A Google What?

My sister, who is the Director of the North Carolina Agromedicine Institute, calls me her 'Google Farmer'.  I can recall rows and rows and more rows of beans, corn, lettuce, peppers, potatoes, radishes, squash, and tomatoes being grown on the land that we now live on.  Growing up, I spent many weeks preparing for the early morning call of the Chapel Hill Curb Market and the Chapel Hill Farmer's Market.  I probably never admitted it, but, I loved it!  The sounds, sights, and smells were fascinating to me.

One of the things that I want to do here is to return the land to the purpose for which my family intended.  I will tell you that I am so unequipped!  Yes, there was lots of farming going on, but, I tried to look invisible when it came time to plant or harvest.  I admit that I am not the best at being outdoors.  Give me twenty bushels of purple hull peas to shell and put away any day!  I realize now that I missed out on some very important lessons that could be extremely useful right about now.

Now to get back to Google....Where else am I supposed to get information?  There are not a lot of traditional down home farmers left.  At least, that I know of anyway.  Yes, there are many organic farmers in our area, but, that is not the approach that I am looking for.  Don't get me wrong.  There is nothing wrong with the organic approach.  I just remember things a bit differently and I want to use the deep down earth not set a greenhouse on top of it.  I certainly do not plan to go around spreading chemicals all over either.  Yes, it would be nice to produce a bit of extra revenue to help cover some of the costs of maintaining Happy Hollow, but that is not my intention.  I want to feel the freshly dug earth between my toes as I once experienced and I want my son and daughter to be a part of it even if it is from the sidelines.  

Can I make this a reality?  I'm really not sure.  It seems bigger than life to me at this point.  I think that I am gonna try to start out small - a few things at the time.  Maybe, I can even show my sister that being a 'Google Farmer' is not so bad after all!