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sahcadmin2022-09-27 16:00:072022-10-10 22:16:48Strawberry Gap Trail OpeningA Celebration of All Things Appalachian!
Saturday, April 26 – Appalachia Day is a full day event this year with three parts:
- A morning guided hike on the Strawberry Gap Trail to Blue Ridge Pastures – 8:30 am (please register for the hike in advance – click here)
- A free family-friendly festival and local market at Hickory Nut Gap Farm in Fairview, NC – 12 to 6 pm
- An evening concert with the Darren Nicholson Band, benefiting SAHC – at Hickory Nut Gap Farm (tickets for sale here) – 6:30 to 9:30 pm
Come out and celebrate what you love about our mountain home – the views, hiking, local arts, food, live music and quality time with friends and family. Your purchases from local artisans and vendors will help the community recover from impacts of Hurricane Helene.
During the day, there will be food trucks on site, live music all day, a craft village market until 6 pm, a raffle and more farm fun for the whole family!
Join us for an unforgettable evening of Appalachian Bluegrass by the Darren Nicholson Band and help SAHC celebrate our 50th year of local land and water conservation. A GRAMMY nominee and winner of 13 International Bluegrass Music Association awards, Darren has taken his own brand of mountain music around the world. A regular for years on the Grand Ole Opry, and a founding member of acclaimed bluegrass group Balsam Range, Darren now spends his time recording, writing new songs, and performing with his new band of five. Band members include: Avery Welter, Aynsley Porchak, Kevin Sluder and Richard Foulk.
Appalachia Day Festival and Market – 12 to 6 pm
This portion of Appalachia Day is free and open to the public!
Immerse yourself in the essence of Appalachia with an array of engaging activities. We’re bringing together a market of incredible local artist vendors, musicians, great food vendors and a community of passionate environmentalists.
For the kids: take a hayride or pony ride (provided by our friends at Project HNG, until 4 pm – recommended donation of $10 to benefit Project HNG), visit the Hickory Nut Gap Farm animals, or play in the culvert tunnel slides.
For everyone: enjoy live music by Dan Shearin (of River Whyless) and friends from 4:00 to 5:30 pm, plus local musicians the Root Diggers and Old Charlotte Highwaymen throughout the day. Kimberley Turner-Hall will be on hand to offer a Spring Bird’s Nest Basket weaving opportunity for children and adults.
While enjoying the festivities, you can savor delectable offerings from local food trucks and cold beers provided by sponsors Wicked Weed Brewing and Highland Brewing Company.
Proceeds from beer sales and a raffle held during this portion of the day will support the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy.
Food and Beverage Vendors:
Hickory Nut Gap Farm will sell hot dogs at the farm store, which will be open for all your farm-to-pantry needs!
Artisans:
Local artisans and healers will be on site until 6 pm.
David Klatchko – Woodworker with epoxy resin
Kimberley Turner-Hall – Nature, Herb and Traditional Fiber Crafts
Nurture Nature – Massage Therapy
Music:
The Root Diggers
The Root Diggers Union is a band of brothers, cousins, and brothers-from-other-mothers, who have been playing action figures, sports, and tunes together since the cradle. These old relationships have been sharpened and forged into a dynamic, crowd-pleasing sound from many late nights at the Jamshack in West Asheville. Featuring bluegrass instruments, and multi-part-brother harmonies, the Root Diggers draw from a deep catalog of bluegrass, folk music, classic rock n roll tunes, occasionally reggae-infused, and always fun. They love to bring new life to old favorites and introduce audiences to lesser-known classics from some of your favorite bands. Led by brothers Dan Manget and Dr. Luke Manget, with Patrick Shaw, Kevin Vest, David Kurtz, and Chris Bickhart rounding out the full Union. When not entertaining a party, you can find them roaming them-thar hills, digging for ginseng roots.
Old Charlotte Highwaymen
The Old Charlotte Highwaymen (OCHM) are a collection of musicians with deep connections to Fairview and Hickory Nut Gap, thus the name. While the band is led by John Templeton, he takes pride in being the organizer yet filling out the band with much better musicians than himself. Primarily an old-time barn dance band, theyhave also played the Cold Mountain Music Festival and the Haw River Ballroom. The OCHM are led on fiddle by Dr. Lee Bidgood (ETSU) and Townes Ellum, with Jeremy Odom on guitar, Terrell Jones on bass, and Rob Elliot on mandolin. Emily Bidgood will be calling barn dances for all ages and experience levels (none required!).
Daniel Shearin
Daniel Shearin is a singer, songwriter and producer living in Asheville, NC and a member of the internationally-recognized touring band River Whyless. Growing up in a small town near the coast of North Carolina, he moved west to the mountains to work at Echo Mountain Recording, a new (at the time) and highly acclaimed studio in Asheville. In addition to his work there as a Grammy-nominated engineer, he now produces music from his own studio, Sleeping Dogs in West Asheville. Between the two, he has worked across many genres with artists such as Band of Horses, Toubab Krewe,The Jonathan Scales Fourchestra, Mipso to name a few. When working on his own music, he experiments with looped harmonium drones and other textures, instruments and “found sounds” to accompany his singing and finger-style guitar. He has released an eponymous EP of his solo material and several albums with River Whyless
Raffle – Artwork by Moni Hill
Artist, Moni Hill, will donate a painting to be raffled off to support conservation.
“I am inspired by the natural world,” she says. “I believe that colors can transform spaces and lives. I love long hikes, big trees, little warblers, native wildflowers, and authentic, wild people.”
Artwork Description: Winds of Change, 24″ x 36″ Acrylic on wood panel in maple frame, valued at $2,150
Regenerative Agriculture
Onsite demonstration on Hickory Nut Gap Farms Ecological Outcome Verification Program
Interested in Regenerative Agriculture? Join Mikey Hans-Barrientos, Hickory Nut Gap Farm Hub Operations Coordinator, for an in-field demonstration completing an ecological health index on a pasture at Hickory Nut Gap Farm. This will include species ID, scoring the pasture’s overall health, and discussing the merit of these judgements when it comes to grazing practices.
Read More
In 2021 Hickory Nut Gap Farm became a Savory Hub for the Southern Appalachian region of the U.S. The hub serves farmers and the greater agricultural community from as far as Southeastern Ohio to our local community here in WNC. The Hickory Nut Gap Hub offers ecological health monitoring for farms and acts as a resource to bolster the regenerative agriculture movement by teaching courses and advocating for a more sustainable way to farm in our region.
Their monitoring service, Ecological Outcome Verification (EOV), stands at the forefront of the HNG Hub’s support for local farmers. This annual farm monitoring is a holistic and intensive look into the health of a farm across its entire acreage. It consists of filling out an ecological health index (EHI) of at least 10 pastures, which measures the status of the ecological processes at work and scores the pasture on the presence and vitality of warm season grasses, cool season grasses, legumes, trees, other forbs, litter, and erosion. They also take annual photos and soil samples that record soil health and overall changes over time. All of this data is then entered into a database by the Savory Institute that calculates the potential regeneration of a farm year after year. Learn more at Savory.global/hubs/hickory-nut-gap-farm/
Schedule
Thank you, Sponsors!
Spirit of Partnership
“We deeply appreciate our partnerships with Wicked Weed Brewing, Hickory Nut Gap Farm and Highland Brewing Company,” says SAHC Membership Director Cheryl Fowler. “Appalachia Day is just a great partnership event.”
The land at Hickory Nut Gap Farm has been conserved by Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy. In 2008, Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy closed on the first of a series of conservation easements permanently protecting agricultural land and surrounding forests at Hickory Nut Gap, a stunning setting for a farm popular for both products and as a place to enjoy farm tours and events. SAHC worked with descendants of James and Elizabeth McClure to preserve farm and forest land, in partnership with many dedicated conservationists, generous supporters, and grant funders. In total, SAHC has protected a network of about 1,500 acres of conserved land surrounding Hickory Nut Gap and Fairview.
What People Are Saying
“Appalachia Day offers a unique and enjoyable way to soak in the vibrant culture, natural beauty, and community spirit of the Appalachian Mountains while actively supporting conservation efforts crucial to preserving this treasured region for generations to come. We look forward to enjoying a great day on the farm with friends and neighbors. Come on out y’all!”
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sahcadmin2022-09-27 16:00:072022-10-10 22:16:48Strawberry Gap Trail Opening
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sahcadmin2021-01-22 18:53:042021-01-25 14:46:13Hickory Nut Gap Forest
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