Yokna Patwapha Farm
Oxford, Mississippi
It was dreamlike to wake to a warm green world after the -11 arctic landscape we’d risen to just one day earlier. While the weather we were experiencing was frigid by Mississippian standards, we knew we’d dodged a far chillier bullet by coming South, and this added at least 10 subjective degrees to the actual temps …
To prepare for the coming arctic air mass, we helped Doug split a bunch of red oak logs they’d used throughout the year as drum circle seating, reducing them into small chunks for the fireplace. We were accustomed to the Monster Maul on the home farm, so it took us a bit to get used to the hammer/splitter combo and the light, sharp splitting axe – but we got better as the hefty log rounds become firewood stacked in the pickup bed.
It was a good day – everyone we encountered was genuine, positive, and friendly. We met Jeff, the farm manager, and Nathan, who was on the tail end of a year-long WWOOFing stay on Yokna Bottoms farm, Ben the student of permaculture, and Mike, who was on the verge of biking to a village in South America.
And, we ate tacos in town. Mmmm. tacos.
The journey continues to be wonderful!
– Gabe