Professional Development in the Wild

Wild Flowers and Wild Abundance

After days of preparing lessons for the substitute, tidying up the school farm, making sure all the plants were on irrigation timers, and leaving instructions in the hands of some of my most capable little farm friends, I am off again. I am grateful to be off on another adventure exploring yet another side of agriculture. Hoping to alleviate the burden my male colleague has endured these past years with my lack of woodworking skills, the school has approved a basic carpentry course for females only. After some searching, I found a course hosted by Wild Abundance in North Carolina. Along with this basic carpentry course, this 7 acre homestead offers a variety of classes related to off grid living, organic gardening, permaculture, primitive skills, rewilding and more.

Meaning to make it to Atlanta to stay with a favorite adventure buddy from college, I only ended up making it to Auburn the first night. Although I’ve been there for a few events, including and FFA field trip, I had never had the chance to explore the Donald E.Davis Aboretum. Wow! dogwoods, wild azaleas, hog plums, crab apples and more have me writing a list of the native trees I want to add to our school grounds. We just completed the initial phase of an EPA grant with a focus on stormwater management and native plant installation. A little late in my appreciation of native plants, I am now feeling the fever and want one of each showing off blooms all through the year for us to study and enjoy.

Armed with specimen collectors (floral holders), and a better idea of what I was to see blooming on my way, I head towards Atlanta and into the mountains. Within a few hours I’ve already stopped several times for cuttings which I carefully root, store, and label. I have driven these roads for years, taking my children to camp in Brevard, but never this early in the Spring. The show doesn’t disappoint. I find the abundance of dogwoods, especially exciting as they’ve become less prevalent after a blight took its toll on ours in the deep south. Why are there so many here? I put finding a resistant strand on one of my get to do lists. Then I add that I need to combine all my lists. Sometimes what I don’t know seems overwhelming, more often I feel grateful for the never ending journey of learning and the community of people that always seem willing to teach me.

I got to the Wild Abundance community just before dark on Wednesday evening and set up my tent. I had originally planned to bring one of my vintage campers but had recently sold one for a boat motor and the other was being worked on. The first night was fine but looking at the forecast, I worried my tent on a rather large slope wouldn’t keep me dry and warm. Natalie was kind enough to offer me the beautiful pagoda another class had built. The two -story pagoda sits halfway up a small mountain affording one views of the hillsides across and Natalie’s artful negotiation with nature below. My sweet natured new friend Lauren was bravely camping in a tent just above me for the first time. That first night we experienced the eary screams of the coyotes hunting just up the hill. We’d discuss this ongoing experience with Peggy and Laurel each morning after. According to the locals, the coyotes don’t seem to bother anything personal such as cats and dogs. I found that unusual but was grateful to hear it being unsure I could fend one of on the pagoda stairs with my 32 revolver, shaky aim and 6 shots. Sounded like way more than six coyotes anyway.

Having no time to write during the day and being completely exhausted by our 6 o’clock end of class, I’ll have to hope the next few paragraphs give a clear enough idea of my adventure in woodworking. Everyone arrived around 10 with their new tools and fully prepared to learn basic construction. Everyone but me who in a rush to get on the road, forgot to grab even a tape measure. Dear Diary, worst student ever. I did however have on one Mom’s useful aprons she’d so lovingly been providing me with these last two years as a teacher. I hope it would go unnoticed for at least a few hours that I had nothing to place in the pockets she’d so thoughtfully applied on each reversible side. I began to eye the community supplies to see how quickly I might be able to slip some in my pockets and then loudly offer them for community use. Fortunately I wasn’t reduced to tricking my new construction team as I was saved when I was able to add “just a few” things to a runner list going into town. The runner returned before serious work started and as he handed me my tools, he said with a smile in a tongue and cheek manner, “here you go and don’t get into any more trouble” like a dad bringing me my forgotten KG supplies yet once again. Still ashamed of my ACE hardware paper tool sack, I rummaged through the car and found my rubber chicken purse which I managed to stuff all my new tools in, including my speed square. Whew! Agricoutoure.

Thursday’s instruction started out with an overview of the basic tools and skills that we’d employ the rest of our time. We started with a review reading a tape measure, always something my students think they can do until I ask them on the spot to read off a sixteenth measurement. I still have to pause at the 8ths and beyond before confidently calling out a number. Although I have always used a square, I never realized the range of uses. Then onto drills and drivers, screws vs nails, proper technique, and finally the table saw and drop saw I’ve been avoiding by grabbing the circular saw. I was so glad to finally get over my fear of these big guys and they certainly make projects a lot cleaner and quicker. By the end of the day, we had all made a few friends and those of us staying on site enjoyed getting to know each other better over some simple dinners in the outdoor kitchen.

Day two we separated into two groups of 9 and headed to our project sites. My group headed up the mountain to Annie’s house. Annie took the Tiny House course a few years ago and is in the process of completing her own tiny home. We learned to cut and place waved siding, install outside trim and treat wood. On the second half of day two we drew out our plans for our personal project and calculated materials. I hadn’t factored in how difficult this would be as everything has to be translated into available lumber sizes such as 8, 10, or 12 feet. The patience and respect at which Natalie and her team taught us to walk through some seemingly simple tasks was commendable to say the least. In a room filled with strong, capable and talented women, its got to be hard to keep everyone feeling confident yet respectful of the task and tools.

Day three we met up at the local lumber yard. A burst of 20 women armed with lists and intent must be a pretty funny thing for the local fellas to mingle with on a Saturday morning. We filled two trucks with lumber and headed back to another delicious lunch put together by our local chef Chloe. Ein lieu of Grace each day, we went around the room expressing our gratitudes. More of a private person, I was surprised to find myself looking forward to this part of our day. I found in others’ gratitude an abundance of little things I had failed to be grateful for myself. After lunch we returned to our work sites and continued building our house. To be honest, around 4 I was looking for ways to get fired. My crew assured me there was no possibility of this and shoved me up the ladder with another driver and screws. It wasn’t the beer and break construction site I’d imagined. This was a full on 2-6 work site and no one was hearing any of my whining. Around 5 I was fully regretting being on an all female volunteer construction team.

I left once to grab some rooting hormone for all the natives I’d collected. I wasn’t able to find any but was given some endomycorrhizal inoculant. Reading the Songs of Trees by David Haskell has peaked my interest in mycorrhizal fungus but the concept of these and their relationship to soil is still really new to me. I’m excited to set up some tests next fall to see if these fungi can support the root systems of some of our plants. Will be an interesting thing to test with the students I think.

#Blog #AudienceEngagement