Stalled

Our fundraising campaign on Kickstarter has stalled out at $2,132. An incredible number when you think that 21 people out there committed to helping fund the project. Thank you to all of you. Leaving us with only 42 days to raise another 8k online. It's going to be tough...

Happy Easter!

We've got our work cut out for us. 62 days to raise a little less then 8k. Visit us at Kickstarter to make a pledge if you haven't already! Thanks everyone and hope you had a wonderful Easter.

Sponsored by...

We're thankful to ARB 4x4 Accessories for coming on board as a sponsor. And also a big shout out to Laura Munns who made a generous pledge over the weekend on Kickstarter. Thanks Laura!

Cat and I and the kids spent all weekend at my mother's house cleaning up the yard, filling holes with dirt, cutting grass etc for the upcoming Virginia Garden Week. Mt. Airy is on the tour this year so it's all hand on deck to get everything looking neat and beautiful. Catherine and my Uncle Gwynne knocked out a huge section on Saturday with lots of weeds pulled and soil tilled. We'll post some pics here soon.

Please visit ARB's website. They've got the goods for your Land Rover, Land Cruiser or other 4x4 vehicle.

As always thanks for checking out our site.

JTE

82 days to raise 8k!

We were contacted by a local Charlottesville television news station this morning and had a great talk with one of their reporters on the phone. They want to do a story about our organic film project. We decided to hold off on doing any television interviews at the moment until we can think out clearly what we want to say, and when. They wanted to interview us today for godssakes. So we made a plan to talk to them again in a week or two. Cat thinks we should wait until when we reach half of our goal on Kickstarter and get our sponsors lined up. Sounds reasonable. We're glad though that our project is getting so much attention. Thanks to everyone for coming by the site and showing your support!

If you have any recommendations of either a) organic farms in Virginia that we should check out or b) organic farms in Central America that we should consider visiting, please send us an email or leave a comment below.

Thanks again
JTE

Thank you for your pledges!

Wow! 17 of you out there have pledge $1,732 to our expedition!! Thank you to all of you. We need to meet our goal of 10k in the next 80 days in order to get the whole amount from Kickstarter to help us on our way. Already we are busy lining up sponsors, talking to farms and to farmers across the USA and in Central America, buying maps, studying websites of others who have made the journey before us and even doing a few interviews with local and national press along the way.

If you know of anyone who might be interested in supporting our trek please send them to the link below. Thank you! JTE and CLE

i just told my mom

i just got off the phone with my mother. i waited until after 6 to tell her about the trip because by then her 5 o'clock 'jack on the rocks with a splash of water' has taken effect. all things seem doable after a cocktail.
basically i told her i was about to tell her something - something that's not bad - that she was going to have an opinion about. i summed up the whole thing in one short sentence - we've started raising money for a trip to central america to document our experience learning about farming. then handed the phone to tayloe. easy enough.
this trip is something tayloe and i have talked about for a long time in lots of different forms. every time it came up we were always looking for a way to turn it into an adventure that could last longer than a typical 2 week vacation. fantasy wanderlust. it's kind of a bad habit.
then one night i read an article about a family who took their two young kids (1 and 3) to costa rica for two weeks to work on organic farms. they did it cheap - the families hosted them and fed them in trade for work. they had afternoons off to play and swim and explore. i read the words and looked at the pictures and thought, 'hell. we can do that.'
a few days later we were driving in the truck, looking out the windows at miles and miles and miles of snow and bare trees and brown everything and it seemed like a good time to bring it up.
we could do it, i said. get plane tickets now. go for two weeks next winter. have a part vacation, part adventure. a vacventure.
it's my husband who thinks big in our family. and i've known him long enough to know what was coming.
wait for it ...
why would we fly when we can drive?
from there our plan started to come together. now here we are, raising money for a documentary film, writing blogs, sending out piles of letters trying to get sponsors.
there's tons to plan and lots of hoops and logistics to jump through and figure out.
will it all come together? will it happen? will i post an update to this blog on this date next year from a farm in costa rica? or belize? or guatemala?
i don't know. you're going to have to just come along and see.

Help us get to Central America!