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Our Name
Our long name tells a short story. The urban Blacks Run and the rural Cub Run are two headwater creeks of the South Fork of the Shenandoah, an Anglicized name with many possible Indigenous linguistic roots. One of these might be spelled out as Silver Waters. We see in that old etymology a playful image of clean shimmering streams, moonlit pools, and sun-sparked currents glinting with trout and shaded by plants providing food and medicine for land and culture. We believe we can plant this mythic image by weaving together the farm (the life of culture) with the forest (the life of nature). Or, if you prefer, aligning the wheel of the farm with the green circle of lively land. A weaving and alignment based on feeding and giving gifts so we can all grow.
Our name is a confluence of two streams of thought, merging Silver Waters with both Blacks Run and Cub Run. Silver Run Forest Farm is a new place name, and a name for the way we live in that place. This name is a way for us to speak our tending love for Blacks and Cub, twin runs of Shenandoah in the Great Appalachian Valley.
Our Caretakers
Jonathan McRay grew up in a small mountain town in East Tennessee. He has deep affection for Central Appalachia’s dark-green forests, hills, and hillbillies. As a kid (and maybe as an adult too) he climbed trees and played in the woods, stirred by stories of tree shepherds and forest outlaws. Jonathan worked overseas (in Palestine and Mozambique) before returning home to take responsibility for his life and history. He worked on diversified farms and was a founding member, mediator, and market gardener of Vine and Fig, an urban farm, education center, and supportive home. He regularly teaches classes and workshops on cultural ecology and radical social movements and organizes with grassroots groups and organizations through conflict transformation, restorative justice, and participatory decision-making. Jonathan loves the culture and community of land care and supports that love with experience and education in agroecology and agroforestry, ecological design, soil health, plant propagation, watershed restoration, and efforts for land reform. He also likes writing, reading out loud, brewing Hickory milk, and well-placed puns and humanure jokes.
Cornelius Deppe brings diverse experience to his passion for forest farm ecology. His areas of expertise include tree care and cropping, plant propagation, soil microbiome husbandry, animal integration and husbandry, fertility cycling and the wisdoms of biomimicry. His passions for gastronomic adventure nourishes his excitement for preserving and sharing the fruiting arboreal gifts and traditions. Cornelius is an advocate of returning fire to the forest and prairie lifecycles and is a Certified Prescribed Burn Manager in Virginia. Cornelius’ emergence from a dutch settlement in the US informs his appreciation for the way that we are cultured by our context, and the need to bring intention to these habits to nurture what is good and repattern what is destructive. Cornelius cofounded and co-operated Silver Run Forest Farm from 2017-2025.
