Oakhill Organics

Last week was time for our big fall greens planting. Casey waited until the appropriate window opened in the biodynamic planting calendar and then went to work with the seeder on Friday afternoon sowing arugula, beets, turnips, fava beans, and more! These are all crops that will go into the winter as very small plants and then grow in the late winter or spring for cold season harvesting. We are planning and preparing for 2016 in so many ways!

When I say “Fall news,” I mean fall news. No waxing poetic about the seasons this week (although I certainly could easily after this glorious Autumnal Equinox day!) — I’ve got some nitty-gritty details to share with you so that we can all be on the same page at this point in the year.

Last week’s payment reminder apparently left a lot of people wondering when this year’s CSA season actually ends! So, first important news is a calendar of important upcoming dates:

• October 1 — Final CSA payment due (unless you made other plans with us) — I emailed out account statements last week that should contain your total due, but email or check in with me if you have any questions!
• Sunday, October 25, 2 – 4 pm — Pumpkin Patch CSA open house on the farm! More details to come in future newsletters.
• November 19 — Our final 2015 CSA pick-up! It is our hope that returning members will have committed to 2016 by this date. No worries — we’ll make it a really easy process for you. We’ll have a form at pick up where you can put your name and the number of items you want next year. If you miss the really-easy form at pick-up (or just need more time to decide), we’ll have a still-pretty-easy CSA sign-up form on our website that you can submit to us any time. (New members can use that one too!)
• Wednesday, November 25 — Thanksgiving Holiday Harvest! For those of you who are new to this tradition, just before Thanksgiving and Christmas, we offer an opportunity to place special orders for food (either just for your own storage/use or for your holiday meals!). We’ll email a list of available items several days beforehand, and you email us your order for pick-up on Wednesday at the storefront. More details to come. (Folks who have ordered turkeys can pick them up this Wednesday or at the farm on Monday, Nov. 23 after they are slaughtered.)
• Tuesday, December 22 — Christmas Holiday Harvest! Same idea as above (including Dec. turkey pick up). More details to come!
• January 1, 2016 — We will mail out our 2016 CSA confirmation materials and start taking payments for 2016 (hopefully returning members will have committed much earlier in 2015 so that we can be planning!).
• Thursday, January 14, 2016 — Our first 2016 CSA pick-up! Same time, same great location!

Next item of business: survey reminder! If you haven’t had a chance to take our very quick 2015 survey, you can do so now here. Thank you for your feedback! We appreciate knowing about your experience as we continue our never-ending goal of offering a superb local eating experience to our community!

Third item of business: meat! We only have two more months left in 2015, and we want to make sure that everyone gets access to the meat they want before we take our little winter break. We will continue to keep the freezer well stocked at pick up in that time, but we also have stewing hens available for order. We’re taking them to the butcher in early October (they will be available for pick up on October 8). We also have pork, lamb, and beef available for order as whole or half animal, providing you with a full range of cuts for your freezer. It takes us a few weeks to organize such details with our butchers, so if you are interested in that option, please start talking with us now! Also, we still have some turkeys available for order for Thanksgiving and Christmas! All of our animals are pasture-raised and fed only organic feed when supplement is needed! You can find out more information about meat and place orders on our website here (stewing hen orders can be placed with me at pick-up).

Finally, 2016 news! 2016 already got a mention a few times above. We’ve been planning for our next season for months now, of course. We have to in order to get the right seeds in the ground at the right time provide sweet things like winter squash. But now we’re close enough to see more details of that next season, and we feel really good about sticking with what has worked so well for us for years and years now: a 45 week-long season of delicious vegetables, where you choose you share size and choose your items each week. We love our storefront and will stay there. Even the price will remain the same!

You might wonder, will anything change in 2016? Of course! Each year has its own vagaries — its own joys, challenges, delights, and surprises. On your end, you’ll arrive at pick-up each week to find a diverse harvest of seasonal produce, with some fun new surprises thrown into the mix as we try new varieties. On our end, we’ll continue to do the good work of growing food with some big changes that we hope will help us engage the farm in our eleventh season with fresh energy, enthusiasm, vision and focus. I’ll write more about some of those changes in future newsletters, since they are worthy of more extensive and thoughtful elaboration. But suffice to say for now: we are excited about next year already! And, we are enjoying this fall immensely. More to come on all those good things. In the meantime, if you’re already ready to commit to 2016, I’ll have the easy-commitment clipboard at pick-up tomorrow ready for you. (I know! It’s early! Don’t worry if you’re not ready! I just know that some of you are!)

Thanks for reading all our news! Here’s a cute kid pic to reward you for your effort. End of summer fun!

That’s a lot of news for one newsletter! Thanks for reading it all! I hope you can absorb it all in one sitting (and I’ve kept it all as brief and concise as possible!). I’ll offer useful reminders of relevant notes as we go along, of course. But I wanted to provide plenty of stuff for those of you who like to plan ahead and see what’s coming!

And, this week there are vegetables to be eaten! Lots of beautiful fall vegetables. This season offers such a wide range of delights — the best of the warm and cold months. Just tonight we ate some of the last of this summer’s zucchini along with some of the first of the fall’s delicata winter squash. Enjoy this week’s vegetables!

Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla

Meet this week’s vegetables:

• Chehalis apples — When you’ve got farm kids around, they don’t just ask for an apple. They ask for very specific apples. Lately, Rusty has been requesting “Chehalis apples” when he wants a snack. They taste especially good with peanut butter.
• Asian pears
• Salad mix
• Peppers — This week we’ve got a mix of sweet, green and hot peppers! We’re coming into the season of sweet peppers, which are definitely a favorite fall crop around here.
• Sauce tomatoes
• Tomatillos — Lots!
• Basil
• Parsley
• Kale
• Chard
• Beets — I discovered my new favorite beet combination this week. I have mentioned many times how much our household loves roasted beets. And this year I’ve really perfected my preparation. I find that if I roast beets at too high of a temperature, the outside gets crispy before the insides are soft (beets seem to be a denser vegetable, requiring longer cooking times than many others). So lately I’ve been roasting slightly larger chunks (one or two-inch pieces) at a slightly lower temperature (375°) … with plenty of butter of course. They take quite a while to cook through and get crispy, and in that time I stir the pan several times to make sure the beets are cooking evenly and get thoroughly coated in the butter. When they are crispy outside and soft inside, they are ready! Now for the best part. Serve them with plain yogurt. I did this the other day, and it was absolutely divine. I mean, really truly amazing. The tangy yogurt paired perfectly with the sweet beets. I am hooked on this food combination.
• Carrots
• Potatoes
• Delicata winter squash — We have been eating delicata like crazy lately. If you’re new to these squash, they are a sweet winter squash with a tender edible skin, making them particularly well suited to cook methods that leave the skin on. My favorite preparation method right is to make delicata “rings.” I wash the squash and then slice them cross-wise into 3/4-inch wide ring shapes. I use a butterknife to gently scrape out the seeds and pulp from each ring, then place them on a baking sheet with butter. I roast them at 425°. Once the first side has turned crispy brown, I carefully flip each ring with tongs and then let the other side brown. At that point, they should be soft all the way through. I serve the rings whole on our plates, and we pick them up and eat them with our fingers. They really are like donuts.
• Spaghetti squash — See last week’s newsletter for info about how to cook these squash!
• Giant scallions — These may just be the biggest scallions you will ever see. You can use them raw, or chop and cook them like you would any onion. Don’t forget that the greens are delicious too! They might be a bit hot raw, but chop them and throw them in with the rest of the scallion as you prepare your meal! They are like a very onion-y green — perfect for pairing with other cooked greens like chard and kale.

And this week’s extra goodies from the farm:

• Eggs — $6/dozen — The kids and I have been going on lots of “field trips” lately, often bringing a long a hearty snack or picnic lunch. My personal “go to” item for such a repast is the simple yet lovely hard-boiled egg. Such a portable package of nutrition and energy! Even better when farm fresh from pastured hens!
• Bratwurst — Only a few packages left! $12/package (1 lb)
• Pork chops — $12/lb
• Ham & bacon — Coming soon! We are still waiting final word from the butcher about these items being ready for pick-up. If they are not available for tomorrow, then they will surely be available for next week! No nitrates-added!
• Lamb — Lots of cuts, prices vary
• Ground beef — $7/lb
• Tote bags — Have you checked these out yet? They are the sturdiest tote bags we’ve ever seen and big too. They hold the same volume as a standard paper grocery bag, but with a lot more strength. $10 each
• Bumper stickers — FREE! Have you taken one yet? Or two? Or three?

Sunflowers dance at the edge of our yard in the family garden. Oh, how I love these huge golden blooms!

This week marked the beginning of our fall rhythms here on the farm. We dropped our Friday restaurant delivery (down to from two to one per week!), which is a big sign that things are changing — that we want to slowly but surely turn our focus back to the farm and its improvements. We enjoy having more time to be on the farm to tackle the projects that got set aside amidst summer busy-ness.

The kids and I attended our first homeschooling co-op gathering of the year — delighting in the company of other families as we played card games inside and then ran outside to search for snakes and play hide-and-seek in tall grass. And, I got to rejoin with my fellow McMinnville Women’s Choir members for a pre-season potluck. Our rehearsals start next week and we have a “New Member Night” on Tuesday, September 29 (interested in joining? Feel free to ask me all about it at pick-up!).

And, so, the seasons turn again! Around these parts, that turning feeling is constant really. Certainly, we very much celebrate the equinox and solstice markings (in fact, those are the dates that we give our kids gifts, leaving the traditional birthday and Christmas opportunities to our wider families). But, little milestones mark our year, almost week-by-week. Summer is broken up by seasonal and noteworthy events: our first swimming trip to the river, the garlic harvest, Casey’s birthday, our annual camping trip to South Beach, Dottie’s birthday, and so on. We can count from exciting date to exciting date on our calendar, always with joyful anticipation for each one. Fall will progress much the same, perhaps with even more such dates as this next season brings to North America quite an overload of holidays and family gatherings (it feels like a giant season-like in breath after the long out breath of summer).

Mounds of squash! This is just SOME of it all!

Another big milestone that marks the turning from summer to fall is the bringing in of the winter squash harvest. I showed a photo last week of squash cut in the field. Since then, we’ve brought all those squash inside and have been working on carefully piling them up in our “squash room” — a 12×16 interior space that is [mostly] rodent-proof and insulated. The squash themselves keep the room warm-ish, which is the preferred temperature for long-term squash storage. This will be our sixth year using this space, and it’s been pretty awesome for us. Before building it, we tried to store squash in space that was very much open to rodents and the outdoor temperature vagaries. We lost a lot of squash to mice and to cold temperatures. Hoorah for the squash room!

In addition to harvesting, September is also a big time for us to begin strategic planning for next year. Long ago, we decided where we are going to plant next year’s vegetables and Casey worked up the ground. Today we sowed a cover crop for the winter (oats and peas). Next year is already in the works!

And, September on the farm is also survey time! As we all approach the happy, bountiful end of our tenth growing season, we want to hear from you about your experience this year! I’ve made it easy with a very short survey online. You can click here to take it and let us know how we’ve done this year! (Please take the survey even if you haven’t been in the CSA for the entire season — just note that at the bottom so we know!) Thank you!

Enjoy this week’s vegetables!

Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla

P.S. I started an Instagram account for the farm this week: @oakhillorganics (Did I even do that right? I’m still new to this!) Anyhow, there should be some fun pics on there — photos of the farm and our family’s activities. I’m posting them on our Facebook page too, so you can follow them there as well!

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Final CSA payments due by October 1! I had to laugh at the timing of my survey. I really should have done it last week, because it always feels awkward to simultaneously ask folks for their input and their money. But alas, we are here, and the final CSA payment approaches! I emailed statements to everyone this week with your current account information. We ask that you pay off any open balances by October 1. Please let me know if you have any questions about your account or our records! You can bring final payments to pick-up or mail them to us at: Oakhill Organics, P.O. Box 1698, McMinnville OR 97128. Thank you!

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Meet this week’s vegetables:

• Asian pears
• Chehalis apples
• Salad mix
• Acorn squash — Today I learned that acorn squash are really hard to “stack,” because they’re round! But, anyhow! I just want to point out that some percentage of our acorn squash have small white sun scald spots on them. You may want to cut these out when you cook them (or cut off after cooking, whichever is easier for you).
• Spaghetti squash — This is only the second year we’ve grown spaghetti squash, and we are loving it! We had some with dinner tonight. I cut the squash lengthwise and scooped out the seeds and pulp. Then I put them cut side down on a baking pan and roasted at 375° until the skin was browning a bit and the interior flesh was soft when I tested it with a knife. To serve the “spaghetti,” carefully turn the cooked squash over and use a fork to scrape out the cooked meat. It should come away in strands that look much like noodles! For tonight’s dinner, I piled Casey and my plates with spaghetti squash and then poured over the top a very butter-y and soupy dish of tomatoes, kale, garlic, and lamb.
• Sweet peppers
• Czech Black peppers — These are our favorite hot pepper to grow. They have heat much like a Jalapeño, which means that they’re hot without being too hot for most of us. One or two thrown into a dish adds delicious spice.
• Sauce tomatoes — We have a lot of sauce tomatoes for tomorrow’s share, so you can plan to make a small batch of sauce for eating this week or freezing for later!
• Cabbage — Cabbage is one of those foods I would bring with me to a desert island. I love it and its versatility. Cabbage chopped and fried in butter until soft is one of my all-time favorite comfort foods. It’s perfect for these darkening gray days.
• Kale
• Chard
• Basil
• Cucumbers
• Beets
• Carrots
• Potatoes
• Garlic

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And this week’s extra goodies from the farm:

• Eggs — $6/dozen
• Bratwurst — Get them while they last! $12/package (1 lb)
• Pork chops — $12/lb
• Whole chickens — $5.50/lb
• Lamb — Lots of cuts, prices vary
• Ground beef — $7/lb
• Tote bags — Show your local eating pride! $10 each

We recently planted next year’s strawberry plants! The kids helped some too. This field is especially close to the house so that next June they can run out and gobble them up!

So much has been happening around here as we approach the close of the summer. I feel like I have a million and one stories and thoughts that I want to share with you all — I’ve been thinking a lot about scale and seasons and supply chains and time and children and labor and so much more. But, perhaps instead of tackling a deep topic, I’ll just share some of the many photos I’ve taken in recent weeks. September days have the most lovely light, and I love seeing the changes happening around here on the farm as we turn the corner to another season. Join me as we look at some of them together!

Farm child’s play! When we had city-dwelling friends visiting recently, I found one of them taking a photograph of our kitchen counter while I ran out to get more veggies for dinner. I was befuddled. It’s just a kitchen counter! Except that it’s not. Our counter often overflows with buckets of eggs, piles of produce and more. And sometimes even our floor overflows with produce as the kids bring things in from their garden to practice their cutting and play store. This time of year is just so abundant!

I mean, come on, doesn’t EVERYONE have one of these on the windowsill behind their kitchen sink? No? Oh.

One more kitchen picture. This summer we’ve been more relaxed than usual about “putting up” food. But two weekends ago we made up for it by keeping our kitchen FULL of projects all Saturday long. Among other things, we steamed some grapes for juice. We froze it all for now and hope to turn it into jelly when the season quiets down more. We love that color! (Also, not the splatters behind the stove. It was a busy, messy place that day!)

Late summer is also a great time for adventures. We’ve been talking for YEARS about putting in some kind of bridge across our creek so that we can access our other property without driving around. On a recent weekend, we took the time to explore the creek bed (which is now at its seasonal low point) to find a good spot for a possible future cable bridge. We had to scramble down some steep banks to get to the muddy creek bed.

Here is the spot we decided upon, just at the base of our favorite Linden tree. We used to pump water from this spot for irrigation. Can you see why we switched to a well? Not much water here this time of year! (Our creek is actually only a seasonal waterway — it fills and flows when the Willamette River floods. But once the river goes back down, it’s basically just trapped water in creek shape).

Definitely not much water here right now! Even the littlest one could wade across with Papa’s help.

On the other side! In winter, this passage would be impossible, as the creek WILL fill up again. Hence the bridge dreams.

Now time to run back to the house! Big worked up fields are pretty awesome for playing and running in barefooted.

I haven’t posted a photo of our walnut tree lately. I find it funny that when we bought this property nine years ago, we looked at this tree and decided to build our house RIGHT NEXT to it. I think we couldn’t believe that anything so big could continue to get bigger. But it has. This tree is like a living, growing mountain of green. We love it SO much, even as it continues to dwarf our house more and more.

The last few weeks of rain and storms have brought some amazing clouds into our farm landscape. Almost every day we marvel at their mass and patterns.

For us, September also brings some family birthdays, including this little girl’s. Dottie turned three last Friday! She seems so much bigger already, especially when going on hikes with her new backpack on …

One day after her birthday, Dottie walked our family’s favorite hike without being carried at all!

And, in other kid news, we hit a big milestone last week — we are homeschooling! Yes, we’ve been doing/planning this all along, but when school started here yesterday, Rusty did not get on the bus. So it feels more official now. Today’s fun field trip was to the Oregon Garden for their homeschooler day. The kids explored the plants, watched a snake hunt for a frog in the pond, and drew beneficial insects.

And, in the fields, we’re continuing the gratifying work of bringing in our big fall harvests. These projects will last for several months, as we pick apples, cut squash, dig sweet potatoes and more. This afternoon I took what I described as my “annual photo of delicata squash in a bin.” Yes, I’m sure I take a variation on this photo every year, because every single year I marvel at the glowing beauty of these squash!

Look at that beautiful row of harvested squash! This represents only a fraction of the harvest so far. We’re preparing our “squash room” (a special conditioned space in our pole barn) and then will spend several more hours hauling these into it. All for the cause of SWEETNESS! Mmmmm!

Thanks for joining me on this September farm adventure! Enjoy this week’s vegetables!

Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla

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Oakhill Organics tote bags for sale! Hey! I’ve got one more photo for you today. Check out this awesome tote bag:

Super sturdy 15 oz. natural cotton bag for picking up your veggies (and anything else you want to do with it)!

Many of you will recognize this bag. Many of you are still using your bag, perhaps purchased as many as eight years ago! I know that we are still using our bags from that time. We use them hard, often hauling them to and from the library chock full of heavy books. They keep on going. We love these bags.

Which is why we “re-issued” them after all these years. We have a new generation of CSA members, plus old timers who may want some new bags! Now is your chance to buy one! (Or two or three … !) The price is $10, which is just slightly higher than our actual cost. We want you to have a sturdy, useful bag. We’ll have them available for purchase at pick-up tomorrow!

A suggestion though — because these are so popular among CSA members, we recommend personalizing yours in some way! At the very least, write your name on an edge so that if you put it down at pick-up, you don’t wonder which one is yours!

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Meet this week’s vegetables:

• European pears — These are the “classic” familiar pear — the kind that have to ripen off the tree in order to develop their full smooth flavor (when ripened on the tree, they get gritty inside). Casey pulled these from the cooler early to help them begin that ripening process. Check yours before eating — they should give just slightly and be yellow in tone. If in doubt, just cut off a little slice and check. Put them in a cool place out of the sun while you wait — if you put them in the fridge, the ripening process will slow down considerably. (Ripening pears is such a delicate art that I once read a whole lyrical essay dedicated to the topic. It was quite beautiful!)
• Asian pears
• Prune plums
• Acorn squash — The first of this year’s winter squash harvest! Hoorah! We only started growing acorn squash in recent years. We used to favor the longer season squashes more, but we’ve grown to love these early little squash for the way they signal summer’s slow down. I like to chop these in half, scoop out the seeds and then cut into slices. Sometimes I roast the slices in the oven (at 425° with butter) until they are crispy and soft inside. Other times I achieve a similar result by pan frying in butter. I think the second method is slightly faster (good for hungry kids), but they’re equally delicious. For our family, we don’t feel the need to add extra sugar to the squash. We find these to be plenty sweet on their own, even if later squashes will be even sweeter. But I know that many people like to add sweetener in the form of a little brown sugar or maple syrup. I’m sure that would be delicious!
• Salad mix
• Tomatoes
• Tomatillos
• Peppers
• Basil
• Kale
• Carrots
• Beets
• Potatoes
• Cucumbers
• Zucchini & yellow crookneck squash

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And this week’s extra goodies from the farm:

• Eggs — $6/dozen for farm fresh goodness
• Bratwurst — It’s back by popular demand! Another batch of these delicious artisan nitrate-free pasture-raised heritage hog bratwursts! $12 for a 1 lb. package (four Brats per package). Get them while they last!
• Ground beef — $7 for 1 lb. packages. We wowed our visiting friends a few weeks ago when we served all the kiddos (including their three year-old) hamburgers for breakfast. That’s what our kids eat every morning. We came to that conclusion after buying lots and lots of kid-friendly breakfast sausage (both kids do best when the first thing they eat is protein). We finally realized that what the kids like is the texture of the sausage plus the sweetness. They can get sweetness from ketchup just as well, and then they can eat breakfast from the farm! So, every morning, they each sit down to a couple of small burger patties, and then they eat other things like fruit, pumpkin muffins, eggs, greens, or whatever else we have around!
• Lamb — We have lots of different cuts available: roasts, shanks, chops, and grind. Prices vary!
• Tote bags — $10 each! Get yours today!

Looking up at the treetops from the banks of our little creek — beauty found in verdant shapes.

People often ask Casey how we “got into” farming. The story could take many forms, depending on when you want to begin the narrative and what you want to focus on. But, for sure, two great loves steered us in this direction (so long ago now!). First, a deep love for the natural world. We are both continually in awe of the world around us — its beauty, its vitality, its power. Farming allows us to live our life (and make our living) interacting with the natural world in profound ways.

Second, Casey and I both share a love for what we have always called “subverting the dominant paradigm.” From very early on in our relationship (when we were exceedingly young), we recognized this shared quirk in both of us. It wasn’t so much a desire to be “weird” or stand out in some significant way, but an enjoyment for unraveling the obvious, for looking past the surfaces and the status quo, for thinking hard and in new ways about subjects, finding new ways to do things. I think that desire to think about the world differently is a big part of why we chose to farm. Certainly at the time, it felt like a very different choice (just 10 years later, it is hard to remember that we were in fact at the very front of the wave of new farmers — we knew of very few others like us at that time, whereas now we have plenty of wonderful company in this endeavor!).

In recent years, we’ve been able to exercise both these loves as we’ve slowly and joyfully unraveled our old understandings of ecology and humanity’s role in the shaping the natural world. As with anything, I have to credit first our real world experiences. So much of our viewpoints in life begin outside, in our first-hand interactions with the world. These shape so much.

But, then we read a book by Charles Mann (of course! Books are awesome!): 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. It’s a long book, but so amazing in how it shifted our understanding of the Americas and their history, both in terms of people and the earth itself. Among other things, Mann makes a strong case that so much of what Europeans saw as “wild” or “natural” in the American landscape (i.e. not of human origin) was actually the product of human influence over centuries of husbandry, cultivation, and massive earth works projects.

This book transformed the way that Casey and I see our environment too. First, this new paradigm suggests that vibrant nature is not incompatible with human influence. As farmers, this is a heartening viewpoint, and we certainly hope that our actions boost nature’s powers! But, we also saw our immediate landscape differently too. As we have continued to learn more about the place where we live and its “native” flora and fauna, we realize that we live in a highly edible environment. As we walk through the cottonwood forest to the river, we find salmonberries, oyster mushrooms, licorice fern, nettles, and pacific waterleaf (a wild green). At the river, we see patches of wapato, a water plant that was cultivated on a large scale by pre-European-contact peoples for its root. Elsewhere in the valley, one can still find patches of camas, another plant cultivated for its sweet root. Signs of former people are everywhere in these plants that they cultivated. Not all of them thrive without human influence (camas certainly does not), but they remain here nonetheless, and we take great joy in their presence.

A wild edge of our farm.

We were excited to get our hands on another truly paradigm shifting new book by Fred Pearce: The New Wild: Why Invasive Species Will Be Nature’s Salvation (published just this summer). This is a book that addresses a wide range of subtopics, but Pearce’s main thesis is that the contemporary bias against “invasive” species (i.e. not native) is completely misguided and working on inaccurate understandings of how nature works (based on pretty strong paradigms within modern ecology and conservation about how ecosystems “work”). I cannot properly summarize the extensive research that Pearce brings to this argument, which includes a careful analysis (and debunking) of research that “concludes” that invasive species are the primary cause of ecosystem problems. Pearce points out that where non-native species appear to have “taken over” ecosystems, they have often done so in the wake of pollution, erosion, or other forms of environmental degradation. Rather than being the cause of the problem, they actually represent the solution to the problem, as these new species can survive and thrive in an human-altered environment that is no longer suitable for native species of plants and animals. He goes on to point out that, in many cases when the cause of degradation is addressed, the older native species return.

His arguments and research are fascinating. And extremely uplifting. Casey and I often find ourselves pretty bummed out by environmental news. Conservation efforts to preserve “pristine” habitats seem, quite frankly, doomed in a world of 7+ billion people. In the midst of that despair, Pearce brings a new message — nature is always in flux. Nature is strong because it continually adapts. What we see as “pristine” places are actually snapshots in time, and where degradation or changes happen, nature will bring its own solutions — if we let it. His message is one of vitality — not always in the forms that we currently expect or want — but in ways that can thankfully exceed our limited expectations.

Once again, reading a book like The New Wild helps me see our landscape in new ways. I feel like Pearce gave me a way to better appreciate parts of our farm that Casey and I have always marveled at, in spite of their oddities. We have a lot of “messy” parts of our farm — lots. Edges of fields, riparian zones along the creek, weedy fields. In each of these places, a mixture of native and non-native plants mingle, including lots of non-natives that top lists of “invasive,” despised plants here in Oregon — including reed canary grass and Himalayan blackberry. And, yet, on our farm, these plants co-exist with others, including many natives. Blackberries form a hedge around the base of ash trees, and the reed canary grass grows at the base of willows.

Meanwhile, our farm is bursting with fauna, which often seems to be the marker of a healthy environment. A good wildlife biologist friend of ours loves to come to our farm for bird watching and claims that it is really truly one of the best places in the county for that pursuit. Our farm is certainly a wonderfully wild place, but of course just our 100 acres couldn’t be home to these animals without a larger wildness around us. We have the benefit of being on Grand Island, where messy, verdant patches ring the whole island (including our most beloved cottonwood forest, which by the way, is called an “orchard” by the old timers, because it was planted — and later thinned — by farmers to prevent erosion during floods).

Herb garden home to many insects!

Just last week, Casey and Dottie crouched for a long time at the edge of my mom’s herb patch, which is full of non-native species in bloom (including heaps of mint!!!! Watch out!). In just one little square-foot patch of the garden, they watched a praying mantis and four kinds of pollinators (two of which Casey didn’t even recognize as being familiar). Life abounds!

To us, the resilience of nature is a hugely optimistic message. Does it free us from the responsibility to care for the land? To prevent further degradation? Not at all! That is why Casey and I put our heart and soul into this work of producing food in ways that grow topsoil and grow local biodiversity. But, nature’s resilience can help us set aside our despair and renew our pure wonder at these places we love, places that we know are constantly changing.

It will be interesting to learn if/how Pearce’s book affects wider ecological paradigms and conservation goals. Without a doubt, there will be push back. And I understand some of that too. These conversations are complex and the real world doesn’t neatly fit into any human narrative — Pearce’s or otherwise. It will be interesting to watch the conversation continue, and we will gladly read any other books that join that discourse.

Either way, our observation is that nature is resilient! Regardless of what comes to us humans, I have faith that the Himalayan blackberry and Canada thistle will always be here, providing food for pollinators and forage for animals. That may not sound idyllic, but these are the plants that will continue to exist regardless. And for them, I can feel grateful. Really, truly. Thanks be!

Enjoy this week’s vegetables!

Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla

~ ~ ~

Meet this week’s vegetables:

• Chehalis apples
• Concord grapes
• Asian pears
• Prune plums
• Tomatoes
• Green peppers
• Salad mix
• Celery leaf
• Parsley
• Kale
• Carrots
• Beets
• Potatoes
• Cucumbers
• Zucchini & yellow crook neck squash
• Eggs

And this week’s extra goodies from the farm:

• Eggs — $6/dozen
• Pork chops — $12/lb
• Lamb — We’ve got chops, roasts, shanks, and lots and lots of ground lamb! Prices vary depending on the cut.
• Ground beef — $7/lb in 1 lb packages.
• Bratwursts & ham — Next week! These things often take longer than we expect.

Hogs feeding on oats at the edge of our cherry orchard.

This week has been a whirlwind of somewhat exhausting activity — some of it planned, some of it very much unplanned. In the category of planned activity, we welcomed some very dear old friends for a two night visit. They came from big cities (Brooklyn and Seattle) to enjoy all the sights, sounds, and tastes of the farm! We picked and ate plums straight from the trees, swam in the river, got licked by curious cows, and dug holes (there was a three year-old involved). We also sat up late talking, and so — some tiredness is setting in tonight!

Smokey farm!

But, the unplanned things were also interesting (if a bit crazy making in their own ways). First, this weekend brought some dramatic “weather” to the region. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about — the influx of dense smoke from wildfires throughout the region. We went to the beach on Saturday to visit Casey’s parents, and we hoped for a reprieve from the smoke, but alas that was not to be found. Truly the whole region joined in the summer’s hard fire season for those days of smoke. I felt like we were living in a post-apocalyptic farmscape, and we literally breathed with relief when the winds shifted Monday morning bringing us fresh air again. Our hearts go out to those of you living with such poor air quality for weeks and months on end! It hurts the eyes, lungs, and soul.

In addition to fresh air and friends, Monday brought another unexpected adventure of sorts. Jasper drove down to our favorite butcher in Brownsville to pick up a fresh batch of ground beef and lamb (yay!). On his way to the butcher from I-5, the box truck stopped working! All the fans seized up, and it quickly overheated, causing him to pull over and figure it out. Thankfully, he was in a safe place for that. Double-thankfully, he was on his way to the butcher, so he didn’t have a load of meat in the truck. And, thankfully, it turns out he was within slow easy driving distance of a recommended fleet mechanic. He crawled there, and Casey drove down to pick him (and the meat) up. That fleet shop looked at the truck the next morning, diagnosed an easy and affordable fix (yay again!) and had it fixed by this afternoon. So, our truck is already running again and parked back in our driveway. And, we’ve got several boxes of ground beef and lamb in the freezer too. Oh, hoorah!

Enjoying what is likely to be one of our last “river days” of this summer.

And, finally, this week brought a surprisingly abrupt end to some of our summer routines. Just in the last week, we found ourselves suddenly at the end of a lot of summer rhythms — several people who have worked and helped out here on the farm are moving on, which shifts the feel of our work a lot. And, after a few more days of fun social time and a mini vacation to the beach, our family will be jumping into the beginning of new fall rhythms. Notably, we’re starting our school routine next Wednesday! It’s a bit ahead of public schools, but we homeschoolers can do such things! Dottie will be in preschool, and Rusty will be in kindergarten. We are very excited, even if the arrival of this shift seemed to take us by surprise!

To add to the fall “vibe,” the weather forecast for the weekend calls for several days of “rain possible.” In spite of plans to go camping this weekend, we eagerly anticipate some wet weather. Oh, how all of the west coast could use it!!!!! Even though it is fairly certain now that fire has passed by Holden Village’s infrastructure, so much land is still ablaze in that region and beyond. Many people are still living in exile from their homes (or taking the risk of sticking around to help). These people are on our minds and hearts daily. So, rain. Yes, please!

We hope you are savoring these final days of your summer routine — playing outside while you can! Enjoy this week’s vegetables!

Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla

~ ~ ~

Threshing, winnowing, slackline — oh my! A lot happened on our porch this afternoon. Read more below!

It’s been another full week here on the farm. We hosted our summer potluck on Saturday and were delighted when several brand new CSA members joined us! It was so lovely to get to you better as we dined on delicious food on a truly perfect summer evening.

Since then, the heat has returned again. Each time another heat wave hits the west coast, I find myself more and more ready for fall. At this point, the heat itself doesn’t bother me so much, but it is having disastrous consequences all up and down the west. While we were grateful to have Holden Village’s buildings spared by the Wolverine Fire, our relief is tempered by the loss of dozens of homes in Chelan, the loss of three firefighter lives in Okanogan County, and continued evacuations for hundreds of people all over. If you are the praying type, this is a season to pray for the safety of people near to these fires.

More plums that will be ready to pick very soon!

Meanwhile, it’s hot here too! Heat is normal for August, of course. But, in keeping with the year’s trend, I still find myself confused about exactly the time of the year, because many parts of the farm continue to feel weeks ahead of schedule. The drought stress in the trees reminds me of September, and this week we jumped head first into the big late summer fruit harvests. Jasper spent several days just picking — plums, Asian pears, and apples! You’ll get to taste many of these this week … all delicious and certified organic! Ooh la la! Exciting stuff!

Casey has also begun the work of harvesting some of our saved seed from the fields. He pulled a bunch of items from the fields just before that brief rain shower we had last week (hard to remember already!). The dry plants have been hanging out waiting for further processing. When the temperatures got hot this afternoon, he, Jasper and the kids retreated to our porch to do some threshing (i.e. stomping on dry fava bean pods) and winnowing (to clean the seed from the chaff). This will be an ongoing process over the next few months, to be fit in here and there as time permits. It definitely reminds us that we’re approaching the end of this season — we’re past the season of leaf production and into the season of fruits and seeds. Time to dig deep and harvest from this time of abundance.

As we go into this next season, I have a few things on my mind that I want to put on your mind so that you don’t miss out:

U-pick tomatoes coming! — Folks have asked! And we have them! If you’d like to pick tomatoes, check in with us at pick-up this week or next. The sauce tomato patch will be ready by the weekend of Friday, August 29. For this u-pick, we’re just planning to charge by the lbs, but we’d still like to sign people up ahead of time so that we know who to expect (and we can communicate the necessary info to you).

Fall Pumpkin Patch Open House MUSIC? — Two notes on this one. First, get the open house date on your calendar! This year’s event will be Sunday, October 25, 2-4 pm. Second, we’re still looking for a fun live musical act to perform. This is a neat tradition of ours, and so far everyone who has performed has had some relationship to the farm. In past years, we’ve had a rockin’ high school bluegrass band, a DJ spinning records, and an acoustic folk trio. We’re still looking for the perfect act for this year and thought we would ask and see if there is someone in our community who has a little band or would otherwise be interested in performing! Let us know!

Taking new CSA members for Fall — Also, we still have room in the CSA for folks to join! If you have a friend who might be interested, send them our way! Have them include your name when they sign up, and we’ll give you a $20 credit to use in the storefront or apply toward your remaining CSA balance! Thanks in advance for a referral!

Fall meat opportunities — We are still taking orders for our fall batches of stewing hens. The price is $3.50/lb (average about two lbs each bird). We will also do another pork sale as we approach the end of the season, so be thinking of whether you might want to join on! I know folks probably have pretty full freezers already, but maybe you can find room for half a hog this fall!

I think that’s it for news this week! May you all stay safe and cool as we continue through a wild August. Enjoy this week’s vegetables — and abundant fruits too!

Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla

~ ~ ~

A pretty picture from the garden — matches our glowing mood today!

Thank you to everyone for your loving words and your prayers this week in response to last week’s newsletter about the wildfire threatening Holden Village. Many folks checked in mid-week to see how things were faring. I can tell you, it has been a long-feeling vigil for all of us far-flung Holdenites. The fire moved up the Railroad Creek Valley at an average rate of half-a-mile per day. Thanks to the amazing wonders of social media and online maps, we were able to both watch the progression closely and continually converse about it with other concerned parties on Facebook. I admit to having been on the computer more this week than my normal average, but I am glad to feel so connected.

Last night we all went to bed with more active prayers even than before, as those online fire maps showed the fire finally circling the village infrastructure on three sides. It felt that we were finally at the point when we would learn the answer to our question — would the village itself burn? What would the next 24 hours bring?

We awoke with prayers on our hearts, and Facebook was filled with the most amazing heartfelt meditations and shared memories, dreams, and hopes this morning. And, this morning’s incident report brought good news today:

“Structure protection around Holden Village was successful yesterday. Crews focused on a hand-ignited burnout around the community, combined with heavy sprinkler work and intensive monitoring for embers through the night. Due to heavy smoke in Railroad Creek yesterday, no aerial ignition occurred. Overnight, the main fire slowly backed down the ridge toward Holden and met the burnout around the Village as planned by fire management. Crews today will finalize burn operations and begin to secure the burnout on the south side of the drainage and monitor for spot fires.” (My emphasis added!)

See that first sentence? That’s pretty much all we needed to hear to feel some relief.

This is far from over. The firefighters on site have done a lot of work preparing the village for the fire’s arrival, including do burn backs, which is where they carefully burn areas near the site so that when the fire itself arrives, it meets a dead-end for fuel. From what we read in the incident reports, it sounds like that was what happened in the last 24 hours — at least at some locations around the village. The firefighters have much more work to do before declaring the “all clear” — we are still in that critical moment for keeping the village safe from the fire.

And, the fire will probably likely continue its slow progression up the valley even after if it circles around the village itself. There’s no question the Railroad Creek Valley is going to be forever changed by this summer. But now we have hope that we (and many others) will get to return and stay in that magical place again, to learn and grow from those changes (and from each other, now changed people).

Again, thank you to all of you who have thought about and cared about this distant place. I can promise you that it is a place worth the heart space, and perhaps someday you may visit there too!

The first open sunflower in our garden!

And … here on the home front, there’s other exciting news too: our crops are certified organic again!!!!!! It’s official! We received our new certificate from via email late yesterday! It took longer than we expected, but it’s summer and everyone involved is busy. All’s well that ends well, and we are so excited about the change in our status. Looking back, we still feel good about taking a break from the process, but we’re glad to be back for so many reasons.

I think that’s enough big news for one newsletter! We hope you will join us on this beautiful organic farm for our upcoming CSA open house (details below). And, enjoy this week’s organic vegetables!

Your organic farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla

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CSA Open House this weekend!
Saturday, August 15
5 pm farm tour • 6 pm potluck dinner

Join us on the farm this Saturday for our second farm event of the year! Arrive at 5 pm for a farm tour with Farmer Casey. Then we’ll gather by our house at 6 pm for a potluck dinner. If you can remember, please bring plates and utensils for your family (we have some, but not enough for quite everyone!). We hope you can join us!

Directions to the farm: Take HWY-18 to the Dayton exit. Drive straight through Dayton and stay on Wallace Rd/HWY-221 for about seven miles. Turn LEFT onto Grand Island Rd. After the bridge, turn RIGHT at the first 4-way intersection, onto SE Upper Island Rd. Our driveway is immediately on your LEFT (we have a red pole barn at the road). Our house is the 2-story brown one toward the back-right of the driveway. Find a parking spot and join us there! If you have questions, you can email or call me: 503-474-7661.

~ ~ ~

Stewing hens coming! Place orders now! We’ll have three batches available this fall at $4/lb (hens will average 2-3 lbs each). What are stewing hens? These are hens we are culling from our laying flock. They are all pasture-raised and provided only organic feed. They are “stewers” because they will not be the tender kind of young chicken you would want to roast. Instead, these are chickens that you put in a pot or a slower cooker and simmer in water with a bouquet garni (a bundle of aromatic herbs!) all day. The results are amazing — tender, flavorful meat that falls off the bone and the most satisfying chicken broth you will ever eat. Stewing hens are a favorite winter food around our house. We make a lot of chicken soup (strain the broth, pick the meat, then throw them back together to simmer a bit with some vegetables), but we also enjoy using the cooked meat for other applications too — it’s great in things like enchiladas and casseroles. No fall freezer is complete with at least a few of these in it for the making of deeply satisfying winter dishes. We’ll take batches in Sept, Oct, and Nov. Please order via email or at pick-up. (And, yes, anyone can order! This is not just limited to current CSA members!)

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A photo from the archives today — this is us in 2003, before we were farmers, at Holden Pass. It was on hikes such as these that our farm dreams were born.

I’m working on the newsletter early in the day this week, because tonight we’re doing some rather unprecedented for us — we’re heading up to Portland this evening. We rarely go that direction, let alone mid-week! But Things Are Happening that are pulling us toward certain people for comfort and connection right now.

Namely — The Big Thing that has us compulsively checking the internet for updates is the Wolverine Fire, a wildfire burning at Lake Chelan, just miles away from our former home and community at Holden Village. Holden Village is a remote Lutheran retreat center, housed in a former mining town in the midst of the Glacier Peak Wilderness Area. Casey and I spent lots of time working there, including a whole year after we graduated from college. The place and its people had a profound effect on shaping who we are as adults today — instilling in us wonder for nature, appreciation for community, love of singing, and more.

In fact, after a long hiatus spent starting up the farm and our family, we are planning to return to Holden this winter. Now that we are in the midst of our tenth year of farming, we feel the need for renewal and perspective. And, that is exactly what Holden strives to do for people — to provide a place apart (far apart) where people can come when needing rest, recreation, discernment, and inspiration. Our plans right now are to head that way for a few weeks in January, during which time we will help share our skills and gifts with the village. Casey especially has lots to offer to a community that is constantly remodeling old buildings — when we lived there before, he was the Village Plumber, and he knows the systems there intimately.

Those are our plans, but today we are in waiting mode, holding a perpetual vigil in our hearts as we watch the Wolverine Fire and its movements. We are not alone in this. Thanks to the internet, we have joined hundreds and thousands of Holdenites across the country who are waiting. Included in this group are the hundreds of people who were — until last week — living at Holden. They were all swiftly evacuated and are now waiting to return home.

The Big Question, of course, is what the fire will do. Will it continue up the Railroad Creek Valley to the village itself? That is its trajectory so far, spreading west to the village, south to Chelan, and north toward Stehekin.

The village has been preparing for this possibility for years. When we lived at Holden, the Operators Managers used to say, “It’s not a question if ‘if’ but ‘when’ the valley will burn.” So, old shingle roofs have been upgraded with metal ones; there are fire breaks in place; and sprinklers are running in the village. And, firefighters are on location doing further work to create fire breaks. So, we wait. If you want to see the latest news, here is a link to the latest incident updates.

Again, the fire is not a surprise. Holden is located in a region where The Forests Burn. Just as here on the island, The River Floods. Anyone who has lived at Holden for an extended period learns to respect the power of nature. And to understand the inevitability of that power. Because the village is so remote, the people who live in that place (folks like Casey and me) have to be prepared for emergencies, whether those be medical situations or natural disasters like avalanches and fires.

When we lived at Holden, a fall rainstorm brought Railroad Creek to flood levels, damaging two bridges and breaking off a large bank of the river that contained a significant and important chunk of roadway. Within hours, our landscape had changed forever — routes that were part of everyday traffic had to be reworked. Before we knew how much damage would occur that night, some of us stood on a bridge over the raging creek (river now) and pointed flashlights at the water. As we watched whole trees float beneath us, we felt the bridge shuddering. And then we quickly retreated to indoor safety while the rain continued to fall.

Fires, floods (and even earthquakes!) — these are nature at its most extreme. While these events can be terrifying and damaging, they can also remind us that we are alive. I think part of the appeal of living at Holden is this sense that we are living right up against all sides of nature, both the subtle wonder of a butterfly in flight and the terrible power of avalanches. I have heard people who love living in Alaska express the same sentiment. They love it because they know they could walk outside and die. I used to find such statements rather puzzling, but I think that is part of the magic of any rugged and remote place. Perhaps just living so closely to these elements, one has to let go of anxiety and embrace each moment of life.

Of course, when we are talking about reality, not every story has a happy ending. Not every person lost in the wilderness is found (most are). Casey and I have stories about such things, stories that have shaped who we are (and are stories for another time). But part of being in those remote places is knowing that their existence is not a certain thing. The forces are so strong. Yet, even knowing that the village is in the midst of a region where The Forest Burns, the thought of it burning is still profoundly tragic. So many people have poured their hearts into the preservation of that village so that others could fill it with endless songs and prayers and gatherings. The Forest Burns, and yet we hope that Holden itself Will Not.

So, here we are on our farm, here we are in the midst of high summer, thinking about another place. I find myself lying awake at night, mentally walking through the spaces I once knew so well at Holden. I mentally revisit each place with all my senses, remembering the particular smell in the basement of the Hotel, the warm sunlight on the walk to Ten Mile Falls, the sound of snow shifting off of roofs. I find myself wondering if I will ever experience that place in those ways again. Which of course I won’t — no place is static and unchanging — but I hope I can revisit them in some new sense again, hopefully in January.

Holden is where I first fell in love with the idea of a Place — of knowing one place and Loving It over years and through many seasons. The farm today is a direct result of that love. Because we have been here almost continuously for so many years, I find it hard to stir up any of those same intense feelings of nostalgia. And, why should I? Here I am, looking at the same, yet ever-changing, view out the window that I have looked at for years and years. But my eyes feel different today, as I caress this view with love and appreciation in my heart for this place where we put our roots down so many years ago.

I may even find it hard to leave tonight just to drive to Portland. But it will be good to pull ourselves away to join others to sing Holden Evening Prayer, the sung liturgy composed by Marty Haugen at Holden in 1986. This same service has been sung weekly at Holden ever since, and is used in Lutheran churches across the country. I look forward to connecting with others who are also walking through their days with Holden on their minds and hearts.

I know others are waiting this summer too. Waiting for the rain for so many reasons. Wildfires are affecting populations up and down the west. It will come, but perhaps not soon enough for everything. At times like this, it’s hard to know what to pray for. Personally, I am not fond of praying against the forces of nature. But I am fond of praying for the strength of people, for their safety and good use of their skills. For their ability to be successful stewards of the places they love and inhabit. May we be good and loving stewards always of this farm of ours.

And may you appreciate your own place(s) this week. Even backyards can be made sacred through attention and love. Here in Oregon, nature can visit us everywhere — the sun and the butterflies reaching all places. Pause and appreciate these wonders.

Hopefully by next week I’ll have some good news. In the meantime, we wait and persevere and harvest and sing. Enjoy this week’s vegetables!

Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla

P.S. We made it to Portland and back before I had time to get this up on the internet. It was lots of driving, but oh such good singing!

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CSA Open House coming up!
Saturday, August 15
5 pm farm tour • 6 pm potluck dinner

Join us on the farm next week for our second farm event of the year! Arrive at 5 pm for a farm tour with Farmer Casey. Then we’ll gather by our house at 6 pm for a potluck dinner. If you can remember, please bring plates and utensils for your family (we have some, but not enough for quite everyone!). We hope you can join us!

Directions to the farm: Take HWY-18 to the Dayton exit. Drive straight through Dayton and stay on Wallace Rd/HWY-221 for about seven miles. Turn LEFT onto Grand Island Rd. After the bridge, turn RIGHT at the first 4-way intersection, onto SE Upper Island Rd. Our driveway is immediately on your LEFT (we have a red pole barn at the road). Our house is the 2-story brown one toward the back-right of the driveway. Find a parking spot and join us there! If you have questions, you can email or call me: 503-474-7661.

 ~ ~ ~

Cherry tree in the orchard. The yellow grass is actually helping new fresh green grass to come up from below (the shade of the tall grass helps the young grass stay alive without going dormant in all this heat), providing fresh forage for some of our hogs.

Hey! Did you see that rain this Sunday? Did you revel in it? Did you go out naked, running and dancing? Ok, Casey and I didn’t do that last thing, but the kids did. Because, WOW, a few drenching showers on a quiet Sunday felt like the Best Thing Ever. The dust cleared; the ground got wet; we relaxed into it and even pulled out some card games after dinner. It felt like quite the Sabbath day gift.

Gathering entries for the fair.

Now, we’re back to Summer-As-Normal — day one into another Willamette Valley heat wave. True to form, this one arrived with blustery Northeast winds yesterday, which blew the kids and me around a bit as we prepared Rusty’s entries to the county fair. This is his first year entering, and we went out in the morning (before the heat) to harvest what we could from the garden. We got the kids’ garden in a little later this year, so no melons yet (alas, much to Rusty’s chagrin), but there were dry fava beans, basil, tomatoes, kale, cabbages, and lots of flowers to pick. He also made a bouquet to enter. Dottie didn’t want to be left out, of course, in spite of being three years younger than the age we waited with Rusty. So she made a bouquet as well, which the fair folks happily accepted into the running. We await our visit to the fair with great anticipation of potential ribbons and prizes (but really it’s just fun to get the kids involved in the wider agricultural community this way!).

In the fields, irrigation continues to be a mainstay. The day always begins with pipe moving, and sometimes ends that way too. If you’ve wondered, irrigating so much is expensive. Our well pump bills get pricey this time of year. More so in a year without June rain, of course. We’ve been irrigating since … April? It feels that way. Perhaps a bit then, and certainly in a solid, sustained way since May.

The landscape of the farm is changing a lot these days, as we simultaneously take care of this year’s crops and begin the ground work for next year’s. Casey has already worked in many of our spring plantings, and we are continuing to irrigate that ground in order to spur on weed seed germination. This process is called a “summer bare fallow.” It’s a useful way to work through the weed seed “bank” that resides in the soil. Just think, in every square foot of soil, many weed seeds can lie dormant, just waiting for their opportunity to germinate and grow up. Some of these seeds can lie dormant for many, many years; and, naturally, a field that has been let to go to weeds in the past will have more seeds in it than one that has been carefully weeded. Weeds happen on our farm. Some years, a lot of weeds happen. And, we’re on Grand Island, where — as one of our neighbor farmer friends likes to say — everything grows well … especially the weeds.

So, we do what we can. We’re hoping to catch up a bit better with the weed part of organic farming in future years, and these sorts of bare fallows are a great start. Once we get a nice flush of germinated weeds in our fields, we can work up the ground again, and those potential future weeds will be gone at least. We’re also ordering some large tarps to try a method called “occultation” — in this scenario, freshly worked, moist ground is covered with a large opaque tarp. The warmth under the tarp (plus the moisture) germinates seeds, and then the absence of light kills those weeds. It’s an expensive method, since large tarps cost a lot of money, but it’s also passive (i.e. doesn’t require as much hands-on work or diesel-fueled tillage to be effective). We’re excited to try some new things and hopefully see good results in future years.

We’re also fully in harvest mode out here now. Most of the summer-specific fruits are “on,” keeping us busy with picking. We loaded up eight bins of cucumbers from the fields yesterday, and that was just one crop! And we will keep picking these plants for weeks to come! This year can be so magical — these “pick and come again” crops seemingly pouring out food, week after week. This is it — the peak of the wave of food. Before too long, we’ll even begin harvest our storage crops. Hard to believe, but fall is just around the corner — in shortening daylength if not in rainfall or cool temperatures yet. This Saturday (August 1) is Lammas, the Celtic harvest celebration that marks the halfway point in our summer season.

I think even we people are feeling that shift now. Even though most of us have at least a month left before school starts again, everyone is suddenly talking of their end-of-summer plans. We continue to visit the river weekly, and yet it feels as though we should now savor each date. A bit premature, really, given how many hot and swimmable days are still to come, but the stirring to harvest and fall storage energy is upon us. It is imminent.

Meanwhile, we continue to dwell in this again dusty and dry valley, carved out of this place by that same flowing river over millennia. The landscape, and the island especially, have been so shaped by this force of water that seems almost wholly absent this time of year. I have to admit that growing up in the Northwest, I was mostly out-of-tune with this place and its seasons. I was not aware until adulthood that we experience seasonal droughts in this region. When this phenomenon was described to me, I can’t say that I met it with pre-existing awareness. To be more fair to my young self, perhaps I was like the fish who doesn’t realize he is wet, because water is all he knows. I must have understood about summer droughts on a deep level, because I still marvel at the notion that in other places, rain falls in the summer. Regularly! So much so that some farms don’t even own irrigation equipment, let alone spend a good portion of every day thinking and working on irrigation projects. How amazing!

Dottie samples some of the first of our next variety of red plum. Not quite juicy enough yet to drip down her chin, but it will happen soon.

And, yet here we are, facing extreme fire warnings as the humidity drops to 10% and the daytime high temperatures rise to above 100° — no rain anywhere on the forecast for who knows how long. It will come. It will. We will welcome it, but for now we relish the unique beauties of this season: the golden sunlight before dusk (made even more so as it shines through all that dust); the deep baking dry heat that can actually feel good — like it is reaching to the bones and drying out any last remnant of moisture or mildew from Oregon winters; and, the fruit — the juicy, mouth-watering endless parade of fresh fruit. Plums. Blackberries. Apples.

I will close with a poem that always resonates this time of year:

The Arrival — Wendell Berry

Like a tide it comes in,
wave after wave of foliage and fruit,
the nurtured and the wild,
out of the light to this shore.
In its extravagance we shape
the strenuous outline of enough.

Perhaps we will see some of you at the fair. Perhaps you will be swimming instead. Stay cool and safe this week. Enjoy this week’s vegetables!

Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla

~ ~ ~

CSA payment due! One last reminder that our second-to-last CSA payment is due tomorrow at pick-up! You can bring cash or check! I emailed statements last week, but if you have any questions about your account, please email me! farm (at) oakhillorganics (dot) com

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Farming and gardening is perhaps ALWAYS an act of hope. We weeded our family garden this weekend.

This weekend, we acted in hope. We transplanted 33 blueberry plants in the middle of summer, on what was expected to be a very hot day. Perhaps not a recommended time of year for transplanting perennials, but where we had originally planted the blueberries just wasn’t working. They weren’t near enough other perennials to tend or water properly. Before Casey dug them up on Saturday morning, they were in the midst of a field more or less by themselves, meaning that to water them would be less simple than in other spots. And, so, we moved them, planting them at the edge of our home orchard, where we hope that proximity to our house will allow us to give them the attention they need to flourish.

We gave our transplanted blueberries plenty of water. So far they are still alive!

You see, this is our third attempt at blueberries. They are, as a farmer friend has put it, especially sensitive plants. Other crops can survive minor blips in tending in a year or two — blueberries, not so much. Our first large blueberry planting succumbed to our lack of care in 2012, our year of “everything-happening-all-at-once” (the year we expanded our acreage, started milking cows, had a second baby, and dealt with a cancer diagnosis and surgery … !). We planted another, smaller, planting the next year, but as I explained above, the location turned out to not be ideal. And, so, we move them in mid-summer — taking care to prepare each hole with love — and we hope.

It felt like a fitting exercise in hope after a week of experiencing a higher than normal level of general anxiety here in the Northwest. That earthquake article I mentioned in last week’s newsletter has “shaken” up a lot of folks living in our fine region. The language choices and descriptions were fairly extreme and represented quite a doomsday scenario. Some respond by sticking their heads in the sand and ignoring it completely; others can feel shut down by fear. Perhaps neither is especially useful.

I find probability predictions based on historical instances to be problematic, and here’s why: if we look at history, whether it be ancient geologic or more recent political history, it is full of devastation. And much of the devastation seems to come in cycles — empires rise; empires fall. Plagues wipe out whole generations. The last century brought plenty more devastation in these cycles: world wars, terrorism, deadly hurricanes, and more.

History teaches us this: bad stuff happens. All kinds of bad stuff. And, yes, it will happen again. We can be sure of that, unfortunately. Realistically, much of it will be hard to predict too. And even the predictable things (such as hurricanes) will still find many people unprepared for survival. Alas. And sadly.

Perhaps, more to the point — we will all die. We will! In the year 2015, I think this still surprises us with its reality. We hope that we can die a timely, easy death; but death itself is unavoidable. As is the death of our dearest loved ones. Again, oh, how we long for timeliness in all of those passings. The more we love, the more we hope. But we will die — in an earthquake, from cancer, in a car accident, from old age. We will.

So, how then do we live? Do we let this knowledge crumple us with its huge weight? Do we spend all our energy trying to make life as safe as possible — perhaps to the risk of missing out on great joys and pleasures?

I thought about these Big Question as we planted blueberries because it reminded me of one of my favorite quotes: Martin Luther said, “Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.” I love the deep sense of hope that is implicit in this statement, because of course planting an apple tree is not just an investment in the next day, or the next weeks — it is an investment in future years and decades.

If you think about it, spring itself embodies this hope. Just as each human will die, each year the earth itself goes through a cycle of death. And, yet, spring comes again. The apples blossom and set fruit, even though fall will come. Martin Luther was buoyed by his Christian faith, which told him that we are called to be “light” in the world — to be life. Can light and life exist without hope? Martin Luther would say no, that to him faith and hope were one. I find the same message in spring, in these plants that grow, flower, set fruit, and make seeds, year in and year out.

Casey rigged up a solar charger from our electric fencing with an inverter so we can use it to power small things like a radio, cell phone charger, etc. A good start on the preparation project!

I should add that a few more items got added to our ‘to do’ lists this week as well. In addition to taking care of our usual summer farm work (and transplanting blueberry plants), Casey and I are also brainstorming what realistic measures our farm and family should take for surviving any kind of unexpected disaster that might come our way. We’re putting together bags of supplies to keep in our vehicles and pondering water supplies for animals should the grid go down for weeks or months at a time. I am sure that Martin Luther would agree that being practical is also part of being alive in this world. As one seismic expert said in a forum I was reading: “Be prepared, but don’t be paranoid.”

Many different faith and philosophical traditions address similar question of course. How to live is of course The Big Question of Humanity. I love hearing how different voices answer the question. Many years ago in a wonderful high school course, a teacher introduced me to this Buddhist parable, which I come back to regularly:

A man traveling across a field encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger after him. Coming to a precipice, he caught hold of the root of a wild vine and swung himself down over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him. Only the vine sustained him.

Two mice, one white and one black, little by little started to gnaw away the vine. The man saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted!

As always, these are questions worth grappling over a lifetime — philosophers have been pondering them for centuries, so I certainly can’t find an answer during one blueberry planting session. But I feel thankful that I can listen to these people, many of whom had seen many more trials than I, and hear hope expressed. Hope for the moment at hand, for love, for a richness of experience now, regardless of what awaits us tomorrow or the next day.

I have also observed in these wise writers and in people in my own immediate life that those I admire most often have also weathered the most trials. The people in whom I see a depth of sympathy, patience, understanding and love have earned those traits through very hard work indeed — intentional work of growing through pain rather than shutting down. These people remind me of the world around us, where growth happens even in the darkest parts of the year, where the cold stimulates the seeds for next season.

I hope I haven’t at all sugar-coated trials or devastation. Because, oh, I acknowledge the challenges and of course want so badly to avoid them in my own lifetime. Don’t we all? But I work very hard personally to not let fear or the future (or possible regrets from the past) bog me down. I work on this every. single. day. I work to appreciate these children of ours in this sweet vibrant moment, knowing that they will never be this age or this person again. I work to appreciate the farm we do have rather than pining for the one that has only ever existed in our imaginations. And, when reading dire predictions of future earthquakes, I work to enjoy these calm moments now — to enjoy the ease of a hot shower and electricity. These are luxuries that I want to be appreciative of either way.

I do encourage all our readers who may be feeling fear now to join me in working to embrace this life we are living today. I think this is hard and valuable work worth doing. I also simultaneously encourage others to prepare for disasters in simple ways. At the very least, you can buy premade emergency bags to keep in your car (here’s an example of one). It’s a simple investment that could bring some peace of mind.

Now, let’s hope that our gentle attention will help our blueberries take to their new home! Because future blueberries outside my door certainly gives me hope! Enjoy this week’s vegetables!

Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla

P.S. This weekend, Casey also pulled out his latent science super powers and spent a few hours reading the original research articles cited in The New Yorker earthquake article. According to his reading, the situation is much less dire than the headlines suggest. The return interval for the Big Earthquakes in our region is 550 years rather than 300 years. So. There you go. It won’t stop us from preparing, but perhaps we can still enjoy yurt camping at the beach.

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Two reminders:

• The next CSA payment is due by next Thursday, July 30. I emailed CSA statements this Monday to folks who still have a balance due. Please let me know if you have any questions about our records of your account activity. You can mail us checks: Oakhill Organics, P.O. Box 1698, McMinnville OR 97128; or you can bring them to pick-up. Thank you!
• Our next CSA event is coming in a few weeks — we’ll host a farm potluck out here on Saturday, August 15. More details in coming newsletters!

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Still taking pork orders! Well, those four hogs we slaughtered last week were claimed very quickly at our summer sale price! We continued receiving orders, so we are going to schedule another round of hogs for slaughter. If you’d like to get in on the low summer price, let us know by the end of this week! For this sale, we’re charging $3.90 lb for hanging weight — price includes processing costs. Whole hogs are averaging 80-90 lbs hanging weight. We can take payments (with full price being paid by October 1).

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