With a small dairy goat herd, chickens for eggs, fruit trees and vines, and a diversified garden that provides year round food production, we focus on organic, open pollinated crops, intuitive perma-culture, and natural processes, our work includes; animal husbandry, cheese making, soil building, seed saving, garden and forest management, building projects, music and art.
Thirty years in – There is no way to accurately describe being in one place over time, engaged with and observing the cycles of nature, and the growth of our forest.
The annual transit of the sun makes ever changing shadows. Daily rituals that contribute to sustenance are informed by conditions on the ground, and the changing seasons, With nature as our guide.
However:
This is not a very good place for farming. The only reason anyone would live on the top of this small mountain is economic.
Our 20 acre parcel was affordable., and just remote enough. Heavy equipment had scarred the top-soil, logging for old growth Douglas Fir left scrubby and dense second growth Fir, and all the brushy hardwoods that flourished in the newly opened canopy.
The soil has been scrapped to rock for roads and landings, and the topsoil was never very deep. The winds are intense. We get gale force storms out of the south in the winter, and thermal gusts from the north in the spring and summer.
While abundant water appears in springs all over the hill, but the water we use is below the most level and open sites.
We arrived here with dreams of self sufficiency,
and learned that is never a feasible concept.
And yet;
Scratching the soil for thirty years, adding to it tons of composted biomass, and little else, pumping water with a self regulating solar pump, raising goats & chickens, playing with bees & pigeons, grooming the forest, & plantings, and reaping harvests- both work-a-day & experimental, has made this a glorious place. We rely quite heavily on food produced on site, purchasing mostly exotic fruits like Avocados, Bananas, Oranges, & Melons earlier than we can produce. Eating in season, utilizing what is available, and supplementing this with basic staples, we are not ”self sufficient,” but tenaciously self reliant.
CUE THE GOATS!
The amazing ruminants that enrich our existence, Goats are, besides dogs, the earliest domestic animal.
Intelligent individuals with unique personalities, they possess the ability to transform cellulose into fertilizer and milk.
