On Monday I start work at Eastern Carolina Organics.  Yes, I’m really finally moving to the farm.  Yes, I’m really going to start driving again after all these years.  Yes, I hope my current internal-combustion mule has what it takes to commute a couple dozen miles a day.  No radio, no AC or heat, bad wiring and the previous owner’s silver bullet lock pins - what could go wrong?

Anyway, as produce manager for Tidal Creek I purchased small amounts from Eastern Carolina Organics over the years through various means of transport.  When I was in Pittsboro (home of ECO) I would try to haul home a carload of veggies or try to convince a friend or two to do the same.

The ECO model is pretty straightforward, but not simple - farmers get together with a manager who focuses on the marketing and sales.  This leaves the farmer to do what they do best - grow food - instead of trying to sell their goods all over the place.  The manager focuses on what they do best, which is getting the produce into the hands of chefs and retailers.  This model simplifies the process on both ends of the sale.  The farmer gets a distributor and the buyer gets a place that offers produce from a couple dozen of those farmers.

I was at the CFSA Sustainable Agriculture Conference in 2004 when the creation of ECO was announced.  ECO was born out of a modest grant from the Tobacco Trust Fund awarded in late 2003.  ECO became its own farmer-owned LLC in 2005 and hasn’t looked back.

I’m excited to become a larger part of the local food system, excited to get to know more North Carolina farmers personally and continue being part of something I believe in.  I’m also excited to be working at The Plant, an eco-industrial park of sorts with a farm, a biodiesel plant, a hydroponic greenhouse, a vermicomposting greenhouse and a billion energetic and dedicated people all over the place.  Count me in…

Today was my last full day at work in Wilmington.  I have a meeting to attend next Thursday, and then I am on to more and different things.

I worked at Tidal Creek for most of five years.  Well, I took a few months off in 2004 for a short lived veggie-oil fueled car trip, but other than that have been on the clock at the co-op.  Here is the notice that went into the latest co-op newsletter:

In December of 2003 I found myself working a register at Tidal Creek Cooperative Food Market.  I was happily unemployed up to that point, earning my rent and food money by finding things in the trash and selling them on eBay.  I also ran an organic produce buying club and converted a few old diesel cars to run on used vegetable oil, forming the idea that would become Cape Fear Biofuels.  It was an interesting life even after the point where I decided to hold onto a time card again.

A year or so later I was produce manager.

As manager I have had some profound experiences that have shaped my life and my philosophy of community and food.  I have met and talked to a great many of you.  Those conversations shaped the way the produce department evolved over the years and determined the priorities for bringing in products.  You wanted organic; you wanted local; you wanted trust in the food and the systems and people that provide it.  Hopefully I have given you what you wanted.

It is now time for me to move on and take on new challenges.  I leave for my land in Chatham County to start a farm and get back into the dirt.

Nicole, my long time right hand in the produce department, is also leaving at the same time as I am.

I leave the department in the hands of a new staff and manager who will lead you into a new era.  Please welcome Stephen Chu (manager), Buddy and Stephen K. Embrace them as you have me and all the other produce folks over the years – Mike S, Sasha, Matt, Peter, Nathaniel, Stacey, Daniel, Brad, Shannon, and Nicole B.

Just to add on a bit to this, Mike, my previous right hand in the produce department, has moved to Chatham to get into the sustainable agriculture program.  So there will be a bit of the old with the new…

On August 31st we leave Wilmington for the land in Silk Hope. The replacement produce manager has been hired on at Tidal Creek. Kristin is working out her work plans. Inspections for septic and electric are going on this week, and we hope to have final house plans in our hands by this Friday.

The plan is to live in part of the old house while we build the new house. We’ll work on parts of the old house in order that it is more livable for Danielle and Noel when they arrive in the winter. For now we are ripping out the water logged wall boards, fixing the leaky roof and generally making the house not so much of a mold and mildew factory. The hope is to make the place livable for friends and family in the future, so repairs need to be of pretty consistent quality.

I spent some of this weekend clearing some of the vines that had grown into all of the windows and parts of the roof. The porch roof is starting to separate from the house because the vines grew up between the house and the singles.

The roof on the back of the house has some bad leak issues. Some old fixes have no become real problems.

And siding is coming apart where water now runs into the house…

…exposing insulation and interior wood…

…providing great habitat for termites.

And the worst part is the unintentional skylight in the side porch’s roof. It really adds aesthetic value to the place. And the aesthetic smell of wet fiberglass insulation makes it a real keeper.

The inside of the house is another battle. From a neighbor’s description of the place, it is basically layer upon layer of fixes, cover-ups and DIY patches. Once I started tearing out some old paperboard, I could see what he was talking about. The existing roof is built over at least one other roof. I haven’t gotten far enough into to everything to see what else is involved. It is quite funny so far. How all the pieces of wood fit together is also great comedy. I felt like I was in a tree fort that a bunch of neighborhood kids put together out of scrap board and bent nails.

But all is not old. We received our first delivery of AAC block which will become the first floor of the new house.

While all this fixing up of the old house, building the new house and starting the new job is going on, we’re also supposed to be starting a farm. More on that soon…