Circus Quercus

Hits the road with:

Summer's Farmonious Conflooence

 

3 events June 11,12 & 16-19:

 

 

1.) Tree Crops Grafting, & Adding value to the edge  

When: Saturday June 11th: 10AM-5PM

Where: At beautiful  Reckon Holler Farm, Rockingham County NC with a pizza party and camping to follow. 

Cost : $75, lunch included. If you plan to stay for dinner, bring a pizza topping - preferably foraged or from your garden or smokehouse! 

*Pre-registration is required. RSVP by Monday June 6th to attend. 

 

 

2.) Wild convergence:  foraging meets cultivation

When: Sunday June 12th: 10AM-5PM

Where: the magical Swanke Place in Catawba, VA. 

Cost : $75, lunch and walnut dinner included 

*Pre-registration is required. RSVP by Monday June 6th to attend. 

 

3.) W.V. Summer farmonious Conflooence

Playcation of cherryment, Summer Pruning, and wild-grafting-crafting

When: June 16-19 

Where: W.T.Farm in Union, WV

Reciprocation (cost): 10 hrs work trade at the event or 150.00

*Pre-registration is required. RSVP by Monday, June 6th to attend. 

 

 

 

W.V. Conflooence

Diving in to summer Afundance

June 16-19

 

"Cherries are great and all, but do you have a clue what's in the pits?"

- Professor BS (Barkslip)

 

Friday: Orcharding with work traders  

Friday Evening: Tool care and general cloning around

Saturday: Summer pruning, more cloning around, grafting and playing with naughty plants, Cuban salsa dance party?

Sunday: open space- summer forchard* tour? ...Breeding? ...Mapping? ...processing fruits and nuts? ...trapping varmits? ...developing value added products?... Community orchards?.... What would YOU like to share or learn...

(*Forchard- where foraging and orcharding meet)

 

Where: W.T.Farm? Union, WV

 

Floor and Board: At this (well-behaved kid) friendly event there's plenty of camping options. The venue is at W.T.Farm. Food will start being served Friday for worktraders. We will all participate in preparation of meals and many ingredients will come from the farm. Please find out what contributions are needed to round out the meals. Bring water fun stuff for swimming in ponds and West Virginia water polo.

Reciprocation (cost): 10 hours work trade in the orchard. There will be opportunities Friday before the event and throughout the weekend to fill that obligation, or if your schedule prevents, 150.00 for the weekend includes great food, tantalizing information and skill sharing. Cost goes up precipitously June 6th. Whether you intend to work trade or not, please send a commitment deposit check to the address below,  bring friends and get group rate discounts, kids under 12 or folks over 70 just get to goof off.

 

In search of a “Farmonious” Life 

 

This second of the series of a Farmonious life focuses on summer in the forchard. There is a tsunami of life happening out there. During this Conflooence the cherries and other berries will be ripening and we will be taking a look at how to protect, handle, and what to do with the plethora of small fruits that can be grown in our regions. It will also be time to contain plant vigor and redirect it with summer pruning and girdling. We will also be further exploring the grafting techniques that enable us to graft the wild edges of our landscapes. There are many grafting techniques beyond whip and tongue apple tree grafting that open up an ecstatic relationship with these wild weeds of wonderment. Wary of watching and tending planted trees grow slow and suffer while constantly battling the encroaching success of the forest edge, I have given a lot of thought and practice to developing the idea of grafting early successional, opportunistic plants like Black Walnuts, Black Locust, Honeysuckle, Autumn Olive, Bradford pears, and Multiflora rose. These plants creep in from all directions and thrive to the point of world domination. We are all grateful for their ability to create abundant biomass and heal damaged soil, but what if, like martial arts, we redirected their energy into something of higher value like sensuous and nutritious edibles? We can actually improve our foraging with "soft horticulture". There is "valuing the margins", and then there is adding value to these margins. Instead of being threatened by these plants and grabbing weapons of (bio)mass destruction, we are invited to pull out our grafting knife and some masking tape to improve the output of these plants. "Everything below ground remains intact and stimulated. The plant becomes a conduit between us and the Earth. We are now incentified to have a deeper relationship with these plants. Foraging is 'grab and go', but with the soft horticulture, it shifts to a more intimate partner dance." 

 

The vision of a

“Confluence” vs a “conference”

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...uses Open Space technology and envisions a world where there is an upper case emphasis on collaboration while lower casing the Top-down, headliner “experts”. Open Space is a self-organizing social technology that makes the most of the skills and resources from the people that show up, so expect the unexpected because what makes humans so special is together we are more than the sum of our parts. We hope to share knowledge and skills regarding the culture of growing all manner of fruits and nuts. If you are remotely interested in, or have ideas around the skills of the Grafting Oragami of nuts, natives, and naughty plants, Summer Pruning, Value adding marginal fruits, Soil Alchemy, Animals and trees, Incorporating native nuts and wild varmits into your diet, you and your friends' presence is requested. We will, as a group, decide what we want to share and learn. If enough people show up there could be multiple concurrent circles happening at the same time. The focus is not so much on cloning one expert's experience, but rather cultivating the vigor of hybridizing dialogue that comes from sharing experiences. With that, we build mutual respect, create new ideas, connections, and confidence, seeing perspectives from many angles which are just a few of the feeder roots leading to a Farmonious life.

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Work Trading-

...looks like coming Friday early and also intermittent tasks we do together throughout the weekend to amount to 10 hours of reciprocation. This could look like helping in the orchards mulching, hauling and burning brush, harvesting and prosessing cherries and other fruits, or working on the deer fence which is only more exposure to first hand experience. If you are a producer of chemical-free food then we can negotiate a trade for food to supply the gathering. 

 

RSVP-

If you plan on attending, please RSVP as soon as possible. The reciprocation increases to 15 hours work trade or 200.00/ person after June 6th, and if you show up at the door unannounced plan on a lifetime of indentured slavery. So dont fool around and procrastinate RSVP-ing! This courtesy makes planning so much easier for those that are involved in creating this opportunity.

 

You can direct questions or send a check to (50.00 which will serve as a deposit if you are work trading, 150.00 if you are not):

 

Bill Whipple

W.T.Farm?

1048 Reynolds Rd

Union, WV 24983

whipplebill@hotmail.com

 

Acornucopiaproject.com

NuttyBuddyCollective.com

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If you are kindred in your pursuit of a world that is completely nuts. I invite you to browse through the website. Find out how to get involved in this ground shaking project . We can always use help sorting nuts and check with us about foraging in the upcoming season. The A.P. is an all inclusive endeavor and there is something here for everyone. Please sign up for our newsletter.

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In the news

Appalachian Voices article- 11/2021

Wanderschool Podcast- 1/30/2020
WNC Magazine- Nov/Dec 2019 issue

Mother Earth News- Podcast 6/21/18

Mountain Express- cover article 2/2018

Mountain xpress- acornucopia 2017

Mountain xpress- Nutty Buddy collective

Laurel of Asheville- Nutty Buddy Collective

wpvmfm radio interview 11/2016

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“If At First An Idea Is  Not Considered Completely Nuts Then There Is No Hope For It”

                                           - Albert Einstein