This is me. I don't like cameras... Could have gone the rest of my life
without seeing the top of my head.  (Am I really that gray? EEEEK!)

Before I came to the farm, I was a digital media presentation design and production consultant to area businesses and to non-profit organizations such as The Center for Creative Leadership, The Piedmont Land Conservancy, and The Carolina Farm Stewardship Association.

For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to farm and to grow for more folks than just my family and friends - maybe even make a living at it... In May of 2005, weary of yet another day sitting behind a computer - I got a wild hair and shot off an email to several vineyards in the Yadkin Valley area - letting them know that I really REALLY needed to get outside!  I offered to work in their vineyards at whatever task needed doing - for minimum wage (or wine!).  30 minutes after I sent the email I received a reply from Lenna Hobson. She and husband Frank Jr. are the owners of RagApple Lassie Vineyards and Winery in Boonville, NC., and Lenna said that I must have been listening to her prayers because my email arrived about 5 minutes before her to do list had mushroomed beyond critical mass... She met me in Winston-Salem for lunch - and the very next day I found myself at RagApple Lassie Vineyards - doing landscaping (actually, I pulled weeds. Lots and lots of weeds!) and helping out at winery events. 

I very quickly realized what a special place Boonville and the Yadkin Valley is. Not only is it one of the most beautiful and scenic rural places I've ever visited,  it is also a very warm, welcoming and diverse community of life-long farmers,  entrepreneurial spirited vineyard and winery owners, and gracious and hard working seasonal laborers who return each year to support them all.  It didn't take but a few days for me to realize that this was the place I'd like to call home.

When the harvest season was over and things slowed down a bit around the vineyard in December, I met Neil Shore, the owner of Sanders Ridge Vineyard and he told me about his search for new ways in which his farm could continue to be viable.  His 300+ acre farm had supported 5 generations of Shore farmers but the earning potential from conventional farming was in rapid decline and he was determined to find a way to reverse that trend so that the farm could remain in the family and hopefully even support his children and their children - long after he retired his old Massey Harris...  So -  in addition to building a winery and nature retreat for walking, hiking, and small events,  Neil decided that he would also pursue USDA Organic Certification for the Sanders Ridge Farm - and that's how I landed here where I am... 

Farm Notes...
That first December when I came to the farm,  I started carrying around an index card and pencil in my overalls as a way to keep up with the reams of information and documentation required by the USDA for Organic Certification.  My notes evolved into both a good way to record necessary information as well as snippits of the few billion things that run through my head as I'm picking, seeding, weeding, walking etc... I got to thinking that my Farm Notes might be interesting to some folks - those who want to know more about what is happening on the farm -  how the certification process works, or anyone who might need a diversion from the office (like I did that day in May 2005 when I decided to trade my computer in for a trowel...)

The notes and observations have been piling up over the years and I have some of them posted up from the past - plus will continue to try and get them up each week as they happen.  The is a link on the Farm's main page, left hand menu to the Past Farm Notes - and on the right hand menu - a link to the Weekly Farm Notes.

Enjoy!

- cindy

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