North Carolina Miscellaneous: Asheville with Jenna Lindbo (musician) and Ethan Burns (photographer); Celo (with Hannah Levin);and Sylva (with Kerri).

Asheville has a special place in my heart and I was excited to head west and be back in the Blue Ridge mountains. Besides interviewing wonderful farmers, we played with our dear friend Jenna Lindbo who is a musician of the most amazing caliber as well as someone who knows how to have a good time. Her first album just was released and her music can be heard at http://jennalindbo.com/.

We contra danced and then threw our sweaty selves into the pond at Warren Wilson College, we went to the mountains, we played music together and went on a moonlight picnic. We stayed with Jenna and Ethan, who opened up his house and generously let us crash there for a week or so. Ethan has a sweet garden and we ate the most delicious berries in his back yard while we wiled away the days.

Ethan has been traveling in India and Asia recently, where he became certified as a yoga instructor, worked with plant identification in the Himalayas and practiced his photography. He had a show up at the local bakery nearby and gave a personal walkthrough of each photo, relating their significance to him as a person. His work can be seen at http://www.yogacowboyphotography.com/.
Jenna at the local bakery.
These glasses, in my mind, are a signature of Jenna's "Look", even if she isn't trying to have one. Just like Buddy Holly's black frames and John Lennon's round ones, people may remember her from a festival as "the lady with the purple glasses who grinned like the sun while playing that guitar of hers."
Hannah Levin (pronounced "luh-VIN") is a friend that Jenna introduced us to. In the small town of Celo, NC her family has a cabin. We went up there to interview some local farmers and stayed with her, sharing dinner and music in the meantime.
Jenna at an Asheville venue, as the first in a line of free summer concerts.
Mmmm...a float made with homemade ice cream and coffee. Yes, coffee.



Ethan with his rain barrels, tending his small but well-designed garden in his backyard.




After Asheville we travelled to SW North Carolina, to visit Kerri Rayburn, who also happens to work at the extension office and also happens to be the mother of one of Kacy's best friends. She sent us off with homemade soap, shaving cream, and chickweed ointment for bugbites. We left her with Trav's hat on the back of a chair...lucklily she identified it as lost and mailed it to Denver to meet up with us!