Author: EEC Forest Stewardship

With cool weather and rains returning, the mushroom spring has begun! I had a chance in early October to run up to the elevations for a peek at what’s growing on in the high alpine woods. The fungal feast is off to a somewhat slow start, due most in part to the drought Western Washington continues to struggle through. It’s easy to see the drought in late summer, as the smaller shrubs and trees drop their leaves early to cope with the stress. We don’t usually spend time touching the soil to feel it’s moisture content, but crawling around in the woods on all fours looking for mushrooms invites my skin to come in contact with the ground a lot, and it’s still not wet to the touch. This non-technical way of feeling the ground does confirm to me that the soil is not damp enough for fungal activation. When it’s too dry, even after a hard rain, you’ll see a few token mushrooms make it up through the substrate, and a lot of little surface mycological communities trigger into bloom, but strains like Boletus need wet foundations to spring forth from deeper soil, below the leaves and needles on the surface. As I crawled around the forest floor, there were many small fungal friends out and about, but the larger edible crew is still holding back, at least in the forest I was in for a few hours in an afternoon. Forcasting mushroom blooms is not easy, and I find that taking a walk in the woods is the best way to feel out the Mushroom Spring.

This year I was told in late September, that chantrelles were up in local forests after a big rain, but I did not find any. These days, a lot of people are online following the news, and mushroom blooms are photographed and posted on social media like baby announcements. Someone sees a picture and thinks “it’s on!”. But one photo or one report from a friend of a friend is not enough to confirm a flush in your own backyard. Get outside, hike your local forests, and find out for yourself. I don’t talk too much about where I am harvesting- mostly to protect the spaces, because a lot of online learners come into the woods on a tip without any mushroom know how. Harvesting practices determine if mushrooms will be present for years to come. If you have not learned proper harvesting practices for each mushroom species, you can do a lot of harm to a grove when you pick. Best rule of thumb is- CUT the stipe, or stock, form the ground- DON’T PULL the whole fruit out of the ground. Harvest a third or less of what you see, and try to avoid the very young fruit, it needs time to mature and open to spread it’s spores. My biggest piece of advice for new mushroom fans is taking pictures, but not taking fruit out of the woods. We call mushrooms fruit because it is the fruiting body of the mycological fungus. When you pull up the whole “plat” roots and all, you remove the legacy body, which will put out fruit again next year. Also, if you don’t know how to harvest, you probably don’t have relationship with the mushrooms, as in, knowing the species. A brave mushroomer is a dead one, so take pictures and plan to go out with an expert to learn. There are lots of mushroom clubs around, use the internet to find one.

Although this first foray was lo win harvest count, I did see countless fungi up and fruiting all around. Little fruits laces in the leaves, twigs, and rocky soil of the mountain terrain signal Mushroom Spring is here. Many are blooming along the trail, partly because the spores are carried along trails on the animals and people that use them. I often follow game trails into the thicker woods to find mushrooms. But once I’m in the woods, my eyes track color, shape, and texture more than which way the animals went. On a mushroom hunt, it’s good to stay focused on the terrain, direction, and forest type. Mushrooms tend to avoid hemlock trees, and prefer a shaded slope just above water. I found most of the edible harvest just above a lake, in a well established grove of grand firs. This did not mean all the stands had fabulous mushrooms waiting, but a few stands did offer delicious harvest, enough to feed me and a few friends.

On this adventure, I did do some tracking of wildlife, as I encountered a lot of bear sign, which was expected where I was. It started with an old scat in the trail, a bear had been feasting on stone fruit, choke cherries, and left a large pile, which was picked through by grouse, who left their own scat sign in the bear’s. Then, as I made my way into the deeper forest, I found the classic sign of cambium bark feeding. What? beard eat trees? No, but yes- they want the sweet sap that flows under the bark in trees as Spring warms their layers. Bears smell this sweet treat and come to claim their share. They bite the base of the tree, peeling back the bark to expose the running sap. This can harm young trees, even killing them if the bark is peeled back too much. In tree farms, special bear hunts will happen if too many young trees are debarked. In this sub-alpine area, there is not a timber industry ruling the grove, so the bears eat freely, and the forest grows.

Am I worried about bears in the woods? No. I have my dog with me to alert if there is wildlife about. Nothing peaked my dog’s nose, so we foraged freely. If a bear was nearby, I’m sure it high tailed it away from us. bears don’t tend to like confrontation, and only really become a threat if they are habituated to people or a mamma bear protecting her cubs. It’s not cub season, and I’m out in the woods, a good 2 hours from the closest neighborhood where bears could be learning bad habits, due to careless human action, like leaving smelly trashcans out, hosting bird feeders and letting the seed build up, or any other number of seemingly harmless actions that could spell death for wildlife. Most nuisance animals are killed, because relocation rarely succeeds. People are the only cause of nuisance animals. We are to blame for every encounter we cause. On this day, I was clearly a visitor to the bear’s woods, and I leave the place as I found it- minus a few mushrooms, which the bear did not harvest for its self. Yes, bears to eat mushrooms- they are omnivorous, and glean what they can from the land as they move through it. Luckily, they left a few specimens for me.

Like I said, it’s a slow start to The Mushroom Spring. I harvested five mushrooms, but two of them were vollyball sized- and still good. Often times, larger mushrooms are too riddled with bugs for our plates. You ideally want to find mushrooms that are still firm to the touch, yet open enough that they have released their spores already. If you don’t know what I am talking about, please don’t forage until you know more- and take a class. More and more incredible information is also being shared online- from reputable sources- so always check your sources for mushroom info. Who should you trust? Well, academia is a good place to start. Or your local mushroom club. An organization that takes you into the woods to learn is ideal. I have clients here in Western Washington who I take out from time to time, but what I teach is limited, because I am no expert, and do not claim to be. I just love mushroom foraging, and have been doing it for over a decade. I started with experts in the field, learning some basics and then taking more formal classes at our local university when offered. I’m still a novice in my own opinion, and do not teach more than basic ID to most people.

Meet the bitter bolete. It taught me about assuming all boletes are yummy. I harvested a bundle of these one year thinking they were queen boletes. They were not, and luckily, because I knew this family in my specific region was not poisons, I felt free to cook them up and eat- spit out, the very bitter fruit when it hit my tongue. That was a “kind” lesson from the mushroom world. Many other lessons can be deadly, so again, don’t play with mushrooms. How can I tell bitters apart from edibles today? Everything from the color of the cap to the shape of the pours, which took a decade of observing in the field. I still stick to non-gilled varieties, in general, avoiding the most dangerous look alikes. Again, don’t go if you don’t know. Take pictures, look around online to learn more, and take classes if foraging is something you really want to learn. For me, the excitement of seeing so many different kinds of fungi fruiting in the woods is thrilling. I’m looking for food, but also observing the sheer diversity of this remarkable kingdom.

Mushrooms are great teachers in my life, and I am so glad to have a friendship with them. Any time I go into the woods, I’ll see a mushroom in one form or another- from slime molds to bracket fungus, this world is full of every shape, color and texture you could imagine, and it’s all there to observe and learn from as you spend time in the woods. I am grateful for every foraging adventure I find, and also happy to be surprised by an unexpected encounter where I might take home a meal, or mystery to unravel. I’ll be sharing more about this season as it evolves, look for more mushroom updates to come!

At the end of the summer, a friend joined me in the boat for an afternoon of fishing in Klaus Lake at The Snoqualmie Tree Farm. We both have recreational passes, and enjoy exploring, fishing, and hunting together in the woods here. Since it was late summer, the lake was down a bit, but a boat still fit in at the launch spot, and with a little punting, we floated out into this beautiful water. Earlier this Spring I had fished this lake with my mentor Wes. We caught a few small perch and had planned to come back a few months later in hopes that the little fish had grown into bigger fish. Well, they did.

I usually use a hand constructed lure of red salmon eggs (plastic beads), a Colorado spinner, and simple barbed hook. Then I bait the whole thing with a worm- red wigglers are best, but when the groud is too hot, I buy night-crawlers, which never catch the same amount of fish. NOTE- never put your bought worms into the ground when you are done, they are not native and to a lot of damage to forests over time. That’s another reason I prefer to dig worms out of my compost, though most of them are non-native. Baiting the hook, I plopped my line down into the deeper part of the lake as we trolled across to the far side to look for perch. For the ride across the lake, there are no bites. My fishing companion and I are a little worried we may have the wrong tackle. Should we put on a fly? No, the fish are not kissing the surface. It’s mid-day, not the best time to fish, because they like cooler weather at dawn and dusk in the summer. That’s when the bugs come out too. So we keep the worms and continue our hunt.

The far side of the lake holds a few floating logs and some aquatic grasses that offer good habitat for fish. When we reach the spot where I caught the perch earlier in the Spring, I cut the engine and point to an area for my fellow fisher to cast, and I cast the opposite side so we have less chance of tangling our lines. It’s important when you are with another person in a boat to plan where each of you will be casting so as not to hook one another or get lines crossed. My buddy casts out near one of the floating logs and cries “fish on!”. Her poll bends at the tip as she hurriedly reels. I quietly pull in my line and reach for the net to help bring in her catch. The thrashing fish comes up to the boat and I reach down under the fighting fins to haul it in. A new is crucial in boat fishing, because many of the fish are large enough to break off the line if you pull them out of the water. The net holds the weight of the fish and preserves your tackle for more fishing. The fighting fish is indeed a nice sized perch, so I offer the net to my friend, she carefully gripped the fish and pulled out the hook, then we plop the prize into an ice chest to preserve our food. In hot weather, it’s good to keep caught fish you plan to eat on ice so they don’t spoil.

Along with ice, I bring two poles, I have a two pole endorsement, so my fishing license allows me to fish with two poles. I like that when I am out in the boat alone, because I can actively fish with one pole, while leaving a bobber on the other. When I am trolling across the lake, I can have two poles in the water on each side of the boat for the troll. When I fish with friends, I tend to use only one pole to prevent any confusion if someone has a fish on. We both continue to work the area with our worms, and the perch are hungry! However, after my friend’s initial larger fish catch, the rest of what we reel in are too small for our dinner table, so we throw them back and move out of what I start calling “the nursery”. Often, smaller fish will congregate along the shore in the reeds and tall grass for protection. Our sights were set on bigger fish, so we pull out our lines and move on to another part of the lake. We troll a bit to find what my mentor calls a “honey hole”. Sure enough, in a few minutes we start getting bites again. I cut the electric motor and we fish the new spot, near another floating log, and a big boulder submerged just under the surface. Between these two imposing snags- things out hooks could get caught in, we carefully hunt the waters for larger prey, and indeed, the big fish are biting. In less than an hour we’ve caught four fish of nice size. We’ve found a honey hole, a place where the adult fish are schooling.

Shouts of delight echo across the water as we haul in nice sized perch. The worms are working, and our honey hole gives up a few great feasts, but all good things come to an end, and so, the school moves on, and we begin to get less and less hits, so we start our troll again across the calm waters. Sometimes it’s nice to take in the views while fishing, and this lake has some vistas to appreciate. To our south, Mt. Si looms above the treetops. It’s a famous hiking peak in the area, and the first real mountain you come to heading east on Interstate 90 out of Seattle. I’ve hiked it once, and it is a formidable climb. Today I enjoy viewing it form my boat in the lake, savoring the relaxed afternoon on the water, rather than climbing switchbacks to the top of a peak. So much gratitude for time on the water fishing with friends. Hiking too, but today we’re out harvesting wild food.

An overcast day can be to your advantage when fishing. We were enjoying this cloud cover, and the dull light encouraged the fish too. While trolling around, we caught the rest of our limit in perch. My fishing friend had never done this, and we celebrated her first limit catch. Catch limits are important, they keep the stocks of fish healthy for others to come and enjoy fishing too. Biologists spend a lot of time studying fish in these lakes, and have an understanding of populations, habitat, and the dynamic relationship of fishing and mother nature. Many of the local lakes are stocked with trout each year to help keep fish available to the public, but our responsibility as ethical fish catchers is just as important to keeping our wild food source available for all. If we over-fish the lakes, there will not be food to catch there in future. Following the state fishing regulations ensures we can all enjoy fishing for generations to come.

With our limit in perch caught, we talk about trying for the trout or bass that are also swimming in this lake, but we have 10 fish already, and that’s a lot to take home and clean tonight. We agree that we’ve caught enough for today, and turn our boat back to shore for the take out. It was a full afternoon of fishing, and we were glad to be heading home with our catch after a lovely calm day on the water. The perch had been good to us, allowing each of our larders to receive some fillets for frying or baking. Cleaning perch is a little more effort than trout, because you don’t eat the skin of scales. I took my fish home and filleted them, the froze the meat for later in the winter, when I would be craving fish but unable to go out and cast for them. Well, the lakes are open year round at the tree farm, but a cold boat in the rain is not so much fun. I try to keep my fishing to the warmer months out of a love of comfort, but I have been known to head out on a sunny day in February to catch a late season trout. To many more days in the boat on the water reeling in a fine fish.

Our first meetup was at Moss Lake outside Duvall, WA. It’s a King County Park where you can enjoy a natural lake with beaver activity, a range of forest types from hemlock dominate to fir monoculture. There are some more established woods around the water, but further into the forest you’ll hit The Snoqualmie Tree Farm, which hosts plantations of Douglas Fir trees. We stayed on the main gravel trail around the lake, but saw and learned a lot about our local ecology.

Shelter 101- find a good hollow stump to climb into, then stuff with leaves for insulation and enjoy a dry, warm rest. This stump was a great teaching moment for natural shelter in the forest. Two people could fit in there comfortably with the addition of debris. It took us only a few minutes of searching to find this dry spot to shelter in an emergency. What can you find in the woods to shelter under?

fire making 101- find dry, snapping sticks form low hanging brush and trees- from left to right: snow berry, salmon berry, hemlock tree, and red huckleberry. We found these tinder materials in the parking lot in less than a minute of searching. You want to find off the ground dead stuff if you can. All of these branches were dead, but still attached to the live plants, harvesting dead wood off a living plant should not harm it, in fact, your doing the plant a favor by pulling off the dead stuff so the living can thrive more. It’s also removing a potential fire hazard. Note- fully dead standing wood should be left alone. Snags, as the standing dead wood is called, become crucial habitat for wildlife.

We ran into this Palliated Woodpecker on down the trail. We heard it excavating in this standing dead hemlock before we saw it. What can you hear in the woods before you see it? Why is the bird above pecking at the tree? What else lives in standing dead trees? Dead standing wood can also offer good fingermark materials, especially the burned out ones. You can find dry charcoal and tinder in these hollowed out stumps.

The punky (rotted) wood smolders, but that can help extend your coal while you are building up your fire. The charcoal will light, and help get a small fire going. Just make sure all your starting materials are dry. The rotted wood was actually in a still living tree, so fire materials come from many places in the woods, look around and see. What kind of tinder materials can you find?

water 101- active beaver dam on Moss Lake. A great example of why wild water is not safe to drink, even in a more pristine area. Beaver fever is the colloquial name for giardia. You don’t want to get it- trust me. Always filter your water or boil. If we have fire, and a metal container of any kind, we can safely treat our water to drink. Note- boiling does not remove heavy metals or some dangerous chemicals that can get into our water. You’ll need a life straw or other high end filtration system to safely treat polluted water. Luckily, Moss Lake is not considered polluted, so you’re mainly concerned with pathogens that are easy to boil off with a little time and patience. A metal cup, pot, or water bottle is a crucial one of the 10 essentials for your day pack or overnight kit.

Near water you will often find special plants that only grow in wet places. Lichens like Usnea are a great example of this. These wispy hanging strings are an important wild first aid for cuts- this is wound packing material with anti-microbial properties. You can harvest some and keep it in your first aid kit for emergencies. Bonus, usnea is also a good fire tinder. Where have you seen this lichen in the woods? Do you know it by another name?

Mushrooms 101- we’re not here to pick edible anything, we’re just looking at what’s blooming on the landscape as we move towards The Mushroom Spring here in Western Washington. The chantrelles were not out yet in these woods, but there were some fungal friends popping up to say “hi”. Most were polypore– wood eating mushrooms, which are not too helpful for hunger. Again, we’re not eating these, but documenting who is out in the woods at this time. It’s still a little dry for many mushroom species, but fruiting happens year round in these woods. You might get lucky if you have a look. The one Xerocomellus chrysenteron we found- a bolete, was a sign of what might come to this area in future. Though again, we’re just talking species, not what to eat. Another fungal highlight from our wander was finding a Dyer’s Polypore– that yellow looking one bottom left in the gallery above. There’s always so much to learn from these amazing mushroom teachers. Keep your eyes peeled as the forests get wetter this fall, there’s a lot more fruiting out in the woods than just berries. What kinds of mushrooms have you found around town?

There was a great looking stand of big leaf maples in one corner of the park where I would head in late fall to build a debris shelter. Marking these places for later use is always helpful. Forests will offer many different opportunities throughout the year. Each season brings change to the woods. What do you see now that won’t be there in a few more weeks? Hint- they fall, from trees, and we love to pile them up to jump into. Try climbing into a pile of them to keep warm.

The woods at Moss Lake are diverse, and we looked at three main types in our location. Can you spot some major differences between the three groves below?

The first stand is a typical third growth forest of mostly hemlock and Douglas fir. These woods will have a mediocre understory, usually dominated by sword fern and some deciduous shrubs like huckleberry and vine maple. They are still heavily altered by humans through logging, burning, and ground compaction that will not let more sensitive species reestablish. Still, there is some diversity in tree age, and opportunity for more understory to develop in time. The second forest type above, in the middle photo, is a common alder and cottonwood mix. This forest is young, and has a lot more understory established. Why might that be? I like these forests for medicine, fruits, and usually, nearby water. Why is water usually nearby these stands? The third forest type is what you’ll most likely be running into where forests are “managed”. Mono-cultures are an easy way to replant timber forests. You pick the best wood products species- Douglas fir, and plant as much as you can all at once. This makes thinning easy, and will get you standardized size and growth in a woodlot, but it’s unhealthy for the ecology, even with a little more diversity in the understory right now. Eventually, these evergreens will grow tall, shading out the understory and limiting what can grow. Chantrelles favor these kinds of woods, but wildlife tends to avoid them. What kind of forest can be found near you? How old are the trees there?

Our lessons at Moss Lake were many, with a few put down in this blog for those who missed the meet up. There was some plant ID, some fire making, shelter finding, and landscape reading. My guess is, this forest was left alone after the big timber trees got taken out, leaving the hemlocks to fend for themselves. Most of the woods around this lake are hemlock dominate. Loggers leave them because they are a less valued wood in the timber markets, being too soft and prone to twisting when milled into building materials. I have heard from timber framers, that you can work with hemlock wood when it’s still wet, but expect the beams to warp as they dry in place. That’s my best guess as to why this area was overlooked for more logging, and why is was easier to get the land protected and put into a county park. Gratitude to this place and the public assess. It was a great location for access and learning, and I am thankful to King County Parks for keeping this place open and available.

When I reflect on the short 43 years I’ve been alive, and an American Citizen of The united States, I’ve watched a system of governing unravel under the strain of corporate pressures in economic strong-manning. We are mistaken to think a single man is running any show in this nation. The lines are drawn by investment, and returns. All the white collar 401K retirements are wrapped up in the corporate hustle. I watched the Enron melt down, and it set a precedent. Working people would not have a guarantee of concessions, should a company fail. So throw it all under the bus and walk away rich people- that’s what’s happening in The USA right now. Democracy is being thrown under the bus for the billionaires.

As a small farm in Western Washington, I may not have a hat in the ring of politics, beyond my vote, but this current runaround of a two sided coin is getting stale. I’m too smart for this BS, and it’s time to call it out. From the pasture, I’m watching the hay shipped abroad for global conglomerates that don’t give a fig about human rights and the wadge earning worker. What planet do you think we’re living on? I can’t raise sheep without hay- alfalfa through winter, yet the price of a bale is out of reach for small scale production, and priced out by horse people who enjoy riding. It’s preventing food from being grown, the act of equestrian hobby/sport/animal abuse. Sorry, but after seeing horses on The Mongolian Step, seeing any equine confined to a stall is the upmost form of confinement- like putting a person in a cage/jail cell. Truly, look at a prison structure and then look at modern barns and commercial/industrial animal production facilities. You’ll see cells, confinement design, shit lagoon drainage, or outdated septic fields. That’s what happened to Alligator Alcatraz/Auschwitz- bad poop management.

Our corpse is so toxic, we pollute our own water table if we die there. Take it in for a moment- we are toxic. When we become cancerous, from our environmental toxicity, we then poison ourselves with plutonium and “heal” to prolong our pollution on this earth. Prolonging our insult to this biological injury says a lot about our egos. Let’s all follow our original instructions; to live with the earth around us, in that soil on the hands, bare feet on the earth where and when we can, there is a way to work back towards holistic balance in this system. Running on cash has taken away the true values of life and hollowed out basic needs into streaming and same day delivery to all who buy in; giving themselves over to consumer driven capitol gains for a few at the top, while the rest of us, and they, buy now, pay later debt slaved, but only a little for those at the top, the bottom 99% will pay the interests so the wealthy 1% gain their capitol to throw bread crumbs at their investors- all in that 1%. None of these investments will support the majority- but trickle down? Yeah- in the shape of no more free speech, people grabbed by masked kidnappers and hustled into unmarked vans without warrent of any kind. Is it really ok that it’s “only” black and brown people.

Meanwhile, foreign trade tariffs are crippling our industrial farmers- growing the majority of our commodity crops, which run the agricultural arm of the country. Beef is not part of that commodity wagon- only corn, sot, and wheat are given subsidy crowns. 10 billion went to industrial farms in March of this year to cover some of the crop value crashes happening all over the country. Nebraska is declaring bankruptcy. Arkansas soy farmers are about to default on their farms, putting tens of thousands of acres into private foreign investment, and away from American ownership of the very soil we stand for. I’m waving a red flag here for my fellow citizens. Our very terra firma is on the line, and there are a few Peabody Coal Co‘s hauling it away. The legacies of human encroachment on nature for profit has left us all empty- like a pop bottle. Sorry, but I will ride John Prine’s words for support. It’s those musicians of the 60-70s that I’ve been reflecting on, along with post-modern impressionistic guitar strumming about love and loss. It’s that old cowboy ballad to calm the waning wild west.

I walked the land of a friend today. She had 20 acres of 3rd cut temperate rainforest on a glacial ridge above The Snoqualmie Valley. There is natural restoration happening here- with an understory on the rebound. Creeks and streams are still dormant, remaining underground during the dry season. That’s what Weiss Creek, the stream that flows through EEC will turn to in future. Imagine a childhood stream drying up when you grow up. It’s happening now around the world, and we’re the cause. I understand why many of our ancestors fled underground when things got tough. It might be the future for the next few generations- after the floods. But I hate to be a Nostradamus. This little plot of heaven will remain fertile and functional for at least my lifetime- if there is no major fire- or even if there is, I hate to put any limitations on the possibility. Future forecasting prevents living in the moment, which we should all spend more time doing. That’s the fountain of youth so many quest for, in my humble book.

After over ten years of sitting with land and working to better its fertility and restoration to native rainforest, I’ve had a little time to think about what’s going on, or growing on in our world. In this small corner, there is so much potential, and a willing return to what was, the old growth, sacred waters, and salmon, fish for all the people- humans, animals, vegetables, and minerals all fed by one source of great thrashing life. The fish are returning now, up the rivers in the valley below, and some to this very land, through the small creek sourced from natural springs. The Coho come here to spawn, from the Ocean; thirty miles away. How amazing- it’s still going, and some recovering, from our slaying of the woods, timber dollars raked from the land- even today, hundreds of acres at a time. What will the future hold for these scalped lands? Again and again, the trees grid planted by the millions, often paid for by our “plat a tree” endeavors. Beware the green wash– you should know better by now.

We are in a pivotal moment, where determining what is real has become almost impossible- at least online. I’m stepping further away form screen time inducements– even basic news. The narrative is skewed so far from my own reality in the day to day of this holistic farm and forest, I struggle to relate. Scales are tipping faster, the planet is shaking us off, with intensified storms, violent swings in weather, which for a tender of soil and ecology, means immediate adaptation and a sort of “hold fast” attitude. I’m still observing, taking it all in, both in the woods and the political gambit, to the best of my ability. I want to understand, it’s a life quest- to know what is, as I find it, and evolve. What I plant today may not be growing tomorrow, so I sew continuously, all kinds of seeds, expecting nothing and everything at the same time. What a concept. If only we could plant our political forests in the same mindset. That would be stagnation, no? How does this impact the little slice of land that is EEC Forest Stewardship? Well, from taxes to legal representation, it’s all based on who I vote fore locally. But is it still? Thay orange fool in that house of white gilded in gold has no place in my day to day, except in the executive, totally immune actions of an old white guy with a lot of missing information in his world view. Scary. But that’s been the way of things for my entire lifetime, and many before me.

As I walked this neighbor up the road’s land, I reflected on what could return if we would just let it. Instead, our current administration is gunning (yes, pun too) to build roads in to the last vestiges of public wilderness set aside for our enjoyment, and as a wilderness for our diverse wildlife and vegetation. Reflect on this please- the last untouched wilderness in The US is being carved up by mislead capitalistic resource plundering. It will be the final nail in American public lands privatization. Again, red flags for the land and soil of this country. I’m addressing the ecological threats, but our very democracy is at stake too folks, I’m just trying to keep the narrative I speak related to my own life and role in this world. I hope other land stewards and growers have awareness of these immediate conservation threats. The list keeps growing, but I have this moment and these thoughts to share with you now.

Thank you for your time in reading this, and your reflections on the continued erosion of American freedoms and values that I was raised with by several generations of hard working people, including two grands who fought in WWII against fascism, and one died over The Pacific- we never got his body back. This is personal. My great-uncle flew in a fortress pane that was shot down off The Philippines. My Grandmother’s family never got over the loss. I was not born yet, but my Grandfather, who did survive Guadalcanal, spent a lot of time outside with me, planting gardens, tending a small forest, and a creek behind his house. I took all that love of nature, from a man who was 16 when he signed up and went to war for this country, giving his youth to The Navy, and defending us against a belief that would have taught us to kill people that were different- or at least put them in camps and forget what happens after that- like The Tacoma Detention Center here in Western Washington, or the east side of the mountains, where farmers had to let their fruit crops rot on the trees because ICE took the migrant workers from the fields. One after another, the neighbors disappear, until they come for you.

How do I start the day with these thoughts? Well, I see the sun rise, hear the birds calling, watch the geese moving through the orchard, and see a dog’s tail wag as I step outside to take in a deep breath. My day starts here, on the land, with intention to grow things, learn, and share the bounty of this life with those I know and love. If I can help others tend a little bit in their own lives, we’re on the right track- surviving. Ideally, we’d be thriving, and in the scheme of the world as a whole, we are, but at such costs to others we’ll never know or see. What is balance? How to turn the wheel a little more smoothly through all the spokes so everyone takes a turn through prosperity. That would be the governance for me. Sounds- or smells, like Communism, or Socialism. Change is coming, and I’d like to lean towards a more liberal way to share a thriving world, rather than a totalitarian dictator male god head commanding my actions. I can’t imagine training my Kangal pup through demands and forced behavior, he would quickly turn on me, seeing my unstable actions as true weakness. That’s what we’re in now, a weak trend in leadership- rule by force, threat, and payoffs to the upper crust.

Ok, enough about governance, we have a top down running here on the farm. I feed what will one day feed me, but if I don’t treat the animals well, it reflects in their health and production. The cycle is unavoidable, you get what you put in, so if you watch a lot of youtube, but don’t plant any seeds, nothing will grow, no matter how much you stream online. I feel out country has become too much watching and not enough doing- we can all talk about what should be, but until we act on it, nothing will change. Plant ideas, stories of action, and move your feet, to the voting booth, the town meeting, the city council when it meets. Know your local representatives, and keep track of state and federal positions. Write letters demanding action, go to protests and march. When my sheep bray together, I hear them and get compelled to feed, move pasture space, or check minerals to make sure everything’s good. “We are without salt- get a block in here or we’ll have deformed lambs!” That is the consequence for not properly feeding the animals what they need. What is missing in your diet?

Yes, I’m embracing more metaphor for us here, but it’s all the same- and so, should be digestible for bright minds that follow this little blog on the corner of no where and everywhere. Now I’ll take a page from my old barn cat Lucia- take a nap on the couch and wake with a clearer mind. In praise of those who see the path and take it, following old footsteps of wisdom without stepping on the faces of our ancestors.

Since I first moved to the land that hosts EEC Forest Stewardship, the sound of a lone Pacific tree frog has called from a number of hidden places around the front porch. This wild companion has a love affair with potted plants, and I appreciate its careful tending of the somewhat exotic species that are watered more often and offer the frog a wet place to hang. The frog is here for the moisture. Usually, I don’s get to see it, but when I was watering the bonsai yesterday, the frog was out and enjoying the warm afternoon next to a blue marble. I had sat down to enjoy a brief respite in the shade when I noticed the amphibian friend. In that moment, I felt completely connected to place and self, the frog and I were living in the same world and resting in that moment together at peace. What an experience to take time with.

Frogs are a sign of water, grounding, and connectiveness of the two. The common bonds between all living things are held, symbolically, in this little creature. It’s a nod to emotional health, and well as physical. Reclaiming that center, I shared that moment with the frog on the porch and felt wonderful. What a privilege to just sit with another being, all the beings, the potted plant was also alive with us, still and present. The garden beyond, the forest, the stream, river to the ocean, back to the frog sitting under the tree, next to me. Perhaps, if we all took a little more time to sit and reflect in stillness, we would better anchor to place and have a sense of belonging. Connecting with other living things brings peace. For those unable to connect in such a way, there is great sadness and fear.

Alone is not part of the world’s being. Things are intimately connected throughout the world. Denying, refusing, or ignoring does not make it go away. You can always sit with your own heart beat if there is nothing else living around. Listen to the life pumping through you, carried in complex cycles, the blood re-oxygenated with your breath, electrical impulses from the brain, firing without your command, it’s happening independently, to keep you alive. The greater living world works the same way, independently, in a cycle to keep things alive. The frog is an anchor, holding water and soil together, relying on the cooperation of two elements, along with air to breath so its body can follow the same cycles, maybe in a slightly different physical composition, but connected in the same way. Sitting with frog offers stillness and inner peace. If you can, find your way to a wet place with some growing things around it and you can sit with frog too. You might not get a chance to see it the first few times you come and sit quietly, but eventually, if you keep at the connection, frog might come out to sit with you, to gaze into your eyes and have its own reflections on connection and place.

There is so much bounty in late summer here at EEC Forest Stewardship. We’ve been sharing the harvest with neighbors and friends, and receiving as well. Cucumbers and radishes from a neighbor’s amazing garden, baked goods and jam from other friends who came and picked blackberries, and more of the berries themselves, a fine crop this year, and good return for all the struggle keeping them from overtaking the landscape. There were rains in August, which set off another growing spree, and seed germination in any bare soil. I’m cutting back the grape arbor for a second time, watching the final maturity on the fruit, to harvest before birds, insects, and mold moves in. The weather is cooling off enough to invite mildew, so cutting back the new leafy growth on this plant will help ventilate the grapes to repel unwanted spoiling.

The fruit trees are having a mast year. I’ve been gathering early shed fruit from the ground and feeding the sheep a welcome treat. Why gather fallen fruit that is not ripe? It still rots and sends out a smell that tells bears to come and get it. By gleaning the dropped fruit early, you stay ahead of the bears and birds, preventing unwanted guests in your orchard. I was at a neighbor’s backyard, gathering plumbs last night, and taught them this savvy oversight to protect the trees and fruit crop. Bears like to climb up in fruit trees, and since most cultivar verities are dwarf, they don’t have branches strong enough to hold a heavily laden fruit crop and the bear at the same time. Bearing the bear becomes impossible, and branches break, causing the loss of part of that year’s crop, as well as future fruit from that hard grown branch, and much more for the tree’s long term health and balance. The devil in the details! I always talk about this, and it’s where a sort of evil can creep in over time. In the form of production and viability loss. But I can digress into tree health, fruit tree lifespan, grafting to salvage, and on and on, but this blog post is about bounty, and there’s a lot to eat.

It’s great to invite others for some evening pick your own. This year has produced enough bounty for 3 blackberry harvests over a month and a half. The right warmth and full sun brought on the flush of sweet reward, considering the aggressive nature of this Colonial introduced species. I’ll reflect on the fact that all this fruit is Colonially introduced, even the hybrid crabapples (far left below), are a far cry from q̓aʔxʷ. That’s Lushootseed for Pacific Crabapple. Pacific crabapple trees were prized by tribes as a late summer, early fall food crop. They preserved them in watertight boxed underwater! The advanced technology there is astounding, removing oxygen from the slightly cooked fruit for preservation. Let’s see ya carve or weave a water tight container, then fill it with the slightly cooked crabapples, and store it for a late winter food source. No plastic or complex global trade to meet basic needs, though the fruit was traded widely and often eaten with animal grease. Now, could the crabapples feed the cities of today, no, never. Well, maybe if we concentrated all our efforts on regenerative, climate resilient food growing and stepped back from our screens a little more. With population as it is, due in huge part to industrial processes that make more in the short term, but cost dearly in the tailing arc of human existence, we’re overtaxing what there is of this finite life.

We’re cooked. But maybe not in my lifetime, so I keep tending the fruit treed, planting berry bushes, and slowly bringing more Pacific crabapples into the mix. They don’t need the irrigation, pruning, or protection that the orchard of cultivar’s demands. I am glad to pick fruit the size of my fist, rather than the size of a pea. This Colonially developed fruit is a big payoff for my troubles, but without a dehydrator, glass jars, and freezer, I’m left with little time to scarf down all that I grow and share. The sheep, chickens, and geese get the fallen fruit, and what I can’t glean for eating or jam. Such bounty for my perceived labors and time, but maybe not for all of us, and maybe not available for everyone. The gratitude for this pleasure at crafting, labor of love that give back abundance in food and connection to place, this is the paradise spoken of in some holy books, but at great cost to many others in this whole.

Once there were uncountable salmon runs that fed the people who lived here for thousands of years. Enough berries, fish, elk and deer, birds, and endless forests, camas fields, all tended and lived with by intelligent, well established people. I took a deep dive on Nancy J. Turner’s work in finding a living presence of traditional land care practices up in British Colombia. The same species and practices were happening in Washington too, because First Nations didn’t have the same boundaries white men drew up when mapping “unexplored” land. Ecology linked the people in the greater landscape of this west coast, with inland trading and exchange, which was laced into a much greater framework that connected all the continents of what is today, know as The Americas. Again, pulling the wheels of my mind back to abundance and the bounty of this year’s harvest.

Here in the home garden, there is still a struggle with bindweed, an type of abundance I am not so excited about. The morning glory continues its vie for supremacy, yet with a half day of pulling, I can get ahead enough to let other plants shine. Figs planted last fall are now established and expanding their branches. Sunflowers are about to unfold their discs of sun worship, and native roses, berry bushes, and pollinator shrubs like mock orange, slowly morph from root stock to viable plant on the scene. Future understory champions to fill in the forest recovery effort. There’s a black cap raspberry making a jump to second story level after three years of coaxing into a stable south west corner of the garden. It’s teaming up with a swamp gooseberry to overtake a decorative snowball Viburnum, which is native to Asia. Still, towering above it all in the background is x̌payac, the life tree for tribal peoples of this area, still used for countless articles, from clothing to those water tight boxes to store crabapples. Yes, it took a lot of time and effort to make a box that was air tight and durable for food storage, but what are we doing today? Plastic air tight containers of forever chemicals, which are killing us, and making the future generations sick. I can’t avoid thinking about the microplastics in our food now, even these beautiful fruit trees many of us dreamed of planting in our own orchards, if we were so lucky. Anyway, that does sometimes keep me up at night.

I want to tie back to that bear climbing into fruit trees, and breaking branches. There is something rather smart in the animal’s culling of branches. He naturally prunes the fruit tree. Last summer, a black bear climbed into one of the pear trees and had a feast. he took all the fruit, and took down several of the tree’s branches. As I stand and look at my pear tree this year, at the same time, there is still tons of fruit on the tree, and in fact, it shed a few overburdened branches last week on its own. To help prevent more cracking branches, I’ve done a few shakes of the pear tree to let some of the fruit fall to save branches. I know I can’t eat all the Asian pears on this tree, and the early falling stuff is not ripe, but the sheep will enjoy them, and I’ll get more mature fruit from what’s left- if the bear does not come through again. One thing to point out- I don’t have to do any of this management on my native fruit bearing species- like that crabapple I’ve been going on about, but then again, q̓aʔxʷ would not put out so much soft, fleshy fruit that my culture, and pallet prefer. Gratitude for all the choices in food I get to make here at EEC Forest Stewardship, and all the people who get to share in this modest bounty.

The last two weeks of August have signaled the start of fruit harvest. Blackberries have been particularly abundant this year, and as I’ve been cutting back the bramble cane, I’ve picked fruit from the invasive hedges of Armenian Blackberry on the fence lines around the property. There is a sweet reward from all that bramble, and I’ve been taking full advantage of this corp for many years. This year, 2025, was the best yet, with about 60lbs of fruit picked and crushed, then heated and strained into two five gallon carboys for fall fermentation. Blackberry wine is divine, and I look forward to bottling the end of summer sweetness to uncork in the cold dark winter to celebrate, letting a little of that summer warmth pour into our festive cups.

wine making is an active craft, from harvest to bottling, each step takes hours of prep and execution- not to mention the clean up. During the first fermentation of alcohol, berries need additional sugar to feed the yeast enough for chaptalization, turning the glucose into alcohol. So, the additional 10lbs of sugar in each carboy are not there to sweeten the wine, but to feed the yeast for higher alcoholic content. The first three days of fermentation, oxygen is allowed into the jugs to multiply the yeast. After that, each carboy has an airlock to allow gas out, but no oxygen in. Ethanol and carbon dioxide are released during fermentation, so there has to be an escape rout for the gasses, but you don’t want air in, so the lock is a must for wine making. I am comforted by the slow bubbling noises during winter evenings, in fact, last winter when I bottled the wine and the airlocks went silent, it took me a few days to get used to the silence.

While cooking the fruit before fermentation starts, I take time to skim off froth and sift out some of the seeds. In my first batch, I did a lot of sifting. In the second batch, I only skimmed froth, and left most of the seeds through this first step in fermentation. After 2-3 months, I’ll rack the wine, sifting out all the fruit pulp and seeds, then let the liquid ferment another 2-3 month before bottling. It’s good to get the sediment out of the wine before final fermentation, otherwise you’ll have a lot of gross lee in your wine, which can develop funky flavors in time. Still, I like having the whole fruit in the wine for the first few months of wine making. It invites more fine lees into the wine, for complex flavors like nuts, honey, or bread in the taste, the dead yeast cells are included in this fine sediment that you might like in your wine. I’m not quite that advanced in my wine making skills yet, but every year I learn a little more, which then improves my wine making. I hope to have one of my most comprehensive batches in 2026.

Home-brewing is an important craft at Leafhopper Farm. Our two main crops for wine production are dandelions and blackberries, both endemic species here, and most of North America. They are considered light fruit wines, with lower alcohol count, and best served cold with a charcuterie platter. I’m also a fan of room temperature blackberry wine with stews or crispy goose. Combining the terrior of fruit from our land with the meat from our sheep makes for an incredible pairing. I also like to lay a few bottles down each year to keep for a few years, just to compare flavors over time. Blackberry wine can fortify nicely, if kept cool. I’ll often have at least one bottle pop in the summer due to warm temperatures in the house when the outside temps get into the 90s. It makes aging wine a bit of a challenge. I’m thinking seriously about building a root cellar to protect the vintages as I get more productive. No, I don’t plan to ever start selling wine from Leafhopper Farm, but it will feature with our lamb for friends and family.

As I wipe up all the spilled juice and sugar from the kitchen floor and cabinets, I think of the taste to come and don’t mind the mess. Home brewing is not simple, and you make a lot of mess, but the outcome is superb, unless your wine goes south due to a bad fungus infestation or what I call sock flavor getting in. This is caused by unwanted bacteria that can get into the wine if your tools aren’t sterile, or oxygenation happens late in fermentation. All sorts of problems can arise in brewing, any fermentation really, so ideally, you do a lot of experimentation and learn what works and what doesn’t. I’m now 15 years into wine making, and have so much to understand. Life long learning for sure! I’m glad to get a drink out of this schooling from time to time. I will say that at this point in my wine making journey, I bottle more success than bitterness.