Violet and the Newsroom

It’s Clay! Opened my inbox this morning to be greeted by the Loving Farm newsletter – with a shoutout for our show this weekend right at the beginning! Check it out!

Loving Farm is a five-acre regenerative flower farm in Ewing, Kentucky. It’s ran by wives Perriee and Marietta, two delightful women living out their vision of responsive and responsible small-scale agriculture. You can get glimpses of this dream whenever you speak to them – they talk of the land they tend like it’s a community of creatures; an interdependent web of being.

That’s also how they speak of the little community of Ewing. Their farm includes an old tobacco barn which has been used – in the past and in the present – as a town event space. We’ve been fortunate to both watch and play shows there, and it’s a treat to get to meet people who drove in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois… and people who rode over on their horse from a few houses down the street.

Ewing is in Fleming County, in northeastern Kentucky. If you’re in Frankfort, like me, that’s a straight shot up through Georgetown on 460 -> Paris on 68 -> onward for half an hour til you turn right on Ewing Road. Easy peasy!

(And if you’re in Frankfort, like me, you can buy their products in the city! They sell at the Kentucky Flower Market, where I buy mason jars full of their catnip.)

(Playing their Earth Day show sparked our dream of performing at queer and BIPOC-owned farms across the country. Imagine, a 50-state + Canada + Mexico lesbian barn party tour… We can make it work…)

Daydreaming aside, we appreciate their shout-out for this weekend’s show at Turtleback Ridge Brewery. This will be our first time performing there, but Anabel and I were fortunate to visit earlier this year and loved getting to meet Jen and appreciate the space (and the beer). The brewery is on Turtleback Ridge Farm, a cooperatively owned farmstead not far from Loving Farm in nearby Robertson County.

(Apple Maps (and probably other GPS map services, too) will spit you out at the front of the farm. Keep driving down the driveway, I promise the brewery is there! Don’t ask me how both Loving Farm and Turtleback Ridge are in Ewing, Kentucky but in different counties. Is it a Kansas City situation? I dunno.)

Oh! And last time I was at Turtleback Ridge, they had copies of the regional folklore zine Derby City Midnight for sale, which mega ups their cool factor. It’s worth perusing if you like spooky, strange, and surreal Kentucky stories! Here’s my shameless self-plug for Kentucky Deceased, the seasonal podcast I produce for the Capital City Museum. This episode is an interview between museum director Dr. Eleanor Hasken-Wagner and Derby City Midnight co-creator Zack Poehlein about some of the more occult and esoteric practices of the Shakers during their “Era of Manifestations,” with tales of heavenly visions, ghostly apparitions, and channeled hymns.

Anyway, thanks again to Loving Farm for the shout-out, congratulations to Marietta on her last treatment in Northern Kentucky, and a preemptive thanks for Turtleback Ridge for welcoming us this Saturday. It’s gonna be a great time! You should come if you believe in having fun, sharing in community with other cool and creative human beings, and trading carbon dioxide and oxygen with the trees while drinking an ice-cold beer.

(And share the small-internet love! Subscribe to blogs and email newsletters that aren’t subject to the almighty algorithm’s determinations of what does or doesn’t suit your feed. You can cultivate a more loving and intentional life by giving a friendly, platform-agnostic digital wave to your neighbors.)

See you Saturday! Love, Clay!