than two minutes and along my detour stumbled upon the historic Burkholder covered bridge. In true road trip fashion, best to not plan too much and just roll with it—or through it!

I arrived around two, checked in to my room at the resort, and immediately hit the fair. I listened to the esteemed herbalist Rosemary Gladstar, whose book is my bedtime reading at home, talk about some of her favorite herbs. I was riveted by her. She is a beautiful woman with a shining spirit. If that’s what a lifetime of practicing herbalism gets you, I’ll chew up any number of the weeds growing in my yard and smear them on my face! Rosemary described making a tea and adding a certain flower—calendula, perhaps—to the mix. She said, “I put the gold in there because medicine should be beautiful.” What a wonderful concept, that healing happens with the eyes and that beauty can make and keep us healthy. Certainly that resonates with me and how I live my own life.

After Rosemary’s talk, I headed outside to the vendor tents. One large tent held all sorts of beautiful animals: chickens, geese, cows, pigs, goats, sheep, alpacas and llamas. The intelligent eyes of this llamas really struck me, and his haughty look was a bit unnerving.

I was most enamored of the Underhill Farm booth and their display of skeins of wool from their Leicester Longwool sheep. The owner of the sheep was giving a spinning demonstration and she made the action look both easy and supremely relaxing.

I don’t knit or crochet or know anyone who does, so I had to pass on the gorgeous skeins though they were beautiful enough to display massed in a basket or bowl.

I caught the tail end of Joel Salatin’s keynote about how biological-based systems can produce enough food to feed the world, and he was as charismatic and engaging as the myths make him out to be. Given the audience, I wasn’t surprised to hear almost-evangelically supportive hoots and hollers from the crowd in response to Joel’s statements, but it was curious and wonderful to hear such rock-concert behavior at a talk about the future of our food supply.

Next I headed to a talk on small-scale sustainable farming by David Kline, an Amish farmer.

What stuck out at me was a point David made about the importance of rest as a farmer, which may seem like a foreign concept to many devoted to a lifestyle that requires constant vigilance and recalibration. David’s family slows the grueling pace of farm life on Saturday afternoons, just like his parents and grandparents did, in preparation for the Sabbath. And, he says, one of the built-in checks that forces a healthy stopping point at the end of the day is that, “horses don’t have headlights.”

Then the talks were done for the day and I headed off the resort to find dinner. I stumbled upon the best pumpkin stand I’ve ever seen with a huge variety of beautiful squashes and gourds.

I couldn’t resist filling the back of my car with pumpkins for my parents to thank them for looking after the farm during my absence. Then back to rest, where the reading material provided in the hotel room was right up my alley:

Stay tuned for day two of the fair, which got off to a squawk with a live chicken processing demo!

For the Mother Earth News Fair this weekend in Seven Springs, PA. Leaving early Friday for a road trip that doesn’t include driving on any major interstates. How rare and wonderful will this journey be!

I am so excited to see some people speak who have figured out a way of living that massively appeals to me. Joel Salatin, Rosemary Gladstar, Patricia Foreman, Deborah Niemann, and many others whose blogs I follow and whose writings have taught me many life-changing things. I can’t wait to learn even more from them in person.

But I am most excited to support Jenna Woginrich, my personal hero, at her keynote speech. The blog she writes about her home, Cold Antler Farm, makes me cry and cheer in equal measure as she struggles, and succeeds, at living her most authentic life. Though I have never met her, she’s been one of my greatest sources of inspiration during the last few years. I hope I get to thank her in person in Seven Springs.

Last Saturday Tuck and I climbed a mountain. We hiked ten and a half miles up the north fork of the Moorman’s River in Shenandoah National Park, starting in Sugar Hollow and ending up on the Blue Ridge Parkway at the Blackrock Gap trailhead. It’s a hike I’ve done parts of all my life, but I’ve never gone all the way to the top of the mountain and always wanted to. It was a beautiful day, especially for the middle of August in Virginia, and Tuck was a model trail dog, running ahead but always staying within sight and frequently waiting or trotting back to check on me. He nicely greeted the friendly dogs we came across on the hike, and studiously ignored the neurotic yappers that could barely be contained by their owners.

And, he got to swim and chase sticks in the water at every hole we came across. A good day for both dog and me.

Since three p.m. today:

I’ve jury-rigged an outdoor pen for my fifteen chickens, fighting to pound t-posts into rock-hard dry ground though I wanted to give up, and my reward was watching young birds safely explore the outdoors and find their way back into the coop at sundown.

I have a story told in cuneiform on my shoulder, written by the claws of a terrified young cockrel who sought shelter on my body when I tried to integrate him with a flock of larger birds.

I’ve cut my loses in the garden, accepted that a week without power and water plus half a month’s vacation neglect during a drought added to hundreds of marauding squash bugs equals a big fat zero for my garden. I ripped out three rows of pumpkins, eggplant, kale, chard, zucchini, beets, and radishes.

I ferried three heaping wheelbarrows full of my former garden to the compost pile, then came back and took my flamethrower to the insect-infested soil.

I dumped another wheelbarrow filled with fly-infested chicken manure on the compost pile. Green, brown, green, brown. I felt the heat rising as I wrenched the wheelbarrow end over end, green briars drawing blood on my legs.

I took six brushloads of hair out of my unkempt dog and learned that painful grooming is more easily tolerated when done by a pen full of young chickens. It’s like t.v. for dogs.

At nine p.m. I came inside to shower, and when I peeled off my sweated bikini top it left dirt outlines on my skin.

Two weeks ago I was in London wandering the Damien Hirst exhibit at the Tate Modern, appropriately grossed out by his maggoty cow head and formaldehyded farm animals. It makes me wonder: If that’s considered art, then what is it that I do?

On Sunday afternoon I decided to take advantage of the last day of the national parks system’s free entry week. I loaded up the dog and within 20 minutes of leaving the house we were on top of the Blue Ridge Mountains breezing by the ranger station into Shenandoah National Park. Five minutes after that we were in one of the most beautiful forests I’ve seen—and that includes many of the major national parks out West—Glacier, Grand Teton, Olympic, Redwoods—and more.

I think that what made is so beautiful was really lucky timing, though I am sure the park has its beauty in all seasons. On this trip the trees were just barely leafed out, yet the undergrowth was blooming with wildflowers. Tiny streams ran everywhere, including alongside the trail. The scrub hadn’t grown up yet, so I could see straight through the forest all around and it was like being in a magical glade. It was about 65 degrees, and the sun made dappled patterns across the ground. The wide trail was covered in wild grass. It was like hiking on a shag rug.

I am pretty sure this is a wild elderberry. I saw food everywhere I looked, thanks to last year’s herbalism class. Fiddleheads and ramps and nettles. For the first time I understood the appeal of wildcrafting, though I didn’t pick any plants myself, and understood how one could survive on wild foods.

Trilliums

On this short hike I also saw more bear sign than ever in my life, and that includes a few months spent in an Alaskan forest! There were fresh scrapings on trees, and many huge piles of scat in the middle of the trail. I also saw a lot of dead tree stumps that had been torn open as the hungry bears searched for their spring breakfasts.

Needless to say, all the smells were intoxicating to my trail companion!

We ended up hiking basically straight down the mountain and then turned around and slogged back up. Tucker was so cute on the walk up—every time I stopped to rest or take a picture, he’d pause a few steps ahead of me on the trail and turn around and keep an eye on me until I got moving again. With all the bears in the area, I was grateful for his watchful attention. How lovely it would have been to have just kept on walking—in a few more steps we could have picked up the Appalachian Trail and gotten to Maine in time for lobster season!

I’ve coached a young dog up and down his first slippery cliff scramble, and in and out of a joyful storm-swollen river. I’ve held a black hen so tight to my chest that our heartbeats blended, and I clipped her winter-overgrown toenails until drops of red blood ran down my fingers. I’ve packed cold clay against quick and detonated a bomb of blackgreen flapping as I released her to her sister, safe.

Even after showering, my hands smell like animal, earth and wild water.

It was a good Saturday.

There’s a big pasture full of ex-rodeo bulls near my house. Didn’t they win the lottery—Free Union mountain views vs. slaughterhouse!

I walk Tuck on the gravel road past their farm every now and then. Last weekend, for the first time since I got him, Tuck was able to calmly watch this bull from the fence without a single bark. Progress!

I took a birthday journey last weekend and turned 32 on Friday in a boat on a misty mountain lake with good beer, a good friend, and my fantastically good dog.

It was the first I’d been away from the farm for more than a night since this chapter of my life began two and a half years ago. Although it was wonderful to be on the road, camping and exploring through beautiful Southwestern Virginia, coming home to the farm was a sweet new pleasure. Never before have I lived in a place in which I was so invested—physically, spiritually, emotionally and creatively. These investments return a feeling of rootedness and connection to this very particular patch of earth, which is exactly what I was seeking when I left my transient life of roosting in anonymous apartments around the country.

In fact, I like the feeling of returning so much that I am going to start traveling more, just so I can come home.

And while we’re celebrating comings and goings and getting older and moving deeper instead of faster or more often, I’ve made it to my 200th blog post!