Author: EEC Forest Stewardship

Gill scents the air while his flock nibbles blackberry in our future cotton patch geese enclosure. Spring bloom and blossom spreads leaf and flower as awakenings about. The damp moss underfoot confirms recent rain, but swales remain empty, confirming the 4th driest year on record for our state. We’re 4 inches behind on rain averages, and that means fire season this summer could be awful. Instead of worrying about the future, we remain in the present with grazing, weeding, planting, and observing. Our fruit trees from Raintree Nursery have all survived, and come alive with stretching daylight. From cherries to aronia, our orchard is expanding and diversifying into tasty new verities to further our experimentation with climate resiliency and soil compatibility.

We’ve had an 80% success rate in our fruiting selections, and continue to irrigate these plantings through the dry months to support survival through the first few years of the vulnerable young tree’s life. In time, canopy will shade the orchard enough to protect moisture in the topsoil. Mulching also helps with retaining water, as does companion planting. We’ve layered cardboard to push back grass and are currently adding mulch to create fresh planting space for such understory companions as comfrey and chives- both of which become well established and do not need much tending to thrive. Our electric mesh fencing allows the sheep to graze in between the young plantings now, with intention to allow some browsing of the mature growth in future. Aisles of alternating hedge fruit and grass will offer diverse eating for us and our stock, as well as access to tend and harvest, and offer open space to ventilate and maximize sunlight catchment on our south facing gradual slope.

Vertical growth adds production to landscape. Forests produce much more diverse ranges of food, medicine, and materials. Trees also weave complex ecology for a more resilient and thriving environment- but you can’t industrially harvest within a forest system, so our industrial agriculture continues blindly off a cliff with mega monoculture madness. Even in commercial timber forests, the science points to better yields with diverse plantings. There are many studies showing that cooperation between species in the environment creates more abundance and adaptation, therefore, layering plants with lower, mid, and upper canopy producers creates enough difference that no one or two things failing will drastically reduce overall food security.

Our fruit and nut trees are scaffolding, shaping the framework of our agricultural design in hand with replanting of native forest and transition zones throughout EEC Forest Stewardship. For the next 20 years, apples and pears, along with chestnut and hazel stands are scattered through the landscape. Most of our fruit trees are near the house, with access to irrigation and stronger protection from browsing predators like deer. The nut trees are further afield, and we don’t expect much nut production for another ten years. Below is a general map of orchard production zones at EEC.

When planning your orchard, note the different production ages of fruit and nut trees- they don’t all age and produce at the same times. Apples usually age out the fastest, but pears can produce for a hundred years with the right care. These timings determine recession in your food forest, and should be layered in much the same as the canopy. Transition zones are woven around grove and stand edges, as well as some open pasture where full sun graces grasslands and garden beds. Here in Western Washington, there is a lot of damp times (for now), and fruit does not do well soaking, so open spaces to encourage airflow is also imperative for orchard health. Hemming in the trees without airspace circulation will cause rot and mold in fruit and vegetation. This is why a lot of our food forest planning is done in rows with open space either side. The other pattern of planting is dotting a savanna landscape. Island trees in an ocean of pasture space. Chestnuts have such spanning canopies as the mature, keeping a lot of space between each tree is important in allowing the full canopy to mature.

Fruit trees also provide much needed food for pollinator species. Take a moment to listen while standing under one of our mature Asian pear trees. The canopy’s abuzz with the sound of feasting insects. This variety flowers quite early in Spring, acting as a beacon of sustenance during early days of waking hibernators in warmer temperatures. EEC fruit forest planning takes into account which species are early budding and which develop later to encourage production across the entire growing season. This also covers adverse weather events like a late frost or spring hail storm. Staggering your bloom time prevents a massive loss in one event- another reason monoculture leaves your fruit trees vulnerable. Climate change will make agriculture much harder over the next few decades. Diversifying and multi-story growing help prepare cultivation for the unpredictable future, while providing delicious taste, and ecological stability.

This is a picture comparing my wool fleece (on the outside) vest with shed hair fleece from our Katahdins. I’m often asked if we process our sheep fleeces into yarn. Well, the short answer is no, our sheep do not produce wool. Wait! What’s that shaggy growth on the Katahdins then? Glad you asked! Hair sheep shed! Hair- not wool. The difference is clear when you start picking apart Katahdin sheds. Wool has long, plastic (meaning stretchy) fibers that lend themselves to spinning into yarn. Wool can also be felted, and Katahdin fleece does have enough wool in it to felt, but the hairs dominate Katahdin fleece composition, and hairs are short and stiff, which makes for a brittle fiber, not conducive to pliability, which is imperative for clothing.

Some hair sheep have a higher wool count in their fleece, the most important aspect of a hair sheep’s coat is shedability. Hair sheds, wool must be shorn. A mix of the two must still shed on a Katahdin. If the coat does not fully shed, that animal should be culled from Katahdin stock to prevent the laps back into wool. In the same way, fiber sheep should not be crossed with hair sheep, or the quality of the wool will decrease. The clump of shed hair below looks very woolly, and indeed, the fiber is longer and wavy, but sheds properly as hair. The ewe producing this coat will most likely be culled sooner, we’ll see how her lambs turn out. The climate of Western Washington is getting hotter, so we’re selecting animals that are more comfortable in summer temperatures, which shedding sheep like Katahdins excel at.

Much of hair breed sheep were developed in tropical climates adapting to humid conditions. Katahdins are a mix of many Caribbean hair sheep and some naturally shedding UK varieties. There is a great summery of this animal’s development by Michael Piel here. The coat of these sheep was bred to shed because wool lost its value. The lanolin in wool is also part of the cause of most sheep meat being greasy, and falling to mutton status after a sheep matures. Katahdin sheep don’t produce a lot of lanolin, and use the energy that was put into wool growth, into meat growth instead. What you end up with is great flavor and a low maintenance fleece. The shed hair clumps up around the landscape, but is put to good use by nesting birds, borrowing insects like bumblebees- who use the fleece as insulation, and the soil its self, receiving rich calcium through the breakdown of hair on the ground.

Wool is still a great fiber to invest in when shopping for durable, warm clothing, but the time and energy that goes into shearing, cleaning, processing, and weaving to make wearable clothing from such material would be a full time job unto it’s self. At EEC, we’re looking for smart livestock operations offering good food, great ecological return, and easy maintenance. Katahdin hair sheep rise to the occasion on all fronts- with the self shedding fleece.

Below is another great picture of two different fleeces from our Katahdin hair sheep. This short, course hair will not make a sweater, but it keeps the sheep warm in winter, and relives it of the burden once warm weather arrives with no stress to the animal, or added cost and time to the farmer. Shedding season may be less flattering for the sheep, as they look mangy at best when the chunks of hair start rubbing off- most of the sheep spend a lot of time against the fences and barn posts working to loosen the itchy hair as it releases. Sometimes a partially shed fleece will naturally felt up and shed as a tattered mat. Ideally, the fleece should fully shed from the animal by early summer. All my girls have started the shed season, but it will take about a month for a full shed to complete. Once the old coat is gone, a sheen of fine new hair begins its slow growth into thick fleece by next fall.

Cascade Katahdin lambs hiding in a cedar grove at EEC Forest Stewardship are the newest generation of sheep at Leafhopper Farm. We’re into our 4th year breeding Katahdins, and the work continues to show in fine lambs. Ten is the final Spring count, spanning January through March. Eight ewes out of nine dropped four sets of twins and two singles. The singles are from one line, which I have kept for genetic differences, but will be phasing out, because twins are expected in Katahdin ewes, and lack of fertility is a cull trait. There are two teats on a ewe’s milk bag, so two lambs are ideal. Many commercial operations push for maximum output, at the cost of the ewes health and longevity of the offspring. More is not always better- lots of other stresses occur for the ewe and her lambs when 4-6 offspring are produced. The amount of inputs to get such gestation to term and remain within the healthy limitations of nature remains impossible. I import alfalfa for the winter months, and it could get too expensive for our operation limitations, so we’re drawing down our herd numbers again this year. If there was more time and pasture, if there was a greater need, we’d be able to expand the flock for food demand any time, and that’s where we’ll continue to be prepared to grow.

The young lambs are frisky and fun, charging around the fresh grassy field after weeks in a barn. When lambs are born, they are vulnerable to cold and wet, so in this environment, we keep them inside till they are well fluffed up and carrying enough body mass to be outside and not get cold. Cold lambs won’t grow up to be strong, fatty lambs. Cold animals have to eat more just to keep warm, we’d rather they be well fed and comfortable to keep the weight on. The ewes need milk fat, so keeping them fat and happy keeps the lambs the same. Fresh green grass helps a lot, but minerals like salt are still needed, and when the flock is in at night, alfalfa still fills the manger. We are starting to have warmer nights, allowing the flock to stay out all night. We’re also teaching the lambs about electric mesh fencing. After just one or two shocks, most soft noses stay clear of the fence line. It’s important that a lamb’s first encounter with electric mesh involves a shock. Without it, the lambs will quickly learn to get tangled in the mesh and such behavior can lead to choking and death. A hot fence sets the tone for a solid barrier, creating a healthy relationship for the sheep in the electric mesh fencing.

We’re selling another starter flock this year too. Two of our ewes and three lambs are currently listed to go as a group for a small scale livestock system. Fold these five in with some chickens in a pasture rotation, and you’ve got an easy setup with parasite management built in. Katahdins are naturally resistant, but keeping the bugs in check is still important, so chickens add a strong layer of gleaning and cleaning to disrupt parasite lifecycles. The hardiness of these sheep is what makes them a great starter sheep for new livestock enthusiasts, and their easy temperament is a joy to work with. What really separates Katahdins from other sheep, besides shedding their coats and being easy to maintain, is the incredible flavor of their meat. This is a meat breed, but it was also bred for flavor. There’s no grease, mutton, or game taste in this gourmet delight. The frame of this animal is stocky and long, to accommodate good portions of thick roasts. These sheep have no mutton taste to them, so the trim fat adds a sweet flavor. Even our ram meat is mellow and good. We’ve had a lot of fun blind tasting friends- who are willing participants.

Everyone enjoys the taste of our Cascade Katahdins, and our wait list for lambs continues to grow. In 2023, we had a client enter one of our lambs in their non-profit auction. This is a very exciting way to connect more people to great local food, while also supporting local conservation in the ecosystem EEC Forest Stewardship Cascade Katahdins reside. Sheep can be a great restoration species to utilize in building fertility for future forests of Cascadia. They are also a low impact source of healthy protein and taste delicious. We hope to inspire more people to work with the Katahdin Breed and form closer relationship with food and the soil it comes from.

Lambing is a joy for us here, because our ewes are independent mothers from birthing to weaning, and the quality of our lambs reflect the health of our flock and the environment they thrive in. Katahdins brows shrubs and trees, which is unusual in sheep behavior- most graze grass and nothing else. Because of the diverse diet, Katahdin sheep are great blackberry devourers, and keep pasture edges cropped so bramble does not invade, while remaining light on the land, preventing erosion. Like any livestock, sheep must be rotated off land to allow its recovery. Rotational grazing is the key to maintaining abundant pastures and woodlands. With a smart restoration plan, Leafhopper Farm’s Cascade Katahdins play an important role in building fertility through the conversion of grass and shrubs into meat and manure. The meat is delicious for us, and the manure feeds the plants to maintain ecological health and nutrient balanced soil. It’s a win win for all in this holistic practice.

It’s the end of the day here at EEC, and the evening light catches across the landscape, splashing pastel pinks and violet evening tones through field and forest all around. While putting the chickens away, I caught my rooster, Chanticleer, strutting around in all his regal glory. Appreciating the light, and the photogenic moment, I took some good shots of his majestic color. I’ll point out the red comb and acknowledge this rooster is not pure Ayam Cemani, but he’s a legitimate offspring from our pure-bred stock, and is currently breeding to keep these wonderful colors in the flock.

The younger up and coming rooster we’ve selected for next generation is darker in overall coloration, but a little smaller in stature. It may be hard to tell based on the picture below, but the younger male in foreground is still growing, but lacks some of the blue of his father. Green is easiest to get in the sheen of this bird, but blue and purple are preferred, so we’re playing with that in the back seat of genetic traits to breed towards. Leafhopper Farm Cemanis have come a long way from jungle fowl, to a larger, more egg producing cross with dual purpose breeds like brahma and orphington. The farm was recently gifted some Blue Copper Marans, which will be an interesting mix into the flock.

The bird below is a typical Ayam Cemani in Java. They are small, upright, game bird structure. This rooster has a lot of good purple and blue, though some might say the comb and wattle could be darker. Hens lay one egg a week and go into complete non-production every 8-10 months for 2-3 months to recoup. Our hens are laying every 3 days or so on average, even more in summer, and still lay through winter, though scarcely, and we are ok with that, as the hens need a brake to live and produce longer. Quality of life does pay off for farm profit and bird comfort. We do like eggs, and sell them, so having a more productive genetic string in our birds is a goal. Dual purpose is also important at Leafhopper Farm. We eat what we raise, and would like a bird with more than stock pot potential. Cemani’s are not stocky birds, but our flock is getting there fast.

Genetic inputs show up quickly in the birds. In less than 5 years we’ve almost doubles the weight of our birds and increased peak laying from 1-3 a week to 2-5 on average. It’s a blessing to have great breeds to work with in adding what we want into our Ayam Cemanis. To also retain much of the unique pigment is also fun, and we’ll keep at it, with no expectation beyond healthy, happy birds.

Taking a detour away from the backyard, our intrepid adventurers embarked from Anacortes to Orcas for another seascape exploration in the northwestern islands here in Washington State. The PNW has mountains to sound beauty and outdoor panorama like no other, and in early April, it’s still snowing in the peaks- even Mt. Constitution (2,399′) on Orcas Island had snow pack. At sea level, the temperature remained moderate enough to pitch a tent, with well staked fly, and enjoy ocean front views for a few days. Rocks, gentle swell of sheltered cove, crying geese and seagulls, and the whisper of breezes through pin; it’s just a few hours from home, and part of why Washington is so magical a place to live and thrive.

We packed up the truck and headed an hour and a half to the northwest corner of Washington to enjoy a little island time. From our front door about an hour in any direction will get us something completely unique and enjoyable. Anacortes is the last stop on the mainland leg of our journey to hop a ferry. Below you can see the blue line on the left map stretching from Anacortes into The San Juan Islands, and across to Sidney, BC in Canada. For this adventure, we hop off the ferry on Orcas and arrive in the heart of this beautiful archipelago. Early Spring is a great time to get out to our islands here in Washington State. It’s warm enough to camp, yet misses the peak crowds who will soon descend as the warmer months arrive. During the peak tourist season, you’ll need a ferry reservation to take a vehicle on the boat. We avoid all this hassle and stress by using the edges, and the open camp sites and trail head parking lots made exploring the island easy. Town is walkable- and town is Eastsound, which has an airport for the rich and famous, and FedEx.

Archipelagos offer so much varied terrain to traverse and explore. Land and water, endless shoreline fills the senses with texture, movement, sound, and sight. Water laps at volcanic outcroppings uplifted in the turbulent tectonic tension. The San Juans are at the tail end of a long chain of coastal ranges arching up through British Colombia into Alaska’s Aleutian Islands. This corner of the ring of fire sits in a quiet tapestry of inlets and coves in protected seas. The rocky beaches rise into fir forests and craggy moss covered balds where deep lacerations in granite stone show the power of glacial grind in more recent geological time. For a deep dive into this history, our own National Park Service has a wonderful website here.

Sometimes I’d forget we were on the ocean’s front stoop. Overlooks like the one below at Turtleback Mountain on Ship’s Peak feel a lot like New England finger lakes or somewhere in Michigan, but we’re looking across to Canada here on The West Coast. It’s still got a lot of familiar friends, from Bald Eagles to Oaks, but Douglas Firs and the squabbling call of a Stellar’s jay grounds us in Pacific North West habitat. Damp mossy evergreen forest clutch on north facing gullies, but oak savanna also stands tall in restoration landscapes, often tended by The San Juan Preservation Trust. Organizations like this offer resources and guidance in building back ecological soundness for our habitat. Without sound nature infrastructure, resources like fresh water and healthy soil will be lost to erosion from the dramatic weather of a marine coastal environment. These islands are ground zero for climate change evolution, and I’m taking a page from these restoration habitats for EEC Forest Stewardship.

It was wonderful to see explanations of active thinning for fire control and forest health. Though the work still to be done in these fast growing environments seems endless. Opening up stands to accommodate diverse stages of tree growth is crucial to long term health and resilience in a forest. Having an active forest plan to thin and replant, as you work to return land to temperate rainforest or oak savanna, ensures timely action and seasonal rest and recovery periods for the land. At EEC, we fence off areas to keep domestic stock out, or fence individual plantings for further protection. On Orcas Island, deer routinely over graze young growth, leaving many regeneration species unable to mature. Often, baby trees will look like bonsai shrubs and the ground covers remain spars, replaced by moss carpet and sword ferns. There are no predators on Orcas, so deer come in waves of boom and bust cycles, which cause similar crashes in the ecology, preventing recovery. Imagine what the constant human presence does in time?

Islands are great places to visit, but living on them would come at great cost to the environment and you as a person. Importing most of what you need is expensive. If there’s an emergency, you’re far from stable care. If amenities fail, you become very isolated, and are so anyway for being on an island. We loved getting a few days of island time, but coming back to the mainland was a relief. I always have at least one thought of how vulnerable these islands are to tectonic events. There are several strata volcanoes nearby, and the earthquake risk, followed by tsunamis, is a real threat. We camped right on a southern point, facing The Strait of Juan de Fuca. This would be a very bad spot in the event of a tsunami, but we took a risk with much lower chances than a car accident, so we slept soundly. Weather at this time of year is hit or miss, but we lucked out with enough sun to keep us in good spirits and dry cloths. There was a ceremonial wading and dunking in cold ocean waters with wet suits on. It was not Hawaii, so we got out quick. A hot tub soak revived us, and the dawn and dusk light on the waters remained breathtaking.

Our goal in venturing to Orcas was to scout future camping options, enjoy the local flora and fauna in hikes and beach lounging, and to take a brake from farming for a few days. Washington is the destination, and it never disappoints. We’ll have a lifetime to explore every cove and point, field and rocky crag, trail and forest, yet we’ll never see it all. So much love and appreciation for this place, the land, ocean, sky, and every living thing so deeply woven into this complex matrix of Pacific Northwest living.

Seasonal shifts in light and color, temperate mountain forests, compacted dirt path scraped with faint marks, signs of erosion, drought, and presence. Rotting logs lay in regenerating loam from countless shedding, burning, blowing, and collecting to form soil. Tires spin by, tearing at her skin, pulling down the ridge-line like gouging chisels with every pedal onward. Bells and whistles overtake the soothing birdsong of Pacific Wren. Still, the winged beauty persists where it can; working tirelessly towards harmony with place.

This is my home. A short span of action in the long geologic evolution of the world I know, but the thriving within the natural world has always felt compelling. Perhaps this is spirit; bird song, celestial light, literal electric exchange between bare feet and soil. When was the last time you grounded? Language is cultural identity, but what of the very nature of life in a place- a language deeply rooted in all survival? When knowing is the lifetime experience, making relationship with a living system you’re a part of, struggle of comfort with place. There are moment of disconnect, and the longing for greater awakening. The song of seasons, lifetimes run in minutes, sometimes seconds, like ideas. Digesting every moment, like the stomach of my sheep, always hungry, chewing cud between meals. Swallowing and not keeping it down. I’m glad people don’t have to mull grass with many stomachs. We can vomit, thank goodness too. Colic is frightening. Ancestral bowls, how can we all relate as people where we stand now, always looking back, through the layers of time, granite, sand, and fire melting it all together- again and again and again.

What if we could feel all life at once? Would it mean feeling death just as much? I think so, and that’s an important balance to maintain in sewing seeds and spilling blood. In killing the stalk- shearing down a growing line directly connected to this earth from start to harvest. In the same dance of death, close relationship with breathing flesh, covenant of survival and reproduction. Cutting lines of ancestral paths stretching as far back as my own, out of star dust to dust again. Can you see the universe in everything?

Hollow or full space? Crouching downward before every leap of faith. There can and should be spokes on every perspective, anchoring circle of movement from one time into another, many hands make light work in spirit too. Song and dance come to life, learning new steps takes us closer to all enlightenment of self and place. Where are you placed at this time? Step into the circle and look back, who stands to your right and left? How often? When did you last stand shoulder to shoulder with strangers? New vision creates change. From outside the circle, this might appear chaotic. Wheels shatter under intense and continuous stress. Like that string Buddha was enlightening on. And without enough spokes no working circle can form. No vision is lights out. Wandering in darkness would still be something. Is total paralysis always a bad thing? Not when you are stilling the pain.

That golden light on Winter’s last stand shines triumphant with Spring’s banner of warmth heralding the end of cold quiet and the beginning of new life and fast growing weeds. Lambs leap like leafhoppers into snow melt pastures greening as the day brightens. Two deer stealth into shadow at hedgerow’s end as the dog picks up scent and starts for the thicket. A gate holds back pursuit and dawn spills down the drive and through the window, onto a made bed where two cats sleep curled in blissful comfort. Rooster crows a proud greeting to mourning as she sails over us in pale yellow laced cloud. Heaven and earth meld through another day in paradise.

Scouting a recent burn (Oct 2022) close to home this winter with an ecologically minded friend revealed an intimate portrait of success and failure in forest health. Gazing up the mountainside of the picture above, just off Beckler Road, there is a patchwork of clear cuts, stream setbacks, and regenerative forestry plans. There are federal guidelines for public lands in each state, providing ecological restoration as a number one priority. In many parts of this 14, 766 acre burn, pockets of seed banks survived to reinvigorate the landscape with new forest, while in other parts of the landscape, rock protected groves on cliffs where the flames could not reach. Walking a recently repaired and gated road near Rout 2 on public forest land, we were socked in by moisture, but still gazed in awe at destruction and survival at work. The Bolt Creek Fire was allowed to burn out within its fiery acreage after a perimeter was created to protect nearby towns and infrastructure.

The area mapped below gives an approximate area of focus for these pictures. The fire burned much of the southwest side of Klinger Ridge and Baring Mountain. The stream picture is Bolt Creek, where the fire started- hence its name.

In places where there was running water, marshes, and wetlands, trees remained scorched only at the base, and in some cases, completely protected from direct flames. This does not mean all the trees in this condition will survive, but many will seed out this spring from the stress signal of intense heat, filling the surrounding open soil with fresh seeds. There is also no guarantee of complete restoration back to forest all at once. Fire is a transformer, opening up new ground within a forest, playing a vital role in reshaping landscapes to enhance diversity of species and growth opportunity. Many Western Cascade species are well adapted to fire, and even in a landscape that may seem barren and utterly ash ridden, complex relationships hold true, and new life is already blossoming out with new growth.

Some of the most seemingly wiped soil bases were young commercial timber replantings. The seedling trees did not stand a chance against the heat and licking flames crawling up the hillsides. This is the down side to a stand of trees all the same age in a managed lumber production forest. Luckily, forest harvesting practices are evolving to recognize smaller stand cuts with better buffers between young stands. This methodical cutting practice was mentioned in an earlier article about wind blow down and other natural “disasters” facing our landscapes. Human manipulation with a single vision of production for industry has been short sighted for many generations, and are still reluctant to give up profits for protected ecology. Ecosystem valuation is a recent development in forestry, but it’s a compelling argument in letting a tree grow and mature to old growth within a living stand, playing a crucial part of our earth’s lungs over it’s mere commercial board feet at 30-40 years for short term investor profits and consumer goods.

I recommend a deep dive into value theory if you’re game for some good learning. I think it helps us understand, as a society, some big shifts in value that’s happening right now. Exponential growth is not sustainable or thriving for us as a species, and we’re starting to figure this out. Wilderness has much to show for remaining a place of left to its self in peace. As markets take a turn, please take a moment to revisit your own value system and check out some new ideas around quality vs. quantity. This digression has been a pleasure. Now, back to the fire and forest and ecological miracle of relationships that have been evolving over millions of years.

Nature flows well in the chaos of time and space. Many cycles of sudden death unfold for us short lived species in amongst the trees. Gaultheria shallon shows a green face amongst the char and wilt. Roots buried under rock and stump were sheltered from furnace blast and will reset a trail of repair amongst the soil layers now rich with carbon. There will be an ecological boom in this area as the light hits the ground running, and opportunistic plants and animals close in on new ground. In places where the trees still stand, there is still cleared forest ground where the understory burned back, but again, roots underground and a long term relationship with fire make plants like our native oso, salmon, and salal berries ripe for regeneration after fire. Other understory trees like vine maple and hazel accelerate new growth after fire removes old wood in low temperature burns. Below is a great example of a place in the Bolt Creek fire where the flames crept across the ground and did not jump up into the canopy. This is a text book image of what a controlled burn looks like.

The burn strip along rout 2 is also home to a set of vital high voltage power lines, which were defended successfully from fire damage, though many trees were cut down to aid in stopping the burn from destroying this vital infrastructure. The fire has been out now for a few seasons, and though landslides and drastic erosion on these steep hillsides will remain a threat for years to come, the ecological restoration is already in action, spurred by the very elements that shape all life on earth- wind, water, earth, and fire. The forest recovery will be a great continued lesson in addressing fire in our rainforest, something more common than ever now as the summers get hotter and winters fail to deliver enough rain and snow to protect our watersheds. Damp earth did a lot to stave off a great conflagration, but having two early fall burns happen in the summer of 2022 within 20 miles of our home was unprecedented. But wildfires do have a history in Western Washington, and we must always remember the inherent risk of fire, living in any woodland ecology.

At EEC, we plan for a healthy forest with a lot of water staying and sinking in to ensure damp soil when fire does come through. Our creek is similar in size to Bolt Creek, and would offer some protection for seed bank if a burn does happen, but the smoke would make staying on the land in a large burn impossible. We do have evacuation ready plans for our safety, and the safety of our animals, but if a great fire did occur, we’d be lucky to get out alive, as our access points in and out of Snoqualmie Valley are somewhat limited. Out-driving a conflagration would be impossible, and even with breathing filters, we’d be in real trouble from smoke inhalation before any fire got to the land. Being trapped by fire on foot in never good either. The Bolt Creek fire did chase some hikers, who not only survived, but took footage of their harrowing escape. Note the quick movement of live flame up the mountain side. Our ridge would encourage fire, but it would not come up easily from The Snoqualmie River Valley, our downhill terrain. If the river had been left undeveloped by logging and agriculture, there would be a strong buffer of wetland and shifting river course flowing south to north.

In the maps above, you can see our farm forest restoration is up the draw north from Stuart, just above a place in The Snoqualmie River, where the waters shift west and cradles our outcrop of glacial drift, volcanic ash, and colluvium.

A general term applied to any loose, heterogeneous, and incoherent mass of soil material and/or rock fragments deposited by rainwash, sheetwash, or slow, continuous downslope creep, usually collecting at the base of gentle slopes or hillsides. (USGS)

The landscape is like a giant sponge, holding in water, which seeps down from all the watersheds just to our east in The Cascades. I’ve highlighted major water features, lakes and rivers, in blue. The red markings are fires in Fall 2022. Yes, there were two, and I’ve only just now mentioned Loch Katrine Fire. because it was less a threat to human development, and burned out quickly once rains returned in early November. This local news video shows more. We got a lot of smoke, and I’ve not yet had a chance to visit the site post burn for more understanding of the blaze. The private timber company has discouraged going to the area- with good reason because of erosion hazards mentioned earlier. Public forests lands where the fire started, are currently inaccessible.

We’ll continue to hope for abundant waters to help quell fire danger in our temperate rainforest. May the ever flowing rivers, which keep life flourishing, and quench thirst for all who drink; continue singing cascades of cherished fresh water. When fires burn, and they will, we invite gentle ground flames of rejuvenation, and minimal damage to infrastructure. Plan building in defensible space, or accept total devastation as a possible consequence. Control burns are usually very effective at helping forests remain resistant to crown fires, when there is too much vegetation- due in part to a loss of native grazers like elk and deer, and their habitat, to make room for vacation homes and RV setups. This amplifies risk of fire to the public, and hinders natural checks and balances evolved with fire to prevent conflagration. People did not replace the equivalent ecological work of huge migrating elk herds; merely exploited them and the people already well established in the area and replaced them with clear cutting timber industries that still do not mimic nature well.

Our continued hubris as a species will be our undoing. Nature will shake us like a bad case of fleas and move on in her evolution quite capably. The earth does not have to sustain us to continue, in fact, much of this planet’s history was uninhabitable for life as we know it. The scales will tip again, unfortunately, our consumption and abuse of our ecological balance will be the root cause of the coming mass extinction. There is no cure all, but we can, as individuals, choose to consume less, local, and aid in restoration of what wilds we can. We can educate ourselves about ecology, the complexities of nature, and our best practices within the finite limitations around us.

Yup, it’s January and I’m out on a log in a lake barefoot trying to catch a trout. It’s not warm, but it’s not below 40F and the fish are active, well, sometimes. I did catch a trout that day, but not in the above pictured lake. It took some trolling on another nearby body of similar water to reel in a 1.5lb cutthroat beauty. This is the place for winter joy in the lower 48. Some might prefer a more tropical paradise, but give me 48 degrees and overcast skies to fish, hunt, and even ski if I ascend higher into The Cascades.

The Pacific Northwest is magical, and full of wet wonder for those willing to dress right and embrace the great outdoors. Winter is usually a good time to den up and rest, and trust me, there are days I’m doing just that too- and farming. At the same time I’m skiing, fishing, and hiking in The New Year, lambs are dropping in the barn and bulbs are peeking out from under the black loam in the garden.

Winter is a time of revitalization, and for me, that’s time outside connecting to place where I can, and deepening roots tended here on this land of EEC since 2013. What a place and time to be alive and experiencing this life. Gratitude to all the energies, lifetimes, experience, love, and adventure that brought me to this current place and time.

We unexpectedly lost a loyal friend of the farm yesterday. Muir, our barn cat extraordinaire, and renowned hunter of rodents and rabbits, died of Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy. It was instant, no pain or suffering, and he had made it to the front porch to rest under one of his favorite chairs. I found him yesterday afternoon, and immediately took him to our wonderful vet for a necropsy to find out exactly how he had died. The exam revealed his broken heart- working too hard with too little blood flow, ultimately leading to a clogged ventricle, which brought on instant death. We were unaware of this congenital defect, and the vet assured us it was hard to find, and that nothing could have been done to fix it. In people with this condition, a heart transplant is required.

Muir lived a heck of a charmed life, freely exploring his domain with ease and joy. He was a great comfort to the other cats, and looked after Marrow, who is still checking the front porch chair for him in the cold mornings. It will be hard for all of us to adjust to life without grey cat. His personality was one of a kind- and indeed, truly kind. He liked to ride on your shoulder, flopping across your neck and lounging while you walked the steeper hills on the farm. He was noble, but approachable and cuddly. Always the first to the front door when we called, his charm and grace won over anyone he met and spent time with. We were so lucky to know him and share a brief, but spectacular time together on this earth. I’m still having a good cry over his loss, but he will be with us in spirit on every forest walk, every morning cuddle, and every sunny day on the porch. So much love to Muir, we will miss him.

An ice and wind event during January brought down a few edge line red alders in the conservation wildlife corridor along Weiss Creek, our Coho Salmon Oncorhynchus kisutch stream. Red alder along these smaller waterways offer shade protection for wildlife by regulating water temperature, especially in summer droughts when aquatic species need cool, damp habitat the most. These areas are native plant restoration spaces, where nature takes its time shaping the landscape, often, with weather events like flooding.

We think of weather as sun, partly cloudy, or showers in Western Washington. Events within weather patterns would be unusual precipitation, like heavy snow in the foothills where EEC resides. Flooding in the valley is an event, but seasonally expected. Drought becomes common each summer, compounded with rising temperatures. These events are becoming more common, and will change the ecological balance and sustainable ecosystems of earth’s connected patchwork.

Trees are a big part of temperate rain forests- which once dominated The Pacific Northwest region. A century of resource extraction without any restoration, lead to catastrophic fertility loss and ecological disruption of crucial terrestrial systems like freshwater habitat- safe drinking water for all living things. These survival musts are all interconnected with the air, soil, and water. Where we draw out production, we must also put back. Instead of letting the ground grow its forest back to ancient old growth, we’ve settle in and kept cutting, up into the steep terrains, above our sources of surface water and aquifer recharge, forests are leveled every 30-40 years. It may seem like a sustainable practice, but not in the long vision of adaptable habitat for humans, sustaining the wilderness as we endear it in Superbowl commercials. In the spirit of consumer needs, including the wood I’m heating my house with right now, EEC Forest Stewardship cultivates forest restoration with integrated productivity, including capitalist earning. We do harvest trees, cutting on a scale much smaller than commercial harvesters, but trees have come down, cleared pastures remain pastures, but some trees are being replanted.

Another fallen alder, broken off mid-trunk, leaving a rooted alder and a fallen log, decomposing into nutrients for the smaller trees and shrubs growing in the foreground of the above photo. This landscape was pasture for two generations, and is now part of our CREP planing to buffer Weiss Creek with old-growth temperate rainforest. Many of these young trees are evergreen- from Douglas fir to white pine. There are also some deciduous understory verities, like cascara and twin berry. The edge spaces create the most noticeable change. A flat, open space lifts vertically with sudden force as a wall of canopy ascends, arching over flowing waters vibrant with color and sound. In the case of recent downed treetops, wind howled inland from coastal fronts, massive air shifts moving moisture from Pacific tides up hills and into mountain crests where falling back down as precipitation, snow and ice crack what’s left of compromised branch and neck.

These violent transitions relapse into passive structures of dynamic adaptation. More light breaks through the canopy, while ground crushed beneath timber weight buries nurse log bank- an investment in mycological highways. The infrastructure of forest floor is woven through centuries of debris felting in nutrient dense soil for growing giants of carbon investment- priceless ecological systems we humans still compute in timber feet. The board value of a living tree diminishes its own wealth and productivity into a mere structural product or combustion fuel. These uses are not completely removed from tree possibilities, but a collective system of old growth forest far abounds the value of wood. Still, we need wood at EEC for building, so we harvested some structurally compromised red cedar into milled rough cut timbers for a framing project. These recent fallen red alder tops will offer a few logs for mycological inoculation. We’ll only take part of the wood from these weather harvested pieces of carbon gold, leaving the rest as felting material for an ever complex living forest system in restoration.

Wildlife trails cutting through the young replanted forest shows the quickest rout through eventual undergrowth. Foot paths in a few places to tend plantings are maintained. The far right photo in this triptych snows a subtle trail to the right of the staked saplings. I noticed one young evergreen planting that was much smaller than the firs and pines. Taking a closer look, I noticed the shape of this little tree was very Cypress looking, way more spiny than a typical red cedar. Who is this mysterious seedling?

Sequoioideae is your hint.

Would this be the future wood of our forests? If oak savanna is already in play as a viable forest planting plan here in Western Washington, I think so. It’s a test planting, the only one I’ve found in this restoration so far. There are some more mature cultivars of this variety nearby, but you’d be pressed to find them wild in The Central Cascades. The worsening weather patterns will demand a lot of resiliency from the landscape, which had been adapting quite well over millions of years before human induced change. We’ve so altered the terrain around us, it’s hard to even imagine what once was. We can take a walk into a few special places set aside for our recreational appeasement and awe at nature’s wonder from our cars driving through National Parks. After which, we’ll spend another couple of hours driving through swaths of commercial timber stands, a patchwork of clear-cuts interspersed with aging small farmsteads, or occasional suburban developments creeping ever further afield from urban decay. Which would you choose?

Storms tear down and rebuild, forests grow towards climax, weathering flood, fire, and drought. Our forest here at EEC has not seen fire in 100 years, but the risk remains, moving towards eminent with each passing year of hotter summers and continued drought. The Douglas fir pictured above is well versed in fire ecology, but unless it’s given time to grow into a mature seed bearing tree, its bark cannot grow thick enough to survive a hot burn, nor its top tall enough to avoid crown fire. At the same time, trees that grow too tall, above the average canopy, are susceptible to wind and ice damage. Height also brings a tree closer to heavenly bolts of electrical discharge; lightning strikes. There is no evidence of lightning damage at EEC, but some towering cottonwood trees on a neighboring property tempt the sky with outstanding beacons.

Ice and wind are the most common tree damaging weather here in Western Washington. The trees do tower quite high, but they are also very limber, with branches often bowed over already to accommodate snow loads and generally windy days. It’s when things combine, ice weight and windy shake, which topples weakened timbers through decades of ensuing pressure from storms and grove changes. You’ll come across blow down along recent mature timber harvests. Weaker trees which have been sheltered by a greater stand are suddenly exposed to full exposure of weather events. High winds will quickly bring down the weaker trunks of stringy close growing trees. EEC has no fores type like this, but below is a pictures example from a commercial tree farm where this occurrence is most often to happen, even with planned cutting pictured right.

There’s a very famous old growth grove of trees on Vancouver Island which were left because their tops had been snapped in a wind event, leaving most of the trees with hollow rot or twisted crowns after regrowth. It’s called Cathedral Grove, and even with the damage, the trees were slated to be cut many times, but have been saved time and again, as it’s one of the last ancient groves left on the island. Stands like this remind us of what’s possible when a forest is left to mature and evolve as an intact ecosystem. When a forest is intact, it can better protect its self against weather disruption and other natural disasters, but if we keep cutting, developing, and leaving the land bare, we’ll continue to see rapid degradation on the landscape, making is much more vulnerable to climate caused environmental devastation. Plant habitat today for a more resilient tomorrow. Thin wisely and replant with drought tolerant species for long term success. EEC Forest Stewardship will continue to model evolving forest restoration practices, from our salmon stream to the back pasture, we’re replanting the forest in small, but deliberate steps towards an old growth rainforest with high ground oak savanna.