Snapshots from 2023
January
The off-season is always busy, and one of the best times to see all the amazing birds of prey on the island. January we planted over 100 trees.
February
The month started very sad, when we found a Bald Eagle. ODFW confirmed she died of bird flu. Bird flu had extremely high numbers this winter. Especially with all the geese, ducks, cranes and other migratory birds that come to the farm, the eagles and our chickens are at heightened risk. Shown, Lacy is giving one of the chickens an examine. I had fun painting, Alejandro and Manuel planted more trees, mushrooms everywhere, more equipment repairs, animals, and snow.
March
We had a really big scare when Blue and Rolo (two of our goats) got bloat by eating too much spring grass. Pictured: Odessa drenches Rolo to help them survive. Thanks to Chelsea and Alycia who brought us some homemade tinctures. It took almost 48 hours until they were out of the woods. Next photo, tons of packages of organic ground flower petals started arriving from India in preparation for the HOLI fest. We took advantage of a few rainy days to finally clear out the shop from all the stuff we inherited. The heat tables in the greenhouse were filled (lots of netting to keep the birds from eating all the seeds). We made a pathway in the parking lot, and created a keyline on our vegetable hill.
April
Jim broke the no farm animals in the house rule. Becca and the team at Von Ebert Brewing let us put the ceremonial first batch of hops in the Topaz IPA. Lots of photos from Easter: animals, making Ukrainian eggs, shenanigans on the mini digger and the cow train. The tables were turned, we photographed Meg with one of the baby turkeys. Meg creates our reels and other social media posts.
May
Harvesting begins, more repairs, lots of painting, more animals, turtles, our amazing team and strawberries. Photos from Mother’s Day and the HOLI Fest!!!
June
Farmer Jim giving his tractor talk, gourd painting parties, fruit, flowers, fennel, garlic scapes, digging a hole for Chef Christian to prepare food in the ground for farm to plate dinners, smash burgers, and finding a skunk who wandered into one of the trash cans.
July
Harvest Fest magic: unicorns, music, great food, great beer, great people.
August
More amazing farm food, more great music (even in the rain) — not great: Squash Bugs. Ellie in the sunflowers. Foreland Beer brewed the tastiest summer beer: Farmer Jim’s Pils. Note: Fiona and Cooper in the field with dish soap and water individually inspecting every pumpkin plant and picking off the squash bugs and eggs by hand. Also not great: wind that knocked over one of the sorghum mazes.
September
Three men, three babies, four chickens, hundreds of bees drinking. Mayday gets a pedicure, artist Sara Kirschenbaum helps us make sun prints, Luis and Alejandro under the hop hut, Christian making beer can chicken, Thimbleberry Farms makes flower prints, CHAP paints, mini produce, grilled sunflowers, and making mounds to plant garlic for next year.
October
More garlic, cow train fun, chard, squash, school field trips, a fairy ring of mushrooms grows under the tire swing Oak tree, a cornucopia of produce, costumes for our trick or treat sorghum maze, Blue gets his horn repaired, chicken manure feeds the garlic mounds.
November
Carving and freezing pumpkins for next year’s Fort George Pumpkin beer, pigs out for a stroll, finding eggs in the flowers, digging up tubers, more garlic, drone shots, pumpkin flower vases, Chef Janelle, Maggie and Jim getting ready for Thanksgiving meal pick-ups, checking on our owls boxes, harvesting and brining our first crop of olives, more mushrooms, organic dairy manure, fire in the sky, and the heat lamp in the chicken tractor for an especially cold night.
December
We were so lucky to have such a dry fall. We had lots of time for outdoor projects, including building new animal pens on the hill, where it won’t get as muddy, and large enough to rotationally graze them, which they enjoy more, and it helps the soil. Also pictured, Trooper the donkey helping me put up a fence and Odessa giving him his routine vaccines. Another one of the many reasons we don’t allow pets on the farm is because it’s important for our animals’ health to minimize their exposure to other animals.
