Bear with me, I’m going to get frivolous about food, farms and the future:
 
The positive changes that have occurred at Ozark Akerz Regenerative Farm were impossible for Sue and I to imagine 10 years ago. In fact if we had been able to imagine them, we would have considered them utopian, unreachable. They were not. With our help, the farm is transforming into something altogether different from when we moved here. The aromas on the wind are richer, the shadows cast by trees are longer and the accumulation of birdsong and chorus of frogs is a calming symphony instead of an irregularity of a few fixed notes. 
 
Inspired by these changes, I have begun imagining the positive ecological and community changes we can achieve along the Mycorrhizal Byways in the next 10 years. We can’t do this alone, it will require collective action with our closest interconnections.

These interconnections increase the Mycorrhizal Byways and create a storied and shared culture. This is a culture defined by our profound care for Nature and a deep commitment to bringing the rewards of this care to our broader communities. Nature is deeply embedded in us as a species. That embeddedness is re-emerging along the Mycorrhizal Byways. 

My unwavering belief for what follows in my imagination is grounded in the symbiotic relationships my Native American friends have to plants, animals and fungi. This indigenous wisdom has cared for Nature for millennia. Their communities are the enduring sinew that shape the heart around which the Mycorrhizal Byways are woven. Their friendship with Sue and I and their kind advice and guidance over the years is inseparable from Ozark Akerz Regenerative Farm.
 
You might ask why this frivolous exercise of looking into the future? Keep reading and it’ll become clear and when it does i trust the surprising realization will be astonishing to some of you.

It’s 2036 on the Mycorrhizal Byways.
 
90% of what my family eats is grown, raised or produced within 50 miles of where I live, most of it within 15 miles of us. This is our local food system. The other 10% such as coffee, oranges, bananas and staples like salt and sugar arrive from further afield. 
 
The number of people Sue and I know personally in our local community that DON’T use pesticides, herbicides, fungicides etc to grow food equates to over 1200 acres of food. This food is grown and raised in gardens, forests, wetlands and pastures in harmony with Nature. Just 2.5  acres provides healthy, fresh vegetables and herbs for about 80 family’s all year round. 
 
Orchards and Food & Medicine Forests provide an abundance of Blueberries, Plums, Pecans, Pawpaws, Figs, Witch Hazel, Olives, Aronia Berries, Mulberries, Yarrow, Hazelnuts, Comfrey, Pears, Black Walnuts, Peaches, Persimmons, Blackberries, Acorns, Osage Orange, Elderberries, Scuppernong Grapes, Hickory Nuts, Sumac and Apples. Trees, shrubs and gardens are interspersed with many varieties of flowers attracting pollinators like butterflies, bees and other beneficial insects.
 
Most of our local interconnections on the Mycorrhizal Byways eat with our growing seasons. They freeze, ferment, pickle, dehydrate or otherwise preserve the excess of food they grow during summer for consumption in the winter months. Little is wasted. Carrot tops, onion peels, parmesan rinds, Chicken heads and feet, marrow bones are saved for nourishing broths and soups. Other kitchen scraps are fed to the chickens, ducks and geese or used to build compost to feed our soils so it can continue to feed our community.
 
The health benefits of the food that our local community raises and grows is recognized widely. The people who buy and eat our food are healthier and rely less on pharmaceuticals. Our community of herbalists provide wisdom and recommendations of local plant medicines that heal anything from wasp stings to coughs to broken bones.
 
The collective biodiversity on these acres is astounding. Cattle, pigs, chickens, geese and other domestic animals share the land with Bobcats, White-tailed deer, Beavers, Coyotes, Painted Turtles, Otters, Northern Cricket Frogs, Grey Foxes, Eastern Red Bats, Luna Moths, Monarch Butterflies, Lion’s Mane Mushrooms and Barred Owls just to name a few. Humans come from many miles away to witness the birdlife on a farm known for its diverse species of birds, some very rare. Ornithologists can often be seen parked on the side of the road with their binoculars aimed in the distance.
 
Our Mycorrhizal Byways are a consequence of embracing relationships with Nature.  Beavers, with their unsurpassed mechanical engineering and construction skills, have built many dams that hold water during droughts. The plant growth around the ponds provides abundant food for wild and domestic animals. Their habitat is home to a wide variety of fish, amphibians, plants, fungi, reptiles and mammals and the water captured in their ponds help replenish our aquifer. After heavy rains have damaged dams, the Beavers can be relied on to rebuild. Their environmental stewardship is one example of what can be accomplished beyond the human realm, Beavers do all of it much better than we can. Our  relationship with them sustains us, it sustains our farms and sustains our community.
 
Some of the food grown and raised is provided free of charge to our unpaid care economy. It nourishes the people that care for someone near and dear or are cared for by their nearest. Through a food resilience program, our community’s food sources are growing to create added resiliency in our local food system. Seven new food sources have been added locally in 2036 where they did not formerly exist. Our food deserts are shrinking while the number of families who are able to raise and provide healthy food for themselves and their neighbors is expanding.
 
Rural ingenuity is creating stronger bonds in our local food system. The first farmer-run food hub in the county is established. The hub sells products from local 10 local farms and businesses. This includes locally grown and raised  vegetables, meats, eggs, flowers, honey, peanut butter, cheese. The sourdough bread ,coffee beans and chocolate my country’s food hub sells is all produced locally with further afield ingredients. Instead of enriching faraway investors and CEO’s, the fully subscribed and self-funded food-hub operates at a net positive for the community, reinvesting in local farms and businesses while restoring a healthy environment.
 
The importance of this uncontaminated land can not be overemphasized in its importance to to feed our community for generations to come. This is recognized by the guardians that care for it. 50% of the 1200 aces is protected from future development and an additional 35% is earmarked for the same protection. This ensures over 1000 acres can continue to provide healthy food, sunrises, wildlife and the awe of the lunar eclipses, the Milky Way and meteors for our descendants.
 
The efforts to conserve over 85% of 1200 acres in 2036 would be remiss without conservation of the food that sustains us. Many of the farms and gardens in the community select and save seeds of vegetables, fruits and nuts that grow well in our environment. Many grow native plants and tend for wild plants. They take cuttings to propagate the plants that flourish in our warmer temperatures. And they share the seeds and cuttings with others to ensure their survival.
 
Our conservation practices are not limited to seeds. Native American interconnections have discovered sacred places on these 1200 acres. Through song, music and other forms of celebration and ritual, these sacred places are hearing familiar languages and feeling rhythms of reverence that have been absent for centuries. Many sacred places are the old souls of our earth, Rocks and Stones. They were here long before us all and their kin sacrificed everything to allow us to be here today: they eroded into the soil  that sustains us. The Rocks make these places sacred. They must be felt, respected and prayed with and recognized as the Elders of our future soils. By conserving the land we preserve the scared.
 
Our decisions positively impact many throughout our region, even those that don’t know us or buy our products.  All 1200 acres are located in the Cape Fear River Basin. We ripple to many other branches of water and undiscovered Mycorrhizal islands throughout the watershed. Our choices, like not spraying pesticides and herbicides increase the Mycorrhizal Byways and make the watershed healthier for all beings that share it with us.
 
In our day-to-day farm struggles, the doubts Sue and I have run in the hundreds. But the community of nourishing relationships on our local Mycorrhizal Byways, human and non-human, run into the thousands and they are exponentially connected through out our watershed and beyond.

What may surprise you is what I have written above is is not my imagination of 2036, it is my community’s reality NOW, in July  2026. 
 
Welcome to the future.

Epilogue 

I’m encouraged that our future is already here in 2026. We already have farmers representing over 1200 acres building this community today, in fact some of us have been for a decade or more. This community has not been intentionally established. Each small island has emerged separately. Only through our personal discovery have they been brought together here. The discovery has not ended, it continues with you.
 
It has taken over 6 months of writing, reflecting, re-writing, editing, editing and more editing. Its current form looks nothing like it did a month ago. I was struggling with the structure and found inspiration in the work of Rob Hopkins. I have a separate working document that 50 times longer: notes in the margins, annotations, inspirations and quotes scattered through out. What I’ve published is only a small snippet. The complexity, intricacies and interconnections of the Mycorrhizal Byways go far beyond blogs and books. They must be lived.

I have consciously limited the scope of who I've included. That is why it is limited to 1200 acres. There are many interconnections that make the Mycorrhizal Byways a reality in 2026. Some are in Georgia, in Tennessee, in New Jersey, in Washington DC, in Limpopo Province, South Africa, in Wexford County, Ireland, in Uttarakhand, India, in Queensland, Australia and in West Sussex, UK.
 
I have thought and written about these interconnections’ positive impact on their communities and i know they will be an integral and important part of our collective future. 
 
It became challenging though to include them all. So I eventually focused my imagination on my local interconnections, those that are located 50 miles or less from Ozark Akerz Regenerative Farm.  Even so, the challenge continued. There are many people who share our farming and environmental ethos within 50 miles and including everyone that inspires me was yet again difficult.
 
I finally chose to include only people that Sue & I know personally, who we enjoy friendships and camaraderie with.
 
To limit the intellectual energy required to reflect on and write this piece, I have deliberately not asked any of our personal interconnections to identify their own connections that share our ethos. Suffice it to say that if I had, 2026 would seem even more unlikely to you. 
 
One of the interconnections wished to remain anonymous. This led to my decision to keep all names anonymous. This made it easier for me to focus on the community impact instead of individual contributions.

I also resisted using photos to illustrate the beauty and bounty of these 1200 acres. My creation of the Green Man art is the only exception. It represents Sue and my Celtic heritage. In tradition, The Green Man's hair and other features are made up of one or many leaves. The Green Man signifies irrepressible life. I created this with a background that represents 95% of the biodiversity that calls the Mycorrhizal Byways home. It is unseen by us, underground. It is one way I honor the  Mycorrhizal Byways with my art.

My hope is that the article will help others raise their voices about how they are caring for the Mycorrhizal Byways. The “imagining” was a way for me to help show, in perhaps an unusual way, what we are already building and provide a foundation for optimism about our our future. I think it’s easier to build on something when knowing it already exists. The sudden contrast and realization that what I had written was not a utopian vision but is reality in July 2026 hopefully achieves that for some of you.

Support the future of Toxic Free Farming with your purchase an organic cotton Mycorrhizal Shirt. 50% of the profits will got to Toxic Free NC. Toxic Free NC is fighting to reduce chemicals in our lives, prioritizing our collective health and the revival of Mycorrhizal Byways.. We are proud to have them as an interconnection!

Sue & Mike

I’m standing on the road that runs past the Ozark Akerz Regenerative Farm farmhouse.  
 
This road has brought many visitors since our move here in 2014. Some are just passing through, some have stayed a night or two. Family, friends and what used to be strangers. Many have brought their appetites and their curiosity about what we are “regenerating”. Some have left knowledge and imparted ancient wisdom of their culture. That wisdom has made this farm more resilient, purposeful and helped reveal discoveries of the sacred.
 
What greets all visitors is a large, old pine tree by the road. A place of shady refuge for the few that walk this road in the height of summer. Its lower limbs are visible to the left of this picture.
 
What awaits visitors is an ecosystem of 775+ species of plants and animals. The endangered Pineywoods Cattle graze in forests they share with Bobcats, White-tailed deer, Beavers, Coyotes, Painted Turtles, Otters, Northern Cricket Frogs, Grey Foxes, Eastern Red Bats, Luna Moths, Monarch Butterflies, Lion’s Mane Mushrooms and Barred Owls to name a few.

The ecosystem is in constant change. An old hay field is now regenerating native species of trees and shrubs that hold food and medicine that was once frequented in this landscape. The 2.5 acre hay field held a dozen species of plants, now that same area holds 140 species.

There is good energy here. A ley line runs from the western to the eastern boundaries of the farm drawing energy to ancient sacred sites and grandmother trees as old as 320 years. These sacred sites healed, brought ceremony and gathered community for many centuries. Then the reverence for them vanished, the people holding them dear forced off this land. 
 
Some visitors leave much more here than they take with them. They do their own work of regeneration, bringing back reverence to these quiet places.
 
A friend of ours brought his youngest daughter for a visit over the summer. Her bond with and reverence for nature was immediately evident. Her words evoked respect and kinship with the plants, animals, rocks, even unseen soil microbes. As we walked, she wove these individuals together with stories that created connections between them all.

We stopped at one of the three the sacred sites our friend Chris, who is a member of Creek Nation, has discovered on the farm. This place, Chris says, was once one of ceremonial community. Out of the center of the boulders grows a large Hickory Tree.

As we walked around the boulders our friends daughter told stories of what she saw including signs of the animals that lived there. She placed her hands on the boulders and felt the moss and lichen. When I asked her what name she would give this place she paused and said she’d name it Bridge, because it was a bridge where the trees and rocks speak to each other.
 
Out of respect for my friend and his daughter and their Native American culture, I cannot share all the ceremony and reverence that occurred around Bridge. Chris has always said that for this place to be revived, it must be a place of community again. He said there is someone nearby that will help that happen. The regeneration has begun.

I wrote this poem following our friend and his daughters visit:
 
“Their centuries long slumber creaked as an ancient familiarity pulsed around them.
 
Their eyes, crusted with lichen and moss opened slowly to greet who stood before them.
 
They smiled at their kin, honored by her reverence.
 
They felt her wisdom and her gem-like energy, sparkling, dancing, even in the fading light.
 
They breathed deeply into their new awakening, feeling their ancient lives renewed.”
 
When I shared the visit with Chris he said, “The stones are our grandmothers and grandfathers. They were here before us all and sacrificed everything to allow us to be here today. Mother earth honors them by surrounding them with all her beauty. For years she kept them hidden but with the arrival of both of your amazing energies, she has revealed them.”

Our Pineywoods Cattle herd made these visits possible, they were the first step toward reviving community, or as Chris reminded me, Sue and I were the first step because we chose to bring the Pineywoods here in 2015. Before they were allowed to graze on greenbrier, brambles, privet, kudzu and other invasive plants, this forest was choked, impenetrable by sunlight. Pineywoods instinct to eat a wide what nature provides was an vital step in regenerating the site. Bridge was not visible let alone accessible before Pineywoods.

On reflection, the name Bridge is such a profound name for a place of community. It brings together Mother Earth, Pineywoods Cattle,  It represents a bridge between nature, between cultures, between species, between history and between spirits. The regeneration of this sacred site is a collaboration that bridges species and cultures, Pineywoods Cattle, and Human Native American and Immigrant cultures. 
 
I took this photo of Bridge around sunset a last fall. When we closed on the sale of the farm on November 25, 2013 this scene was not possible, sunlight could not reach the forest floor. The light reaching Bridge twelve years later is magic.

There will be many more visitors to Ozark Akerz Regenerative Farm. The connections they feel with the land, plants and animals will vary dramatically. Some will soon forget their visit. Most will hear definitions of regenerative farming that are meant to obscure and rebrand the true principles of regenerative farming.

Trends come and go, but the principles of regenerative farming are rooted in indigenous wisdom. They will not fade. They are carried deep into our soil, carried high by the trees and will be carried far into the future by the stones.

AI was not used for these reflections which were cultivated in the soil of reality.

I suggested to our small rural library that we begin a Seed Story Library. A wee bit different from a seed bank of local seeds, it includes the story of the seeds. I shared with them the story of old grandmother pecan trees that grow near the century old farmhouse.

To help the library share the Seed Story concept with other library locations in the county and gauge support from residents, I collected pecans and filled a couple jars of seeds to bring them along with a printed copy of the Pecan Seed Story .
 
Space is at a premium at small rural libraries and i distributing them to the community out of planting season could lead to the seeds ending up in a drawer somewhere and be forgotten when planting season rolls around. I suggested that it may work better if the seeds are only available during the best time to plant them. For pecans that time is fall, when the squirrels are planting them. This will limit the amount of space the library needs for to display the seeds if they're only sharing a few seed stories at one time. the stories are also more likely to be read. These are Seed Stories after all, not a seed saving program.
 
Once the seeds have all been taken into the community the story remains. I gave the library an old binder  to store old seed stories. Perhaps one day it will be a collection of Randolph County Seed Stories if they decide to do this in the long term.
 
You'll find the story, planting instructions and a recipe for Pecan Pesto below. Whether you have the Grandmother Seeds to plant or not, please carry this story with you to keep the Grandmother trees alive.

For planting instructions we went to good friend Nick Wrenn at Living Soil Tree Farm. Nick shares our passion for never using synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, or pesticides. When growing trees, Nicks main inputs are leaf compost, woodchips, leaves, and worm compost.

I met Nick at the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association conference in 2023, I brought him some of the grandmother Pecan seeds. Not long after the conference, Nick paid us a visit. This is what he wrote about his visit. "Shortly after the conference I went out to visit the farm for the first time. This tree absolutely blew me away. I have never seen such a large pecan tree. It sits in the yard behind the farm house and must have witnessed many generations of humans come and go through that house. Its difficult to estimate age but I can not wrap my arms around this tree. Loose guess I think this tree has to be over 200 years old at the minimum. Although the nuts on this tree are not especially large we feel that its genetics are important based solely on the fact that this tree has stood the test of time. Old trees like this often take on a personal meaning for me that goes beyond physical traits. There are so few old trees left."

Nick sowed the pecan seeds we gave him in 2024. He told us that pecans and acorns share the same planting instructions

"Pecan seed should not be allowed to completely dry out. In zone 7 and warmer pecans can be planted outdoors in fall. Fall planting may work in colder zones although we haven’t tried this ourselves." says Nick. North Carolina is zone 8 and we generally plant our pecan seeds in pots in the fall and cover with some hardware cloth to keep the squirrels and other critters from eating them. After it sprouts in the spring we transfer it to the ground. Plant the seedlings at least 60 feet apart.

Nick adds, "As an alternative to fall planting pecans can be stored in the fridge and planted out in spring. We like to use Ziplock bags. If you see large drops of water in the bag conditions are way too wet. A little visible condensation is okay. Acorns can be stored in other containers in the fridge such as jars. If you want you can pack your acorns with a medium such as sand or coco coir in the bag."

If you have a large amount of pecan seeds Nick continues "If fall planting in not an option for any reason acorns can be stored over winter in buckets with drainage holes packed with the medium of your choice (wood chips, sawdust, compost, sand etc.). These buckets should be insulated from freezing by piling mulch around the outside of the bucket. Be sure to protect the buckets from rodents if you go this route. They can smell acorns from a mile away!"