Our small family, Dan, our 2 sons, Isaiah and Cyrus, and myself have been going through the motions of life and farming certainly is not the easy part of it, though it does seem to hold us together at times. As time goes on the challenges change and every hurdle seems impassable until we just take a deep breath and somehow make it to the other side. 

As our boys get older their needs change. We are lucky enough to live in a place were there is an alternative school which offers a hybrid system of half homeschooling and half public school and our eldest son is now in 1st grade while our youngest will be entering kindergarten next year. I love being part of my kids education and would not change it although again it takes time and energy to homeschool and drive kids to school and activities.

For those of you who do not know, one of the reasons I stopped organizing workshops at the farm was because I started teaching as an adjunct professor at Clark College in Vancouver. Each quarter I teach 1 or 2 classes (Environmental Biology and Environmental Health). Again time and energy is poured out to going to Vancouver twice a week to share my understanding of all the connections we need to make with our environment to live this life. It is good work and it brings financial stability which I am so grateful for. 

Dan is the keeper of the farm, he is here keeping the farm running day in day out while I fill in where and when I can.

Every free moment we have, or I should say every free moment we make, we love getting together with friends and hiking on the beautiful trails around this amazing place of the Northwest.

Why am I telling you all of this when the title suggests the post is about our certification? Well, I needed to set the scene that our time as farmers is quite precious and we make farming organically and ecologically a priority, we make our kids growing up around a healthy environment a priority, we make our financial stability and honest work a priority, and we make spending time in nature as much as we possibly can a priority, because we are here to learn and honor the laws of nature. Somehow, the certification process this year has left us defeated. 

We have been working with the wsda certification agency for 6 years now and each year it seems they are shifting their rules towards more and more detailed record keeping and less and less actually looking at the field. For the first several years, we would walk with the inspector in our fields for hours and he would carefully take notes and recognize all of the crops and weeds, beneficial insects and pest, everything was noted in the field and then there was some looking into our storage shed to look at our amendments. We also showed our seed packages, which I carefully stored, and then there were a few questions on income and record keeping. Last year the balance had shifted a different inspector spent over 3 hours asking me for all kinds of records on the computer and then barely spend 20 minutes outside looking at our fields and crops. Apparently we are now required to keep track of every crop that comes off of our field, pound for pound, and who or where it is getting sold. Well, we have never done this and it was a deal breaker for us. Because a small farm like us where we literally run around harvesting and then run inside to feed and care for kids and then run back out to do more work in the field, just does not have time to pick up the clipboard and make records of all of the harvesting we do, let alone start giving receipts to our CSA members who serve themselves of their share of produce weekly. Every hour I spent writing numbers down on a clipboard is an hour that I think I can spend much more wisely...anyway that was the drop that overflowed that bucket of our farm.

Dan and I are pretty extremely dedicated to never ever using any types of pesticides on our land, even organically approved ones are not used around here. We know there is a way to work with Nature if we are willing to give it some work and learn how ecology works. We know synthetic fertilizers leach into our waterways much faster than from organic sources and that making them is fossil fuel intensive. We believe it is ethically wrong to tamper with the genetic code of life the way GMO's are made. And we want our kids to grow up learning that we have to care for Nature to receive from it. 

So, friends, we are not changing our ways even though we will no longer be "certified". For those of you who do not know us, we invite you to come meet us and take a walk around our farm and ask us personally the important questions that you need to know if you will be eating food produced on this beautiful farm our family loves and cares for. Our farm store hours on Saturdays from 10am to 2pm late ish March through October are always good to come see us. 

And perhaps, not spending the time keeping records and recertifying every year (because trust me I already did keep plenty of records) will lead to more Blog posts in the future, who knows.

Best

Caroline 

honesty pours out

quiet shouts

mistakes 

seek 

attention

Nature shames us

thinking we control

confidence in understanding

we know

nothing

Nature draws us in

we begin to listen

we let nature

teach us

find our place

Nature agrees

we accept humility

leaders listen

wispers

continue

Nature 

beauty

connectivity

dependency

love

Bigger than us

First poem I ever wrote, it was bouncing around in my head, I don't consider myself a writer, but this farm is part poem. Hope it can be enjoyed. Caroline Swansey

It seems as though the farm has reached a new chapter and that is one that synchronises production on the farm with education to the community. Although our farm production has been continually growing, like many small scale farms, the financial aspect is the most challenging part of keeping things going. 

An opportunity to teach has come along and I have taken a part time teaching position, teaching at clark college. I am now teaching "environmental biology" at clark college for the fall, and hope to be teaching every fall as the market season ends and running to markets slows down for us. 

Also, for the second year I taught a soils class for WSU extension as part of the Living of the Land series. Together with the increasing teaching practice I am receiving at clark and my own continued studies in the field that I am most passionate about, Soils, I am feeling more and more driven to include education in what our farm does.

I am working slowly at putting together a schedule of workshops for 2016 calendar that will be on Saturdays before or after store hours.

Dan too is continually furthering his experience with farming with horses and studying while practicing. He will be heading to a farmer to farmer meeting next week and I am sure getting more and more information and experience based knowledge.

As we are moving forward on our journey to farm with a sustainability goal in mind we continue to learn from experience, sharing with other farmers and studying from many resources, we want you to know that it is our goal continue to build our wisdom of how to run a healthy and thriving farm ecosystem.

We will never know everything, and in fact we will probably realize we know less and less of everything but we will know our farm better and better and we hope that that alone can teach others...

So what makes soils healthy and productive? 

In my workshop series I will address the basics of soil physical, chemical and biological properties that are important in understanding how to make a soil healthy and productive.

Week 1: Soil Physical properties

We will discuss soil texture, structure, porosity, infiltration, soil aeration, and the role of organic matter in giving your soil good tilth. We will learn hands on how to determine the texture of a soil, we will look at different amendments that can be used to improve soil structure, we will put together potting soils with different physical properties that can be used for different purposes

Week 2: Soil Chemical properties

We will discuss the chemically active part of soil, the soil colloidal fraction, and learn the basics of how nutrients are released and held onto soil surfaces. We will discuss the most important plant nutrients and their availability. We will learn how to use soil test results to make decisions about which fertilizers and amenments to choose. We will discuss the importance of pH and aeration in soils and how these two things affect the chemistry balance in the soil. The importance of organic matter will be discuss.

Week 3: Soil biology

We will learn about the importance of soil life in keeping our soils healthy and productive. We will touch on the role of a few different macro and microorganisms present in soil. We will discuss soil ecology and the importance of diversity in preventing disease outbreaks. We will look at different types of organic matter inputs and why organic matter is so important to soil life. We will learn how to increase soil life, by giving a basic overview on how to make compost and compost tea. If time permits we will discuss how the 3 different aspects of soil discussed in this series (physical, chemistry, and biology) work together and need to be seen together as a complex system.

The workshops will be given at our farm

The dates will be 3 consecutive Saturdays from 1 to 430pm:

January 10th

January 17th

January 24th

Fee per individual: $25/day or $60/3day series

To sign-up please e-mail me at yacoltmountainfarm@gmail.com and send a check payable to Yacolt Mountain Farm to 20217 NE Yacolt Mountain Road, Yacolt Wa 98675

if you have any questions feel free to send an e-mail to the same e-mail address

Bud was an endless giver and never challenged us, leading us to believe he loved the work he was given. He was always peaceful and calm, a true gentle giant. We bought him when he was 18yrs old, such that with his age and his wisdom, he could teach us about working with horses and that is exactly what he did each day he was with us. At his old age, he had his challenges (possibly some onset of DJD and his old teeth made keeping weight a challenge) but he never complained, he enjoyed life as it was.

We're very sad to see him go, but as we've said before with the fact that draft horses don't live long and us buying old horses, we need to accept the fact that loosing them is part of the reality, and we like to think that we gave him a good last few years. 

It was a blessing and a gift to have known Bud, the nicest and most giving horse I've ever met.

So, with this blog I take the opportunity to write about the summer and thank my mom who I love infinitely.

When my mother arrived in June, we were able to harvest soo much more as we took turns harvesting or playing and caring for little Isaiah. My mom participated in it all, starting with loads of different types of greens and spring roots for our CSA and markets, and progressing with peas and beans, broccoli and cabbages, onions, garlic, potatoes, etc. to finally cucumbers, squash and our first tomatoes. We also harvested loads of strawberries for our family. As strawberry season slowed down, raspberries started to ripen and then cherries, plums and blueberries and now the first blackberries have been tasted. Although berries and fruit are not sold yet at our farm, we are planting more berry bushes and more fruit trees and as they mature, we will surely have organic berries and fruit in bounty available. 

When we had more than we could sell my mom was in the kitchen canning jams and pickles and making patee from our lamb livers. We always eat so well when my mom is here as she dug up our last pieces of farm raised meat from the freezer (as we are making room for this seasons harvest) or brought in some of our fresh eggs to accompany the farm produce in some amazing dishes.  She has been teaching me about using all of the organ meats from our animals which have been a big part of last remaining meat pieces in our fridge as I am still very new to cooking with hearts and livers. This year our farm bounty also includes fresh milk from our dairy goats.  It was so helpful to have my mom present to be with Isaiah while I could tend to the labor of the goats and get used to my new milking routine, which I will have to continue without her help when she leaves. We've made yogurt, cheese and ice cream together with great success. I was so happy as my mom keeps telling me she never liked goats milk but "this goat milk is soooo good!". Of course, nothing compares to fresh milk.

My mom's real pet project however has been the chickens as she's told me her favorite part about the farm is collecting fresh eggs from the coops. When she stays with us she insists that I let her take care of the eggs. As a math teacher she loves to count them every day and reports to me with the total number of eggs collected from each of our flocks, as we now have 3 flocks of different ages. You can be assured that when you buy eggs from us when my mom is here, the eggs have been collected with a lot of love. I cannot honestly say that I am as excited as my mom about taking over the egg cleaning and coop cleaning duties but I am soo grateful to have been given this enormous temporary break from a major farm chore.

My mom was really my "Mary Poppins" as she participated in everything, even helping me weed for countless hours and seed new crop rows. As an organic farm we really deal with a lot of weeds and since my mom could watch Isaiah both Dan and I were able to have an undisturbed meeting with our organic inspector when he inspected our farm for 4 hours such that our certification could be renewed.

As our farm is still in its very early stages and the income is still mostly being used for investments that will benefit the farm in the long run, we cannot afford paid help. Thus, it is an understatement to say that we could not run this farm without the help of my mom and the rest of our family help and support. I am so happy that my mom enjoys the farm as much as we do such that this farm truly runs on passion and love. It is her who has always taught me do put love in everything that I do. 

Mom, I am so amazed at your energy, your will to help, and your positive attitude. You are a true example that inspires me and many others every day. I feel soo lucky to have you as my mother and I thank my dad and family for letting you spend the summer with us away from them.

I answered that I liked everything about farming, at that moment, even though I could think of several challenging aspects of farming, there was nothing I could think of that I did not like about our lifestyle as farmers.

Well, unfortunately I was reminded of one thing that I hate about farming last Saturday when suddenly one of our draft horses, Charlie, started to go into a severe colic. He went from not eating at 7 am, still dry, we walked him, to drenched in sweat by 8am. By the time the vet had arrived he was breathing hard. She took his vitals and temperature and felt for his intestines and gave us the worst news we could have expected. She couldn't do anything, his intestines had shifted to the wrong side and she didn't believe he would make it in time for surgery. We cried in disbelief, even for a short moment hoped for a miracle. But it was clear, Charlie was in a bad condition and was suffering extremely. He laid down and we relieved his pain.

Although I don't want to elaborate on Dan and I's emotions, we had a very hard time accepting the reality. Did we do something wrong? Could we have prevented this? The vet told us colic is the number 1 killer in horses and it can be caused from as little as eating a clump of dirt and there is really no way of telling why it happened without an autopsy. 

So this brings me to writing this post. What I do not like about farming is that it involves as much death as it does life because nor life nor death can exist alone. The fact is that farm animals do not live as long as humans do and thus we are bound to experience many deaths when we bring many lives into our farm. And as beautiful it is to see an new life be born it will never be easy to see death come around. Even with butchering, when we take the life of  animals we did not 

particularly bond with because we have raised them for their meat, it is far from easy and we do not take their lives for granted one bit. We try as best we can to give every animal the love and respect they deserve.

As October 2012 rolled around, Dan and I, tried to keep it together as we wrapped up the last farmers markets with loads of tomatoes still coming of the plants and a great winter squash harvest. We noticed how our efforts to add manure to our fields did wonders on the winter squash and decided to make our biggest investment yet and ordered a horse-powered manure spreader with a lime attachment. In October we also had a great turn-out to a harvest celebration farm tour we took part in. It was organized by WSU and we plan on participating in years to come. Dan demonstrated some plowing with the horses in the pasture. This plowed area we plan to reseed with a diverse pasture mix to improve our pastures. 

When we reached November we were so beat by the incredibly busy end of season we took a little break to see family on the East Coast...little did we know traveling with a one year old is far from relaxing and we came home needing a vacation. We took a couple of days though Dan didn't wait too much longer to start some house remodeling projects we had planned for this winter. By the end of January we had new wood floors in our living room and a new kitchen which will make processing farm products much more possible than it was before. We also squeezed in putting up the last part of our sheep fencing that completed our fencing efforts. Needless to say February came really fast.

Sofar February has been fun though, we took the horses back out to try the new manure spreader and had a lot of fun spreading manure over one of our large pastures. (will try to post pictures soon) This we hope will really increase the growth of the grass, add organic matter, life and nutrition, and will in turn feed our animals well. We've got one pile of manure left that we are saving for the squash fields. This year we will grow an exciting variety of winter squashes, including red kuri, black futsu kabocha, delicata, acorn, butternut and some blue hubbard. Of course, I have not started those seeds yet, however we have started seeding and harvesting some of our early greens and onions. We are applying some simple organic compost teas which I'm learning to brew to our greenhouses to help keep the soil biology balanced which we hope will reduce mildew issues we can get here in the North-West. Every year we are trying to improve our methods and with an early start we hope to have another great CSA this year.

Our new batch of baby layer chicks has also arrived and will increase our production of eggs by July.  And of course baby lambs! The 5th lamb was born yesterday and it was the first one we actually saw being born, in less than 20 minutes it has been hard to catch the sheep in labor, though it hasn't been due to lack of trying as we hang out by the sheep barn any chance we get in the hopes of being able to see a birth. It is an event that doesn't stop being exciting, at least not yet for us. We've got 2 more ewes that are due soon so we suspect not having more than 7 or 8 lambs total. This is less than last year as we reduced our flock in another effort to regain healthy pastures before increasing the flock again. Our turkeys won't arrive until April but we are taking preorders already, we are looking at the Bourbon Reds as the heritage breed we would like to try this year to compare in taste and size.

Well, that sums it up for now...we will make an effort to post some pictures of the horses in action with the manure spreader and the new baby animals on the farm!