EEC Forest Stewardship

Spring is here, and with the covid-19 pandemic happening, many of us have been social distancing and self-quarantining. Outside is still a safe place to be, if you have access. For most of us in Western Washington, the landscape is available, even cities have parks (if they are open). If you can drive out of the city to take a hike or walk in wilderness, I would highly recommend doing so. While you’re out- look for wild edibles all around. They are popping up now!

Is a wild edible safe to harvest? Well, where are you? If you are curb side of a busy road, don’t harvest. If you are in a sensitive bio-region with little diversity or plant numbers, don’t harvest. If you are in your own backyard harvesting is ideal. If you are in a park or wilderness area, check to make sure chemical management is not used, and always stay away from roadsides. So- what to look for. Right now (March 21, 2020), stinging nettle is out, and that’s a sure bet for good nutrition and abundance in most places. It’s a great green that has been leafing out here since January, but really only just took off this week with the great sun.

Spring is the time to harvest young leaves from this common plant. I take the top two leaf terminals when the plant is about 4-6″ high. You can harvest earlier, but I recommend letting the greens pork out a bit first to give the plant a head start. I want my nettle to keep growing, for a second harvest of leaves, and then in late summer, I’ll harvest seed for eating and dispersing too. Note I am picking barehanded, but it’s better to wear gloves to avoid stinging. I plucked this plant as demonstration for the photo. I would definitely wear protection when mass harvesting. You can dehydrate, freeze, or eat fresh after steaming. I usually dehydrate to use during next winter after eating fresh till I’m sick of the flavor.

Another great edible treat popping up at the moment is knot-weed. This rhubarb substitute is also an invasive, so eat up! Knot-weed spreads through a tenacious rhizome, so no matter how much you consume, the roots will keep putting out more. Young stalks are ideal, steamed up or baked. I chop it up right into stir fries or bake in pies with other fruit to add unique sweet and sour flavor. This plant is often treated with chemicals in parks and alogn streams so be very careful about where you harvest. Note the glossy red/brown pigment of the young leaves. The stalk will be green with red lines. If you are not sure, don’t harvest.

Some plants may not be ready to harvest yet, but are still good to pick out on the landscape for later use. This very young red elderberry is just leafing out, and may even be a few years away from producing any berries. But I’ve noted it’s location on the land and will drop by to check on it’s progress another time. Elder flowers are edible, and the berries can be cooked into cough medicine. However- blue elder, which grows mostly on the east side of The Cascades, is anti-viral. I make the trip over the mountains each fall to harvest these precious berries for medicine. We’re taking a daily dose at the farm these days to help support out immune system against the virus.

Sometimes looking for wild edibles can seem a challenge, but when you start breaking apart the wall of green, seeing plants as individuals, you begin to see food and medicine, materials for shelter, comfort, and self–care. When the forest becomes a place of familiar friends, you’re empowered to wild from within. There’s a great wild edible in the picture above, can you guess who?

Taste can make or break your wild edible plant experience. If you’re used to a diet with sugar and salt (most of us) then wild plants are going to taste bitter, bland, and generally lacking. If you take salt and sugar out of your diet, taste will return, allowing a better appreciation for the subtle flavor found in wild foods. Still, salt was once valued like gold with good reason. The osoberry is similar to cucumber in taste, through bitter. You can eat the leaves and flowers, which are abundant right now throughout the forests.

Most young growth of plants is edible, and now is the time to taste. In the picture above you can also see salmon berry leaves- edible, blackberry buds- edible, even red alder buds. One could easily gather enough blackberry buds right now to make a great salad. Add in a few other faces like osoberry and some nettle and you have a real medley of flavor. Still, you’ll want salt, and butter. Wild edibles really make you appreciate the common household ingredients we all take for granted now.

Flowers are another great wild food source in Spring. These red current blossoms look yummy- just remember, if you eat all the flowers, there will be no fruit. I like to let these plants keep their flowers to feed our humming birds, and later, feed everyone, domestic and wild alike, with juicy berries. Always ask yourself what stage a plant is in before you start harvesting. Timing is everything, harvest at the right moment to capture a plant’s energy. Spring is a time for greens, and flowers, during the summer, most plants are putting on food for the fall, like fruit and nut trees. Summer is a time to catch fish, look for berries, and eat a generally lighter fair through warm weather months. This allows time for plants to put on good growth for the lean times. Fall is harvest- grains are what most of us think of, but in the wild world, grasses offer little nutrition. You’ll be digging roots, as plants are going dormant and putting all their energy into the ground. Fruit is abundant too, and if you have good heritage verities, you’ll be able to store them away in a cool place to use throughout the winter. Learn to harvest within these natural cycles and you’ll harmonize well with the abundance of nature.

For more information- especially here on the west coast of Washington State- check out these other great reads.

–Plants of The Pacific Northwest Coast by Pojar & Mackinnon
This is the intro guide to plants of Western Washington, easy and user friendly

–The People of Cascadia by Bohan
A more in-depth book by Heidi, an amazing ethnobotanist who specializes in Pacific Northwest first nations practices- from fishing to foraging, wood crafts to clothing, she maps out annual cycles of daily life to demonstrate how people once thrived on the landscape here.

–Pacific Northwest Medicinal Plants by Kloos
For more advanced learning- Scott takes you through each plant step by step, preparing correct dosages and explaining the potential health hazards of these medicines if you have preexisting conditions- so helpful!

The first two lambs dropped in late January and we’re off! Once one ewe starts labor, the rest get the chemical signal and domino into action. The first lambing gave us a week to test our lambing setup and all has gone quite smoothly, even through massive rains with heavy flooding. Luckily the barn stays dry, and with a little ditch digging to redirect surface water runoff, we’ve kept the lambing stalls clean and ready. I was psyching myself out every evening at feeding, looking at swollen bottoms and thinking it was happening! Of course, the ewes will not be rushed, and they are still taking their time.

In mid February, we were at 7 lambs (four ewe mamas), with the most sheep on the land ever. Our stall systems are fully adapted to the numbers, and we’re quickly moving animals around to accommodate the new youngsters. Fresh straw works, but it’s not my first choice for lambing, as ewes eat the stuff as roughage, especially when they are hungry milk producers. I’ve switched to pine shavings and now retain enough bedding to keep things dry. Muddy stalls will lead to infection, illness, and parasite nightmares in your animals. Idealy they are out on pasture as much as possible, but when we get two weeks of flooding, everyone remains stuck in the barn, which means extra bedding and hay.

Our biggest challenge has been the weather, with major flooding in the valley and our hill farm catching a deluge of runoff, we’re thankful for our hydro catchment systems and all the good use we’re putting that water to. The grass is also green and lush, which will be great pasture for the youngsters once the rain lets up. And indeed, by early March, the sun is out again and we’re putting the flock back outside! With another addition, bringing us to 8 lambs. Even with good weather, a new born lamb should stay in a few days with mom to bond. Luckily, a mother ewe is less interested in being part of the herd while she’s nursing a new born. It’s one of the few times you can separate a sheep from the flock without stress.

Back in the field, these amazing animals are thriving on the fresh green grass. It’s still a few weeks away from Spring on the calendar, but in sheep time, it’s been spring all winter, as the grass has kept on growing. Now with more sun and warmer weather on the way, our pastures are exploding with new lush life. Both the animals and plants are revving up reproduction. Flowers have begun pushing up through the mud and little lambs frolic across the landscape. So much gratitude for new life, warm sun, and the soft touch of new growth.

We’ve had a deluge in the past week- the typical hard rain that’s been the new norm here at EEC. In this case, the hard rain came down for 48 hours strait, after a month of rain before that. With the ground already saturated, water is now sheeting off every surface, ganging up into raging torrents as it rushes towards the swollen rivers.

The Snoqualmie is over her banks again, and like all rivers in flood stage, she is reeking havoc on bottom land farms and causeways, which connect our small town to the city. Traffic in and out of Duvall has been stressful, and backups throughout the county began to expand as the waters rose. We’ve been in major flood stages twice this week. Mudslides are also taking their toll on major throughways. Transportation backups and inaccessibility will continue to challenge our social normality going forward. Weather dictates all, and we’re in for continued wet deluges and more and more flooding in the years to come.

Our catchment pond is almost to the outflow pipe. It has not crested yet, and may not- but we installed a Pegasus unicorn to bring the magic. Seeing the water collect so brilliantly across the property, preventing any major sheeting, is very rewarding. At least our work and living spaces remain dry. In the woods and along the creek, things are flowing in wild torrents, and luckily, we have a creek to direct flow into, rather than our driveways, though some were still water parks during the worst flooding.

Major weather events are a time to really observe your landscape. At EEC, we’re taking notes on areas of erosion, flooding, good water directing and catchment, as well as seeps, springs, and seasonal creeks. The flooded road above is rare, but would be mitigated by a culvert. The property above is mostly lawn, which created the sheeting water abundance at the bottom of the slope, where my road comes across, creating a dam. At a horse property I work at, the same lake build up is happening for the same reason.

Planning direction for high flow events here in Western Washington is mandatory. Though many people are unaware of the county’s legal requirements for proper surface water retention and redirection. It’s a novel and a half, so I get why most people in King County are clueless about the laws. BUT, they are there, and addressing surface water runoff ensures less flooding in your neighborhood. Imagine if all that water in the flooded arena above burst through the causeway holding it back- thousands of gallons would suddenly flood into an already taxed stream nearby, ushering a flash rise in the already flooded lowland, perhaps causing additional damage.

Another major issue in heavy rain events involves erosion. In worst cases, landslides happen, causing massive soil movement, usually in a down hill direction, incurring the loss of stable slope and degradation of hillsides. If you live up hill of these disturbances, you’re likely to experience future failures in your own slope. Sometimes smaller erosion problems, like washed out roads, plagues land owners. Pictured above, you see a minor surface water cut in our access road through the property. This stream comes with flooding, and goes away quickly, but with each passing storm, through the years, I’ve been watching this cut deepen, and if I don’t address it soon, the whole road could be compromised. Like any water issue, it starts as a drop, then seep, then torrent. Fix these little issues as they form, preventing massive soil erosion in time.

With all this heavy rain The Pacific Northwest is becoming more and more flood prone. Weather systems like The Pineapple Express, from Hawaii, are dumping atmospheric rivers, like the one pictured above. Where there was once a few inches over a few days, you now experience inches in hours, with 8-10″ in a weather event like this, and they are happening more and more frequently. This storm went for a week straight, and I was counting 2-3 inches a day at EEC Forest Stewardship. With more water on the way, I’m upping my gutter design to all metal, heavy gauge for torrential rain, with added strength to withstand the snow too. Our major flow routs are mapped, with good flow direction encouraged using catchment basins, sturdy culverts, and unimpeded swales, which guide water into the pond, or retain the excess in cisterns.

The 20,000 gallon tank above is designed to hold a winter’s worth of rain from the nearby green roof. Right now the roof catches into a much smaller green cistern, about 400 gallons at a time. Then we will use a portable pump to push the water from that tank, into the larger blue pillow. In Fall, 2018, the tank was filled from the well, and reached capacity easily in a few days without overtaxing our pump. Because we lucked out with a mild summer, I’ve saved the water for the upcoming summer of 2020. By then, we hope to have s pump system from the upright cistern to utilize all our rain water catchment, and with ran like we’ve just had this winter in 2020, the 20,000 gallons will be easy to retain.

Since the storms, we’ve continued to study the landscape as waters recede. And plans to put in a water bar across our access road will mitigate future weather erosion. The valley below is back to normal, with traffic still backing up, but not for hours with only one road in and out of town. However, landslides have left two major access routs to Duvall compromised, and shutdowns for emergency construction will continue into the Spring. Rains in the past few weeks have been lighter more Seattle like, gently misting across the landscape, catching on cedar branches and dampening fresh grass for the sheep to enjoy. I’d rather have too much water, than not enough.

After 7 years of good seasonal habitation, our Mongolian ger is taking a much needed rest. These hand crafted mobile homes are designed to be packed up and moved frequently, allowing occasional refreshing and reshaping with each new setup. On a migration in 2011, I had the opportunity to live and tend a ger through a fall drive in northern Mongolia. We packed the two 16′ diameter yurts up in about half an hour in the morning, packed onto yaks for a day of migration, then back up again in the evening with the help of about eight people per structure, in about 45 minutes- including fire in the wood stoves and dinner cooking. For a ger to spend 7 years in one spot is quite a feat.

Migration would be a challenge here in The Puget Lowlands, but the ger still offers great accommodation for seasonal help on the farm, students of wilderness living, and people in search of alternative living. Because of the wet weather our region experiences throughout much of the year, we constructed an additional roof to shelter the canvas structure, preventing dampness and rot setting in. As we began deconstructing the ger this fall, we found settled signs of insects like spiders and beetles habituating between the layers of canvas and felt batting, which insulates the structure. This only happened because the yurt was left standing for so long. Normally, seasonal refreshing of the structure will prevent invasive roommates.

As climate change continues its evolution in our region, snow has become a much more present companion of winter months, and the load on some of our temporary structures has become too much. In February 2019, EEC Forest Stewardship received 18″ of snow in a week, followed by a month of below freezing temperatures, which ensured the blanket of white cold stayed with us into March. During the “snowpocalyps”, our 5 year old greenhouse, which had endured 60mph gusts of wind and many inches of snow in previous years (including a first collapse which fractured many of the structural supports), finally crumpled to the ground for the last time. In the picture below, you can see the collapsed structure, with the cabin roof in background, pitched properly to shed the heavy snow load.

The Elements dictate all future building at EEC, and with good planning, roofs will stand the test of heavier snow to come. Temporary structures are a way to test design and then improve upon them in future builds. The farm acquired a new greenhouse frame, recycling a neighbor’s metal carport frame, which will be the bones of a new greenhouse coming in summer, 2020. Our old design was simple PVC hoops braced with wood beams. The arches sagged over time, preventing snow from sliding off the sides properly. Our new frame is a pitched roof with higher walls. We’ll be adding additional beams of support to the roof, ensuring snow sheds quickly, preventing another collapse.

Resurrection of older temporary structures is ongoing at Leafhopper Farm, especially a row of old sheds we converted into livestock housing and a solid grain room. It had been an aviary for chickens and peacocks, along with a hay shed and run in for cows and horses. With a little creative building, using mostly scrap wood, the sheds were structurally reinforced and converted into additional stalls for sheep and goats. The old coop remained to house our laying flock, and the hay shed continued to shelter our winter fodder for the animals. The chickens also enjoy using the fallen hay for additional nesting space, especially during the colder winter months.

Sheds like these are temporary, though extremely durable and well used. They are shabby and rickety, but cheap and more than enough dry shelter for the animals. Our future plan is to build a real barn, one building, with stalls, grain room, and an attached living space for a farm caretaker to reside in. Below is a rough proposal for the building. This drawing also indicates our current grey water system, which the future building would tie into. We’ll keep designing and drawing for now, thankful that the current structures will continue to serve until a solid plan is thought out.

Yet another temporary structure on the property to point out is also pictured above; our 20,000 gallon pillow tank (large blue square in top center of pic) is another thought out movable space. Though only a tank, it’s current placement is to support a young orchard, which, once well established with full canopy, will not need so much watering. We can then choose to move the tank to another part of the land, offering support to future nut groves and young plantings on other parts of our ten acres. One of those future groves is slowly establishing on our “back 40”. This savanna field has played host to another temporairy structure on the landscape- a wall tent.

This seasonal structure is the habitat of a current resident. Allowing someone to independently live off the grid at EEC Forest Stewardship did not happen overnight. It takes a very capable person to thrive in this rustic accommodation, and the person who does has been experimenting in wilderness living for a few years now. Light foot living is key to a thriving environment, especially when resources are limited. In our comfortable modern homes, we often forget how much energy it takes to maintain such luxurious standards, and the rest of the world wants these accommodations, at the peril of our environmental survival.

While packing away the Mongolian ger, taking care to protect the natural fibers from hungry rodents, we marvel at the simplicity of the structure, and how quickly it collapses into neat piles. Each part of the structure can be carried by an individual, or piled into the back of a pickup in one go. The entire building is about 700lbs of material. Imagine how light our impact could be if we thought more openly about temporary construction. This is not a call to manufactured housing, but the tending of more mindful methods of creating space.

In closing, a special shout out to the farm house here at EEC Forest Stewardship. Our 1973 Port-royal double wide is also a temporary structure. There’s a title for this home, and it’s up on blocks, no foundation. The structure will ultimately end up in a land fill because of hazardous construction, but it’s lasted 50 years, which is certainly impressive. May it continue, with our good stewardship, to provide safe, dry, warm shelter. May we all have such luxury, whatever the construction.

This morning we woke to a thick blanket of snow. The winter wonderland began a few days before, but the real accumulation arrived Monday. It was so great to see this weather arrive, but with frozen water comes a lot of chaos. In the forest, tree branches drooped heavily to the ground as ominous cracking echoed through the dense canopy. Much of our snow was the light feathery kind, which gently drifted off the treetops in light breezes. It would have been another story if high winds had picked up. Where was the gale? Upon yonder Cascades, where I ran into the storm before it struck home up on Steven’s Pass.

I was able to safely take this photo at a stand still up on Rt. 2, just over Steven’s Pass ski mountain. The wind blowing powder off the trees created whiteout conditions along the highway. A few times the loss of site came unexpectedly, and more than once I threw on hazard lights as I slowed to a stop on a road where in normal conditions, I would be flying along at 60mph. More than once I watched someone try to speed up and pass, only to fishtail along and slide back into line. Driving is never a good choice in a storm- especially a snow storm on a mountain top.

Back at EEC Forest Stewardship, the silence was deafening, thick snowflakes fell on and off for several days. I watched the heaviest dump I’d ever seen in one sitting fall that Monday. Rarely do we get such light fluffy stuff accumulating more than a few inches, but this storm felt like something out of The Rockies, Colorado. Cascade snow is usually wet and heavy, turning to cement faster than you can get a fresh set of tracks down the mountain. I did not ski this champagne snow, but I did have a lot of fun running around in it with my pup. The livestock are not fans of snow days, so they held up in dry, warm stalls.

The ewes are due to lamb very soon, I was really worried they would drop in the storm, but luckily, everyone held on through the cold spell. If they had, we might have been hosting sheep in the garage with heat lamps for the first time. If the climate continues to offer heavy snow, the livestock operations will have to be enhanced to cope with the change. Temperate rain forest might just be heading towards sub-alpine winter conditions. Hauling water and breaking ice is never fun on a farm, but future barn design will incorporate more stable water systems.

After large snow events, floods follow, and the small salmon stream at EEC, Weiss Creek, has begun to build flow as the snow starts to melt. The snow offers good tracking- the sign of animal tracks in the fresh powder. Another inhabitant of the land found coyote prints cutting across the land in the stream buffer. We love to see evidence of wildlife traversing the habitat cultivated for them across the landscape. Snow events are a challenging time for the ecology of this region. Extra care of livestock is also required, with more frequent water checks and feed to supplement a lack of pasture time.

Seeing the world in a white cloak gives new perspective, as well as a chance to study flooding across the property as the cold melts. Puddles and surface flow mark areas of more extreme runoff across already saturated soil. Erosion can happen in the blink of an eye, and even after less than a foot of snow, our creek banks have been reshaped well over a foot by recent runoff in the fast melt. The valley below is in it’s third major flooding this season, and with a week of rain to follow, we won’t be getting much reprieve before more water falls. The Cascades might sometimes be shrouded in snow, but the flowing waters continue in the foothills below.

Is it impossible to avoid personification? In living the human existence, we want to understand through relating. The revulsion of nature as cruel and violent has been a tide slow in turning, due mostly in part, I think, to its often fatal effect on man kind when he is at its mercy. Though we are still very much at the mercy of Mother Nature, humanity has spent a few hundred years living in a state of colonization. Eurocentric views of world domination have included the decimation of the natural world for the greater good of human existence. It’s an old narrative that man has dominion over The Earth- and should profit from its eternal bounty, as some higher power ordained. I think we missed the part about stewarding for all The Earth, for its collective greater good, not just ours.

As humans with big brains always questioning (when given the privilege), we’ve begun to turn back towards Nature for answers. Though in this modern light, she has been IMAXed into a different kind of submission, one in which we view her remotely from our screens. She is “captured” in high definition, bright color, and exciting action. The natural world is entertainment, and for those wishing to study it- yes, this is about Ethology- there’s a heck of a show. Unfortunately, we’re people first, no matter how close we come to living wild with other species.

A famous Ethnologist I’ve been reading about recently is Joe Hutto, famous for his book, Illumination in The Flatwoods, A Season with Wild Turkey– which was made into a PBS special “Living as a Wild Turkey”. What I appreciate about this man’s approaches, is his continual reflection of how humans are separate from wildness- from our struggle with good and evil, as Hutto puts it- “We humans betray the moment in ways animals never do,” he says. “We live so much in the past, or in the future, and forget to be in the moment. Animals can’t do that if they want to survive.” This sums up my belief about people grasping for rewilding, we would have to devolve our thinking, back to primal fight or flight, to be in the moment.

Would you be ready to give up civility for being wild? Could we even comprehend that as an option? For those privileged to walk in the two worlds, yes, for those not able to choose, no. In this age of COVID-19, so much of our civility has been stripped bare, poverty continues to stalk like hungry wolves through our streets, and the ability for man to look his fellow man in the eye has slipped. Those who are intimate with death can attest to the leaving of civility in the act of survival. Yet in many branches of the animal kingdom, social animals do sacrifice for one another to keep the whole alive. We struggle with this concept related to true wildness, and I think we sometimes puzzle over nurture vs. nature, as though the two were at odds (which they sometimes are). Perhaps it could be said, that by delving into the untamed living world, we get a glimpse of what original instructions look like.

As Dr. Hutto learned, Turkeys are born with everything they need to know, and act on it at once through being. Humans struggle to find this “prime directive”, and I think this formation of ethical choice has quite upstaged survival for the security of civility. At the end of Joe Hutto’s story with his flock, one male turkey he has gone so far as to name, “Turkey Boy”, suddenly turns on the naturalist, intent on what Joe hypothesizes is ultimate male territorial aggression- it was going to be him or the bird. As humans, we’ve made a sort of social agreement not to kill each other in the streets over who owns them, though some populations, right here in The USA, act out fatal aggressive territorial displays in drive by shootings or vicious lynchings. One might argue that these actions are more out of desperation than instinct. Perhaps causalities to domestication and wealth accumulation. It is on the alter of money that we now must pray to keep our heads afloat. What folly this has all become in our search for humanity.

Wildness takes us away from the complications of being civil. It acts as a baseline for survival, almost comforting us in knowing we do not have to worry about predators and the scarcity of food- or does it? I ask how many people are living in an elevated primal state, even in tech driven cities, like Seattle, near this forest farm. There is a great struggle with homelessness, and the inclusion of people who have become estranged from civility, by choice or not. What of mental illness? Addiction? Abuse? These are not such common struggles in nature, but constant for humankind. Can it simply be summed up as our curse in being always in the past or future, never present? Perhaps, but in being human, are we not given the enlightenment to see ourselves- beyond simply fight or flight? What I do know as a person, is that even with civilization, wildness cannot be separated from us, nor can we fully survive without it. For a life without clean water, air, shelter, food, without each other to support in times of need, would fail to survive.

Yes folks, it’s winter- but here in Western Washington, spring seems to begin. This is part of that secret world we west slope dwellers prefer everyone else outside The Pacific Northwest didn’t know- we’re a truly temperate climate! The end of fall brought temperatures maintaining the 20s for about a week, but the freeze quickly thawed, and now it’s a balmy 47 with light rain and grey skies. That’s a heavenly winter season norm, and the grass will keep growing.

As a farmer, I thrive in wet warm temperatures, though such cultivation comforts come with other struggles, like mold and hoof rot. Muck is a constant companion in the barn yard. One of my house plants just showcased a strange mold growing on the surface of the potted soil. I’ve cranked up the wood stove, not to keep us warm, so much as dry in this rain-forest.

This year, I hatched an experiment of winter chicks, which have thrived quite well in our crisp fall days. I’ve been impressed with their hardiness, and the subsequent bulk they have gained with forage and organic starter feed. Last week, part of the young flock was moved into the coop with our layer hens. Their free range diet across the landscape includes grass, herbs, insects, and other microscopic creatures which enrich the birds’ eggs. The pasture is still green, even after heavy frosts, which began on the last day of September this year (2019). Our sheep just had two sunny days grazing, in early December. In New England, The Rocky Mountains, and central Great Plains, winters are brutal, often windy and well below freezing. Here in Western Washington, being outside in a cotton long sleeve t-shirt and jeans at the start of winter is a real treat- not to mention a lack of pesky frost-bite, frozen water buckets, and snow.

Winter does signal a slowing down in production. Our hens are laying at about 40% normal rate, so we’re averaging 1/2 dz. each day. With the introduction of more layers, we hope to operate in future at a dz. each day in winter, for neighborhood orders, and we’ll sell our warm month production to Cascadia Cooperative Farms. The sheep keep eating, putting weight on, and are hopefully also growing lambs in their bellies. It’s amazing to me that during winter, most animals in the grazing world are gestating next year’s offspring. They have great fresh food, and additional alfalfa hay in the barn on colder or wetter evenings.

Both my goats and sheep are expected to produce a “crop” of young, and need lots of good hay, pasture time, and other minerals to develop healthy babies. Evergreen pasture helps a lot with keeping pregnant stock fed, but supplements are still necessary- including trace minerals like iron, copper, and iodine. Western Washington soil is low in these important inputs, so a “range block” sits in each stall of my barn for both sheep and goats. Note- sheep cannot have copper, where as goats can’t live without it, so the mineral blocks of each animal should be matched appropriately. A soil sample from your pasture sent in for analysis will tell you what you’re short on, and that can change from field to field so take many samples if you can.

Fighting muck in temperate climate is never done. Anyone with livestock in wet weather can tell you about how hard it is to keep the ground from eroding into a mud pit. Some of the ways we cope at EEC Forest Stewardship include resting pastures by fencing them off. This is important, especially in winter, and will pay back in spades once the ground is solid again in warmer months. Managing stock around the barnyard is crucial to preventing much buildup. I use hog fencing to direct animals along corridors from the barn to pasture space, making sure to rotate access fequently to prevent degradation. Right now the coop space looks wretched, but that’s due mostly in part to the cedar grove that was recently harvested. Cedars don’t let other under-story plants establish easily, and even after a spring and fall seeding, we’re still waiting for more breakdown of the tree resins in the soil. The picture above shows that bald spot by the stumps.

Some farms have what they call “sacrifice space” where animals are confined to a smaller paddock to save the greater pasture space beyond. I’ve put my sheep in a smaller pen space this winter, but it’s still managed to keep grass on the ground. I put the sheep in their stalls frequently in winter to prevent erosion in the paddock. I’ve also got enough pasture space to accommodate the sheep, even in winter. Sheep are far less destructive on the soil compared to horses or cattle. It’s food for thought when you are thinking about stock in wet spaces. The larger the animal the heavier the impact on the land. Small stock are light footed, and can move over wet ground without sinking in. In this evergreen environment, smaller is better. I’ve already written about horse impacts on the land in an earlier article, but I will reiterate- western Washington is NOT a horse friendly environment for most of the year.

Another important aspect of having a temperate winter is all the water. Landscapes in Western Washington change dramatically in winter. While there is little snow in the lowlands, frequent flooding and swamped ground abound. A pasture which serves beautifully in summer can turn into a standing lake through the wet winter months. Lazy brooks turn into raging streams, and dirt roads become wallows. Access to certain parts of the farm in winter are blocked off, and will not be solid again till summer. If you own land in the area, take time to study the seasonal changes, mapping wet spots in winter so you don’t end up planting them with intolerant species. Take careful planning in structure placement, choosing the high ground whenever possible.

Where there is no ice, there is mold, and it will spread into your home if you don’t keep the environment dry. My truck sat for a week this winter while I was on a trip. When I got home I discovered a wet blanket had been left in the dog kennel, inviting mildew and the smell of molding cotton in my vehicle. I’m sill blasting the hot air every time I drive around, and the smell is almost gone. Know that temperate wet weather is a thriving environment for pathogens, fungus, and decomposition- and it shows up where you least want it, from leaf mold in the garden, to thrush in livestock’s hooves. Bugs also manage to stay alive and active through the winter here, so keep the compost covered and mind your greenhouse overwintered vegetation. Slugs do go dormant, but scale, flies, and gnats live on, and will infest where they can.

With all the struggles facing us here in Western Washington, I would still pick here above all other places I’ve lived in The US as home. It’s amazing to spend a late December day happily romping on a beach with the pup. I can gaze far off into the distance and see the snow covered peaks of the peninsula and feel such gratitude for our Pacific temperate zone. The Puget Sound Lowland remains green and vibrant, with many winter flowers blooming right along the cost. Even here in the hills, Hazel catkins are coming on, and blackberry buds sprout from entangled briar patches across the landscape. The rain keeps coming, but it brings warmer temperatures, moisture to the soil and good drinks for all the large trees, wetlands, and the fauna within. What a magical place to live and grow!

How many of us are tuned into soil? Oh, another lecture on soil? Any farmers in the audience are shaking their heads and clicking back over to comedic news stories or, more likely, USDA paperwork. But for those of you willing to take a moment, this article tries to spell out soil fertility additive basics and how they translate into holistic management at EEC Forest Stewardship. Anyone tending soil can learn from this experience, and I hope to continue updating as the stewardship continues.

Our focus will orbit around organic inputs (fertilizers) to the soil, which raise fertility (production) in the topsoil for long term ecological (crop) viability. The three big conventional inputs are Potassium (P), Nitrogen (N), and Phosphorus (K). They are very important to condition high production style growing, where you take much from the land and remove the physical matter out of the soil for consumption. The harvest takes away water and nutrients needed for further soil productivity. This is why NKP is pushed so hard on large farming operations- get the nutrients back into the soil fast for more production. But there’s so much more to the soil than these three inputs.

Pure chemical fertilizers support the plant growth, but not the larger soil ecology, or surrounding environment for long term abundance. It’s a quick fix to condition a field with lime to balance out Ph, or spray liquefied aged manure across the tilled soil to rebuild nitrogen, but these mass coverings often leech out of the bare soil when it rains, spilling off into our water systems where they cause large algae blooms which kill life in waterways; ultimately causing toxicity in us. To retain fertility in soil, you need a lot of other inputs to cultivate long term productivity.

When I walk bottom land fields that have seen nothing but till and plant methods of mass cropping, I see a severe lack of organic matter and micro-organisms in the soil. Tilling the soil to “mix in” fertilizers and churn up soil to prevent compaction has real unintended consequences, which industrial agriculture is still grappling with. Turning soil over interrupts the delicate network of living organisms in the soil. When that live culture dies, the soil dies too. Without that important network, any inputs added will have minimal effect, because the living biome within the soil is what collects, stores, and transmits fertilizer to the plant. Tilling also causes severe evaporation, because all the dampness in the soil is brought to the surface, where it is exposed to UV (which also sterilizes soil), and evaporation takes what life was left in the soil. The list of why tilling is bad goes on and on, but we’ll keep focused on inputs. More on tillage here.

Fertilizers work for short term profit, but the soil its self continues to die, and more and more fertilizer must be added in to keep up with the degradation of the land. Eventually, no commercial add ins work, and a field will then usually be abandoned to cattle as marginal pasture. Or worse, sold for development, lost to any future agricultural production to feed us. It should also be understood that the majority of farmland in The US grows commodity crops- soy, wheat, and corn. This sustains the additive rich box food (googling this blew my mind!) you see so much of in stores now, as well as feed for livestock, and most often, industrial products like ethanol.

Modern farming has come a long way in understanding the care of farm land, but we’re still throwing things at the soil without understanding its place in cultivating stable environment for production. Mono-crop agriculture still forces soil’s maximum output. There is no fast way to replace good fertile topsoil once it’s dead. The organic material and microbiome cannot thrive in constantly tilled soil. Even with cover crops, the soil is dying across the world, turning to desert in more extreme cases. Instead of trying to address large commodity farming practices, I’d like to focus on small agricultural operations where diversity and restoration are possible.

Here at EEC Forest Stewardship, we take fertility seriously, and fold it into a greater health vocabulary for our environment, going beyond mere production as the standard. Non-chemical is a number one priority, and our land does not receive any commercial fertilizer inputs. Instead, the land follows as closely to nature’s already implemented process as possible. Animal systems are a big part of our restoration plan. At EEC, we recognize that what we feed our animals it what’s going into our soil. So we use only organic whole grains and no-spray or organic hays (all within state). The overall health of my stock reflects the health of the land.

Even with abundance, there is still a gap in sustenance, which is filled by inputs like grain and kitchen scraps. We occasionally receive free organic bread from a gleaner friend. What is a gleaner? Without going too far off track, gleaners were once in fields after harvest gathering any dropped kernels of corn or damaged stalks of wheat left by the farmer. Today, there are still gleaners in fields, but in more urban and suburban developments, grocery stores replace farms, and yet there is still much to glean in good food. Two local organic bakeries in Seattle give their day old bred to the gleaning organizations, which then disperse free surplus into the greater community.

My friend takes the not fit for people bread leftovers for my animals- what a deal! I in tern also take her compost from the gleaning, which is all organic food fit to break down into soil with other amendments like manure, straw, and cardboard. These inputs are what I would consider the best kinds of fertilizer. Handling larger amounts of food waste is not easy, and I don’t suggest this system to backyard suburban homesteaders. However, if you have acreage, and animal systems already in place, large scale composting should already be a part of your routine. In suburban homesteads, your own kitchen waste should be enough, combined with garden/grass clippings, leaves, and cardboard.

More organic options to build up garden and land fertility include coffee grounds for added acidity- I put mine on roses and blueberry bushes. Feather and bone are great too, though blood can be challenging to collect and distribute evenly into the soil. I’ll put the coagulated blood from slaughtering into the compost bin. Feathers I collect when I pluck at slaughter are usually add to the compost bucket, though sometimes I mix with leaves and spread right onto the surface of pasture or gardens in late fall. Chickens also help by molting their feathers, usually in the fall, and drop them all over the landscape as they forage. There are also a lot of feathers mixed in with coop bedding, which is piled to form new planting beds in our zone one areas of the land.

Utilizing animals to spread nutrients across the landscape is a great way to thoroughly inoculate soil with needed inputs like calcium and phosphorus. Look at what this amazing grain packs for the bird, much of which ends up coming out the other end onto the land. I’d say there is a perfect amount of most inputs soil needs for continued production. By investing in this full spectrum feed, though it’s a “huge” expense, when I add up the total cost of all the other inputs, time, and energy to condition the soil, the savings are obvious. Yet farmers I work with continue to claim the organic full spectrum feed is too costly, and they would rather buy the cheaper conventional grain.

These same farmers then have to go buy costly inputs for their soil and run tractors with costly attachments to till these expensive conditioners in, also disrupting the delicate ecology of soil microbes. What a nightmare. EEC Forest Stewardship does not own a tractor, has no tilled pasture, and yet, we manage a healthy stock of animals on ever improving forage and grazing on small acreage adding only a quality organic feed and local hay/straw. The proof is also in the pudding, and our soil tests reinforce the productivity, showing that our only low count nutrients in the soil is magnesium. However, too much causes compaction, and introduces rampant weed growth. However, the natural Ph of our soil demands occasional lime inputs, so by selecting dolomite lime, our soil receives the additional magnesium. Again, the soil profile was determined through a lab test of soil samples taken from different locations throughout the EEC Forest Stewardship property.

In taking the time to trace the inputs going into your soil, you can determine fertility short falls and know exactly what additions might be needed to cultivate better pasture, gardens, and forests. At EEC, we hope that the forests can eventually support themselves, with plenty of canopy protection and good nutrients shared through a complex ecosystem. In the areas of heavier cultivation, we must continue to manually input additives to keep the chemical balance of the soil productive. By keeping these higher input systems small, input demand remains easy to manga by hand, without tractors, heavy bags of expensive fertilizer, and the danger of runoff into our water systems. These practices keep our soil alive and productive, while remaining affordable and organic. This is the advantage of holistic management.

Looking at the greater forestscape around EEC Forest Stewardship helps put our little patch of reforestation and agricultural restoration in context. I often talk about looking at the big picture, and it’s important for land stewards to take this time, as they are usually involved with micromanagement of specific ecosystems. Understanding the management of larger habitats can inform restoration plans. A large forest of 100,000 acres lies just a few miles east of EEC. It’s a timber farm, and has been for over a hundred years. Most of the land in and around Western Washington was logged for commercial use as soon as European settlers could get their axes in.

If you look at most of Europe, the forests are gone. The British Isles is an extreme but very real example of this, having once been covered in thick oak groves, the entire landscape is now barren of any oak, and often dominated by heather and scrub brush. The habitat is minimal, hosting little diversity and very few of the original species which once thrived there. Human development and predation of habitat is inevitable, but our understanding of that impact is well documented today, and we know better. But still, timber is considered a renewable resource, and logging companies are very good at reminding us of our consumer love of paper products. It’s the green choice in environmental consciousness.

What’s wrong with this perception? Well, as I look around at the clear-cuts, I see strong evidence of past logging in the stumps which lay scattered about the landscape. Many of the old growth stumps are gone, having been ripped out by logging equipment to clear the landscape for easier replanting. But many remain, their huge bulky bones testify to the giants which once thrived here. No logging company has ever produced a tree that big from a planting. The second cuts witnessed in the stump diaries were 2-3 foot diameter trees, as apposed to the 5-7 foot monsters of old. The second cut was 50-70 years after the initial slaughter. Now a new trend is forming, and the timber industry has pivoted to survive. Since there is no more old growth, wood materials have shrunk in size in production lines too, making use of wood pulp and fractured chips to laminate whatever shape is needed. This makes any sized tree a viable product, and we’ve gone from valuing board feet to taking whatever available wood we can to pump out cheaper imitations.

Now forests are managed for pulp material, meaning age is irrelevant to profit. Third cuttings of 70 year old stands, what’s left of the old management style for size, are quickly disappearing. From far away in Seattle, or even Bellevue, the site of a bare mountain on the edge of The Cascades can be disturbing, but once a green sheet of young growth replaces a clear cut, people think things are “renewed”, and the forestry industry is planting new trees, more than there were originally, but those statistics are misleading. More trees does not mean more land with forests. The same 100,000 acres are replanted, but more trees can be planted, because young trees are small. Old growth forests have huge single trees climaxing in a system of many younger under-story trees which will one day replace the older ones. In a timber driven industry, many young trees fill the space and produce enough in a short time. There is no reason to let a forest mature, and impossible to wait for.

Any older trees in a logging operation are left because they are on too steep a slope to harvest safely, or are spared because of stream buffer regulations- and not all streams are recognized and protected. The ease of harvesting a swath across the mountainside would be greatly hindered by wetland and stream designation. When you walk through any clear cut, you will find running water under the scattered branches and stumps. These are often considered seasonal flows, and not recognized as sensitive areas. This is one way commercial timber operations maintain commercially viable harvests. It is good to see branches no spread about on the exposed soil. Until the early 1990s, slash piles were burned, removing what little organic matter was left and reducing it to ash. The slash is now left as a mulch on the ground, and can easily be planted into with young seedlings.

Commercial timber operations are mono-crops- with Douglas fir being the most profitable mass produced wood products. The green forest re-plantings are sterile environments, providing little habitat diversity for wildlife. Native plants diapear from the environment, and fern stands dominate what little under-story manages to take hold.

The stand shown above has been thinned, but the trees are still straggly, and the branches put knots in the trunk. But for pulp or chipped products, these blemishes are unimportant. Logging is about quantity, not quality; but what about all the jobs? Often, the argument of employment and way of life are used to justify ecological destruction and commercialization. Mill shut down because ecologists put detrimental restrictions on harvesting. This is far from the truth. Older mills were designed to process large old trees. There are none left now, so those mills became outdated and too expensive to run. Because the demand for raw materials has risen, and there is a huge market in Asia, it’s cheaper to ship the logs abroad to mills in other countries. Labor costs are cheaper over seas too. And the loggers? What about them? They have families to feed too right? Well yes, but the timber industry is not hiring loggers, unless they can drive the large equipment now used.

People like to romanticize the “good old days” of life as a lumber jack. Scenes of men slinging axes and saws together in a good days work make many feel nostalgic, connected to wilderness, and the taming of the wild as progress. But logging today is a mere shadow of these “golden times” of past. Only a few jobs are filled in a commercial timber operation today. Not many loggers actually cut trees by hand, and very few use axes with any skill. You’re more likely to see good axe handling at a highland games gathering. And the scale of harvesting has grown to an unimaginable capacity. Trees are stripped from the land by the thousands, in hours. The video below shows the efficiency of modern deforestation, and it’s only getting faster.

Note the size of the trees now being harvested- size is not important, and younger trees take less time to grow out. Renewable merely means continued abuse of stressed finite resources. When you remove the majority of biomass produced on the landscape, you take away the fertility and strip the land of its viability. The timber industry’s solution? Loop loop! Please read this explanation from our county on how to deal with poor forest soils and our overflowing sewage problem in King County. What’s the bad news? Well, sewage treatment does not take out heavy metals or prescription drugs still in the waste being poured out in the forests. To give perspective- Puget Sound muscles tested positive for meth-amphetamines draining into the ocean from waste water runoff and treated sewage output systems. You can imagine what is seeping into the soils of our forests. By the time we discover the impact of this careless cycle, the soil will be fully contaminated with no easy restoration answer. The foothill forests where the loop system is being processed drain into our aquifers, streams, and become woven into our ecology.

Next door to the 100,000 acre timber management is some state wilderness. Luckily, no logging goes on there- too steep and remote, for now. Sate forests are logged, and wilderness lands are under threat. Current political climates are inclined to open up our public lands to resource extraction. The commercial consumer markets demand the rollback of conservation protections, for the sake of progress. What we’re ultimately moving towards with this mindset, is the progressive slow death of our environment, and therefore, ourselves. Perhaps by looking at the limitations of the natural world, we can acknowledge our impact and plan within nature’s constraints, instead of our short term profit margins and convenience.

In September, King Conservation District representatives came to begin the stream restoration project for EEC Forest Stewardship and Leafhopper Farm. A few years ago I applied for this program and began fencing off the creek from our livestock- we never mob grazed in the creek, but to qualify for CREP, we had to put up hard boundaries to protect replanted trees and shrubs as part of the restoration for the stream and riparian buffer. To prep the space before planting, KDC used some herbicides on the landscape to get ahead of any blackberry and knot-weed, which is very difficult to fully eradicate without chemical use. This was a very controversial part of the agreement, as USDA will not fund restoration without first removing the invasive- using chemical warfare.

The chemicals were sprayed, which was a surprise to me, as I was originally told they would be injected to control application, but the contractors prefer spraying to save time and ensure full coverage of the invasive plants. Glyphosates were not employed, but other synthetic organic compounds were- and the organic word usage here refers to organic chemistry, not USDA Organic labeled food. This treatment involved the plant taking in the chemicals through it’s vegetation in the fall. During this time, a plant is storing up energy in it’s roots, and the herbicide goes right to those roots to work its destructive power. As you see in the pictures above, the blackberry is dying back, but so it the grass, and any other vegetation hit by the spray.

For EEC Forest Stewardship, chemical treatments of the land is extremely controversial, and the decision to use “organic” compounds was made only with the understanding that this is a requirement on a federal level to receive restorations status and long term success of establishing native plantings. In my own experiences with invasive, specifically knot-weed in Central Park, NYC- you’re not getting rid of it without a long fight and painful loss. At the park, there was an army of labor available, and lots of time. We used thick black plastic covering on the roots of plants for years to stave off growth. This technique was effective for a short time, but some roots would always survive, and the tenacity of invasive evolution won out each time.

With established canopy, invasive struggle to get a foothold. Once the trees and shrubs mature, no blackberry can return. Knot weed will still be a struggle, but the shade will deter it, and the stream will be better protected from runoff, erosion, and hot summer sun, which heats up the stream waters, killing many of the sensitive species which cannot survive in drastically changing temperatures. Cool shade is imperative for riparian landscapes. Without protection from the sun, waterways dry up, or at least heat up to an unbearable degree. This is a problem for rivers and streams all over the world where development has cut down the forests and cemented in the flow to control flooding.

common “river control” in cities like L.A., CA

City planning has come a long way, and collaborative restoration projects have begun addressing the need for habitat and green ways in urban areas. It is just as important to steward the upstream, less developed waterways too. For all water is connected, and the smallest stream will one day, find its way to the ocean. The dead water in the picture above is empty of life, with no habitat for any chance of thriving ecosystem. There is still a chance for change. At EEC, we’re supporting our neighbors down stream, and boosting the health of water before it reaches The Snoqualmie River. By restoring from the source, chances of restoration and success down stream strengthens.

In another part of Los Angeles, a river has found restorative support, and the community is thriving around this green space. Now, if the sources of these bigger rivers are compromised, there’s little gain in rescuing the polluted waters down stream. When I think of the effort my short term restorations will gain in larger participation further down river where the congestion of development and oppression of urban decay continues, I have hope for larger change, like the photo comparative above.

It’s hard to look at the landscape of wilted yellow die-back, caused by chemical components, which will be in the soil for years to come, and cause damage to many plants that should be on the landscape. It’s a short term struggle for a long term vision of restored forest and healthy ecology. There will be at least one more treatment of herbicides to make sure all the problem plants are gone. Then, the replanting will begin. I’ll see this change in my lifetime, but the full restoration of Weiss Creek might take many generations to complete. The greater salvation of our larger rivers, like The Snoqualmie, might be impossible, but through smaller steps of care, perhaps we can be the change we want to see, and further improve where we can.

So, next steps will happen in the spring. I’ve already ordered some under-story plantings from our Conservation plant sale, and an additional grant from KDC will add additional plantings, which means great diversity, in our under-story forest. Our enrollment in CREP means we do also get paid for our stewardship of the restoration area. USDA gives us a stipend each year of a few hundred dollars, for maintaining the stream buffer. We’re certainly not in it for the money, but the income and farm categorization through USDA and FSA is good for the farm, and our long term plan to put the whole property into agricultural conservation. We’ll also show the work as a centerpiece of restoration for other land owners to see and be inspired by.

Many farmers are hesitant to sign up for restoration projects, because it means giving up part of their income space to conservation. I cannot graze or produce commercial harvests from the stream buffer area. But, I can grow things in the buffer zone, including mushroom logs, berry bushes, and medicinal species for personal use. I’ve proposed that USDA look at mushroom production as a possible acceptable commercial income for farmers who do sign up for CREP. There has to be a good deal for the farmer to want to participate in conservation. Leafhopper Farm hopes to demonstrate a viable crop option with little to no negative impact on the riparian zone.

For EEC Forest Stewardship, the payoff from CREP participation is an intact forest and stream for the future. Generations down the road can look back at these early actions that helped to protect habitat and restore forest for the betterment of all living things. This is a priceless investment for any land steward to offer future generations. Note that working with government agencies is not always easy, but with the help of your local conservation district, the paperwork and timelines become manageable. Make sure to clarify your needs as a land owner, and fully understand the commitment you’ll be making. CREP contracts last for a decade or more, and can mean lifetime obligations to maintain restoration sites on the landscape. This is another way your conservation district can support you, by planning a clear set of care instructions, further management and upkeep needs, and funding to carry out the project.

As another dawn spreads out across the landscape, I’m writing these final words feeling like there’s good change happening all around. Winter birds are arriving, and the haunting trill of a swainson’s thrush echos through dark woods; it’s whisper calls us into unknown spaces, coaxing our imagination to stretch beyond comfort. Hope alights, pale blue on the horizon, slowly shifting into warm daylight once again. As the cycles of nature affirm, change is ever present, and our current actions determine the direction of fortune’s wheel. For land stewardship, restoration is as compelling as the thrush’s song.