![B flat is the same as](https://cdn3.cdnme.se/5447227/9-3/screenshot_3_64e629479606ee7f889a24a8.jpg)
![golden earthworm farm truck golden earthworm farm truck](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5138ebc6e4b069cf933aa05d/1362685011661-FFANDWGJ5DBPB7IRXEKG/img_1345.jpeg)
“That pole there marks a yellow jacket nest,” she says. Today, she’s picking blackberries and red wineberries. Fork Mountain Farm has 18 varieties of no-spray apples, 250 blueberry plants, black raspberries, raspberries, blackberries, and grapes. She drapes a wooden basket around her neck and begins to pick berries. “You have to put your nose right in there.” “If you bend close to the cone flowers, they have the most intoxicating, spicy scent,” Pat says. Pat has planted wildflowers in her orchard to encourage the beneficial insects and birds. A bee buzzes near Pat’s ear as if whispering a secret. The air carries the sweet scent of freshly green berry bushes, wildflowers, and apple trees. The land here stretches from 3800 feet to 5000 feet in altitude. She has cultivated three of the 195 acres, surrounded by forest. Pat parks the truck by her barn, hewn from wormy chestnut once common and now rare. Then again, at Fork Mountain Farm, every day feels like a blessing. She emerged from that calamity with the older truck smashed and a few fingers broken, and counted herself blessed to be alive.
![golden earthworm farm truck golden earthworm farm truck](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5138ebc6e4b069cf933aa05d/1362684940151-FED3W4NTRLP4TUYY8T4B/ke17ZwdGBToddI8pDm48kPqQfq0L3n3wpHIsRapTfg8UqsxRUqqbr1mOJYKfIPR7LoDQ9mXPOjoJoqy81S2I8N_N4V1vUb5AoIIIbLZhVYxCRW4BPu10St3TBAUQYVKczo5Zn4xktlpMsMj-QlHXeMfNK6GwvtVkYEWiR8XAPyD3GfLCe_DXOSC_YcAacWL_/img_3319.jpeg)
She then points to the place where her brakes failed once, and she coasted downhill, gaining speed. She stops briefly at a large stump beside the road to remember the tree that the stump used to be, giving a moment of respect to all that’s changed in her thirty years of farming.
![golden earthworm farm truck golden earthworm farm truck](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5138ebc6e4b069cf933aa05d/1362685017775-KPC1EC4R02YXYQT1244B/ke17ZwdGBToddI8pDm48kIIFsYAJJX10OgNkc4SuD20UqsxRUqqbr1mOJYKfIPR7LoDQ9mXPOjoJoqy81S2I8N_N4V1vUb5AoIIIbLZhVYxCRW4BPu10St3TBAUQYVKce0j9vvU4chI_bB_CjBNrJapSKkBorzMUDpE1NYw5XxnDgGKGBETQKcT3bo-auxwM/img_0693.jpeg)
T he 4WD pickup truck bumps along the half mile dirt road to Pat Tompkins’ Blue Ridge homestead.
![B flat is the same as](https://cdn3.cdnme.se/5447227/9-3/screenshot_3_64e629479606ee7f889a24a8.jpg)