Introducing B.J.
Astute readers will
probably notice that B.J. has been around a
lot. Mark and I decided to make him Walden Effect's very first intern, so you'll be seeing more of
him in the days to come.
During his first week
here, it became clear that B.J. has quite a knack
for growing things and for photography, in addition to his deep
understanding of the Appalachian
tradition of wildcrafting.
I'll admit that part of the reason we keep him around is because
listening to him talk is like reading a Foxfire book --- I keep
learning things all day long.
Plus, B.J. isn't
allergic to facebook the way I am. In the week he's been on the
job, B.J. has already spiced up our
facebook page
into a flourishing community...replacing the stale auto-posting board
it used to be. (Part of this may be because we promised him a
bonus of a nice camera when we hit 1,000 fans --- help him along and
friend us today.)
The main reason Mark and
I decided to go ahead and take the internship
plunge, even though we were vacillating last year, is that B.J. is a
local guy. That means we're not responsible for making sure he
has a place to stay, food to eat, or friends to hang out with. So
we can be antisocial most of the time and just enjoy his rivetting
company three hours a day.
Meanwhile, B.J. is our
guinea pig in another way. I hypothesize
that Appalachia wouldn't have to be so poverty-stricken if everyone
with a passion --- regardless of their level of education --- developed
some kind of online empire to bring in money from the outside
world. B.J. clearly has enough knowledge to write a stellar ebook
about old timey Appalachian skills, so hopefully you'll see me announce
that here
before the summer's out.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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Awesome about your intern! Wish we could do that. Also, I had no idea about your fb page and just "liked" it. We have one, too: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Appalachian-Feet/332443395684
I also wish I had an intern who enjoyed updating it... I haven't even figured out how to make the link for it less unruly.