On a brisk morning, I took a different rout down to the barn to look at my orchard in preparation for winter pruning. Looking the trees over before the job starts helps me lay out a plan and grasp what needs to get done. A couple of cracked branches need to be removed, and I’m also debating taking out some of the protective fences, as the young trees have gained enough height to avoid browsing sheep and chicken pecking- yes, the birds to reach up, and even jump up to grab leaves with their beaks. They have also learned how to peck into young gourds and squash, so I’m planning a chicken run for the coming growing months. Originally, I had the birds behind electric mesh rotating pastures, but in recent years, with the setting of so much vegetation around the upper pasture, they’ve been good gleaners in the hedges and garden edges, so I let the flock wander far and wide. They had forgotten the garden, for the most part, and a set hedge around the outside had kept them at bay, until one winter, they found there way in, and learned the soil was good pickings, so I’m re-fencing the kitchen garden with waddle hazel this spring.
Crossing the driveway to the east, I enjoyed witnessing first light striking across the landscape, opening shape to the world, and subtle color, ash grey, ice blue, and solid shadow black. A looming new silhouette breaches the skyline, an imposing form with damp sheen reflects earth and sky. The new solar array will be harvesting a lot of kWh today. January 2026 brought in 1,002.6 kWh. I earn about 10 kWh on a cloudy day, so even when the sun is behind the clouds, power still comes in. It’s a great long term investment for the energy needs of house and farm. Taking time to look at this new instillation, I am lost in the abstract reflections on water and glass, reflecting forest and predawn light. It’s a lot of imported material, but it will spend the rest of my lifetime capturing energy from a totally green source to keep this place affordable and regenerative.
There are sometimes very dramatic sunrises in winter here. So much color in the space where bare branches allow the morning glow to burst through between silhouetted evergreen giants. A ripple of cirrostratus clouds stretch from the horizon, reflecting saturated warm tones. Even through the air temperatures hovers at freezing, seeing this morning glow rising from the east signals warmth to come in an ever lengthening day. Bulbs are pushing up strong green shoots, with more cold weather on the way, I try to cover the enthusiastic new growth with mulch for protection, which I will have to remove once Spring arrives to prevent my bulbs rotting in soaking wet ground. Mulching and trimming back are two ever present chores of this landscape. Sometimes the livestock can help, but in the more sensitive plantings, it’s all by hand. Quiet meditation while pruning back bramble and new fruit tree suckers becomes rhythmic motion throughout the daylight cycle. As sheep graze across the pasture, my shears take young wood and budding cane back to manageable shape and productive spacing. As the light sharpens, I can see the outcome of these simple repetitive labors. Healthy branches shaped to hold fruit and retain airflow. Mildew can rot young fruit, and greater dampness leads to debarking, and the loss of the branch over time. Fruit trees can be high maintenance, but once you find out which verities work well in your microclimate, you’ll have set an orchard. If you have enough light.
The brilliant south facing gentle slope of this property invites beautiful sun catchment in the upper most elevations, where the house and main orchards and gardens lay. This aspect invites both the open view of sky and all the shapes and colors of clouds forms drifting across it. There are days of slate gray sky, but usually, dawn and dusk have a lot of light contrasts to offer. I’ve caught a few of these magical times, like this morning, and in the evening, when the sun dips below the cloud line in the west, the light often showers the sky with orange, pink, lavender, fuchsia, and deep purples, reflections on the bright ocean waters off our coast in The Pacific. The hues are spectacular, and what some in the area call Seattle’s “5 O’clock cocktail hour”. I will say, my chickens do look good in late evening light.
Access to light determines everything we grow. Well, that’s changing with the advent of indoor growing, but the economics of that system have not played out well, so we keep tilling and row cropping using outdated industrial methods. The ground at the feet of this bird above has not seen a tiller in decades, it gets a good dose of organic fertilizer each season, along with the seeding and scratching of the flock. Sheep graze over it occasionally, and within 30 feet of this pasture space, there are two raised bed gardens in construction. A few forbs are out competing the grasses in a race to diversify the layers of pasture space, it’s not all grass if things are in balance. I’ve got some spring seeding planned that will include clover and common vetch, two “go tos” in the forb world. They are also both legumes, with some added protein. Your pasture must get a lot of sun for these forbs to thrive. Other good broad leaf ground dwellers include dock, yarrow, nettle, and countless others.
Sometimes, when the light is just right, I’ve walked into a Gainsborough. Admittedly, that’s my European roots appreciating pastoral beauty, a western implementation of dominion over the land, improving it for the betterment of a few. Yet in the replanting of native species, shifting mindset from agricultural, to pastoral, to woodland, all these legacies, yet there is light here, shining down as it has for billions of years, and the plants have for millions, even if some are transplants, the are working as a collective, in constant resourcing, adapting and reproducing in succession, notes on evolution we didn’t learn in school. There are strands I can conjure through imagination and the faint traces of bygone era. Back to stairs of vernal pools between the gigantic feet, the trunks themselves, buttressing toes, plunging each anchor far below, when there was depth. Three meters of topsoil or more eroded away down the slopes, carried in torrential rains, through temperate winters, river flooded valleys slowly cleared and burned back, into some grotesque submission. In this small parcel of rejuvenation, carry its light in rich growth and layered return of canopy and understory abundance.
EEC Forest Stewardship 
