Farm Tours + Rivers = Inspiration

So much to catch up on, but lets start with what has been a great catalyst for a many thoughts lately.

This vacation started with our annual farm tour. This year we changed things a bit and focused on size and distribution, you know, what does it take to feed lots of people good food.

Wintergreen Farms

kinda says it all

We started at Wintergreen Farm, renown for its Burdock Root! The farm is owned by 3 families and covers 170 acres of land that is either owned or leased. 20 of those acres are dedicated to mixed veggies and berries and such for their CSA, 90 acres is for cattle, and the remaining is all about habitat for wetlands, trees, and birds.

They aren't just organic, but biodynamic. Being biodynamic is about the only things that makes me feel somewhat ok that they also grow and harvest pasture fed cows, in other words they sell meat as well as vegetables. However, by being bio-dynamic they use everything on the farm to feed and nurture what they grow. By they way, their burdock isn't just a personal favorite. We learned at OGC (the organic distribution center that we went to later) that they have orders for this delicious root from as far a Japan!

Our next stop was OGC (Organically Grown Company). We get a great deal of our produce at the co-op from them. We checked out one of their warehouses and heard a great little talk from their operations manager. He focused on their sustainability goals. Some of the things they are excited about is a new type of door where they pull a string and this door quickly rolls up and down. This added with a bit of a vacuum pressure to keep the curtain door closed, it become much more efficient for them to come and go from the walk-in cooler. Most of the doors used in the industry are more of a thick plastic curtain type thing. We also learned that they have the 3^rd most efficient semi-truck in the nation. Supposedly there are hundreds of choices when you order such a vehicle and they all have some kind of effect on their fuel efficiency.

super efficient cooler door

proudly hung Beehive Collective print!!

where does it all go?

Other things that they are trying to do is decrease the number of cardboard, or really bad boxes that are used to haul produce. So they are looking at some kind of re-usable tote type containers. They also want to replace pallets with something more efficient. It seems that something like 90% of the hardwood harvested goes to making pallets! I had no idea. So they have a company across the road that rebuilds falling apart pallets until they are able to come up with some kind of alternative.

OGC does many good things for its community. Things like donating to Food not Bombs, paying employees to volunteer, and having a domestic fair trade policy. All of this while trying to keep margins low so that organic food is as affordable as possible for the final diner.

Our final farm on the tour was Ground Works, also known as Plastic Works. Its a pretty big farm. He couldn't really give us a clear idea of how many acres of land he has, and he had just acquired another farm across the way, and it is all owned by one family. It was here that reality hit on the scale of organic farms if we let it become more and more like the size of conventional farms. The 2^nd thing I noticed was the red headed head of the farm surrounded by the brown skinned men that were doing the work in the “fields”. I've heard that they make fairly good wages for farm work, they aren't exposed to super toxic chemicals like at conventional farms, and they get 1 to 2 weeks vacation a year.

The first thing I noticed was why they are nicknamed Plastic Works. It was the rows and rows of hoop houses, and right next to the bus, were rolls and rolls of plastic. The reason many farms, and Ground Works was the leader in this in our neck of the farm woods, are using these plastic hoop houses is to get a jump start on what they can sell at farmers markets and such. The theory is that you want to get customers hooked on your product first and cultivate the loyalty one depends upon.

Previously I'd only really heard of people using hoop houses to extend the growing season, and to get seedlings started stronger sooner. Now its being used for more, and more farms are having to do the same to be able to compete with Ground Works at the markets. And Ground Works is at almost all the Farmers Markets in the area, as well as selling to many natural food stores as well.

I left Ground Works feeling kinda gross and sad. Compared to Wintergreen, this last farm did not feel alive and connected. There was no compost pile, or bucket for the stems of the strawberries he shared with us. Where one nuclear family owned this last farm with several employees, there could have been multiple farmers owning and working the land. Maybe I've been working in a collective co-op too long, but it saddens me to see people working really freaking hard (farm work is hard) making minimum wages, no benefits, and no say in what is happening in their working environment, when there could be a more democratic way.

I'm not naive, I know that feeding huge amounts of people “organic” food takes a great deal of farm land. I just don't believe that single families running so much acreage is the answer....

Something that should be added, because of their growing practices at Groundwork, they are able to grow some ginger and lemongrass that normally comes from very very far away, so maybe some plastic vs. transportation is a better choice?

And I left town with my backpack with these thoughts in my head. My goal was to explore some day hikes I'd been wanting to do, and just car camp. Usually I try to do a long backpacking trip and get far from civilization, but I have had a rough couple of months and wanted to simplify. Just a week or so out from my vacation, I had found out that some of my family members where having health issues, all of them could be traced back to diets rich in fats and sugar while weak in nutrients. As someone very focused on nutrition, it is very difficult for me to watch people I love make really dangerous food choices.

My first stop was Silver Falls State Park and the trail of 10 falls. I'd heard a great deal of Silver Falls and was looking forward to the hike, the peace, the quiet contemplation of the great out of doors. The falls were anything but quiet. They were amazing and loud and oh so powerful! You get to walk behind at least 3 of them. There is something special about being able to walk behind waterfalls that makes me feel so very safe, secure, nurtured... like a return to the womb or something.

sneaking up on a waterfall

steamy, foggy morning

view from behind the south fall

The area's protection was fought for by a photographer, June Drake. He used his camera and passion for the land as an activist to convince people to keep the land unharmed. It is a reminder that we can use whatever skills and talents we have to save and protect our world. This notion of activism comes up again later.

From here I went to the Matolious River, and fell in love. The river is magical. I ended up spending 2 nights here instead of one. The original idea was one night here and 2 nights at the McKenzie river, but I just felt so good at this campsite and the view feel of the river.

the butt biting chipmunk that kept me company

this river is magical

and blue

First to get to the trail head, you have to drive way off the main 2 lane highway to get there, and then a bit on an old dirt road. The campsites (of which there are only 7) are simple and self serve. In other words there is no camp host, showers, or flush toilets... it was all so simple and sweet.

The trail it's self is not only about 5 miles out and back. That's 2 ½ miles to a fish hatchery that I never walked all the way to. I just couldn't bring myself to do it, and to watch all the cheating fishers just hanging right there taking life by surprise/demise.

Instead I stopped just before at a super amazing spot and ate my lunch while starring off at the bluest blue river I had ever seen (up to that point). I swear, if I could find tattoo ink that color of blue, by whole body would be covered in river. So there I was eating lunch and gazing at the river when I just happened to look up and over at a deer who just happened to be eating also, and decided to look around at exactly the same time. Both of us startled just looked at one another for spell until the doe just walked away. It was so exhilarating I could hardly stand it, so I just smiled and thought that I must finally be smelling like nature to have surprised a deer.

wading in to get water

I explored the river a little more around the campsites and found some amazing places to just sit, nap, write, and listen to dharma talks. Listening to Thich Nhat Hahn is always special, but to be sitting by a river while he is talking about interrelatedness and how live is like a river was extra motivating to do sitting practice. I was also inspired to go for some runs on the trails after hiking them. Each new pass on the same trails, I spotted something new from plants to fish jumping.

As for the water.... it was so clean, clear, and cold that I didn't even use my water filtration system. Just stuck my water in a fast moving portion of the stream and drank it in. As it rolled down my throat I feel it course through my whole body giving it life. I found such gratitude for the life giving nourishment that water provides this world (which comes up later also), mixed with the warmth and blue sky (proof that I was out of Portland in the spring) I couldn't shake this mantra that had been playing over and over again in my head “yellow and blue makes green”. To me it means that the life giving forces of the sunlight and the water creates life on land: plants, animals, humans.

It took some kind of special force to remove me from this river, but eventually I made it to the McKenzie river, and was very happy I did. I camped closed to the blue pool trail head so that I could get up early and just walk as long as I wanted to.

This portion of the 23 mile river trail, is in old growth forest that I am use to in Oregon, but then quickly turns to lava flow. The views of the river are amazing! It too is a magical place, but I am glade that I started early. The trail quickly fills with people hiking and biking up and down the trail, so it was nice to have it mostly to myself.

When I got to the blue pool, my breath left my body. I'd seen pictures and been told that the color was majestic, but I just had no idea how this would impact me. I wanted to dive off the cliffs and have that blue water envelop me, take me in and make me a part of it... just let me dissolve and merge. Blue so blue. So alive. So awake.

that is its for real color!!!

I got back to the car, changed shoes and went for a run in the other direction on the trail with that blue stuck in my head and more of blue and life being so connected... inseparably so.

That night I was meeting some friends in Sisters to go to a film fest in Bend, so I headed to a hot spring to clean up and become presentable. I love hot springs. I love living surrounded by volcanoes so that I have so many choices.

Through the weekend, my friends took me on some hidden waterfalls, alpine lakes, and trails that took us through recent forest burns, and snow banks (it was so hot in that burned forest that laying on the snow felt so refreshing!).

I drove the long way home. I decided to forgo the Pizza Institute in Eugene for back roads that would take be by the river that I consider my home town river, the Clackamas. A river that has nearly drowned me, and spit me out into a new life shortly after I moved to Portland (but that is another story).

Sylvia Earl on her Ted prize

On the way home I listened to an interview of a woman who has changed my life. Her name is Sylvia Earle. Her motto is “no blue, no green”. She speaks of saving the oceans. Since that interview I have been trying to ingest everything I can about this woman and her work, and I encourage you to as well. I believe the next couple of posts will come relatively quickly and will be about her work. I will interpret her message from both a vegan perspective and an environmental one. Either way, her message is clear, with out the oceans there are no humans.