Oakhill Organics

And, what color is the sky anyway?

I recently listened to the tail end of a fascinating Radiolab episode about how ancient cultures don’t seem to have a word for the color blue. The classic example is in Homer, when the narrator refers to the “wine-dark sea.”

I had heard of this phenomenon before and enjoyed hearing the radio show use its unique investigative techniques to tease apart the significance of no mentions of blue. Spoiler alert: the end conclusion is that human eyes have been able to see blue practically forever, but that words denoting blue don’t seem to show up in languages until the corresponding cultures find the technologies to create blue dyes and pigments. True blue is actually rather rare in nature and one of the hardest colors to create (unlike red, which can be made from simple clays and is the first named color in all languages after black and white).

Researchers have visited an African tribe that still doesn’t have a word for blue and shown them color swatches that are all various shades of green and then one blue and asked them to point out the different one. The participants didn’t seem to even see the difference even while they stood out starkly to the experiment designers.

Everyone on the radio show marveled at this phenomenon — how could someone not see blue just because they don’t have a word for it? Isn’t it so obvious that the sky is blue? (Another spoiler: actually not really when this hasn’t been pointed out as “true” fact — many days the sky is actually gray or white.)

I suppose it does seem funny at first that someone wouldn’t be able to see blue, especially in a culture where teaching children the colors of the rainbow is part of introductory language skills. Look at board books for toddlers, and you’ll inevitably see pages sorted by color because apparently we think this is a very important early skill to have!

But I had to laugh at the naivete of the radio voices. Because, of course, this is how perception works. When we learn to identify something (often by giving it a name and thereby categorizing it), it suddenly stands out to us.

Because our culture is very invested in the idea of blue, not being able to immediately distinguish “blue” from a similar tone of “green” seems ridiculous and almost unbelievable. But, my friends, you should sit down with a painter sometime and learn about all the “obvious” color differences that you have yet to notice because you don’t know their names and haven’t spent hours carefully mixing them.

Furthermore, if I were to play for you various notes for you on the piano, would you be able to pick out an E? I know people who can, but I can’t at this point. If you are singing, can you tell if you go flat? To an experienced musician, that sounds will be painfully obvious, but many people cannot distinguish that “obvious” sound.

Likewise, have you ever been at a dinner with any of our wonderful local wine industry professionals and listened to them remark on tones in the wine that you just don’t notice? I have.

It’s not always sufficient to point to something once and say “this is the color blue” (apparently not, because we stuff our children with color information repeatedly throughout childhood), but through repeated exposure and examples, “blueness” becomes obvious. This is why I (as a novice wine drinker) can’t always distinguish the same flavors in wine that people much more experienced can. It’s not necessarily because my taste buds are less sensitive, but because my mind has fewer examples of those tones to draw upon for comparison.

On the farm, we have observed in ourselves and people working with us that the longer a person works with a particular crop, the easier it is to see the markers for appropriate maturity. A classic example (and appropriate right now!) is learning to see the perfectly ripe snap pea. The first few times a person picks, they will have to consciously consider each pea for size and shape and consider to input of a more experienced picker (too small; too fat; etc.). But after years of picking, perfectly mature peas are so obvious that picking can be done much quicker and almost unconsciously while carrying on a conversation or listening to the radio. Casey and I had this experience with almost every crop we’ve grown, that our years of learning to see it translates into a kind of expertise that allows us to make very quick and accurate decisions when harvesting (or planting or weeding or doing ground prep, etc.).

One of my favorite parts of the second Genesis creation story is when God brings all the animals and creatures of the earth to name them (Gen 2:19-20). Many people read this story as a narrative of domination, but I always read it as a story about learning to know about the world. When we give names (or learn names from others) for things, we see them in an entirely different way.

For me, this is one of the true joys of living and learning. I absolutely love the experience of increasing my knowledge of the world and thereby fundamentally shifting the way I experience everything. Spending our days on the farm and learning about the world around us has brought so much more definition and richness and depth into my perception, and I know that this process will only continue as I continue to make time to observe and learn.

What is a forest if you walk through it unaware of the diversity of creatures living there? How does that experience fundamentally change if you slow down and take the time to learn to identify the differences between the plants and trees (usually by learning the names others have given them)? I have spent years now hiking the same trails near our farm, and I still see new plants each year and learn new bird calls. The more I learn, the more I am able to see what I don’t yet know. This spring, I noticed and identified blooming Western Meadowrue for the first time — a beautiful tall plant with distinctive male and female blossoms. I can guarantee you that I will not miss this plant in future springs, but I can’t say I remember seeing it at all in past years. Of course I did, but I did not see it until I took the time to notice, learn, and, yes, name.

It’s like walking through a large crowd and seeing only a blur of faces and then seeing a person you know and recognize. But with each year, I become friends with more and more of what I see in the forest, by the river, and along the hedges of our farm.

What do you see? A bunch of green leaves? Or, familiar friends with names? (See below for names.)

I could list countless more examples from different parts of life, all of which are experiences that I genuinely treasure in my heart. This is the joy of life. When we take the time to learn in these ways, our appreciation of whatever we love is enhanced, whether it be fine wines, music, the natural world, poetry, athletic endeavors …

It is a great joy to be sharing my lifelong love of learning with our growing children. I do think that a love of learning is such a natural part of who we are as people that it is an easily contagious kind of passion. Here’s to always learning and seeing new things!

Enjoy this week’s vegetables!

Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla

P.S. The leaf samples from our hedge are, from left to right: Linden, wild clematis, Oregon ash, redosier dogwood, hazelnut, and cherry!

P.P.S. On a different note: Oregon ballots are due by 8 p.m. next Tuesday, May 15! Remember to vote! You can find a list of Yamhill County drop sites here.

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Meet this week’s vegetables:

• Cilantro
• Radishes
• Salad turnips
• Sugar snap peas
• Fennel bulbs
• Head lettuce
• Chard
• Butternut squash
• Marina di Chioggia squash
• Spring onions
• Green garlic

Sandals drying after afternoon creek fun

“Summer is a-coming in” is the first line in a very old round, and it’s been running through my head today. In the song, the singers point out the signs of summer: “Loudly sing cuckoo” and “Ewe bleateth after lamb.” Around here, the signs are a little different but present nonetheless.

Yesterday was May Day, which for me often feels like a significant turning point in the seasons, as we leave behind predictably wet cool days and head into the dry warm season. Not that May and June won’t bring showers (they often do!), but the balance shifts usually right about now. Regardless of the actual weather, the days are now lengthening significantly, with many more light hours in each 24-hour cycle. More sunlight means lots of green growth all around! Trees are putting on leaves in earnest.

More signs of summer a-coming in here on the farm: newly planted crops growing in the fields … sandals drying in the sun after an afternoon of creek wading and splashing … grass growing rapidly all around … red clover blooming in the cover crop … red-wing blackbird songs in the morning … lilacs blooming by the door … and, the first of the sugar snap pea harvest!

PEAS!

Enjoy this week’s vegetables!

Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla

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Meet this week’s vegetables:

• Cilantro
• Sugar snap peas — LIMITED THIS WEEK! Please only take one item worth. The first of the year! More to come … if you’re unfamiliar with sugar snap peas, these are the kind that have a delicious, sweet, tender pod you can eat along with the peas inside. Our kids are SO excited that these are in season again! For them, it’s the very first of the year’s parade of delicious fruit crops.
• Salad turnips
• Head lettuce — LIMITED THIS WEEK! Please only take one item worth.
• Spinach — LIMITED THIS WEEK! Please only take one item worth.
• Fennel bulbs
• Chard
• Butternut squash
• Marina di Chioggia squash
• Green garlic

Planting time!

I apologize that the newsletter is going out so much later than normal. Today was an exceptionally full day in our household.

Casey has made good use of the dry sunny weather to work up ground and get planting again (outside the greenhouses!), so between yesterday and today he harvested for the CSA and planted: kale, napa cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli raab, green onions, cantaloupe, watermelon, cucumbers, head lettuce, and rainbow chard. He also sowed: bush beans, lettuce, basil, carrots, more kale, and cilantro.

Meanwhile, the kids and I did school as usual and went on a hike with friends where we saw lots of wildflowers blooming in the woods at Airport Park.

We also both prayed a lot for Erick (see last week’s newsletter for details). I also checked social media and email a lot looking for updates and haven’t seen anything definitive yet as to whether his execution went through as scheduled today or whether he received a last minute stay. I will let you know.

We also hosted the last of a series of town halls Casey has been having, this one in Willamina. Talk about a full day!

But, it’s exciting to have plants in the ground and to be working on so many other positive projects too.

Enjoy this week’s vegetables!

Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla

P.S. Dottie visited Casey while he was planting and took a little field rest in the shade of the fava beans:

“Doesn’t this look so nice, Mama?”

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Meet this week’s vegetables:

• Cilantro
• Bok choy
• Radishes
• Salad turnips
• Lettuce or salad mix
• Kale
• Kale rapini
• Chard
• Sunchokes
• Marina di Chioggia squash
• Butternut squash
• Green garlic — What is “green” garlic, you ask? This is the same plant but before the garlic have formed a bulb and dried down. In this green stage, the flavor is milder but still very savory. Prep it how you might a green onion or leek (chop the white part but also any tender greens) and add it to the oil before you cook greens … or use it in any other garlic-y application! It’s a special spring treat!

Pretty spring food

Last night, I woke up with a heavy heart in the early not-yet-morning hours. This happens to me sometimes, as I’m sure it does to others too. It is amazing how out-of-proportion worries can be in those dark hours being the only person awake in the house.

My heart can feel like it literally hurts (which apparently is somewhat true with emotional pain — it can be measured in the brain just like physical pain). Last night I was weighing the wisdom of caring about the situation of others, because sometimes that feels like it just brings extra pain into my life. To put it simply, seeing injustice and pain and frustration in the world and then caring about changing those situations is hard.

The desire to help others is of course a big part of why Casey’s running for office right now, but campaigning brings its own special kind of frustration and pain as I’m sure you can imagine! But I also have another thing weighing on my heart that I want to share with you in the hopes that perhaps you too can put it in your heart and do that thing we call prayer.

I am pen pals with a 31-year old Texas man who is currently on death row. Erick and I met through the Death Row Support Project. He is scheduled for execution next Wednesday, April 25.

I have always found the death penalty to be morally repugnant — how does killing one person fix the earlier loss? That’s assuming that the person being executed is actually guilty of the original crime, which is not always true in a justice system built and operated by flawed humans who can make mistakes.

But, of course, knowing a person who is actually going to be executed gives me a new level of awareness of the death penalty and its consequences. Erick has a nine year-old son and a partner outside of prison.

With a week left before his execution, there is still the possibility that Erick’s execution could be stayed or rescheduled. But seven people have already been executed in the U.S. this calendar year, so this is a real threat to his life.

I bring this up here for a few reasons. First, it’s something that’s on our mind here on the farm. Both Casey and I have Erick in our thoughts most of the time. Second, the primary goal of the Death Row Support Project is to provide meaningful connections to people on death row, but I think an equally important second goal is to humanize people who have received a death sentence — and thereby raise awareness of the death penalty itself. For many of us, it’s not a daily reality, nor something we fear for our children. But it’s a reality that will not change without a level of awareness and attention. I wanted to spread that awareness via my story of my friendship with Erick and my own possible upcoming loss.

But, lastly, I share this story to hopefully enlist your prayers (or meditations or intentions or thoughts) for Erick. I ask for prayers for a miracle that will change the outcome. And, on April 25, I ask for prayers for Erick as he possibly departs this world in a manner none of us would choose for ourselves or our loved ones. I ask for prayers just of love and prayers that he feels held, carried, embraced. Or, simply pray for whatever feels fitting to you based on your faith or spiritual tradition.

Another American in prison, whom I don’t personally know, is scheduled for execution tomorrow in Alabama. If you feel so moved, you could also offer prayers for Walter. If you’d like to see a list of upcoming scheduled executions so that you could continue praying or meditating for people, here is a link to that information.

Thank you all for your care.

And, of course, still do please enjoy this week’s vegetables!

Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla

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Meet this week’s vegetables:

• Fennel bulbs
• Head lettuce — LIMITED! 1/share
• Spinach — LIMITED! 1/share
• Radishes
• Turnips
• Kale
• Chard
• Marina de Chioggia squash
• Butternut squash
• Green garlic

The view from our upstairs window: a rainy day and a pear tree in full bloom.

Sometimes when I’m not sure what exactly to write about for the weekly newsletter (by our count, I’ve written over 500 newsletter!), I go for a stroll around the farm with a camera to see what stories arise in pictures.

This week is all about blooms. So many trees are in some stage of bloom, including (most notably here on the island) the cherries. The landscape is filled with white trees, including those wonderful annual surprises of blooming trees tucked into unexpected places along waterways and in hedges.

Cherry blossoms!

Pear blossoms!

The earliest of the apples are blooming!

Even the peas are getting in on the action …

But, it’s also April. That month associated with showers. And, I observed today that those same blooms just can’t shine their brightest when it is dark and gloomy out. April showers dampen April flowers? Maybe.

The rain this last week has certainly had a dampening effect on other parts of our household. Casey’s been a little under the weather, and the kids were pretty antsy by the end of the very wet weekend (just shy of 3″ over the weekend!). Normally they spend a good part of the day outside, at the very least running outside to release energy a few times a day. They’re great at doing this in all kinds of weather, but pouring rain felt like a barrier even to them.

It’s hard for all of us to not feel antsy for the coming turn in weather, when more days are dry and warm than not. It is coming very soon (May seems like the tipping point).

But I’m working hard to appreciate every day’s gift. And in the last week I’ve been especially grateful for our small cozy house and the shelter it gives us in all kinds of storms. I’ve also been grateful for the joy of indoor pursuits. Good books makes my mental gratitude list almost every evening. I’m in the midst of a great fun engrossing epic novel, which helps make up for the rainy weather outside. And, this weekend, amidst another very wet afternoon, Rusty sat down and for the first time really got sucked into a novel for a lengthy period of time and finished the last quarter of Redwall, a book he’d been working through since January.

The forecast is for more and more rain, so I’m sure good books will stay on my gratitude list for a while yet. But when I look out the window to the south, even in the gathering darkness, I can see the band of white in our neighbor’s cherry orchard, reminding me that summer is very much on its way, soon to bring all the sweetness of that season.

Enjoy this week’s vegetables!

Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla

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Meet this week’s vegetables:

• Apples — The apples are beginning to bloom, and last year’s harvest is about done! This is the last week of apples until mid-summer … but the strawberries are blooming now too.
• Cilantro
• Radishes
• Salad turnips
• Seasonal salad mix — Almost entirely from greenhouses this week, featuring lots of tender greens.
• Kale rapini
• Cabbage rapini
• Chard
• Butternut squash
• Marina di Chioggia
• Sunchokes

Snack time!

Somewhat regularly, our kids go out to the fields to “graze” on whatever tender greens are growing out there — fennel tops, rapini, and chickweed are among their top hits. Grazing like that is pretty much their favorite way to eat greens. If we serve a salad at the table, one of them will eat it (most of the time), but the other will pass.

But nibbling greens fresh in the fields has a magic appeal that never seems to grow old for them. They also loving sharing their finds with friends.

Most kids seem to be up for the adventure of greens nibbling, even if they too might not love salad at other times. Over the years, Casey and I have been amazed at how open kids are to tasting new things in the context of a field walk. Some of these greens have very strong flavors (by kids standards), and yet when presented as an experience, kid palettes respond differently apparently.

I have to admit that it is a cool experience to realize that food can be part of our landscape. That we can walk around and nibble edible things, rather than just find them stacked tidily (and for sale) inside stores.

I remember years ago when my younger cousin came to visit us from Southern California during blackberry season. She spent the morning helping Casey and me weeding and then we all roads bicycles down to the river, stopping to pick blackberries on the way. I didn’t think she would be so impressed by our lifestyle given how much fun hers sounded, but she repeatedly exclaimed at the wonder of eating food just growing along the road.

The kids and I read a book about the Kalapuya people as part of school this year: The World of the Kalapuya. “Kalapuya” is actually a family of languages but is in the case of the book used to describe the linguistically connected people who lived in what we now call the Willamette Valley. Much of the book was interesting to the kids and me, but I think we were most intrigued by imagining how different this place where we live must have looked hundreds of years ago. When Europeans first began exploring North America, they concluded that native peoples did not practice agriculture, because the landscape did not resemble their conceptions of a tended, cultivated landscape. In Europe this would mean fences marking fields (in part because of domesticated food animals, something people in the Americas did not have) and tillage.

What we learned in the book about the Kalapuya is that people native to the Willamette very intentionally cultivated food crops but using tools unfamiliar to Europeans. Fire was a very important tool for the Kalapuya peoples, and was used to prepare land for planting, to maintain open grasslands for hunting, to harvest crops such as tarweed, and to rejuvenate other perennial crops (such as camas). Much of the landscape would have been productive for some form of food: wapato growing along the edges of waterways, berries growing in thickets, nettles growing under the shelter of forests, large fields of staple crops growing in other places.

As we learned about their food sources and how they tended, cultivated or promoted their production, the kids and I marveled at what all that must have looked like. I know that I have a instinctive response to the beauty of the Oak savannah grassland, an ecological feature most likely owing its original shaping to human activity. Conservationists today are working to reestablish such ecosystems, because they are historical to the place and because they are systems that can teem with all kinds of ecological diversity, clearly benefiting more than just people.

Later this year, we will enjoy eating the handfuls of salmonberry that grow along one of our favorite local trails. (They have already bloomed!) As the kids know so well, finding food in our landscape is a treat, and for me it is extra special to enjoy those foods that have been native to this place long before our arrival. Foods that would have nourished people who shaped this landscape over centuries and millennia with their own tending and cultivation.

There is, too, deep sadness to eat those berries and remember the very hard history of how those people came to dwindle in numbers (disease) and then be displaced (onto reservations) and then stripped of cultural memories (through forced schooling). I’d like to follow that statement up with some kind of “but …” statement that turns this around, but — no — there really is just sadness and grief mixed right in there with the sweet joy of finding a berry in the forest.

We talk a lot in our house about the future and responsibility and how do we live now, knowing the past that has come before us. It’s something we wrestle with as parents (especially as homeschooling parents), wanting our children to grow up with a rich, complicated understanding of this place where we live and the people who do and have inhabited it. Today we read Martin’s Big Words in order to observe the 50th anniversary of King’s assassination. History is important around here: the history of people and natural history too.

Whatever actions Rusty and Dottie choose to take in their life, to work for justice or to create or to just live kindly, they know the taste of these foods that make up our landscape. They know that there are stories in the fields and in the forests, that flavors can be found living and growing around us. It’s something.

Enjoy this week’s vegetables!

Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla

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Meet this week’s vegetables:

• Apples — We’re almost done with apples for the season! Then we’ll have a fruit gap while we wait for the strawberries to come on in May.
• Sunchoke & kale ferment — A small amount of this ferment left. Time to think of the next ferment possibility!
• Bok choy — This is a tender Asian green, suitable for eating raw or quick cooking (such as in a wok). Pairs well with garlic, soy sauce, sesame oil/seeds, and ginger.
• Radishes
• Head lettuce — The first head lettuce of the year! Because these are the first, we’re going to limit them to 1/household for this week. Thank you for your understanding! Much more lettuce is on the way! (Trust me, spring is such a lettuce-filled season!)
• Salad turnips — LIMITED as well for this week! These turnips are a spring treat. They are delicious to eat raw, resembling a smooth, mild radish. Eat the leaves, too!
• Chard
• Red russian kale rapini — Beautiful kale rapini! Still some leaves, but mostly just the tender stalk and buds
• Carrots
• Sunchokes
• Marina di Chioggia
• Butternut

Outer loop trail at Miller Woods

One of the very cool (and unexpected) results of having someone in our family running for office is that we’re paying attention more to this place where we live. I mean, regular readers of these newsletters know that, in general, we like to pay attention. And paying attention, as the wise older nun in Lady Bird (the recent movie) pointed out, that maybe love and paying attention are the same thing.

But, a change in situation naturally puts a fresh focus on everything. I have to admit, spring also puts a fresh focus on our perspective too. As Casey and I have traveled around Yamhill County recently, we’re both struck (again!) by how awesome this place is where we live. And, it just seems to be getting more and more awesome as the years go by.

The kids spent two days early this week at an Outdoor Education Adventure camp at Miller Woods. Need I say that they had a total blast? Friends and newts and hiking and mud and all the good things. Yay! Both days that I dropped them off, I took advantage of the opportunity to hike the newly lengthened 4.5 mile outer loop at a brisk pace. It felt like a rare luxury in our full farming life to hike by myself both mornings (a chilly foggy luxury!). I also marveled at how Miller Woods did not even exist when we moved here in 2006. Certainly, the land and the woods were there, but they had not yet been developed into something open to the public, filled with well maintained trails and educational opportunities for all. I am grateful that, many years ago, people had the vision for what Miller Woods could be come. It’s a place our family enjoys visiting frequently now, and I’m so glad that it continues to be thoughtfully improved and maintained.

Checking out the views from above

This evening, our family had the opportunity to visit a newer addition to Yamhill County as the brand new Atticus Hotel invited the community for an open house. What a blast! The halls were packed with locals, all curious to see the hotel we’d been watching get built from the outside. It was certainly fun seeing the careful attention to detail in all the rooms, but we also just loved seeing so many people we know from our community in one place, everyone having fun as they explored the new hotel.

I could go on and on talking about the cool places we love or find interesting in our community. I’m sure you could too. And, given that both of these particular examples from this week are new since our moving to the area over a decade ago, I can’t help but feel excited about the future and what it holds too.

I like to think that our little farm also brings some of that same “I-love-this-place!” feeling to the people who buy our vegetables. That’s certainly been our goal since day one.

Enjoy this week’s vegetables!

Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla

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CSA payment due! Your next CSA payment is due to us by tomorrow, Thursday March 29. I emailed statements early last week. Please let me know if you have any questions!

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Meet this week’s vegetables:

• Apples
• Sunchoke & kale ferment — This week’s ferment features a new twist: sunchokes and kale!
• Radishes
• Seasonal salad mix
• Kale with rapini — The kale is beginning to form rapini, as well as putting out lots of new tender leaves. The bunches this week feature both: the tender leaves, the thicker tender stalks, and rapini buds.
• Chard
• Cabbage
• Cabbage rapini
• Marina di Chioggia
• Butternut squash
• Carrots
• Beets
• Sunchokes

Spring green abounds!

Happy spring! The equinox was yesterday, bringing with it another glorious sunny day, befitting the wonder and enthusiasm of this season!

Spring brings a flurry of activity in our family. In addition to being a time to sow seeds and plants, we celebrate many occasions right around now. My birthday was last week (37! yay!), and then this weekend Casey and I celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary. Yes, we were very young when we got married. This year we went out for dinner by ourselves to Thistle and enjoyed eating the wonderful product of local farmers (us + others) and creative skilled chefs. It was a truly amazing meal. (Also, we know that we could have had amazing meals at many fine dining establishments both downtown McMinnville or in other parts of our county … how incredibly blessed are we as a community to be surrounded by so much good food?! Sometimes I am just overwhelmed by the awesomeness of our home.)

The new day of each season is also always a mini celebration in our family. When Rusty was younger, I made the “executive” decision that Casey and I wouldn’t give our kids presents on the typical occasions of birthdays and Christmas, since that’s when they typically receive presents from other family. Too many presents at once can be over-stimulating for children, so I decided to save Casey and my little presents for the first day of each season. Both Rusty and Dottie receive a couple of small tokens of the season — usually a book or something to help us explore the world — and they look forward to finding out what the new season has brought in more ways than one.

This year the kids both received new pairs of small hand pruners, because they love making bouquets all spring and summer long. They also got a big reference book about wildflowers and plants around the world and a flower press. So far, the flower selection in our immediate landscape are pretty limited, but Dottie and I enjoyed walking in the delicious warm March sunshine as we collected a few early specimens for pressing: rapini blossoms, grape hyacinth, speedwell, dead nettle, sheperd’s purse, and rosemary blossoms.

I would be remiss if at some point I didn’t also mention how much time has been consumed by working on Casey’s campaign for Yamhill County Commissioner. He and I have both been putting in extra hours every day, fitting them into spare moments we didn’t even realize we had in our existing farming, homeschooling, business-operating routine. Even though Casey’s been talking about running for office for a few years now, I always somewhat dreaded the experience of campaigning. But it’s been surprisingly fun for both of us, utilizing skills and activities that we both love: Casey, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, genuinely loves connecting with people and hearing their stories, and he’s getting to meet so many wonderful new people in the course of campaigning. I’ve been able to use the skills I’ve honed through running our business: writing for Casey’s website, setting up social media, and making simple graphics (my motto is “done is better than perfect,” which is of course a variation on the oldie but good aphorism: “perfect is the enemy of the good”).

Now that spring is really here and our family celebrations are behind us, it feels like go time around here in so many ways. Time to seed! Time to make sure we finish the school year strong (only 11.5 weeks left for us!). Go, go, go! Thankfully the energy of the season is so inspiring, with the increasing day length and the signs of growth every where. We are grateful to be at this point in the year. Spring always feels like the ultimate gift.

Enjoy this week’s vegetables!

Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla

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CSA payment due next week! I emailed our quarterly CSA statement and payment reminders this weekend. If you have any balance due, you should have received one with a note about your next payment amount. You can bring checks/cash to pick-up or mail us a check: Oakhill Organics, P.O. Box 1698, McMinnville OR 97128. Please let me know if you have any questions!

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Meet this week’s vegetables:

• Spicy sauerkraut
• Apples
• Radishes
• Cabbage
• Seasonal salad mix — Mostly rapini and arugula this week!
• Kale/rapini — The kale is putting out tender rapini, and this week’s bunches are a mix of the tender new growth leaves, plus tender thick stalks and rapini buds. The kale is abundant, so it’s two bunches is an item this week!
• Chard
• Carrots
• Beets
• Sunchokes
• Marina di Chioggia squash
• Spaghetti squash
• Pie pumpkins
• Butternut squash

Plum blossoms!

Hasn’t the weather this last week been glorious? Here on the farm, we’ve been rejoicing in  all the sunshine, knowing how even just a few hours of warm direct sunlight can boost all the growth of our spring crops.

It also has meant that our earliest plums are getting pollinated! The challenge with early tree fruit is that in some years they bloom amidst heavy rain or frigid weather or wind storms … all of which inhibit the flight and work of pollinator insects. Every single plum you’ll eat this summer will have begun as a small blossom, and each of those small blossoms requires the helpful work of various kinds of bees, wasps and flies who travel from bloom to bloom spreading the pollen and turning blossoms into fruitlets.

March’s weather is variable by definition, so it’s true that some years we get beautiful bursts of warm weather like this week. But that weather might not correspond perfectly with bloom. Those are the years when we pick fewer than average plums.

This weekend, when the trees were in full bloom and the warm sun was shining down on the farm, Dottie and I walked from tree to tree, smelling the sweet blossoms and listening. The sound of pollination is a steady buzzing from above, and we heard it! The thrumming of insects at work! What a joyous early spring sound!

We still have months of spring ahead, with who knows what kind of weather. But this is a good start toward lots and lots of our favorite early, juicy, red plums! Much to look forward to, but of course this early spring sunshine is truly a gift all on its own, warming our bodies and souls.

Enjoy this week’s vegetables!

Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla

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Meet this week’s vegetables:

• Apples
• Mixed veggie ferment — This week’s ferment contains: cabbage, sunchokes, carrots, beets, and winter squash!
• Radishes — Less baby-sized this week, still tender and perfect!
• Cabbage rapini
• Kale & kale rapini — 2 bunches is one item this week! The rapini is especially wonderful!
• Cabbage
• Carrots
• Sunchokes
• Beets
• Spaghetti squash
• Marina di Chioggia squash
• Butternut squash
• Pie pumpkins

Solar on our farm!

The above photo features the extent of our farm’s solar power at the moment. This panel and box are a former energizer for mobile electric fencing. During the five years that we had livestock on our farm, these energizers were what made it possible for us to pasture our animals in some very big fields, far from any immediate sources of electricity. We would hook one of these up to long sections of net fencing, and the sun itself would keep the interior battery charged and keep our fences nice and hot, keeping our livestock in and predator animals out.

Now, we’ve rigged this panel up for a different purpose. We keep it around for emergency purposes, when our home might lose electricity for a long period of time (always planning for “The Big One,” you know!). Casey purchased an inverter so that we can convert the DC power to AC, and we can plug in various devices. We could use this set-up to charge our cell phones and computer and (on a sunny day) even operate a crock pot!

But, we were recently contacted by a solar power company, ForeFront Power, about majorly upping the solar presence on our farm. Apparently, some of our land is a potentially suitable spot for a larger scale solar installation, and they wrote offering to rent the land from us for that purpose.

You may have heard of such installations, because they are a hot topic here in Yamhill County right now. On March 22, the Yamhill County Planning Commission will hear testimony on a proposed ban on solar generation facilities on prime farmland (parcels comprised of primarily Classes I-IV soils). We received notice of the proposed ban just a short time before receiving the rental offer, and we’ve been thinking and talking about the role of solar on the farm ever since. Is it a compatible use of farmland? How would such installations affect the long-term conservation of farmland for future use? What impacts would they have on farms and neighbors?

These are big questions! In my gut, I wasn’t feeling like an outright ban was the right answer, but I also didn’t feel like I had all the information about the installations either. Casey and I have worked hard on farmland conservation issues in the past, and so I wanted to listen to the voices supporting the ban, which includes many parties we’ve worked with closely on other land-use questions. I listened to their concerns carefully, which left me wanting more information.

As an environmentalist, I feel like I’ve been waiting my whole life for solar power to finally be affordable enough to become a real presence in the energy market. Oregon’s current sources of power are not considered renewable. The coal power plant at Boardman is scheduled to be closed in 2020. Oregon’s dams are aging and filling with silt and are increasingly seen as very problematic for key wildlife habitat. As someone who is relatively young and facing the reality of climate change well within in my lifetime, I feel so ready to embrace clean, renewable power for Oregon (and beyond!). So it’s been very confusing (and quite frankly upsetting) to see solar power arrive in Yamhill County in seeming conflict with farmland conservation … to see its arrival instill fear rather than a relieved hearty welcome, even by other environmentalists! I really needed to better understand the situation.

So, I decided to contact Forefront Power, the people who offered to rent our land. And, just so you know upfront, we are not renting any land to them. When they did their assessment, they didn’t take into account whether land is in the floodway — ours is, making it an unsuitable site. Nonetheless, I had their info on my desk, and I figured they could probably answer a lot of my questions as well as anyone. I spoke with Land Development Manager Nate Butler on the phone yesterday, and I wanted to share some of the information I learned from him.

The big caveat here is that of course Butler represents one of the companies hoping to build solar power generation facilities on farmland here in Yamhill County. So, he’s not an unbiased source of information if one is looking for opinions. But I figured that his intimate knowledge of the specifics was something I was lacking in my understanding of the situation.

The other limitation of this information is that it only represents the answers of one solar company, and there are others working in Yamhill County too. But, it’s a start, and I learned more than I knew beforehand.

So, with those caveats in mind, here are the questions I asked and a summary in my own words of Butler’s answers:

How are these solar panels installed? What is the physical set-up on the land?

Butler explained that part of ForeFront Power’s model is to keep costs down as much as possible for their installations. So, they look for land that is already cleared and relatively level to begin with. Topsoil is not graded or removed. Steel posts are driven into the ground in rows (no digging or concrete footings), onto which a rail is mounted. Solar panels are mounted onto those rails. In one style of installation, those solar panels would be mounted to rotate through the day to catch the sun (so facing east at sunrise and tracking the sun to the west at sunset). So that they don’t shade out other panels, the rows are spaced about 15 to 20 feet apart.

A fence is installed around the site for safety and security purposes. An inverter is also installed on the site to convert the electricity from DC power to AC for the grid. This equipment does require a concrete pad.

Alleyways are kept in a cover of some kind, such as grass or other vegetation easy to maintain. Butler pointed out that dust is bad for solar panels, so preventing bare soil is a priority for them. They also avoid using gravel because it costs much more than a vegetative cover (both to lay down initially and to remove after the installation).

The eventual removal of all parts of the installation at the end of the lease are included in the initial installation cost.

[I want to add: If you drive around Yamhill County today, you will see older existing installations that do not fit this particular model. There are some with aggregate on the ground, for example. Clearly not every company has worked from the same exact plan. However, it is also my understanding that Yamhill County is requiring all new installations to be more conservation minded through the use of conditions of approval.]

Is there any contamination risk to the soil?

Butler said that the panels themselves contain no liquid chemicals or other potential contaminants. The panels are made out of crystalline silicon—either monocrystalline or polycrystalline. The panels and inverters have electronics in them, which like all electronics (computers, phones, etc.) will have small amounts of metals and other components. However, all electronic components are sealed in the equipment. No other liquids are stored on site.

What is the typical lifespan of an installation?

Leases are typically for 20 years, because that is the typical length of an energy contract. The lifespan of the equipment can be a bit longer and leases have the potential to be extended. At the end of the lease, the company removes all parts of the installation so that the land can be farmed again.

Why install on farmland at all?

ForeFront Power looks for a few factors when selecting a site: relatively flat ground that is already clear. The site also needs to be adjacent to three-phase power lines, which are common near irrigated farmland (irrigation pumps are often three-phase).

Why not lower quality farmland?

Butler said that farmland classed lower than IV is often categorized that way in part because it is steeply sloped or very rocky or extremely wet — all of which pose burdens to an installation. Such land is rarely irrigated too, making it less likely to be adjacent to three-phase power.

Why not just put solar panels on roofs and along roadways and in abandoned industrial areas?

This question was a bit beyond the purview of Butler’s job since he works to develop a particular model.

However, we talked through the cost of different kinds of installations. Butler explained that rooftop installations are more expensive because there are certain fixed costs involved with any installation, and so the smaller the installation the more expensive it is for the power produced. He also explained that if a roof or roadway isn’t oriented toward south, the efficacy of the panels is decreased.

I did some of my own research on this question, curious about the energy potential of big box stores in particular. I found a publication about rooftop solar panels called “Solar on Superstores,” published in 2016 by Environment America. The publication makes the case for why big box stores themselves would benefit from installing solar panels. On average, according to the study, a big box store can offset its own electricity use by 42%.

Are these installations subsidized by the government?

Butler said that solar installations receive a 30% tax credit (the Investment Tax Credit), which will expire in 2020. Butler noted that all sectors of the energy industry receive some subsidies and public funding in some form.

Who owns ForeFront Power?

ForeFront Power is owned by a Japanese company, Mitsui.

Where will the electricity produced go?

Some people have expressed concern about energy produced in Yamhill County be used elsewhere. Butler said that because of limitations of the grid itself and the scale of the installations, the power would all be delivered locally. ForeFront Power works with a new program called the Community Solar Model that allows individual parties to choose to buy solar.

What’s to stop all of Yamhill County’s best farmland from being turned into solar installations?

[I want to add my own note here before sharing my summary of Butler’s answers. Right now the state of Oregon limits solar installations to 12 acres on Exclusive Farm Use zoned land. Also, already such installations have to go through a conditional use permit process with Yamhill County, which is an extensive process involving neighbor input. When Yamhill County approves such permits, they also have the ability to place additional conditions on the project in order to meet the county’s own conservation goals that might exceed those of individual companies. For example, requiring a company to use a vegetative cover rather than aggregate cover if that had been their plan. Butler offered further insight into existing limitations on these kinds of installations …]

Butler explained that the grid itself is a limitation of how many such installations can be built in Yamhill County. They need to be installed adjacent to lines with three-phase power, which does not exist in all parts of the county. Also, they need to be installed within two miles of a substation, and each of the existing substations in the county could probably handle one (or maybe two) such installations.

Because of their relatively small size (maxed at 12 acres), these installations do not produce enough electricity to justify upgrading such infrastructure. Butler estimated that, given these limitations, he didn’t expect there to be more than 300 acres of such installations in Yamhill County.

How much electricity do these installations produce?

A 12 acre installation would be 2 megawatts. In Oregon, Butler estimated that this amount of solar panel electricity potential would meet the energy needs of 200-400 homes.

I wanted to get a sense of the overall energy potential for Yamhill County if the solar companies maxed out the existing available land and infrastructure, so I used Butler’s 300 acre estimate to do some “ag math.” “Ag math” is what Casey and I call the math we use to estimate yields for certain plantings and then income potential. It’s always pie-in-the-sky, because actual yields inevitably vary, but it helps us envision our planning to some extent.

So, using ag math, I figured that 300 acres would equal about 25 2 megawatt installations, each producing the energy for 200-400 homes. So, 25 x 200-400 = 5,000-10,000 homes that could be powered by solar energy. According to the last census, there were 35,000 households living in Yamhill County. So, based on this rough “ag math,” 300 acres of Yamhill County land could produce up to one-quarter of the county’s households’ power.

That’s the extent of my Q & A with Butler. And, I just want to point out again that our family has no financial ties with ForeFront Power (or any solar company), nor do we intend to in the future. We have not financial stake in the outcome of the ban, either way. My purpose of pursuing this conversation was because of my own curiosity and my desire to better understand what feels like a surprisingly complex situation.

I’m still chewing on all of this, preparing for the March 22 hearing on the topic before the Yamhill County Planning Commission.

Given these answers, it does not seem to me as though installations (such as these) pose a threat to long-term farmland conservation in Yamhill County. None of the practices qualitatively differ from regular approved farming practices used throughout the county For example, pounding stakes for trellises, installing fencing, not using the native soil for production purposes, and pouring a concrete pad for some part of an operation or farm building are all normal farming practices seen throughout the county on farms of different kinds.

In the short-run, land put into solar installations will be removed from traditional agricultural production, which could be a concern for farmers who worry about increased competition for land access. However, if Butler is accurate about the limitations, we’re talking about potentially 300 acres, spread on parcels distributed throughout the county. To put this in perspective with other farmland conservation issues in Yamhill County, the gravel quarry that was approved on the south end of Grand Island (one of two approved on the island) represents 224 acres of farmland that would be permanently removed from production by the end of the quarry’s operation.

I should also address the question of aesthetics. I have heard that some people think solar installations are unsightly and sully the agricultural landscape. This is a highly subjective opinion, so a hard one to verify one way or the other. I do think that people unfamiliar with the agricultural industry can sometimes unknowingly foster a simplistic, romantic vision of what agriculture is. It’s important to remember that part of why “right to farm” laws exist in Oregon is because many normal, approved agricultural practices are semi-industrial and have affects that might be deemed unpleasant (noise and dust, for example). If you look closely as you drive along Yamhill County’s rural roads, you will see that semi-industrial nature present throughout our landscape: pole buildings, large equipment yards, packing sheds, security lighting, fences, and more. These non-pastoral scenes are an integral part of agriculture, necessary for supporting farm businesses, and therefore a real part of our landscape. The majority of our rural landscapes are beautiful too — so beautiful! But being beautiful is not the first purpose of farmland, just a side benefit of much of agricultural production.

That being said, because beauty is so subjective, I have to admit that I don’t find the existing installations in Yamhil County unsightly — aside from where I have seen the application of gravel on the ground. (And, I am a person who loves greenery and nature!). Aesthetically, I love the patchwork quilt of different patterns and colors that make up our rural landscape. To me, the tidy lines of panels fit right in next to tidy rows of trellised berries and lines of hazelnut trees. Plus, when I see them, I immediately think: Innovation! Sustainability! The future!

I remember hearing author and farmer Kristin Kimball talk once about the solar panels that she and her husband installed on their farm in New York. She said that she wanted them placed far away from their house and farmstead because she was sure she would find them hideous and ugly. Instead, she found them surprisingly beautiful and would intentionally walk to the installation to watch the meter run on sunny days.

To me, an outright ban seems like an out-sized solution when it’s possible there might not even be a problem to be solved at all. Because a ban is a strong approach to land-use, one that Yamhill County has not yet taken for other land uses that permanently remove larger tracts of farmland from production permanently (such as gravel quarries and the landfill). The argument for not having a ban for those is that they go through a rigorous process before being approved, and that ultimately they are resources that proponents say benefit our community too (in the form of aggregate for construction and road base and waste disposal). So, it seems that having some benefit in those situations has been seen as outweighing the permanent loss of farmland.

In the case of the solar installations, there is no evidence of permanent farmland loss, but is there benefit to our community? Enough electricity to power 5,000-10,000 home in Yamhill County seems like a significant benefit, especially in a county that currently has no significant power generation sources of its own. In the event of a disaster that takes out major transmission lines, decentralized sources of power generation could function much like our little solar panel at home — they wouldn’t fully replace the former power supply, but perhaps they could help get necessary functions up and running again before everything is back to normal.

Finally, I worry that passing a ban in our ordinances would send a powerful negative message to potential innovative businesses, both within and from without Yamhill County. Are we open to innovation and new ways of thinking about our economic possibilities? Are we excited about businesses that conserve farmland while also bringing new industries to our community? Do we want to participate in solutions for the coming reality of climate change? Or, what? …

Meanwhile, yes, I think solar panels should be put up in many places besides prime farmland! Rooftops! Road sides! Yes! Yes! Yes! I’d love it if the county could even take the lead by installing solar panels on every county-owned building. Casey and I would love to install solar panels on our own roof now that the cost has made them more affordable, and we plan to do some research on whether this makes sense later this summer. (We have trees around our house, so we need to make sure our roof is really a good spot. Not every roof is created equal when it comes to solar energy generation!)

In closing, I want to say that I am publishing this newsletter with some level of trepidation. Right now the solar ban has such wide support among disparate people in Yamhill County that it feels like I’m really putting myself out there by proposing we look at it differently. Again, as I said earlier, the conflict being presented in this scenario (renewable energy vs. farmland!) makes the situation very complicated and pits two of my personal passions against one another. Ultimately, my information gathering on Yamhill County’s specific situation has led me to decide there is not a direct conflict at work in this case. If you’ve actually taken the time to read my entire newsletter, I wonder what you will think now too?

If you have concerns that I haven’t addressed here in my [very long!!!] newsletter, please let me know. I’m still chewing on all of this and am open to further conversation and hearing new evidence.

Meanwhile, we also use the sun to grow vegetables on our farm, and nobody can argue with how awesome that is! Yay for the sun! The original and best source of nuclear fusion energy! Enjoy this week’s vegetables!

Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla

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Meet this week’s vegetables:

• Apples
• Spicy sauerkraut — The spicy version of Casey’s kraut has been so popular that he made it again!
• Radishes — The first of the year! Sweet and tender out of the greenhouses. PLEASE LIMIT ONE BUNCH so that everyone can appreciate these! There will be more to come.
• Cabbage rapini
• Kale
• Chard
• Cabbage
• Winter squash — All the usual types!
• Sunchokes
• Beets
• Carrots