NorCal

No farming for us in Northern California, but lots of pretty places:  SEE THEM HERE

Post Portland Oregon

Note - Since the loss of our computers in Portland we have had a bit less time on the ole interweb.  As such, our posts will be a bit shorter.  We'll have to tell you all of our great stories and adventures in person or by phone.  

That said, Oregon is a great state!  We had a really good time exploring what this lovely state has to offer. Bend, Eugene, the coast, rivers, lava fields, and more.  The farm photos were taken at Rogue Valley Brambles where we had a great WWOOFing week.  Check out some pics HERE.

Portland

Portland was full of warm reconnections with old friends.  We hoped to make connections with local farms and wineries, but our plans were spoiled by local thieves who decided to break into our van and take our laptops, lots of camping gear, half of Molly's clothes, jewelry, passports, electronics.  We spent the rest of that day figuring out where to get a new window, filing a police report, and reporting our passports stolen.

Overall, though, Portland still ranks very high on our city list as far as beautiful, fun, friendly, hip, local-focused places.  Catching up with Azusa friends, biking the Biking Mecca, strolling Hawthorne, sampling local fare, enjoying some local bands on the streetcar, Racing for the Cure, and a nice hour up in the Rose Garden filled up our stay in the City of Roses. 

 

 

  

And if Portland needed a bit of redemption after the break in, it came through viewing the Swifts and kicking back at Swift.

We joined hundreds of picnickers at a school in NW Portland to witness the beautifully entertaining actions of thousands of swifts.  Their annual migration takes them not only through Portland every summer, but to this same school with the same large chimney that serves as their sleeping quarters.  The show lasted about an hour, the birds figuring out a massive coming-together in spiral form, interrupted occasionally by a hawk or other unwanted guest in the sky, finally all swooping down into the chimney.  Quite a spectacle!  And then very apropos, we walked across the river, finding the hip, inviting Swift Lounge and joining other Portlandians for an herby ball jar cocktail on the sidewalk, taking in the rare dry warm evening.

To check out some more pics of our Portland adventures click HERE.

Green Angel Garden

Long Beach, WA has a gem on Sandridge Road.  Larkin spoke of his operation - Green Angel Garden and Sustainability Center - as a school of sorts.  And as a teacher, he shared so much with us about his wind turbine, geodesic dome, composting techniques and biointensive gardening methods.  We also shared music and movies and meals and lots of good conversation.  Highlights were the successful bread-making experiences, live flute melodies (by Larkin) warming the home, bike rides and strolls through the dunes along "The longest beach in the world",  drinking fresh goat milk after a tour of a local goat dairy, and selling out of pesto that we made at a Friday farmer's market.

  

To see a few more from Green Angel click HERE

A Bit of Beauty Between Farms

On the way from Creviston Valley Farm to Green Angel Gardens we stopped for a couple of nights in Olympic National Park.  Amazing!

See more HERE

Creviston Valley Farm

We finally make our way back onto a farm!  Creviston Valley Farm was certainly a different experience than any of our previous farms. This was our first farm where the owners had full time jobs off the farm - Lalaine runs a successful bed & breakfast in Gig Harbor and Greg has had a lucrative career selling life insurance. In their spare time they run a 45 acre farm raising cows, sheep, chickens, pigs, and a few goats. This can make it difficult to keep things going on the farm so it was fun to be able to lend a hand.

This was also the first place that we were not staying on the farm.  Lalaine had rented out the farm house to a young family with five daughters so we stayed at the B&B right on the water - pretty plush farm accommodations.  We enjoyed wonderful meals and great conversation on a daily basis.

On the farm we worked at a variety of different tasks.
     - Feeding the animals every morning
     - Herding the cows in when they get out the gate left open during morning feeding - oops!
     - Enhancing soil with mushroom compost
     - Harvesting eggs from the chickens
     - Burying baby piglets that don't make it :(
     - Corralling baby goat back in when he gets out under the fence, then fixing the fence
     - Castrating baby boy cow
     - Herding pigs into the trailer for transport to auction, then taking them to auction

Check out pics of our farm work HERE 

Seattle and its Environs

From BC we made our way to Seattle to catch up with some old friends.  On the way we stopped at a two farms in the Mt. Vernon area.  A good ole Gun Lake friend hooked us up with New Earth Farm where Nick and Victoria showed us around and told us a little bit about the farm.  They are growing organic produce for local sale, providing advocacy and support for marginalized families, and promoting sustainable, organic agriculture and healthy lifestyles.  They partner with the Mt. Vernon Christian School to lease land where their farming operation takes place.

We also made a stop at Ralph's Greenhouse where Tim showed us around the farm.  This was a very different experience for us.  Ralph's is a commercial farm growing 12 crops on 250 acres.  They have up to 60 people working for them during the busy season and have a very efficient system.  For all our Colorado friends - if you buy organic leeks at Whole Foods they probably came from this farm!  They are also one of the biggest leek growers for Annie's Organic Foods.  Tim gave us a great tour and while we failed a few of his quizes - never seen a recently cut potato field - we did guess right on the leek flower.  It was really neat to see a larger scale organic farm in action.  Also didn't hurt that it was in a beautiful setting.

We made our way to Seattle where Eric and Carrie were nice enough to put us up in their lovely Queen Anne apartment.  Two days later and their place was loaded up and headed to Portland in a U-Haul.  In the time between it was great to catch up with Eric and finally meet Carrie.  They seem to be living the good life and have several really good spots within a close bike ride from their place.  Close bike rides are something that Eric scoffs at.  He decided to take a 50 mile ride across the greater Seattle area to catch up with his old college buddy Joe.  (From Queen Anne, around the north side of Lake Washington, over to Joe's office in Redmond, through Bellevue down to Mercer Island for dinner with Joe and Erin and their boys, back into the city, through Capitol Hill, and back "home", surprisingly with no saddle soreness.)

For more pics click HERE

B.C.

Back up to Canada!  With some help from the abilities of the internet as well as great connections through our good buddy Tim DeMasters, a solid week of City & Farm adventures came together.


Starting in Vancouver, we had a big day on the bikes, exploring this "City of Glass".  We moseyed through outlying neighborhoods and the cosmopolitan center on very bike-friendly infrastructure, dwarfed by the countless residential hi-rises.  Minutes later we were in Stanley Park, now dwarfed by massive old cedars, feeling lost in a forest, nowhere near a bustling metropolis.  We stayed a block off a good section of "The Drive" (Commercial Drive) and tasted the diverse local culture both nights we were in town.  Thanks to Jason and Ryan for putting us up for a couple nights!

Before leaving the big city we quizzed Seann of SOLEfood Farm for a half hour.  SOLEfood was started by a larger non-profit that operates in Vancouver's gritty east side.  Seann expressed bold hopes to eventually provide meaningful employment for 60 people from the neighborhood, many who struggle with addiction and mental illness.  He cited that urban farming is now "en vogue".  It is trendy, cool, hip to be involved in something like SOLEfood, and he thinks with continued support from the right people in Vancouver, they might become a leader of this urban farming movement.

We ferried over to Vancouver Island to meet up with Tim D and Tim S for a few days that were filled with city and countryside bike rides, chilly ocean dips, locally-sourced feasts at Tim S's waterfront cabin, and gawking at the strong bio-luminescence and clear views of the milky way on the beach.

Carol at Dragonfly Hill Vineyard gave us a good tasting and tour of her operation. Unrelated to the impressive grape vines and their tasty result that she proudly showed off, we learned that kiwis can be grown this far north.

We found Trevor online (oddly enough he is an alum of our own high school in Denver).  He met us for breakfast one morning and shared about his business, Pedal to Petal. It is  "a permaculture-based collective of bicycle loving food security activists who are taking direct action to reduce carbon emissions and landfill waste and to feed the soil and the city's hungry. This mandate is realized through bicycle powered kitchen scrap pick-up, the building of edible landscapes and composting." (from their website).  Three years in, Trevor spoke with excitement about the project and its future.  

We had hoped to shadow Trevor on a couple pickups and to see one of the several composting sites across town, but our ferry was to set sail soon.  Wagon South!

Denver to Vancouver

10 days back home in CO came right at the half-way point of what we expect to be a 6 month journey.  We had a great time connecting with family and friends (thanks to everyone who made it to Platt Park), but the time came to hit the road again.

Turning our wagon westward, 12 great days came together including a lot of time in the very diverse Rocky Mountain Region:

• Dark, silent over-night, then breathtaking morning hike and fossil search in Dinosaur National Monument
• Bike rides in Salt Lake City witnessing a strong local food appreciation at the Saturday Farmers Market and multiple neighbors of our helpful hosts Julie and Sebastian trying to get rid of their backyard-grown eggs
• Healthy local fare and brew at Bittercreek in Boise
• Lovely Montana city life in Missoula
• Glacier National Park, just go there, wow
• Flatbush Lake, Whitefish, Sandpoint, and all the areas in between left a great impression on us of this fantastic remote area

We were hosted for three nights by generous Monica and Mike and there super fun, easy going little Ivy and Dylan in Spokane.  We were again introduced to great local fresh focus at the Co-op downtown including a roof-top tour (there are plans for significant veggie production there and an existing greenhouse has housed a lot of seedling production) and something new to us - private, lockable freezer space that is available to members to encourage purchase of a quarter of beef or other freezables that won't fit in your little freezer at home.  We even popped in to the brand new public market.  Although a little slow (it was a weekday), there were dozens of vendors getting their locally sourced products out there.  Spokane seemed to be a gateway between the Rockies which had been very good to us and the Cascades which really marked our arrival in the northwest.

Camping, trail running, and slow driving in the stunning North Cascades National Park area served as a good last stop before putting our feet in the water of the Pacific in Bellingham.  After a great stop-over in the Lynden area with the Bratt family, we've returned to be with our wild neighbors to the north for a week in beautiful British Columbia.

See more of what we've seen!  Click Here

Back in the Mile High City

We spent a wonderful week in Denver reconnecting with friends and family as well as checking out what's going on in the city and farming life of our home town.

Good news!  While we were away, Denver City Council passed a new Food Producing Animal ordinance.  In general, residents of Denver are now allowed to keep up to 8 chickens or ducks (female only) and up to 2 dwarf goats (female or neutered male).  You can find more information about the new ordinance here.

While back in Denver, we were lucky enough to connect with Sundari Kraft of Heirlooms Garden, LLC.  She has been on the forefront of urban farming in Denver for the last few years, playing a crucial role in passing the Food Producing Animal ordinance this spring.  In addition to running a successful neighborhood supported agriculture business (NSA), she wrote the book on urban homesteading, literally.  It was a real treat to check out a few of the spaces she is growing on in the highlands as well as meet her 6 chickens, 2 ducks, and 2 dwarf goats. For those of you in Denver looking for NSA near you check out the directory.

Another Denver urban food production/ sustainability operation that we discovered is the Sustainability Park and Urban Farmers Collaborative at 25th and Arapahoe.  If you're in the Curtis Park area, you should stop in to see the cool things happening on this city block.

For a few more pics in Denver click here.

Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska

The beauty of the Great Lakes region continued as we headed south into Wisconsin and settled for a few nights in Milwaukee.  We stayed with Carrie and Augie in the suburbs at their little blue cottage on Lake Pauwaukee - such a comfortable, homey place to land for a bit.  Our relaxing activities at the lake - swimming and kayaking and boat riding and book reading and music playing - were interrupted by a couple trips into the city for cultural exploration - we found a tasty pint at Lakeshore Brewing Co., shopped and snacked on Brady St., witnessed the noontime opening and closing of the sails of the art museum, and watched the Brewers beat the Cubs from the nosebleeds in Miller Park.

Anyone who has done much research in urban agriculture has most likely heard of Will Allen and his Milwaukee based Growing Power.  This urban farm, bustling with life (animal and vegetable), was our main draw to Milwaukee.  We took a tour one day to get acquainted with the farm, and returned the next day to volunteer for several hours.  Growing Power is penned in by houses and streets and takes advantage of vertical space using aquaponics - usually a 3-tiered system that grows fish and plants in a symbiotic relationship.  Another way to combat its lack of horizontal property is to plant very intensively.  The only way they can manage to do this organically is to ensure that the soil they plant in is full of nutrients, so growing soil is a huge part of their operation.  Using different combinations of coconut mulch (coir), worm castings (there are millions of worms on site, pumping out nutrient rich droppings that are integral to the farm's health), compost (from their own massive composting operation), and recycled soil from trays and pots that has given its nutrients to what had been planted therein.  These pots and trays fill every nook and cranny on the property, bursting with sprouts or salad greens, too thickly planted to see the soil through the nutritious foliage.  The front entryway to the farm is filled with dozens of awards that Mr. Allen and Growing Power have received over the years, testimony to the fact that this is indeed a well-respected mecca of Urban Agriculture.  It was a privilege to be a part of it for a couple days!

Not sure what to expect in Madison, we parked the van, hopped on bikes, and rode around on the isthmus of  the capital city on great bike infrastructure and dug the UW campus, the Capitol, the coffee shops, and got a great Wisconsin treat - brats and mash and a local pint - for lunch.  Then John joined us.  Immediately taken in by his fast paced excitement to quickly show us everything we needed to see (we had only a few hours of daylight), we jumped in his car and cruised around to the north side of Lake Mendota where we boarded his family's speed boat for an exciting high-speed tour of the water's edge, including wooded areas and stately mansions on the lakeshore, all set below the ever-seen Capitol Building.

New Glarus was our last stop in Wisconsin.  The Swiss town hosts one of the most popular breweries in the state (New Glarus Brewing Co.).  It's a shame they don't distribute outside of the state, but their tag line "drink indigenous" hints at their committed involvement in their community.  With a coupon for a free glass of their product, they convinced us to turn back toward the town after our tour for our Wisconsin finale - fried cheese curds and sauerkraut washed down by several ounces of the local brew.

Great connections with Jon and Lisa in Iowa City and with Eric and Lindsay and Todd in Omaha wrapped up our 9000+ mile eastern jaunt.  Back in Colorful Colorado, the van is now clean, we're half way through our 6 month edu-adventure, and after reconnecting with family and friends and farms - we'll be on our way west!

More pics HERE.

Tuesday, August 9th, we invite all readers of the blog to come to Platt Park (Logan and Iowa) for a potluck and to connect with us face to face instead of face to blog!  We'll be on the west side of the park starting at 5pm.  Come anytime after that - feel free to contribute food or beverage or a park game.