This was our third and final week spent on Yokna Bottoms Farm, in the beautiful Faulknerian land of northern Mississippi. Preparing t leave back during the first time we WWOOFed here (January 2014), it seemed weird that we might not ever see the characters here again – which makes sense in retrospect, since fate conspired to get us here again this winter.
![Widget does not think the chickens deserve all of the bread.](http://www.quesehrafarm.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/image33-e1419096334676-768x1024.jpg)
A year later, we’re not thinking about how weird it is that we may never see the Yokna farm and its cast of human, canine, and kitty characters again – because we assume that someday, we probably will.
![mixing up worm castings, chicken manure, and dirt into a batch of potting soil for the strawberry project](http://www.quesehrafarm.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/image23-e1419096344652-768x1024.jpg)
![potting up dozens of little strawberry plants we dug up from a crowded and un-loved patch of field, with Jeff](http://www.quesehrafarm.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/image24-1024x768.jpg)
![Gabe chewing through wicked blackberry canes with the flail mower](http://www.quesehrafarm.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/image29-1024x768.jpg)
Gabe chewing through wicked blackberry canes with the flail mower
![image](http://www.quesehrafarm.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/image30-1024x768.jpg)
![image](http://www.quesehrafarm.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/image25-1024x768.jpg)
Cleo & Faith in their hours-long staring contest
![Widget hunting wabbits](http://www.quesehrafarm.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/image34-1024x768.jpg)
![you can guess how Faith earned her nickname, "Scarf"](http://www.quesehrafarm.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/image27-906x1024.jpg)
![image](http://www.quesehrafarm.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/image28-e1419096339330-1024x768.jpg)
This week we visited Richardson Farm – a startup operation founded by former Yokna intern Nate, who we’d met last year. He is leasing some really interesting land along a lakeshore, and has big plans for what he’d like to get growing and built there. For now, it’s been fulltime work just getting a liveable shack to stay in, a small greenhouse built, etc – things are starting to come together and it’ll be great to see where it goes from here,
![and old treehouse failure decorates the woods of Richardson Farm](http://www.quesehrafarm.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/image21-768x1024.jpg)
Another former Yokna Woofer, Reynaldo came to stay at the Farm over the last few days to house & dog sit for Doug, who left for a few days of family time in New Mexico with the ‘old boys,” Merton and Shivas. We hadn’t met Reyndaldo before, but we’d enjoyed his work – he’d done a great painting of the old farm truck and Missy, which graces the living room wall of the house.
While staying in the house, he’s working on a new piece – a vortex-looking spiral which is steadily resolving into an amazingly well colored and rendered hay bale.
When not housesitting here, Reynaldo is WWOOFing on the nearby Canebreak Farm – another up and coming small organic farm. We went to check it out with him – I wish we had a photo of the sweet bamboo cane thicket growing along one edge of the field, where the farmers hope to one day clear room for tables and chairs – a dining space for the Asian farm-to-table dishes they hope to serve from the produce they grow on the land.
We made cornbread and went to a Chili Cook-Off, where most o the entries included Yokna Bottoms veggies, and longtime Yokna Farm staff Betsey took home the prize … but we felt like the biggest winners, with all the delicious food we got to eat.
![two faces have I](http://www.quesehrafarm.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/image31-1024x768.jpg)
![At the house, we've gotten into doing crossword puzzles for the first time](http://www.quesehrafarm.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/image39-1024x768.jpg)
Tomorrow, we leave for Habitable Spaces in Kingsbury, Texas first thing in the morning!
![we got matching fortunes when we went out to eat at the local Noodle Bowl ... pretty fun on the heels of last year's Cookie Coincidence](http://www.quesehrafarm.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/image22-1024x768.jpg)