What a Great Weekend!

This past weekend was one of those weekends that makes me feel blessed and grateful to live in the Charlottesville area — a place with some many interesting things to do and people to hang out with.
I started my weekend off on Friday evening at the opening reception of “Our Water, Our Future” at the [...]

Locabusiness in Albemarle

When I visit a new city, the first thing I want to know is “why is this here?”  The answer tells you a lot about a place: sheltered deep-water harbor (Boston), big river for powering mills (Albany), inland navigable limit of the river (Richmond).  And Charlottesville?  Well there’s some transportation history (railroad gateway), and some [...]

Bird Notes by Dorothy Tompkins – The Common Flicker, Ants, and the Web of Life

The Common Flicker, Ants, and the Web of Life
Observing bird life at Bundoran Farm this winter has been hampered by the weather, but flickers have made themselves known by their calls.  They are active, one bird covering a territory of 150 acres or more and this time of year you are likely to hear their [...]

Home-making on the Farm

In belated honor of  J.D. Salinger,  a deceptively simple observation on homes, by Joyce Maynard:
“A good home must be made, not bought.”
Taken a bit out of context, this assertion is, when you think about it, pretty radical.  We buy homes, like we buy cars and home theater systems, though usually with a bigger loan, and [...]

Buy the S&P 500 (acres)!

For those relatively few of you who don’t subscribe to Pork Magazine, (the leading periodical of porcine agribusiness), I pass along an interesting article.  It covers a study from Iowa State that compared Iowa farm acreage, as an investment, to the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index.
The study’s authors conclude that the wisdom of putting [...]

Virginia Public Radio Airs Segment on Bundoran Farm

Virginia Public Radio recently aired a segment on Bundoran Farmand our efforts to preserve the character and use of the 2,300 acres of this legacy landscape, promote ongoing environmental stewardship and craft a great place for people to live in and enjoy the countryside of Charlottesville, Virginia and Albemarle County region.  Click here to for [...]

Build it (Farm it) and They Will Come

Below is the unabbreviated copy of the article written by Edward H. Carter that appeared in Piedmont Virginian magazine.
Where do we go with this?  Posited the fleece clad Bob Baldwin as he stood next to a blank whiteboard facing the fifty or so participants in the inaugural conference of the Baldwin Center for Preservation Development.  [...]

Residential Development and the Working Landscape

We received a nice mention of our inaugural symposium in the new issue of The Piedmont Virginian, a beautiful publication focusing on landscape and culture of Virginia. Apologies for the scan: there’s no online version:  
BCPD-Symposium-PVMag-Jan-2010

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Deep Background

The Piedmont Virginian is a lovely magazine focusing on history, culture and preservation of Virginia’s rural heritage.  It’s always a good read, especially when they do the occaisional feature on Bundoran Farm or someone we know in the Charlottesville area.  This winter, Thomas Randolph has begun a fascinating new feature callled Deep Background.  In each [...]