Asheville is famous for beer breweries. Since both of us like beer, we researched the local breweries before we left Charleston. We ended up going to none of them (!) because we had such a hot, horrible ride yesterday. But today when we got up, we decided to go to one spot we learned about during our search for breweries. A farm. Not just any farm, but a farm that grows hops and gives tours. Hop N' Blueberry Farm is located about 30 minutes outside of Asheville. It is completely sustainable.... Farm to table, solar, rainwater collection, compost, etc. etc. but this is the real thing. The farmer, Van, has had the land in his family for 213 years. He doesn't wear Patagonia clothes or REI or anything, he is a real, down-to-earth Eco nut.
We paid Van $5 each for a 1 hour tour of his farm. He talked about his mission to use only native pollinators. We suggested he keep honey bees, but then we remembered honey bees aren't native to the US either!! When Van says native pollinators he is talking about Monarch butterflies and carpenter bees. They pollinate too, just different than the honey bees we know! Van was one of, if not the, first farmers to grow hops in North Carolina. There are lots of breweries here and they are all trying to be different than one another. Hops is a differentiator. Van showed us how they are grown and tended and even gave us hop flowers to feel and smell. They smelled like a strong IPA beer to us. Van sells "wet" hops, which means they are picked and turned into beer within 12 hours of picking!! Most hops are dried into pellets like cat food before they are used in beer. Van is growing blueberries, but the plants are too young to pick just yet. He has a butterfly garden and a butterfly house, and he grows medicinal herbs too. He scrapes by on grants, as far as we could tell, from universities. But he is absolutely passionate about the planet. Like the struggles we know about for bees, Monsanto and their genetically engineered vegetable crops are killing off Monarch butterflies. Did you know Monarch migrate from Mexico to Canada every year? It takes generations of Monarchs to do it... They live very short life spans. Van has only seen about 5 monarchs this year.... Which indicates a huge problem.
Van was a great guy to meet and we were grateful to learn about the earth and how he lives.
We did not get to taste any beer made from his hops though - and that's a bummer!
On another note, Blue Ridge Parkway was closed for some of our trip so we ended up backtracking and taking a detour. The detour worked but I got over my lack of confidence with low speed contol on my bike. The detour was paved for 1/2 and loose gravel for the other half, which was 30 miles. Holy batman it was high stress! Then when we hit pavement again we experienced 50 miles of torrential downpour!
Finally at our hotel now, warm and dry!
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