It’s been about eight years since we first planted our chestnuts and the crop this year will be a first. With no irrigation or mulch or other inputs besides occasional weeding, these trees are developing into a future nut factor extravaganza! The Colossal variety has been most successful, and are projected to be early producers. Our other varieties are slower growing, and hold a few nuts, but need more time to develop enough canopy spread to be viable producers. It’s also hard to tell if we’ve lost the graft on one pictured below. It’s got a lot of sucker mess closer to the ground, I’m going to keep observing and hope nuts come on in the next few years. If not, we’ll still leave the tree as shade, deciduous leaf shed for mulch and fertility, and possible root stock genetics to perpetuate for future grafting.
When to gather the nuts depends on when they drop in the Fall.
(4 paragraphs and some lovely links were lost in an epic freeze up of WordPress and I don’t have the heart to rewrite it) in short- companion planting, good fencing protection, and a future plan to irrigate future oak and pecan trees. I’m sorry folks, worked many hours on this post and when it froze up, I was able to copy the last two paragraphs, but not recover the rest. This is my protest to WordPress and some compensation for my loss.
This particular article talks more extensively about companions for fruit and nut trees, and other important topics like pollination and soil health. It’s always good to have a plan for your plantings, but understanding your soil, weather, and seasonal shifts on the ground takes time. Ten years in, we’re finally getting the rhythm of the earth and investing for the most successful restoration in food, medicine, and material crops hand in hand with both native and cultivar species.
To be clear, we won’t be planting cultivars in the native restoration areas, like our salmon stream wildlife corridor, but in the highly altered agricultural fields, mixing in cultivars improves overall productivity and diversity in a fast changing climate. Navigating the vision of adaptation, human use, and wildlife preferences; we continue to plant, plan, and plant some more. We’re also maintaining boundaries- most of them hard fenced in nature- to keep our livestock from over maintaining- as in predating our more vulnerable crops- like the chestnuts. With good fencing and occasional weeding, our trees are now capable of fending off most browsing, but we’ll leave the fencing to help protect understory verities as they establish. We don’t yet have a bumper crop to crow about regarding our young nut grove, but it’s well on it’s way, and this year, we just might have some sweet chestnuts roasting on an open fire.
When first cultivating the idea of holistic land restoration and producing food locally, I took a lot of time visiting locations around western states in search of ecological location. Political forward thinking, social welfare, and civil engagement also played important roles, but seeing the continued climate crisis looming, I opted for a place with temperate climate and lots of fresh water. The Pacific Northwest, and more specifically Western Washington, offers temperate rainforest ecology with mountains, oceans, lakes, rivers, and mega flora and fauna. When I bought the property in 2013, I could afford acreage within an hour of Seattle- complete with well, salmon stream, and 60-80 year old trees throughout. For someone who grew up in Oklahoma, with dust-bowl ancestry, access to so much forest and fresh water was almost unbelievable. I know if my Grandma was still alive, she would not comprehend the height of “pine trees” out west.
In two lifetimes, humans went from horsepower to combustion technology, which we are still in; tech i runs off petrochemicals- plastic included, and it’s all toxic. Who’s wearing some right now? -most of us, as even jeans are now woven with spandex stretch fit. I’m writing this in a pair of nylon Wranglers- that’s right, no cotton blue jean in this pair of pants, yet still Wrangler stretch fit. Ye-haw! How much stuff has to be shipped to you these days? How much driving around picking up stuff do you do? What are the true costs living rural? I highly recommend checking out the link below for info on your area. There’s a way to measure our consumption now, and these maps are quite revealing.
So how does EEC Forest Stewardship measure up? We’re electric and wood heat on the property, there are a couple of two stroke machines on the land which run a few times a year- our chainsaw does the most work at an average of 4 gallons a year. The weed wacker runs about 2. Our livestock does the rest. Hens cost the most, as their total organic and locally grown grain has risen to a dizzying cost in 2023. A 25# bag is $40! Though we go through about 35 bags a year, with a lot of home grown supplement, including our own farmed meal worms. This keeps our chicken operation in the black, and we sell about 5 dozen eggs a week (averaged out). What’s this got to do with carbon footprint? It seems to come down to dollar- the 40# bag of organic generic layer feed at $25 would be the obvious choice, but that bag of feed’s ingredient list says a lot more about the true cost of cheaper prices-
Here’s the list of ingredients from Scratch and Peck-
Organic Wheat, Organic Barley, Organic Peas, Organic Flaxseed Meal, Ground Limestone, Fish Meal, Organic Sunflower Oil, Black Soldier Fly Larvae Meal, Organic Dehydrated Kelp Meal, Essential Oils, Vitamin and Mineral Premix. Ingredients may vary – please review each bag’s label.
The cheaper organic layer pellet feed (so it’s cooked most of the nutrition out), has fillers like Choline Chloride, which is an important component to cell membrane formation, and found naturally in the environment- though when it’s chemically produced in a lab on industrial scale, the whole “naturally found in nature” explanation holds little water. Industrially produced material is high input demand for a factory, energy to run it, manpower to oversee, and the mines providing the chemicals to make something. Then the industrial chemicals are put into all sorts of other industrial products- like commercial layer feed- even organic ones. Many parts of this feed are subsidized, and the more petrochemicals used, the cheaper the outcome- but that too is changing fast. Down the rabbit hole we go- main point still being, cheaper at a high cost somewhere else. Products that have long lists of inputs leave us with a web of chemical plants, mines, truck, train, and plane transport that will leave your head spinning, but the price it right!
Scratch and Peck is a Washington State company that sources all its ingredients from verified farmers in North America. They were the first non-GMO Organic Certified USDA feed company, and I’ll pay a little extra for certified quality, also, to support local businesses. This is worth the price, and it keeps me balanced in my own limitations of scope and scale. There are still mines and extraction economy involved, and ultimately not having livestock at all would be ideal- if the environment had it’s ecology intact and a thriving wildlife system within. I can hope elk one day might come up the ridge, and they are close, but as long as grid property systems exist, migrating species won’t have a chance. Humanity has boxed out wildlife with similar grid demarcations, and it’s through all this data measurement that we arrange algorithms of solution to problems we created. Again, our actions, our choices make or break restoration of these complicated natural systems that we have yet to fold ourselves back into successfully.
Every little step we can take in our lives towards less consumption is a step in the right direction. Knowing where you are stepping off from to start is key. Think about transportation first- it’s the most impactful action each of us takes if we’re using a car. Do you drive every day? If so, can you plan to share the ride with others- especially work or school carpools? Do you practice reduced packaging? Small steps, but for those wishing to make a greater impact, have fewer children. It’s really helpful to recognize limitations, especially finite ones like clean air, soil, and water. These are abstract terms that boil down to groceries, health, and what comes out of your tap at home. It’s hard to grasp things like palm oil and your coffee or coke and the water table of Mexico, but it’s happening all around us in our insulated middle to upper income households. I mean households where there are multiple vehicles, pets, entertainment systems, high speed internet, and a well stocked pantry. If you can check all those boxes, you’re in that upper consumption market- especially if you live suburban.
EEC Forest Stewardship checks all the boxes, but some of the pantry comes from in house, and meat, which is a high carbon footprint under industrial agricultural management. On a small farm with minimal inputs, we’re still supplying a low carbon option marketed to the people who could use more carbon offsets. Ultimately this farm is also moving towards reforestation and habitat maximization, rather than agricultural perpetuation. It’s why forest stewardship remains the focus of this land, using restorative agriculture to quicken the land’s fertility. The good news is farms can stay financially viable using restorative ag, and it works best in smaller acreages of operation, which suits the limitations of EEC.
Micro can become macro when enough plots are participating. Again, city dwellers without land are still offering a huge offset by living urban and concentrating impact. There are other risks to clumping up, and COVID showed us one of those nightmare scenarios. But the risks are less overall if you are agreeing to live in civil society– which does offer a certain level of protection and survival success. We can all say yes to modern medicine, well, most of us. Healthcare is becoming a needless nightmare as well. When we start reflecting on quality of life, especially after a recent pandemic in which our fragile systems, like healthcare, came to light for so many, it helps to recognize the importance of strong community connection hand in hand with ecologically based development planning around the natural structures which are already in place and working without human inputs. When we learn, or at least acknowledge the levels of complexity it really takes to sustain life, perhaps we can understand the impossibility of constant quality while fulfilling quantity. Demand does not mean supply is available, and in nature- which we are still bound to, even with all our technology and inventiveness, a failure in one aspect of the system is manageable, but our planetary environment is currently hemorrhaging. Our best action now is preparing as best we can, while living in the moment.
Flying is another huge footprint in carbon emissions, so most of our vacation time is a low emissions state lands visit with spectacular views, open air accommodations, and an outdoor kitchen to die for. In less than an hour drive from the land at EEC, we can find ourselves alone in the wilderness on a grand adventure in hiking, camping, and appreciating our greater backyard. We live here because of the unbelievable ecological diversity found within Washington State. It’s our main destination, which helps with avoiding plane travel, but I still fly to see family, and that swings my personal footprint towards the higher end of consumption. Just two flights- you usually have return ticket, is about 1000kg of CO2, which can be understood better in this graph about 1kg CO2 equivalences. This is more CO2 then many people in the world use in a year, so I am more consumptive, along with anyone else participating in the military industrial complex. Offsetting is great, and it’s a start to at least do some basic calculations to quantify your footprint.
Apples are ripening and peaches are plumping up at Leafhopper Farm. We’re watching the summer drought and maintaining an irrigation schedule to support maturing fruit across the landscape. Apples are well established at EEC Forest Stewardship, with a variety of grafts and root stock to support long term genetic success in orchard development. Most of our apples are dwarfs, which will stay low on the horizon, letting our good southern exposure shine through. The mature, and in fact, declining older trees are on the far west side of our human habitat zones 1 and 2 on the property. Some of the trees support two different grafts on one trunk. This is common in smaller home orchards where space and time management of individual trees is limited. There is some risk in that a graft which fails could mean complete loss of a variety, but the surviving graft will take over and still produce. We’ve grafted a few of our own multi variety root stalks and most of them are still holding true.
Our crabapple varieties are also thriving. These smaller rose hips (yes, apples are roses) can still be sweet and rewarding as a food source, yet they are more drought resilient and generally hardy. There is a native variety- Malus fusca, which is planted around EEC as well. Our planting plan includes this often overlooked native plant and its important relationship with First Nations. After reading Keeping It Living, and understanding that stands of crabapple were often present at traditional village sites, I began planting them around the zone 1 and 2 areas. As they mature, berries have begun attracting our local bird population. The fruit stays on the branch into winter, and becomes an important food source once snow and ice set in. Below is a good list of known uses of our native crabapple from Wikipedia.
Folded in with some of our crabapples is the illusive chinckapin. We’ve got a few surviving- and even thriving at EEC Forest Stewardship, and this modest chestnut relative might be a future food crop for us in times of need, much like the crabapple. Modest fruit producers can still play a major role in orchard development. The flowers of these species is still attractive to pollinators, and the nuts and berries are often perfect winter forage for wildlife, specifically birds. Also note the acorn bearer in the foreground of the above picture, with chinckapin towering above and sporting its own serrated leaf. Oaks are the future for us here in The Pacific Northwest. White oaks are ideal for acorn harvesting, but even this red is welcome to diversify species. Mixing up your orchard venue adds resiliency against pests and diseases. It adds in nutrient production and creates an intact system of fertility which will bank it’s own soil over time.
Commercial orchards of today are monoculture wastelands soaked in chemical poisons and often in need of added pesticides because of pest species resistance and dead soil with no helpful bacteria to protect root stock. The rows and rows of mechanically maintained trees is a frightening industrial prospect when viewed from the air.
“Former orchard practices caused widespread soil contamination in agricultural areas throughout Washington. This guidance addresses properties that were impacted by the use of lead arsenate, a pesticide used from the late 1800s until approximately 1950. The resulting lead and arsenic contamination is similar to what is found within the smelter plumes of western and northeast Washington.”
Below is a map of historical orchards from Chelan to Wenatchee along Lake Chelan, The Colombia, and The Wenatchee Rivers. This is the legacy left by industrial farming, and the irrigation needed to perpetuate the orchards, in step desert, included damming The Colombia River in multiple places. But we get a lot of cheap, green power. Well, at the cost of ecological systems like salmon, and perpetuation of expansive settlement in regions prone to fire. Electricity is convenience, and as a Wenatchee elder said in talking about the power lines over a sacred space- “Convenience is what allows you colonizers to be here, take it away, and the land returns to us.”
Orchards are such a nice idea, and the history of grafting fruit goes back hundreds of years. Humans have developed a lot of production driven plants to make agriculture more successful- it’s how we’ve fed and grown humanity into a staggering juggernaut, and people are still needlessly starving all over the world. Apples are still pretty cool, and where there is extensive land and water to cultivate sprawling plantations, why not? More fruit more earnings- but also more chemicals, pests, degradation of the environment, and long term loss of fertility. In small scale orchards, like the ones at EEC Forest Stewardship, we neglect the trees to better natural selection. Our peach gets leaf curl, but also gives us a lot of peaches, and that’s enough. The sweetness enjoyed still counts, and in a good year we can put away a few gallon bags of the succulent fruit to enjoy in cold winter months too. That’s enough.
Our plumbs have been teaching a rather important lesson about the vulnerability of grafted fruit. Only 1 out of 4 plumb trees planted has kept it’s fruit bearing strain. I just picked about a baseball cap’s worth of fruit, each one about the size of a ping-pong ball. The branch is withering in our summer drought. The part of the tree which reverted to root stalk, is lush and green, much larger than the fruit producing branch, and thriving though the summer with no problem. Why is the grafted branch so much weaker? Because we selected it for the sweet fruit, not drought resistance. We made a resilient natural thing into a vulnerable, easily compromised low reward specimen- but man, that fruit is good, melts like candy on the tongue. I hope to re-graft off of this branch to take back my other plumbs, but it’s perpetuating that vulnerability once more. Perhaps we’ll save the pits from these plumbs too- plant some new genetic stock and hope one produces decent fruit. That kind of food evolution could take lifetimes, so I understand why people are so into current fruit strains like the most recent here in Washington- Cosmic Crisp.
At EEC, we’ve been shifting away from heavily developed apple strains back towards the more primitive crab-apples of olden days. Though the Pacific Apple is regarded as starvation food, there are some cultivars that have decent flesh and flavor. This picture above is a first harvest from our not irrigated tasty crabapple. 3 other varieties were put in this year to compare. It’s a modest producer, but the fruit is sweet, and getting fruit without irrigation is a plus. This tree handles the drought well and graces us with a modest, but delicious reward for our efforts in cultivation. Orchards can be small and still abundant. You don’t need chemicals, but expect blemishes. Pick your fruit quickly too- the birds love predating on ripe trees. I’ve had a lot more success this year grabbing all the fruit at once and letting the under-ripe mature a little more on the counter or in the fridge.
Upcoming harvests include peaches, more apples, and hopefully some chestnuts this fall. Our pears are also looking great this year, and we hope that as more orchard trees mature, we’ll have more than enough fruit without having to hassle with chemicals, pruning, or irrigation as canopy cover spreads, and understory companions move in to complete the ecological circle of nutrient dense vegetation from soil surface to tallest mast in the forest. We’ll keep picking, planting, and preserving!
Wildflowers peak and grasses brown as Summer’s heat sets in at EEC Forest Stewardship. The State is in a drought, our irrigation is on and keeping the crops thriving, though the water table continues to drop and seeps vanish. Green patches are grazed down first, and standing hay is still ignored, but come late August, any stem will do. We’ve been managing pastures for drought, and expect to begin haying the sheep in the barn by late September, though pasture conditions in our region would usually stretch into late October with proper rains to keep the pastures green and lush. Observation like this is crucial to keeping the land healthy and the animals properly fed. I’ve been noticing land around me being damaged by overgrazing and girdled trees. Many folks are not observing the climate changes, and still turning stock out into fields all summer with no oversight. It’s having an impact, and I’ve watched beautiful land turn to moonscape in just a few weeks of animals not being rotated off in time.
Here’s a good picture to show the eaten vs. uneaten swath of land. The left side is eaten thoroughly, on the right, grass is still green and lush. The fence is being moved to open up onto that fresh ground, while the eaten down side will be fenced and rested. Below is another picture of grazed vs. ungrazed. One might think it still looks lush and good under those apple trees- but the unprotected grass outside the canopy is at its limit, so the flock is moved on. That shaded grass will recover faster, but you should base your rotational timing on the most vulnerable part of your pasture, otherwise the gap in quality will grow, and hard hit areas of the landscape will erode faster. It’s sometimes hard to measure exact conditions, and here on the western slopes of The Cascades, our landscape is very non-brittle most of the year, but right now, in the height of summer drought, we are as brittle as it gets, which means poor land rotation can cause great harm. This ecosystem management has become extreme, and without proper grazing adaptation, even our lush rainforests could become deserts.
The heat also makes great demand on our water resources. Gardens get full irrigation every other day, and the young orchard cries out for another deep watering, which will come at the end of August. We’ve received no impactful precipitation into the soil, but a hard rain at the end of July for a few hours charged up our cisterns at the right time. A 500 gallon tank will keep our livestock well hydrated though the rest of the summer- if we get our rain in October, but last year, we had no rain in October, but it did remain in the 90s for a few more weeks. These are extremes for Western Washington, and with a major drought on this summer, 2023, we are not going to catch up in rain missed, for if we do, a true flood would have to occur several times between now and the end of the year. It could happen, as hundred year floods have become 20 year floods, and those 1000 year nightmares are also sure to come. If we did get a deluge in early fall, before the soil has a chance to re-hydrate, the erosion impact could be catastrophic.
Here at EEC Forest Stewardship, we do our best to keep the soil covered. Canopy is optimal, but even with tall trees, no understory will allow erosion through, and since we’re already on a hillside, we have to slow and sink in all walks and forms. Even with our water catchment systems, dusty soil is vulnerable to erosion, so we’re continuing to work on mulching by layering vegetation to act as a sponge. This may seem counterintuitive with all the fire danger out west, but rainforest is more resistant to burning because of the water retention in the soil of deep forest duff. When we remove that forest floor much, the soil dries out faster, and the plants wilt and become brittle tinder. My garden thrives on less water when I mulch, and that layer of protection plays out the same way in the woods. Sheep manure adds to that mulch, but the sheep also denude the landscape, so again, balance in all things.
Warmer summer days turn into beautiful evenings best spent on a lake fishing, when there’s a chance to get away from farming long enough to catch a few trout for the larder and to enjoy this beautiful landscape all around. In less than an hour we can have our hooks in the water at an almost private alpine lake watching the sun dip low in the west. There’s a light haze of smoke in the air, but the mists blanketing the mountains to our east floating on light crisp mountain breezes across the lake, sending a shiver over the shimmering water. Evening light stretches on, allowing us a little extra time recreating in this great place we call home. When it’s hot, escape to the mountains, when it’s dry, water wisely, and move the animals more frequently or reduce numbers on the landscape. Take time to rest when working in the heat, our 90F days will leech the life right out of us. Thankfully, our location offers some climate reprieves- only a few days of truly hot temperatures have arisen- thus far in our summer of 2023. We are not out of the frying pan yet, but with some good preparedness, we won’t end up in the fire. May the cool clouds bring rain and respite to all in need. May the fires that rage in so many places this year be quenched by the sacred waters, which are the life bringers of all things. May the heavens open gently and return the trickle of life to every creek and spring. Keep our soils fertile and our stomachs fed.
Bright sun and early warmth has brought on a fruitopia of young, unripe color signaling the potential for a bounty of harvest this year, 2023. Our peaches, plums, apples, and pears are all developing nicely, while berries abound all around. As I write, at the start of summer, a recent few days of much needed rain are quenching the orchard’s thirst, and we’re still optimistic about our trees and their output this year. Establishing productive trees has taken almost a decade now, and fruit has not been a main focus, but an important spoke on our wheel of vegetative diversification on the landscape. In seeing the fruits of our initial labors selecting the best varieties for our microclimate, while not making pruning and weeding a priority, enough plantings have established to give us some idea of what works and what doesn’t, so we can invest in success for future plantings- when and if we need them. As of now, there is already more than enough fruit to tend on the land. If more people were to arrive and give time for food, more plants would accumulate and more care could be given. This is the beauty of EEC’s development. Scale is so important in design, and knowing the limitations of scale for an individual helps implement manageable systems of food within restoration agriculture. Our eventual plan is old growth forest, with a few clearings to diversify ecology. The agricultural part of the landscape could remain as needed, or be scaled back to make way for more native growth.
Hosting food forest and lasting agricultural capability is still in the cards, though right now, the general public is not in need of hyper local food resources, because COSTCO and Safeway are stocked plentifully. We’re much more excited to pick our own fruit here, but we still don’t produce enough to last the whole year. As a backup, we still buy additional cherries directly from farmers on the east side of our state, and apparently it’s a state regulation that commercial growers spray certain chemicals on their orchards to prevent the spread of blight and pests. Our cherry trees are not treated- we don’t use any chemicals on our food crops. However, we do get curly leaf, scab, and other bacterial plights which occur naturally in the environment, and help select strong genetics for the survival of a species. Our peach tree is blighted, but we get plenty of peaches from the tree. Our apples have scab, but the fruit tastes great, and we still get plenty of apples, just not on an industrial scale. Commercial orchards have to produce on a given level or fail economically. In our orchard, when we have a bad harvest year, we just have less in the larder, which still hits us economically in grocery bills during the lean times of winter. Remember, grocery stores only have fruit year round because of importing from across the globe.
Berries are truly the native fruit of Cascadia. Trailing blackberry, salal, oso, blueberry, Oregon grape, huckleberry, and black capped raspberry (pictured below) are some of the many tasty treats nestled away in the understory of our great temperate rainforest. We’re cultivating a black capped raspberry in the main garden, trellising it up and encouraging replanting of outer tendrils to make more plantings. In the wild, these plants are often overtaking by invading blackberry along forest edges. This powder coated stalk is often thriving on scree slopes or in dappled shad field corners. I rarely enjoy the fruit in the wild, as animals crave this flavor too, and usually hit the bounty of this shrub early in it’s development. Our garden specimen is heavy with green berries, and I look forward to tasting a few in mid-summer.
Other new fruits to our orchard include crab apples, some pear verities, and flowering plums. Pears are having a bountiful year, and even a winter planting from Raintree Nursery planted this winter, is offering a modest, but beautiful fruiting. It’s best to pull off the fruit on very young trees like this, to encourage growth in the woody parts of the tree for size. I embrace the Masanobu Fukuoka way with orchards- a very hands off approach. Anyone thinking about fruit cultivation should at least look this guy up. If you’re into restorative agriculture, read One Straw Revolution for some great tips and tricks, as well as philosophical ideas on natural farming. We’re working towards stepping back, allowing nature to step closer. Fruit trees today, oak and nut tree savanna in seven more generations.
Plumbs are showing up in force, for the second time in seven years. A few of our initial plantings lost their grafts, so the growth now is root stock, which can be re-grafted in future. Grafting is an art form, and stooling, re-rooting, pleachering, these actions craft ever expanding growth of all kinds at EEC Forest Stewardship. Layering species together in more complex networks adds resilience, longevity, and productivity within the regenerated habitat. Orchards can be sterile and harbor deep chemical dependencies on industrial landscapes. Holistic orchards and the departure from row cropping and monoculture will be talked about in my next blog, so I’ll focus more here on our currant fruiting- we did harvest a modest crop of currants this year (2023).
This picture of layered fruits- thimble berry on the bottom, plumb in the middle, and eventual black walnut (in middle at present, center foreground) completes and evolutionary track towards that oak and nut grove savanna mentioned earlier. There are also Nootka roses, a pacific crabapple, and a decorative cypress present in this plant island of zone 3 in our landscape. What a happening habitat! It’s well mulched, on the bottom of a slight slope where water collects, and gets a little irrigation from the pillow tank. We planted squash on the outer rim this year, a sort of experiment in utilizing that irrigation, and space. This is the kind of fruit cultivation that thrives and jives at EEC. We’ll keep cultivating towards abundant harvest and hope these budding fruits mature into blessed bounty!
We traveled back in time to experience early Spring again with glacial lilies in a carpet of gold across alpine slopes. The Cascade peaks are calling, and panoramas abound as we ascend into the sky on Evergreen Mountain. These vistas were inaccessible for several years after a landslide blocked the forest road. During the Bolt Creek fire in September, 2022, the forest service cleared the road to regain access to the fire lookout atop Evergreen Mountain, so this summer, 2023, we scouted the roads and drove a full hour off the main highway up narrow washouts, across creeks, and into some truly scenic territory in The Central Cascades.
The trail was only 2.5 mile round trip, but the 1,400′ elevation gain starting from over 4,000′- so we were breathing hard by the end of the climb. There are several steep ascents, but at each turn, the views astound, and if you want to sit and rest, there are very accommodating old growth forests with shade and level ground along the way. What we found towards the top of the climb was a welcome sight, but added challenge, as snow pack was still present on the north side of the peak. Valley had a blast leaping into the soft cool belly slid, and enjoyed some acrobatic feats- after we made sure there was plenty of soft heather landing below.
Early summer snow pack is a good sign at this elevation, but the hot weather is still melting winter away, and fire season fast approaches. From our vantage point, we could look down into Beckler River Valley, and see the south edge of Bolt Creek Fire along the hillside. This fire burned thousands of acres, and recovery will take time, but the overall look of the landscape is greening back fast, and new seedlings of all verities of plants and trees are germinating with gusto. Even in the picture below, it takes a moment to really see where the burn scars are, but as you look, you’ll see very bare spots with no trees, in a grey splotch center frame, valley right, below the center snow covered peaks far in the distance. There is still great concern over further landslides, a map below links to current county updates on this habitat and what’s being done to mitigate and restore.
Atop Evergreen Peak, the stunning 360 views of our beloved Cascade Mountains brought thrills and chills. We were exposed, high atop a rocky ledge, but the climb and vertigo were worth it to enjoy such splendor. This summer exploration into the mountains is a big slice off why we love living in Western Washington. The Wild Sky Wilderness and surrounding Snoqualmie-Baker National Forest hold endless natural wonder, and fond floral and fauna to learn from and enjoy. We were serenaded by grouse, beautified by wildflower wonder, and refreshed by cool mountain breezes. The sunny morning and elevated energy of these wild peaks sends us home with a song in our hearts as we give thanks for this opportunity to commune with mother nature and her great gifts.
It’s just the start of work to solidify protection of mature forests in King County. Please use this as an inspiration in your own county, town, or back yard. Planting a tree is worthy too, but keeping the ones we have left, epically in ecosystems which remain undeveloped, is crucial to salvaging what’s left- truly, left, of our living planet for ourselves, and the future generations. Call your council members and ask what the strategic plans are to ensure the preservation of your ecosystem. It’s not just trees, but wetlands, deserts, shrub step, grasslands, all the growing things left, and there are islands of green spaces, even in urban places like New York City- I know, I worked in Central Park, for the Conservancy. Making a contribution in time, money, and social awareness within your community can save what’s left, and make a difference in future planning for the restoration of our environment, and the social capitol our wilder and truly wild spaces offer in un-calcuable dividends in what we truly need to survive- clean air, water, and soil.
Here, in King County, right now, 100 year old forests, deemed “Forest Legacy“, are being auctioned off by The Department of Natural Resources to timber corporations. Our forests, owned by the people, for the people, are being cut for “sustainable energy“. After Biden’s climate pledging, he came to Washington State to let the country, and the world know sustained timber production would contribute carbon offsets for companies, and offer protection for old growth trees. Here’s the DNR definition of old growth-
Two key things stick out for me- “prior to 1850”, and “5 acres or larger”. There are very few acres of land left in our country not cut since 1850. This date is selected (for Western Washington) based on per-industrial logging. Not much land here was saved from logging, so the only way to bring back old growth is to let current younger trees grow. So, the 100 year old stands, which are moving towards older, not the thousands of years true old growth was, but something moving towards older, these forests are not old growth, and will be cut. Where are the acres for future old growth happening? No where. Forest Legacy does not mean an old growth legacy for the future generations, it simply means the commercial timber rights will be honored, and the land will not be developed. What a joke- no ecological protection, just commercial revenue. What about carbon sequestering? Sure sure- it’s in the wood, and even after that tree is cut down, that carbon is banked- in construction, of more development. Ironic really, and nothing new in the co-opting of sustainability by extraction industry.
Most of the commercial forests cut today go into “per-manufactured”, “multi layer” construction materials- of solid wood. What? multi layer is particle board, or veneers, or a stack of 2x4s compressed together under extreme pressure and pumped full of laminate chemicals. But wood is sustainable- we can just keep planting new ones after we cut and haul off the old ones right? What? Where does the fertility to grow these new trees come from? An intact forest has hundreds of years- no, thousands of years worth of decaying biomass in the soil from continued lifecycle of trees that fell and lay down their fertility to make more soil for future trees. When you take the trees out, you take the fertility and carbon with them, leaving the soil that’s left to erode- as happened in the early 1900s as timber harvesting became industrialized with the arrival of rail and coal power. Even today, 80 year old trees at EEC Forest Stewardship have a 3-4 foot drop from the base of the tree into it’s root ball.
What about fire danger? Well, intact old growth forest holds a heck of a lot of water- like a sponge, that 4 feet or more of forest floor mulch is soaking up the water and keeping it on the landscape, in the soil, and replenishing the water table. Once it’s cut and gone, the rains rush down hill to the ocean, leaving the land more vulnerable to fire, and drying up wells and waterways, making the land impossible for any life. What about the need for paper products? The US has so much land, so much ability to produce enough for our country, but we are lazy- not wanting to develop new forests, we look to the old growth that’s left and think about the short term gains. Sadly, the land is already spent, and what’s left, the very last, is being carved up and sold off. Can you help? YES! Contact local organizations like:
Legacy Forest Defense Coalition -Also involved in the litigation to save WISHBONE, this oversight group holds timber companies and The Department of Natural Resources accountable by outing the sales of old growth trees.
Center for Responsible Forestry -Creating better guidelines for the timber industry to protect what’s left of our climaxed forest ecology.
Save The Olympic Peninsula -This 501c3 is working to protect natural resources for public benefit instead of corporate greed and commercial abuse. They are also supporting the litigation over WISHBONE.
My partner called me on the way to work, early this morning, to tell me he’d seen a dead deer on the road near our house that looked intact. I promptly grabbed my truck and headed out to check the carcass. It was 54F outside- cool and dry, ideal “summer” conditions for road kill salvaging. Note- salvage tags are legal here in Washington- but you have to file them ASAP with WDFW. Not all state allow this activity, so know the laws where you live. Please also know the risk of salvaging meat and do not attempt without some experience, especially if it’s a warmer time. Bacteria can set in fast, and road kill usually involved some serious blunt force trauma to the animal, with a high probability the innards will rupture and spoil a lot of the meat. Not only was our deer fresh (still warm in the chest), on a cool morning, with a broken leg and some minor lower back bruising. The intestines looked intact and the carcass was not bloated at all, so I hoisted this amazing gift into the truck and got her hung in the garage for a full inspection.
Opening up the cavity, in a normal gutting routine, the animal was undamaged inside- yay! The smell from a ruptured intestine would be enough to let you know if there was compromise. With a great fresh meat smell in the air, I gutted, skinned, and cleaned up the beautiful doe and hung her in the walk in to fully cool and set. What a great spot by my partner! He’s not a hunter, but that doe in the cooler is one above my count this year. Gratitude to the animal, her life on this landscape, and her death being salvaged to feed others, rather than rotting in a ditch- though the dead always feed the living, and scavengers have a sacred role to play too. They will also receive some of this meat in thanks, along with bones and hide, so nothing goes to waste. It is always better to salvage what you can from nature’s bounty, and recovering almost a whole deer is certainly an unexpected boon to our larder in 2023/2024.
After the carcass hung in the cooler for a week, it was time to butcher and freeze the meat. I always start by separating the carcass into two halves at the loin. Then I can put half back in to keep cool, thus giving me more time to work on each part without worrying about spoilage. I’ll keep the front half out to work on first, separating the loin roast, shoulders, and neck into good family dinner portions.
The loin roast I cut her (with hand above), had the best cuts and a cute little heart shape in the bone. Back-strap and loin cuts are dreamy, and putting them together in one single package makes for a great shared meal with friends and family, giving a real wow factor to the meal. We’ll still have some good back-strap on it;s own in another cut later in this breakdown. With most roasts I leave the big bones in for flavor, and also to save time in the tedious process of de-boning. You loose a lot of meat de-boning, and less cuts means less work and less chance for bacteria to get in. Separating the front legs from the ribs gives you two shoulders to work with, followed by neck removal. I usually leave neck together and use as a soup stock item. You can cut most of the neck meat from the bone if you want to save freezer space or avoid those complicated vertebra.
Next we turn to the front legs, often underappreciated because of the scapula bone, but shoulder roasts are delicious and easy to carve out once you find the right approach to the cuts. I’ve done two different presentations of the shoulder- one with bone in and one with bone out- I know which one I like better- what do you think?
Shoulder bone in looks so good- and reflects the typical cut you would buy in the store. It’s easy to wrap and cook too. Great way to keep as much flavor and meat together for taste and presentation. Because we’re working with a damaged carcass, some of our cuts are going to be a little different, but this doe was only damaged in a few places, so most of the meat will go in the freezer. Take a look at these two back-straps- that’s some delicious, melt in your mouth cuts. The meat is fresh, red, and lean. I’ll pack them together in one package and then cut them into fancy medallions for a meal when I unfreeze them. Again, you don’t have to cut the meat into smaller servings until you are ready to use them. This also prevents freezer burn.
Rib cages are often a challenge, and though I love roasting a rack after I’m done butchering, this rib rack will go to the scavengers to reflect my gratitude for this abundance of wild food. I did scavenge more meat off the bones for our grinds bag- always good to put the trimmings in a bag to grind later for deer burgers. On my sheep, I take the time to carve off the brisket, but deer have little fat in that area, so it went to the woods to feed others. There was also some bruising in the ribs, with a few cracked from auto impact. Bone fragments can become a real danger in the meat; swallowing one can injure a person, so a lot of caution goes into cleaning a scavenged deer. As I began on the back half of the carcass, I found another major injury, which was the cause of the deer’s death. Her right side took full impact, breaking the right metatarsus, cracking several ribs on that side, bruising the lower back, and, as I cut into the pelvis, shattering the right hip entirely into fragments, which I only discovered once Ii began butchering the hind end- can you tell just by looking?
Leg roasts are the largest cuts I make on an ungulate, and it’s a great cut if you can split the pelvis well. I often use the edge of a table as leverage to separate bit bones. It saves on the knife sharpening, my hands, and take apart time. Some people like to carve it up for all the nice little stakes you can get out of those big muscles, and hey, stakes are good, easy to cook, and approachable for those who don’t want a lot of meat at once, so go to it if it’s your thing. Really, if you’re the one cutting it up- do it your way. I like big roasts and less cutting, it also makes wrapping a breeze. I wrap all my cuts in plastic cellophane to keep the freezer burn out, and cover in lined butcher paper for long lasting freshness. Bone in cuts should be eaten within a year, but if you take the bones out and wrap well, frozen meat will stay good for many years. We tend to eat ours in a timely way, but still wrap everything to last.
Labeling your cuts to keep a single animal together and to know what’s in each wrap helps when you’re stacking a lot of different things in your freezer. B.R. B.T. 23 means Big Rock, Black Tail 2023. I know where I salvaged this animal (big rock rd.), what species (black tail deer), and what year. Some people put months down too. When I label with Rst. (roast) that means bone in. If I leave the bone out- I say so on the wrapping. Any cuts not a roast are labeled with part names, like back-strap or grinds. Grinds go in a zip-lock to freeze. I’ll grind all my meat at once later this fall, after slaughtering season is over and all the need to grind meat it bagged and frozen. Freezing meat breaks it down a little more, making it easier to feed through a grinder once defrosted again. Pro-tip: cut grinds up well, ,or clog the grinder with sinew and enjoy the headache of constantly taking your grinder apart to fix the blockage.
Well, that’s a short preview of cutting up a salvaged deer. Thanks for your interest and support in harvesting wild foods of all sorts. For those seeking wild meat, but unable or uncomfortable with hunting, this is a great way to enjoy some good venison, and help prevent waste in the often violent death of animals on roads. Again, this encouragement is for deer salvaging, where it’s legal, when it’s the right time, and the carcass is intact. You can still learn and practice butchering on a bloated deer if you want, and I have- any learning is better than none, and experience is the best teacher, but stay safe and know your own limitations- also remember those around you, not everyone is ok with the smell or mess that could happen with roadkill. Be mindful of your surroundings and keep your area of butchering clean and sanitary. Have the freezer space ready, and know what you’re going to do with any leftovers. We put our bones and viscera in the wildlife area of our property, near a trail cams so we can capture images of the other animals feeding and thriving off this windfall. Turkey vultures, bears, coyote, opossum, racoon, mice, crows, ravens, and all the bugs and insects are feasting away, and so will we.
The small colorful smorgasbord of Spring wildflowers unfolds here at EEC Forest Stewardship. Seeds hand cast in April, germinated through May, and are now bursting with colorful blooms. This mix of Northwest native verities like Nemophila maculata and Collinsia heterophylla pictured above, offers familiar species of pollination crops with their intended pollinators. Note- just because something flowers, does not mean it’s feeding the bees and hummingbirds. Many cultivar decorative landscaping plant verities look abundant with blossom, but no charming summer insect buzz abounds.
This patch of diverse wildflower spread covers last summer’s earthwork swale project. There’s a lot of glacial till around here- down slope from what was a shallow glacial lake. Compacted clay mixes with the last vestiges of old growth loam, most of which can now be found filling in Puget Sound. The pebbled surface created an abundance of micro climates in a larger water catchment space specifically designed to slow and sink water. The clay dominate soils sheet water down any slope, preventing retention at the surface, which allows water to permeate deeper into the ground. These wildflower seeds found the right mix of sun, moisture, and shade to make a go of it. Bare open ground and a few days of rain summon seeds sewn in April of this year to live. Flowering has continued through most of June, and at the start of July, and our summer heat, we’ll expect to say farewell to these gems for the rest of summer. Perhaps, if there’s another good rain in the next few weeks, we’ll enjoy a revival. Tune in for more bright color and blooming fancy here at EEC Forest Stewardship.
EEC Forest Stewardship 