EEC Forest Stewardship

It’s been a fabulous season of cold sport and endurance adventure in the wilds of The Central Cascades. From snow shoeing to hiking on foot along the back logging roads, the snow has invited me to track, ascend, discover, transcend, and descend in and out of the elevations. I’ve also had a chance to keep an eye on the edge space between industrial logging and public land that has been protected up until now. At the change of political ambition, from protect and value back to exploit and abuse for a few gluttonous multi-national business interests, none of which will be directly impacted by the ecological collapse to come. But they will feel the painful outcome none the less. There are more bills set to pass soon that will continue to erode protections on federal lands. These bills have amendments slipped in, like the one below:

This may seem a minor wording change, but it’s removing any mention of environmental protection wherever it can. Why? To strip any mention of a vision for restoration or long term respect for our environment- to “make libs cry”.

Spiderweb strands spoke around the steep slope clearcuts of recent logging operations in this active industrial timber farm. Colonial extraction continues, with ecological degredation in the long term, which has continued to deplete the land of nutrients and productive ability for the short term gain of board feet sales. The truth is, most trees cut in these tens of thousands of acres go to pulp mills and chippers rather than building lumber. Biomass energy scams are burning millions of these trees, whole forests, to power the “green” energy farce. Biomass energy also includes the burning of carcinogenic railroad ties, tires, and trash. These are some of the new “renewable” sources powering your “clean energy” electric cars and smart home tech. Nuclear is the other silent plan- I say silent because the tech industry expects to power it’s cyber currencies and AI revolution. But I’d like to bring us back to the trees in my greater backyard. They are being harvested, and will be for years to come, with more gusto as the EPA protections continue to roll back. We’ll see more steep slope cutting, access into our public lands to cut second generation growth, and even old growth if it’s outside the ever shrinking boundaries of wetland setbacks, recently abolished by the 2025 Trump Administration. Plans like the one shown below, part of The DNR Trust Lands Policy in Washington State.

Federally, the forests are about to go through a massacre of cutting, thanks to Biden dropping long term protection plans, and a new 2025 Project Trump Administration to drill drill drill and cut cut cut. All the setbacks protecting the slow restoration of our salmon streams and rivers, as well as the slow return of flood buffers and wetland protection will be ignored by the commercial industries already at work in our, OUR forests, the ones tax payers fund. Since private corporations are already not paying much if any tax, they are happy to waltz into public lands and devour them for private equity. This has been going on for a long time, but it’s going to amp up on a level yet unseen by most in these modern times. What does that look like? In a word, Devastation.

In a few months, the snow will melt out of higher elevations, inviting new perspective forests to be accessed. I’ll be continuing to keep a close watch on what happens in the few forests I gain access to myself each year. There has been a lot of work done to plan out the regrowth of forest buffers for our long term survival. Floods will keep coming, winds will get worse, and droughts will draw out longer and longer in the summer months. Watching all this change happen so fast, sometimes overwhelms, but here at EEC, we keep planting roots, planing for drought tolerance, and slowing water to encourage saturation rather than run off. It’s a small 10 acre project, but with more landowners turning to restoration every year, most of humanity is actually on board with restoring our forests to protect our clean air and water, as well as healthy soil for our food. What kind of crying will we see when the future generations are left with cancer ridden bodies and life cut short in a toxic environment? Fewer and fewer inquiring minds want to know.

This winter, I hiked into an area right at the edge of the tree farm, bordering DNR land around some alpine lakes where a few old growth trees grow on scree slopes where the timber wood would shatter on the rocks if felled, so they have been left, for now. There slopes, only a few hundred feet away, are actively logged, and this spot is prepped for cutting in the spring of 2025. I’ll share pictures of what this alpine forest of spruce dominate stands looks like now, and then again once it’s cut later this year. It’s always hard to fully comprehend how much biomass is whisked away in a single clearcut, but visually, it’s important to at least see in practice. Remember, most of this wood now goes to fabrication, not lumber. Because the industry no longer cares about diameter, they can cut younger trees, which makes it easier to cut sooner, thus getting more biomass faster. None of these active plots will ever be restored to old growth, which seems ok in a clearly demarcated commercial space, but the ecology surrounding and inside of this heavily manages area suffers the consequences of our mechanization and separation from our environment.

WAYS TO HELP:

-Contact your local and state reps to tell them you want our public land protected, not managed by corporate interests for private equity extraction.

-Join a public science initiative to track the health of your local environment.

-Follow local action groups that protect the environment, there are also well known national organizations, but local action is where you start learning about what’s directly affecting your back yard ecology first.

-Find out which First Nations People’s live in your area and if they are active publicly, many are. Join their mailing lists and find out what kind of restoration projects they might be working on.

-Volunteer- from mentoring young people to writing letters of action, non-profit and local civic clubs are usually in need of your time, talent, and passions. Help make a difference in your local community.

-Buy local, know your growers and what practices they use to produce your food.

We’re embracing spring here at EEC Forest Stewardship! The lambs are growing fast and all are out on pasture when it’s not raining to eat up the fresh young growth as temperatures rise and the sun stays longer and longer. I harvested my first nettle last week, and made pesto- so fresh and delicious. Stinging nettle is one of the healthiest greens out there to enjoy. I advise at least blanching it first before eating, but you can carefully crush up leaves and eat fresh if you like. Fresh is best! I can’t wait for the dandelions to start popping- I mix the wild flowers with nettle to make fritters, and it’s the best spring food ever from the land. This is such a time of budding abundance, red flowering currant is leafing out, oso berry is already in full bloom, and tulips have popped up in the garden, letting me know trillium and Solomon’s seal is not far behind.

Last week, mid March, I finished getting all my native plant root stock in the ground, literally working till 7:30pm, dusk, and as the spring rains were coming in. Wet soil is great for planting, and all these future trees and shrubs are happy to root down and take hold. Two new species on the land are golden current and tamarack. Both are found on the east side of the state, in our sage step ecology, but are now adapting to climate change and being sold by conservation groups on the west side- the wet side of The Cascades. Why? Because it’s drying out here in the summer, and getting much hotter. Our cooler temperate loving species are beginning a slow retreat, and we’re planting adaptable species now to avoid total ecological collapse. This change seems slow now, but to plants and animals which evolved over millions of years of slow change, the speed up time is making it impossible to shift in time to survive. Take a note folks, it’s going to happen for us too.

This year is already looking dry, but the grass is still growing, so we’ll keep running sheep and developing good pasture practices to move in step with nature’s changing ways. Humans used to be mobile, moving from place to place in small tribal groups through the seasons. We lived lightly on the landscape, and moved to always have fresh food on hand. Today, staying put has put a huge strain on nature, which is not given the chance to recover from our use of its finite resources. This is the single biggest detriment we’ve imposed on our living world, and such behavior will not be without consequences. Fold in ten generations of industrial progress and there is now enough pollution in the air, soil, and water, that we’re poisoning ourselves with dividends of microplastics, heavy metals in our drinking water, and soil that pulls up all the industrial chemicals into our food. Yum yum! Since there is no mass testing for these poisons, we’re ingesting them in higher and higher doses, leading to all those jumps in cancer rates that will get us all in the end. We can’t jump ship in this lifetime, and the guys who dream of colonizing other planets are not thinking about the residues from their rockets in their own children’s food and drink, much less their own. WAKE UP!

In other news, there’s an update on an experiment I did last fall involving moss removal to see what might spring up from the soil if the dense mass of non-vascular plant matter was taken out. I made a few squares in a patch of the pasture to see what would happen over time. Now, over a year later, I’m back to see what’s been growing on.

In fact, a lot- mostly invasives though, they are so opportunistic. I’ve documented fox glove, bugleweed, trailing buttercup, crane’s bill, and more. It’s still early days for this experiment, and the sheep have not been in to graze yet- they love to eat most of the invasives listed, but it’s good awareness to see what happens when you make space for growth and see the unwanted come in first. Invasives are good at filling a void, that’s how they invade. What will help keep them out in the long run is an intact forest canopy and time. This area will remain pasture for now, so the sheep can help me keep things under control, but in future, when this area is replanted as forest in a few more decades, we’ll use oak and pine to weed out the unwanted species. The good news is, sheep can’t eat moss, but they can eat the other weeds growing in. I’m not planning on peeling up all the moss in these woods, that would be like trying to keep a forest floor uncluttered. Another observation I made, was that leaf debris seemed to linger in the non-mossy spots. That’s a great way to keep debris on the ground to break down, amend, and rebuild soil.

I had hoped that removing some moss would let grass come in, but there is not enough sunlight to encourage the grass, so it’s on to seeding in better natives in these patches, to see if we can set the ground with more diversity. The good news is, nettle will grow here, and just a few feet away from these patches, it is. Hopefully, we’ll spread some nettle seed here in the fall, and see if some pops up next spring.

Nettle is our best wild crop at EEC. It’s nutritious, a great soil amendment, and easy to chop and drop, allowing the plant to whither and become edible for the sheep. Though considered a weed plant by many, here at EEC, we let the nettle thrive for human and animal feed. It also a good tell for healthy soil. It’s mapping out some of the best places for future replanting. In the mean time, we’ll embrace our nettle friends and feast on fresh spring greens in thanks for winter’s release. Remember to only harvest edible plants from safe areas- roadsides are toxic, urban waterways are also compromised. Public parks are usually chemically treated to look good, so don’t pick there, and check to make sure patches in your neighborhood are not being sprayed before you harvest.

If we stopped using chemicals today, the future generation would thank us, and have access to so much more healthy food from healthy soil. Perhaps then cancer rates might start to go down too. At EEC Forest Stewardship, we use NO chemicals on our land. I have a small applicator of neem oil for garden pests, and I do amend the soil with the farm livestock manure and tree shaving bedding. Our chickens eat a totally certified organic diet, and the sheep get winter alfalfa, which is not certified organic, but is from a no spray farm on the east side of The Cascades, which has it’s hay checked each cutting for nutritional yield and quality. I’ve also used vinegar on some tenacious weeds along the driveway. Other than that and the passive exhaust pollution of occasional vehicles, 2 stroke engine maintenance machines which run minimally, and environmental pollution like smoke and acid rain, the land is organic- as organic as can be without costly certification. If I had 400 acres like this it would be wroth the certification, but a modest less than 10 acres is not worth the cost to USDA Organic cert.

Instead, I invite patrons to visit the farm in person, see what goes on, look at our feed, animals, and landscape, and then make their own choice about health and safety. This is not to say that Organic Certification is unworthy, for larger farms, it’s amazing, and cost effective, but on small neighborhood farms, just visit and ask what’s being used to maintain the land, feed the animals, and restore local ecology. If all us small acre farms worked towards good restoration farming practices, we’d improve the land for everyone and everything living on it. Ask your farmers what practices they use, and if you can’t ask them, ask the vendor selling their goods. If you still can’t get an answer, it might be smart to find another place that can and buy from them. It’s ideal to see practices first hand, and any farm worth it’s production should let you in to see what’s going on. Farm tours are the best, and are often offered at seasonal times in hand with pumpkin patches or you pick establishments. Take the tours when offered and be ready with good questions. When we’re connected to food, place, and people, we have a greater community resiliency in the face of great change, which is on it’s way folks. Find a farmer and make a friend today.

Please grow heirlooms and save your seeds. It’s going to be a hard world to survive in without food folks, and the industrial farming most of us know today is starting to fail. If you live in a city, you can still have a few plants inside your house with a small grow light. It’s possible, and I would encourage all to start growing something to keep the seeds alive.

There’s a warmer breeze blowing in from the south as March swings us into Spring here at EEC Forest Stewardship. Val watches the ravens going back and forth through the forest, building a nest and keeping a low profile. I’ve also been hearing a great horned owl nearby, also marking out nesting territory. Predator birds tend to set up in the family way earlier in the season, to get a head of their neighboring prey animals, which will start nesting up in a few more weeks. Here on the land, soil has loosened up after winter’s harsh grip, letting loos and preparing for new germination and growth activation in plants all around. It’s a great time to be transplanting and seeding out cold hardy crops like spinach and carrots. I picked up an order of native plants from a local conservation district plant sale and got to sinking the little rootlets before the next rains come. The order included some drought tolerant species like larch and ponderosa pine. In ten years, the native plants have shifted with the projections of climate change. I’m thankful to start rooting in more of these more resilient species here at EEC.

The larches are a first time planting here, along with incense cedar, more commonly seen down in Oregon and California. This is the future of our forests and things dry out in summer and freeze up in winter. The more dramatic shifts will demand plants adapt quickly, more quickly then they’ve ever adapted before, and the plants are not keeping up. I’ve celebrated the first sightings of naturally reseeded native trees on the landscape in March of 2025- in our fenced protected area of habitat in the lower pasture. The seedling western hemlock and red cedar are a first in over 50 years for this landscape, and it’s an exciting signal of nature’s resiliency- if we just give her space and time.

There is also an orange flagged planting of a native slide alder, which will be a great understory companion to the evergreen natives as they slowly grow. This activity is happening in the bottom of a swale, where recently disturbed soil invited the seeds to germinate from the surrounding, more mature grove nearby. Why has it taken 50 years to see this usually annual occurrence in an in-tacked forest? In two words- livestock degradation. This pasture has been so heavily grazed- especially in the decades leading up to my purchase of the property. When I first came to this landscape, there was evidence of tree bark stripping by starving animals- an often occurrence in properties where people age out of their ability to fully care for their animals, but can’t let go. Cows and horses stayed on the land for too long, stripping it of all ground cover- from sword fern to seedlings of all kinds, these pastures have not been given the time or space to renew themselves, until now.

I took a few hours this week to clear out the last patch of blackberry in a recently fenced off habitat restoration area in this middle pasture. There is already a second fenced space next door, where pigs, goats, and sheep had all helped to fully clear the space during the first few years of my stewardship here. This new space was hand cleared of blackberry over time, then replanted initially with more deciduous and understory varieties, and now, I’m putting in a couple of evergreen trees and a few current shrubs to diversify this planting even more.

It’s always hard to fully capture the work done, and this final clearing took about 4 hours, with an additional two for replanting and flagging of already established native plantings from a few years before. It was a very rewarding project that I’ve been looking forward to. It marks a final major blackberry hurdle in this pasture, and sets up the restoration in this area for the long term. I’ll have to keep weeding out the space over the years, until the plantings fully establish, but then, like the wildlife habitat corridor at the creek, this space will fill in and also become self-sufficient as a regenerative forest, still leaning in the temperate rainforest direction, but with a new mix of adaptable species that will help keep this forest healthy in the long term climate shift projections.

In a nutshell, if everyone, or even a few people each block in neighborhoods where backyard birds are allowed, get birds, the concentration of vectors spreads the flu rapidly. Also, the price to keep chickens will be much more, if only in your time, than paying the price for eggs at the store. If you have several acres and time to raise chickens, and can raise a flock of 20-30, it’s worth your time and cost. People living in under an acre can have a little coop with a few chickens, but the cost, care, and disposal of the nitrogen rich excrement will become a hassle not worth anyone’s time. It also attracts rats, which are yet another vector. There are vaccines, but for the worth of each chicken, the vaccine is too costly, and must be repeated every year. The greater problem is crowded industrial coops where these super flues grow out of antibiotic resistance. This resistance is achieved in these massive operations, and then spreads into wild populations, which then carry it around the world. We cause it, and nature evolves into a more pathogen based environment where we humans loose the survival race.

So, don’t get chickens in a small backyard space, because the song sparrows and crows will connect with your birds, passing on the virus. Which is also getting into domestic pets. Your dogs and cats will be in close contact with your chickens in a small backyard setup. On the bright side, animals that survive the flu become more resistant, until the strain mutates, at which time more animals and people will become ill. This is how viruses work, and they’ve been around since the dawn of life, millions of years before we evolved into being, so microbes certainly have the upper hand in that survival race we’re all running. Eggs and fried chicken are wonderful foods, which we’ve bought as cheap goods for generations in this military industrial complex. But that cheapness of life- because the chickens are living beings, just like the trillions of acres of mono-crop corn and soy being grown in the same mechanized way we think solves world hunger, that cheapness is killing. It’s killing our water- that other thing we need to live, poisoning it with nitrogen from the runoff of chemical fertilizers and animal waste. It’s killing our soil with the same chemicals that are sanitizing all the microbiology that soil and plants need to live. We put all our eggs in one basket and now the basket has been dropped, and all the eggs are breaking. What can we do?

Pay for eggs and chicken, and make them special, like all food should be. We’ve been subsidizing food until it’s become a cheap commodity, rather than a crucial part of our survival. We have tricked ourselves into thinking our finite resources are endless. We still treat grocery stores as errands, when these food palaces should really be a signal that something in the environment is very wrong. When our warehouses of gluttony turn our minds against connection with food, it’s easy to turn us from all the living world we rely on to exist. That’s what these screens have done. Now we’re bitching about prices, instead of asking what’s being done locally with land and food production to protect against virus outbreaks and tariff wars. We’d see a lot more resiliency, diversity of food choices, and support of local economy. We’d also have times of plenty, and times of scarcity, with limitations on how much- something humanity is deaspartly in need of- restraint in consumption.

This frightens us- the thought of starvation, famine, that’s why we convinced ourselves that through a magical technology of some kind, we’d transcend the limitations of our environment. No, that’s a god head patriarchal colonial thinking that gets humanity nowhere. Dominion is short sighted, cooperation and collaboration are survival necessities. All life relies on other life to exist. So how do we move towards this future? Well, here’s one concept- low tech. Here’s an amazing pair of scientists engineers working towards a better future for all. Biggest take away- grow some bugs and/or mushrooms, not backyard birds.

At sea level, flowers are blooming on The Pacific Coast of Western Washington. This red flowering currant Ribes sanguineum was blossoming out in the afternoon sunlight on Whidbey Island in mid February. Our temperate climate does offer an early spring, along with evergreen trees, which keep a thick, lively forest active and growing year round. Like the mushrooms, which can fruit at any time if micro-conditions are right, many of the native plants in this area are opportunistic. Erigeron glaucus was blooming on the path edge at Rosario Point. This ground was well drained, south facing, and backed by a reflector wall of higher growing vegetation, which sheltered it from wind. It’s also rooted in at the seaside- hence the common name, seaside daisy. These small reminders of warmer times to come are a welcome sight when back at home, a few hundred feet higher in elevation, ice and snow still grip the ground.

Such beauty in small things, and slowing down helps to catch a glimpse of these warm places and well lit spaces. Greater sea scapes with turquoise blue water and dark velvet pine stretch gnarled branches over gently rippling sunlit cove.

There are actual shore pines on the shore. It’s great to see longer evergreen needled true pines in these coastal forests. Manzanita trees also weave unique shed bark trunks and branches in Arizona desert shades of burnt orange and clay brown, which pop against the cool waters below. That afternoon sun dancing off the currents, flickering shadows under the canopy of waxy emerald leaves and broom branches of craggy fir and shore pine. Layers of flowing tide, our movement through these framed moments, like the coast of Greece, islands with rocky shores, gulls crying off across the bay, yet flitting chickadees from the forest call us back to Pacific latitudes, a great rainforest towering at our backs bridge two worlds of ancient sea bed, upheavals in the rock layers now holding these towering trees onto the island’s thin skin. Erosion plucks at every glacial deposit, cracking into even the most stoic sediment. Volcanic signatures building fresh layers of time out of the fissures in these active tectonics that shape our western shore. Rooted deep beneath these living trees, the ground rumbles with future upheaval on the way, but for today, the forests doze on stable pitch.

It’s very hard to take a picture of giant trees, but this attempt invites some token perspective of size. Towering up over 120 feet into the air, this centurion of age will live a long, full life- one of the few older growth protected trees left to enjoy. Note the large bases of each branch high above- these several feet thick, mature branches are what the critically endangered marbled murrelet needs to land and nest on for the success of the species. This rare bird is endangered because there are not enough old growth trees with the size and literal girth needed for proper nesting. It’s one of countless man made detriments to our own home, which can only be remedied in another hundred years of letting the forest regrow- which we are not doing, so the birds will go extinct. The birds can’t just nest in a token tree at the park, like the one pictured above; they need at least 500 acres of intact mature forest. Outside of a few national parks, that are still not recovered to mature old growth in most areas due to initial clear cutting, there are no forests dedicated to old growth maturity.

Most of the environment is made up of mini worlds- micro climates where niche species take up residence and make a splendid home. These colorful sedums Sedum spathulifolium were a rare treat to see in the wild. They were not flowering, but certainly set off the rocky outcrops around one of the island points. Washington has a ton of moss species too. Bryophytes are not my strong suit, but I appreciate learning the sometimes very subtle differences between species when I can. Red stemmed feathermoss is one of our more common ground cover mosses, along with Usnea– a lichen of important medicinal healing. The Usnea is most often found in trees. Pictured below is a rather exaggerated case of this medicinal lichen in a tree at Rosario Point. There are several beard lichens in the Usnea family, all are great back country emergency wound packing material. Thankfully, we did not need any on this enjoyable trip.

Of corse, no trip into the wilds of Western Washington is complete without a good mycological find. I only took this one photo, and handled them without disrupting the bloom, so no stipe observation or knowledge of spore print. Purple gills are some what rare, and the cool to the touch wax cap sent me towards a couple of guesses- Pseudoomphalina angelesiana or perhaps Leptonia subviduense. They felt meaty, but were fruiting in a sandy, not so familiar coastal ecology, so I consider this mushroom still a stranger to enjoy through observation only. There are endless lessons in the fungal world, along with the rest of nature- endless in details of complexity. I enjoy dipping into some of that knowledge, and connecting with new mysteries for future investigation.

By the end of the day, trekking around Whidbey Island had been full of signs of spring and sunny reminders of the warmth to come. While at home, the buds were just starting to grow, full flowers unfurled, and the ocean’s vast expanse, framed by majestic tectonic uplift; brought the full picture of Western Washington’s dynamic ecological orchestration into view.

On an early weekday morning, I woke before sunrise to check for any sign of lambing. It’s been a quiet, cold winter. Snow has continued her white cloaking in the night. By dawn, a fresh dusting alights on every surface. Still, spring bird song echos softly from a red berried holly. Chickadees begin flitting in and out of the twin-berry shrubs. Then a puffed out robin lands in the Pacific crabapple tree, gleaning some of the dry berries at first light. Steel grey skies echoed the mute hard cold at the tip of each finger as I broke ice. The ritual of slow awakening on a molecular level; stepping into the cold, catching the weight of a full bucket without slipping. Balance practice first thing in the morning. I stretch on the way to the barn. Each glove holds enough warmth to keep feeling in the hands. Cracking each trough, filling thirst; heavily pregnant ewes sipping greedily. I wanted some hot chocolate.

Finishing feeding time, topping off all the waters, then closing up the hay and latching the grain room, I put eyes on the geese- I’ve got to get their nesting area improvements done, they are getting ready to brood up. Not today, today I am getting away to a temperate island adventure. This is why I live here; temperate ecology for long term survival. The farmstead is located in The Central Cascade foothills, which do get a little to a lot of snow in winter, for a few weeks. and in rare cases a month or two at most. We’ve been in a winter wonderland, and I was feeling a call to shores just below our Cascades in The Puget Sound and Salish Sea. In less than an hour, a local friend and I were on the ferry and on our way to Whidbey Island.

Standing in the sun on glacial sediment from The Cordilleran Ice Sheet. We look out at The Strait of Juan de Fuca, flanked by The Olympic Mountains and Peninsula on the left (southwest) and Vancouver Island on the right (northwest). Fort Ebey State Park offers beach front access from nearby parking. It’s a great place to land when arriving, allowing us to dust off the transition and sink into shore and salt time. The color and shape of cobbles littering the ground mesmerize the eye with geologic time. Tectonic uplift and volcanic activity also contribute to the unique geological diversity of The Pacific Northwest. We watched a number of sea birds straining through the tide feasting in abundant ocean larders. There were seals playing in the surf, and gulls calling above. After a while of observing, listening, and being still, we saw what we thought might be sea otters floating on their backs a few hundred feet from shore. What a complete transition from the snowy foothills where I had started my journey earlier that morning. Now, the sun was up and we were off to explore the island on an unusual sunny winter day.

We continued to sit near the ocean shore, enjoying some breakfast and sipping the hot coco I’d made for the trip. As the warm sun hit our backs, we shared memories of the island and out last visit there together, then we watched other people begin to arrive at this easy access beach front in the state park. A pair of adolescent bald eagles were soaring in and out of the trees near us, chirping and landing together in a series of vocal whistles and acrobatic flights through the forest and over the beach. Ducks dove away as the large birds circled above. Their imposing brown bodies blended into the gnarled tops of a windblown Douglas fir tree where they perched and watched the sea birds. We packed up and headed north to a unique geological site near Deception Pass. Rosario point is a special place, where you can observe ribbon chert. One of the only places you can find this formation in the state of Washington. I was eager to witness this rock myself, and, as we stepped out onto bare ocean rock, I quickly located the chert formations and eagerly took these photos to share.

Nick Zentner, our own amazing local Washington State University geology professor, gives this informative talk on site at the ribbon chert formations. It’s a pilgrimage for some people, and I’m lucky to live within a few hours of its charming face. The point has a wonderful loop trail, which can be a scramble up in a few places if you want to get to all the view points, but there is an easy walk in and out access trail for those looking for an easier time. A winter mid week trip is ideal, try for a sunny clear day so you can see everything. The views of surrounding mountain ranges and island crags feels vast, yet remote. There were people around, but you could still find little private spots to take in the ocean and put your hands into smooth pebble beaches. There are plenty of coves and other longer trail systems within the park to explore.

We’d chosen to go to the far end of the island and slowly work our way back to the ferry by the end of the day. Deception Pass can be a mob scene, but today, other than a little road work (thank you infrastructure upkeep and the people who do that hard and dangerous work), we had parking wherever we went and had private trails and beaches most of the time. It was beautiful, and warm enough to be comfortable outside. The islands are always micro climates with sun catch, making the beaches warm and inviting, though the water is still frigidly cold. We were not there to swim, but the dog had some fun in the surf fetching beach wood sticks. There is an easy trail from the parking lot down to the dramatic pass, where it’s so narrow, the tide rips back and forth through the narrow opening, creating splendid drama across the water.

We climbed around on the rocky outcroppings and enjoyed witnessing the tide’s change. After a good time on North Beach and some rock hopping in Mac’s Cove, we climbed back up to the trail head and began a hike around Goose Rock Point. The trails were well marked at the starting point, but we began to question our direction a few forks in, sticking to the shore and edging around the outside edge of the small peak. There were several shore access points, but we were moving with intention, and eventually found signs that did point the way home- over the top of the point, so we had an unexpected climb up and out at the end of our hike. There was no real fear of getting lost, but we did not want to end up on a trail taking us further and further away from where we had parked.

Granted, I had taken a picture of the map before we headed out, but forgot about it when we were in the thick of things. All was well in the end, and we got an unexpected view form the top of Goose Rock. This park has a lot of space to explore, and the trails are not miles and miles, so even if you take a wrong turn, you’ll eventually hit a major road and know where you are. There are also great camping sites for when the weather is a little warmer. Again, in high summer, this place is a mob scene, so plan a trip to visit in early spring or late fall if you want to camp. The area is full of opportunities to explore, enjoy island time, see unique rock formations, and still get home that same day. We planned to have dinner in old town Oak Harbor, which was splendid. The old town is further east from the main road and strip mall hub near the Naval Air Station- which does fly a lot of jets earlier in the day. By late afternoon, things had quieted back down, and we enjoyed our hike around Goose Rock without disruption.

After a fine meal at a local Irish Pub, we climbed back into the truck and headed towards the ferry. On our way back, we took a moment to drive back to the coast to watch the sun set. It was a magnificent site from the west shore of Whidbey Island looking out to the Olympic Mountains. We’d had a full and fun day on the island, far from snow and ice at home. In just a few hours, we had escaped to warmer wilds and beach front fun. Now it was time to pack up and head back to the farm. I love living in such a dynamic place here in Western Washington. From mountains to sound, there is access to snowy peaks or temperate beaches even in the darkest winter months. My spirits are recharged in just a day trip to coastal relaxation. What a wonderful place to call home.

The year of “Q” is off to a strong, healthy start- thankfully, that’s the norm with our wonderful flock of Cascade Katahdins, now in their 6th year at Leafhopper Farm, restoring topsoil and fertility to EEC Forest Stewardship for the long term forest canopy yet to come. Each new year, a different naming letter is chosen to keep track of sheep through the generations. This year’s names include Quasar, Quinn, Quartz, and “Q”, the gadget lab guy from James Bond, pictured above in dark brown. Leaping away with the rest of the flock is speckled Quasar. She’s a lively young ewe lamb with a very curly neck fleece. Something unique to the lambing this year is singles. All the babes born so far are single lambs- from mothers who usually drop twins. This leads me to believe the ewes were not properly flushed when breeding started in the fall of 2024. Flushing means to give the ewes more food so they put on a better condition weight, thus upping ovulation fertility by 10-20%. I’ve never really thought about purposely fattening up my ewes for breeding, the breeding season starts in late summer, when pasture this year was green and lush. In past years, if we had a bad summer drought, I’d be haying the ewes in August, and they would still have good weight on and drop twins, but this year, for some reason, the ewes are dropping singles.

Our most recent lamb as of Feb 20th, 9:30am is Quartz out of Opal, pictured above right after birth. I was there from the start of this ewe’s labor, and am deeply honored to witness the whole experience, from start to finish. Opal has had both her lambings with me present, and it’s truly amazing to support her in this vulnerable time. She was cuing me in about nearing labor with swollen vulva and that morning, while I was feeding, she began actively ground pawing and pacing in the barn. I’m always excited when this behavior starts, and ran back to the house for fresh towels. When a new lamb drops, it’s helpful to wipe off their face and main body to help warm them up faster and awaken them. I do still put them right back with mom so she can lick them down and bond.

I’ll note here that the other ewe in this video is Hattie, our eldest lady in the flock, and the last from the original herd that came from the east side when I first invested in Katahdins. She is not Opal’s mom (who is also in the flock), but she knew what was going on, and tuned in. I might be anthropomorphizing- it does happen, but it looks like Hattie is really attending Opal’s labor. The old matriarch is also pregnant, so she might also just be hormonally attracted to the situation- or both.

I separated the ewe in labor so she could have access to food and water, space and fresh bedding. Giving a ewe space is helpful, but not crucial to a smooth birth. Katahdins have excellent birthing and mothering skills. This is a big part of why I love this breed. Surprisingly, not all sheep are good at birthing or mothering. We’ve pushed sheep to make more lambs at a time, stressing their bodies and shortening their lives- I would also argue, this tactic for profit max from finite nature gives the ewe a lower quality of life. Sheep are certainly more stressed in large, industrial flocks. Mothering skills are not needed because bottle “mommies” (large tanks of heated powder milk replacement) can feed all the lambs that don’t take to a mom, are not able to get enough from a ewe with two teats trying to feed six, or some other causality in the race to make more lambs. This kind of profit driven nature is nothing more to me than bad breeding. Karahdins are known for being fertile, but I only ask two lambs from a ewe as the ideal. That’s the number of teats a ewe has, and that’s the best design for her womb.

The ewe pictured above is not a Katahdin, and not from this farm, but they are wool sheep in an industrial operation pushing for the most lambs possible. I’ve watched some of the drama this farm faces during a very stressful lambing season, but they make money to support the costly industrial expenses linked to this method of agricultural production. Yes, this system feeds more people, but at what true cost to the people and animals involved? A hundred small acreage farms like mine would have to exist to replace this production, but if they were all working like mine, and we could cost share hay, localize pasture rotation and land restoration plans, as well as connecting more people directly to their food, and not sending truckloads of animals to big slaughter houses and feed lots, the world could be a better place, with regenerative nature a passive return. We have a long way to go for this vision to reach the shelves at your local supermarket, but again, that’s not the vision. Super box stores do not connect you to your food or local restoration farming. They never will.

Leafhopper Farm will sell lambs again in the fall of 2025. Two are already spoken for, and we hope the ewes produce at least another four. We do keep a wait list, which is the best way to secure a lamb. Annual subscriptions take priority, so please let me know if you want to be a yearly buyer- that’s the most helpful way to invest in this small scale operation. We don’t ask for deposits, because until the lambing season is done, we can’t promise numbers. Don’t count the chicks before hatching and all that smart farm talk. The single lambs will be much bigger this year, so prices are going up a little bit. I’ll have full details in another update this summer. For now, the exciting lambing season continues in leaps and bounds.