organic-farming – EEC Forest Stewardship

So, this site is a personal business and lifestyle for a single, queer, feminist, educated, childless cat lady with dogs; raising geese, sheep, and chickens too. It’s a world where people cannot afford eggs any more, and I have buckets from a flock that’s taken 10 years to develop, and could be exterminated at any time should bird flu infect any one bird. Farming is high risk. It’s why so many were consolidated into the industrial food system that feeds the box store buying majority. It’s convenience, to be sure, I still go to the grocery store, and I have 10 acres and an able body, capable mind, and willing community to connect with for financial, social, and emotional support- as well as family. My personal village of loved ones in enough to hold up this amazing experiment in slow food, personal obligation, social networking, and lessons in life, liberty, and the cost of a dream. Most of these blog posts are about the farm and forest relationship, food production, and the day to day realities of restoration forest farming in King County, Snoqualmie First Nation Homelands, here in The Pacific Northwest temperate rainforest ecosystem. What a journey, surreal at times.

After COVID, the social dynamic of this country changed. I went from hosting group classes, to person to person learning with most of my clients. This Spring, 2025, I officially took time off from volunteer teaching hunter education for Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife to focus on mentoring women and girls in outdoor pursuits- from hunting to hiking, back country exploration and basic survival training. I will be leading a course in basic survival this Fall, 2025 for Washington Outdoor Women. I’m excited to follow through on this partnership, which had just begun before the pandemic, and as the world shut down, that organization took a hiatus till this year, and I am glad the opportunity is back online and expanding. Contributing my skills to forward the education of women and their empowerment in the great outdoors remains a steadfast dedication in this life.

Farming economy in King County remains a bit of a challenge. The animals pay for themselves, there’s no question about that, but the continued communication on the human side of investment remains, well, questionable. There seems to be a wealth gap in community expectation- surprise? No. But the reasons fluctuate, like tidal living should, and I’ve always struggled with value vs. true cost of doing this work ethically, while asking for the true price of market fluctuation. For example- I’ve asked for $8/dz eggs on organic layer feed and full pasture access in 2025. That’s a $1 raise in price since 2013, and remains the price through all the crazy inflation of today- because the true cost of these eggs has remained the same, people are just experiencing price gouging from a subsidized industry due to scarcity of layer hens. Right now, bird flu is the culprit, tomorrow, it will be grain costs to feed the animals, then, with funding for research and oversight stripped, our agricultural inspections and protections are out the window and all bets of food safety with them. I sleep at night knowing my food production is part of a living system I myself choose to rely on and be intricately connected to. People want everything cheap- especially food. How we’ve gotten away with thinking food really should not cost anything reflects on the disconnect between Americans and their basic needs.

I have the privilege to live the homestead dream, and have always moved towards this life goal, at first manifesting in my childhood, with a love of nature and outside connection, developing into animal husbandry, and a love all creatures great and small. High school brought summer internships at The Central Park Conservancy where I learned about major city park management and how people have great impact on environment. College found me connecting with Main Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association while I worked on a major in Sociology. I made contact with a board member from MOFGA , and he hired me for paid summer employment as a dairy hand. That was my first lesson in hard farming realities, with paychecks bouncing from month to month and seeing the farmer I worked for overwhelmed by how fast agriculture was changing. He was a shepherd- like Farmer Hoggett from Babe, able to hand shear a full fleece and more. The sheep market had stalled out, so he became a dairyman, and hated it. Lee Straw showed me the future of farming in one summer, and I walked away shaken.

The summer after that, I worked as an intern for an openly gay woman Massachusetts State House Representative and learned a lot about local politics, state legislation, and why I would never make it as a lobbyist. I’d come into that job the summer DOMA (The Defensive Marriage Act) was struck down, and gay marriage was legalized in MA. I was dating a woman at the time, and suddenly felt that my relationship was more valid- how many have questioned the validity of their relationships with another based on gender constructs? What does this have to do with current events at EEC Forest Stewardship? Well, the queer woman running the place is getting agitated by a slow, steady, familiar walk back of civil rights. I’ll step into my woman’s shoes and point out I have less rights as a woman today than my Grandmother. WTF? My gender and sexuality are under attack- gosh, if I was trans, non-white, or unable to pass as straight, a migrant, refugee… how would I stay sane?

The following college summer, I worked as a wrangler for YMCA of The Rockies. I’ve always loved horses, and took a summer job working with them full time in a pictures part of The American West. Colorado treated me well, though working at a summer camp where most of the staff had been campers as kids cultivated a hard social culture to break into, I managed to navigate with a few other “outsiders” and was voted “most likely to run a tattoo shop” by my fellow staff. I was also the wrangler- out of an all women’s crew, who was know as the bronc rider. A week before the kids show up to camp for the summer, we wranglers are arriving to vet a herd of trail horses for the children to ride safely. These poor animals are rented from a large stock yard called Sombrero Ranches. Hundreds of horses are kept on large feed lots in the greater Denver area and then shipped to summer rentals, like YMCA of The Rockies, each season. Well, summer is the start of work for these overwintered animals, and they were fresh under saddle, to put it lightly. I earned my rides; about 20 out of 130 horses in our initial delivery out of a semi truck. We sent 4 back, three would buck under saddle, and one was too old and rickety to risk putting an unbalanced first time rider on.

I shared this story recently, attempting to demonstrate some of my horsemanship qualifications. I rarely mention them in these writings, because I’ve stepped away from horses in my choice of home environment here in Western Washington. Mules or a couple of bog ponies might one day be in my future- and sooner the better, as my body will age out of riding in an equine’s lifetime. That’s sobering limitations for me at 43. So what about horsemanship qualifiers? How do you answer the question, “What’s your riding experience?” I could sum it up as- started bareback before I could walk, under saddle by 5, maybe sooner, Mom would know. I took lessons from 6-11, then a move to Dallas TX suburbs; single parent income would not support riding lessons or a pet horse. Annual visits to Oklahoma offered occasional backyard riding with friends who still had horses. Ranch work for a few years gave me more riding skills and herd management training. In 2011 I went to Mongolia and road on a migration with over 2,000 animals, 16 people, two yurts, and three dogs- one of which had only 3 legs- it was incredible, but what does that have to do with current events here at EEC?

In September, I hope to be back in the saddle for an ACT ride with Daniel Curry. I will have a lot more to share about this bucket list dream to horse pack into back country for a good cause. Though EEC Forest Stewardship is not in current wolf territory, ancestral legacies of wolf, elk, and more remains an intention in the restoration of this landscape. After working with WDFW as a volunteer, I wanted to get more perspective on relationships with wildlife and people. I’m not going to get into all the drama of wolves here in the west. My goal in connecting with Daniel is to gain some perspective, get some time in the saddle, and support a local wildlife conservation effort that one man is struggling to establish with the ranchers in his community. I see similar struggles right here in my own neighborhood that EEC restoration efforts are hoping to address for generations to come. As wolves, a keystone species that once thrived across North America, loose protected status under The Endangered Species Act, I thought it might be good to check in with an in the field boots- or hooves on the ground biologist who is devoting his life to reconciling people with these animals for the sake of all our survival. So riding and stuff.

Over the past few months, as more and more “Oh Sh*t!” moments grip The American Psyche, I’ve found a few glimmers of humor in the great ocean of bile being served up as news in our zeitgeist. Laughter is an important remedy during hard times. As the madness of life continues- I’m grappling with the laughable alongside tears of frustration and outright horror. A lot of my personal rage has manifested in gender dynamics for a long time- thank you feminist upbringing. Here are two snapshots in which women calmly attempt to express rationally while men fight on the street or coup a country in the background. We’re all trying to stay focused while too many man children roll about in the sand box kicking grit into all our teeth. WTF humanity? Have we truly lost our way as a species thanks to idiocracy? I’m going to get back to 4 minute dance fitness breaks and advocating for global unity. How are you taking yourself a little less seriously for the sake of personal sanity? Sit back and binge a couple of good snap shots in time. Truly, “humanity rises and falls as one.” *CRASH*

This video caught my eye on the tube and so I took a moment to watch. There are a lot of mixed messages in the information, and some outright contradictions that the journalists who compiled this information do not pursue- maybe they will in future. I’m going to point a few things out and try to address them.

Commodity crops (soy and corn) vs.

The 1996 Farm Bill removed regulations on how much of certain crops could be grown, in favor of how much a farmer could make in the global market. This took larger, mostly corporate farms- the top 2% of farms, a lot of income. This happened because of corporate agricultural business lobbying for more government subsidies to make more profit. Let’s take a deeper look at these top percent of agricultural business, which dictates The Farm Bill.

Check out the #1 agricultural corporation in The World, Cargill– specifically it’s criticism arounf child labor, union busting, land grabs, and deforestation. These are the guys pushing palm oil over jungles and cheap child labor for investment gains. Number two in the world of agricultural big business is our old friend Monsanto– which merged with Bayer (#3).

John Deere is #4, and that’s all heavy equipment for the industrial farming- no small farm can support such massive machines, yet most of the technology that helps larger farms today is run by this company. They are in trouble with The Feds over right to repair and walked away from DEI. To name a few issues not in their Wiki page.

I would divide farming definitions of size by heavy machinery used. If you use more than a couple of tractors to do your farming, you are not a small farm. For people who use no large farm equipment (Leafhopper Farm LLC) in their practices, there is already the reward of not getting caught up in the costly nightmare of large equipment and the fossil fuels to run them. Yes, those who grow in that way are producing little in comparison, but if everyone with only a few acres practiced small scale- or were compelled to as part of the responsibility of owning farmable acreage, there would be an abundance of food in our communities, and we could move towards free food for all. I truly believe this based on my own production.

The #5 largest agricultural business is Syngenta AG– which has all the chemical fertilizers and seeds. Its stock is owned by a Chinese state owned company. People are so worried about Tick-Tock, well this company controls the majority of toxic chemicals used in food production. Do your own deep dive on these horrific affairs.

#6 is the main drive behind commodity crops in the US- Tyson Foods Inc. The meat industry is controlled by two main players and Hormel is the other one. We grow all that soy and corn for the animal feed these companies control. The video points out that The US is the top world producer of meat, and that industry gets $64 Billion in trade from it. Your local meat growers, who do not export, are not getting any say in The Farm Bill, and certainly won’t see any revenue support from it. Take it from a local sheep producer like me.

Now that you understand who the real players are, think about how much government subsidy is really going to them. As the video shows, many mid-sized farms that are still family owned, rely on the handouts through these big corporate influences running the show. Almost all farms have to get at least some of their inputs through these companies, and so they defer to those interests, because the big companies are the only ones representing themselves in congress through lobbying. There are individual farmers that still spend their precious winter months off in D.C. trying to protect family farm legacies, but that’s not where the money is. As Locust Farm’s owner said- he gets about $500 a year in federal support, and that’s not enough to cover anything.

About 9 minutes into the film, bio-fuels are briefly mentioned, and that’s another critical part of the Farm Bill web they should have looked at a little more closely- but it’s not related to their alarmist title “Why US Farms Are Struggling” if you think farming is only about food. Fuel is what runs most farming today, and that fuel is also starting to take priority over food. We can’t eat fuel, and it’s production is killing the environment which is our food, and water, and air. We are animals that can’t survive without clean environment.

At 9:30, the medium sized farm owner went into the small town economy talk, which again, this video seemed to step right over and not address. But pivoted back to human health, and it’s here I would like to make another point. The family farms that are bought into financial ties with these controlling corporate agricultural businesses can’t escape. They know that all rural business is tied into the corporate web, which they are beholden to. If they break from the norm, they have no income, and the rest of the town business goes bust. They already are bust. The medium sized farms are debt slaves. They pay any profit back into the farm for the massive inputs industrial farming demands. It’s a loose loose for farmers and the land, and it’s killing both.

For the little farms still being family run, suicide rates are high. This video does not get into this sad fact, but it must be mentioned here. Besides all the financial worries, farmers rely on the seasons and weather patterns, which are now becoming extreme. For corn and soy, this is not so scary, because the commidity crops are protected by The Farm Bill. But for the food crops that we really need in day to day living as people, there is little support or care, because salad greens and carrots are not profitable in our current federal programs and we can just import cheaper goods. How is that helping the farmer? The video does go there at 9:40, but then allows The Secretary of Agriculture, Thomas J. Vilsack, to “see things differently”. That’s it? WTF? Where is the journalism here?

At this point in the film, I was wondering what this was all about. The title is “Why US Farms Are Struggling”, yet this film is trying to talk about The Farm Bill as… good or bad? I think bad, but it’s so illusive on a real point beyond things are messed up and small farms, which grow most of the actual healthy food for us to eat, are not going to be around much longer. That is true, the way things are going environmentally. But when you go to the grocery store and reach for something that is no longer there, what then?

I’d like to close this little exploration with another video to help us see what’s happening in a close allied nation to our own. One we are working very hard to open more food imports to- England.

I’ve been following Flank Farm for a few years. I like that it’s run by a woman, trying to survive in the small farming world, and that the second generation is trying to help bring the story of family farming to a wider audience. England just passed a budget that will deeply impact family farms. What this woman farmer shared at 6:00 is what I think about all the time in farming. Our food web is vulnerable in so many ways. We can’t eat money. What will happen when food distribution is disrupted again like 2020 and COVID? For England, a small island nation, the affects are tremendous. Here in The US, we are building similar cracks in food systems by letting big money control our basic needs. The corporations are not living people, as so, they devour us as their income. Start planting your gardens now, and connect with other growers. When this system fails, backyard gardens and a few fruit trees down the street are all that will stand between our society and starvation. Get planting now and learn what’s growing on locally where you live.

Tag: organic-farming

Current Tracking

The Farm Bill?