Deep in the Hundred Acre Wood…Farm

Deep in the Hundred Acre Wood…Farm
by Jim Dykes, Hundred Acre Wood and Sanctuary Steward
photos provided by Hundred Acre Wood

 

Editor’s Note: This is the second in a series of posts by current CFSA members during our Winter Membership Drive.

 

 

I am a retired physician, now farming. I have been a part of CFSA for more than 35 years. I was at the first organizational meeting of CFSA.  I’d love to share a story about that meeting.

 

But first I need to tell you just how I happened to be there. In my second year of Duke Medical School a grateful patient gave me a book of poetry: “Farming, A Handbook,” by Wendell Berry. The book changed the course of my life.

 

I would read his poems whenever my work on the wards would let me catch a moment of rest. I’d put on some fresh scrubs, find an empty stretcher in a quiet room, and read. “A Man Born to Farming,” is the first poem in the collection. I began to wonder if I too might be such a man.

 

Though I was doing well in school, I started to believe I was called to be a farmer, not a doctor. To the consternation of parents and medical school faculty, I dropped out.

 

Back in those days, Graham Center in Anson County, NC, was the mecca for those interested in sustainable agriculture. It was a joint project of the Rural Advancement Fund and the National Sharecropper’s Association. I went to learn to farm organically and connect with others who had similar dreams. While I was there, what would become the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association had its first organizational meeting. 

Rosie the dog, Cathy, daughter Lia, Jim and goats

 

The room was packed with farmers and would-be farmers. There was a general consensus that the name of the organization should be Carolina Organic Growers. But at some point in the discussion, a farmer from Virginia stood up and gave an impassioned, impromptu speech about the necessity of stewardship.

 

 As farmers, our relationship to the land is vitally important. A good steward manages things in a way that
fosters the long term growth of the good, that improves circumstances rather than exploits them. Good farming is
more than our choice of fertilizer, it requires compassion for the land and the creatures on it.  It requires stewardship.

 

So Carolina Farm Stewardship Association was proposed as a name and was adopted unanimously by all present. I was proud to be there.

 

Although I eventually returned to Duke Medical School and practiced medicine for almost 30 years, I have remained a staunch supporter of CFSA.  Now, like I did 35 years ago, I retired from medicine to farm.  My farm, the Hundred Acre Wood Farm and Sanctuary, is on the CFSA fall farm tour.  I hope those who visit can  see signs of good stewardship. Nothing could make me more proud.

 

Farm-fresh dinner overlooking the garden