Living Energy Farm

Living Energy Farm was the biggest expanse of death I had ever seen. It took me a long time to believe that the bumpy dirt road through piles of sun baked clear cut was the farm I had been so looking forward to visiting. Despite my initial wave of dismayed shock, Living Energy Farm(LEF) was without a doubt one of the most informative and enjoyable stops on my trip.
Every tree on the property was recently cut to the stump by the previous owner. When funding fell through for whatever the man was clearing the land for (most likely suburban sprawl) he sold the land to the one and only Alexis. Alexis's goal for the land is to turn it into a zero fossil fuel farm. He has given himself three years to use fossil fuels to get the thing started, and then is going into all natural mode! What a cool guy!
 My visit coincided with a group of very cool Virginia students, and Alexis put us to work right off. We planted a whole grove of pecan trees, which was a wonderful feeling. If I die tomorrow I may not leave behind much, but at least 50 years from now the trees I planted will still be here and feeding the good folks at LEF. Over the few days I spent there we also worked in the garden, cleared brush, built a pergola (a sort of trellis), built a close line, and attended a workshop on eco building (to build a house you just make thick walls out of whatever you like (hay, leaves, ect...) through a layer of concrete on either side, top it off with a tin roof, and tah-dah! you have made a super insulated house for next to nothing!).
Working at LEF was a window into what it means to make something purely from manual labor. To build a trellis from scratch first you must search through the log covered landscape for a log that was the size you want and the kind of wood you want (and we were lucky enough to be spared the step of cutting it down), then unbury it from whatever pile it was in, cut off all the limbs, cut the log into the lengths you want, you need to notch the logs you are using for poles, you need to dig the holes to put the poles in, put the poles in the holes, and then lay the long thin logs across the notches in the top of the poles. Not one of those steps was quick and easy. I am a firm believer in making with human power rather than any fossil fuels, and LEF introduced me to what that really means.

I truly loved it there. In the evenings we would sit around a fire and all laugh together. The place had wonderful visitors who would sit with us and play guitar under the stars.  I fell into a mode of bliss, one of those times when your are so pleased with everything that's happening around you, you have not a care in the world, and you are surrounded by beauty.
When I first gave up riding in planes and cars I was nervous that I would be missing out on seeing the world. This bike ride has been teaching me that there is endless amounts of world to see right here where I live. There are many and aspects to the experience of being in another country that can not be duplicated, but LEF sure felt like another country. We had next to no electricity, we had to fetch water, the beans and rice we ate were cooked over a wood stove, and the landscape looking nothing like beautiful, green Virginia. My visit to LEF is easily on par with almost all of the places I stayed in Ecuador. Life and the world around us are just so chalk full of wonders and beauties to experience. If you sally forth and search for what you desire, I guarantee you will find it. There is simply too much out there for it not to exist somewhere nearby, waiting for you.