Happy Friday y’all!

We took the crew on a field trip this week to a true jewel of the community, Jubilee Partners in Comer.  They are always doing everything they can for the community and particularly for the most vulnerable members of it, and they had invited us to come collect chestnuts from their beautiful property.

The team collecting chestnuts at Jubilee Partners!

St. Francis of Assisi supposedly once said “Preach the gospel at all times. Use words when necessary.” I read that a hundred years ago, and it imprinted deep in my mind.

Regardless of what your gospel is, your faith is, your beliefs are, they only truly change the world for the better when you lead with your deeds and not your words. Here I am using words to declare them ineffective and perhaps I’m proving my own point, but I think the world is more profoundly moved by someone who leads in service with good intentions and an open heart, than they are by any one person or group of people jabbering with a silver tongue about any supposedly pious topic. Pious words ring hollow when the hearts that produce them are bereft of compassion and good will to all.

Sarah picking muscadines & Naw in the neighbors' field where community members grow gardens!

For this and for so many other powerful reasons, Mandy and I are perpetually and deeply grateful to the good folks over at Jubilee. They devote their whole lives to helping others, while working hard to steward both land and people constantly and living intentionally below the poverty line to avoid paying taxes that could be used to fund a military that will bring harm to any living being in the process. That’s a real commitment to the tenets of their faith. Whether or not you share that faith, you’d be hard pressed to argue that people sacrificing their own creature comforts in order to ensure they don’t contribute in any way to the harm of others they’ve never met is not a beautiful way to live and to honor their faith.

I never hear them judge or condemn others. I never feel pressured to convert to their theology or judged for not being a member of their church. On the contrary, we feel a great warmth and kindness from them and always have. When we were going through hard times, they would bring us milk, eggs, and sweet potatoes. When we can, we donate plants for their large gardens and flowers for events. They never expect anything, never ask for anything, and are always endlessly grateful when we have something to share.

They are quick to tell you that they are very human and seem to be entirely devoid of pride. They deal with a huge community of people, many of which carry severe trauma, and do it with humility, honesty, and integrity. The amount of lives they have touched in a positive way is hard to grasp and will definitely ripple on in unknown positive ways as the generations continue.

Everyone LOVED the Jubilee cows!

So, it was a pure delight to have have a crew of 12 of us bop around through their 200+ acres collecting buckets of chestnuts, snacking on muscadines and jujubes off their plants, viewing the gardens, meeting some of the residents, and visiting their sweet cows.

Our whole crew was clearly giddy with joy by the end of the visit. And to be fair, the folks there barely talked about anything I just mentioned. They just showed us around and talked about farm stuff. The giddiness came just from….I don’t know…the vibe of the place is just good. You can’t have that much good intention and action in one place for 50 years without it effecting the feel of the place itself. It’s just got good mojo, and it rubbed off on us all.

All that being said, we’ll be donating annually from now on to help keep them going, and if you’d like to do so as well, you can do so here.

And if you’d like to volunteer or know someone with a good heart, looking for somewhere to put it to use, you can look into their volunteer program here.

Grace with a beautiful root from the farm that is now being repurposed as art in Rachel's home!

As for our farm….we’re trucking along, doing a little o this and that. I finally got the big tunnel ready for planting, and Mandy and the ladies are getting the first spring plants in the ground today! Anemones y’all! Magical beauty being born and starting its long journey to your vase.

The Farm Store is open, so come on out and enjoy the beautiful weekend, grab a cup of joe and head out for some antique shopping and major charm at Neat Pieces a few minutes away.

The Farm Store is full of flowers, vases, candles, fragrant sprays, and seeds for planting!

Okay…it's actually midnight on Thursday, and I've got a big day tomorrow so must stop clunking away on this thing.

I hope you have a great weekend and find at least one moment to be a little extra kind to someone just for the heck of it. Plant good seeds, get good plants.

Byeeeeee,

Steve