The Open Gate Farm On Camano Island, Washington

Our farm has 3 legs.  The produce, the bakery, and the nursery.  Explore all three in these pages and keep checking back because we update a lot!  Our weekly newsletter is posted below.  Our store is to the right.  If  you want to ask a question, write us at jon@theopengatefarm.com and as soon as we get back inside and cleaned up, we’ll answer you.

And if we don’t have an answer, odds are our ducks or chickens will.

Yes.  We are GMO free.

Welcome to the farm!

The Parson and crew, admiring all their hard work...

Dear Friends:

There is nothing like thinking one has sent the newsletter only to discover it still in the file on Saturday morning, waiting for someone to hit, “enter”.  Sorry last week’s was so late!  Great material for that upcoming best seller we’re writing, “Humility and How I Achieved It”.

Ginger Snaps are the cookie of the week!  They’ll be plain and fancy…the fancy ones being the Whoopee Pies.  And our newest bread, “The Nutty Farmer”, will make it’s debut too!  Luscious, healthy whole wheat studded with almonds, we have been eating on a loaf all week and it is as good today as it was 6 days ago when we made it.  We’ll have it on the stand every day, but come early…they won’t last!

It’s spring, when a young man’s fancy turns to…baseball?  Nope.  Love?  No again.

According to our Indian Runner duck, the good Parson Dudley Brown, now is when a young man’s fancy should turn to splitting wood for next winter.  He had his flock up inspecting our shrinking woodpile the other day and suggested we might consider getting wood in now, in the spring, so the summer’s heat could dry it and have it in prime burning condition by autumn.

You might not think a parson would know much about cutting and splitting wood, let alone a duck, but both those breeds are pretty observant, thrifty types.  When they are in the same person like ours, you can be sure he will have a well funded retirement.  With the economy the way it is, he is thinking there may be a lot more people wanting to burn wood in a stove than to burn money in an electric meter. So to help folks not hurt themselves he suggested we take a few notes as soon as we got some wood to work up.  That didn’t take long.

A few days later a dear and long-time customer asked if we wanted some firewood, so we quickly accepted the gift.  We burn wood for our primary heat source and any that comes along we’re grateful for.  When we went to fetch it and found it was 5 pickup truck loads, we were thrilled.  So was the parson.  While the hard stuff, the maple, was already split, the alder, birch, and hemlock were still in nice rounds.  We got it home and grabbed the maul and went to work, we on the wood and the parson coaching from the inside the fence.

In his most polite manner, he suggested we set up a row of 6 to 10 pieces to split at the same time.  Then we could go whop, whop, whop, whop, and save a lot of time and energy.  Stopping after each piece splits to set up another takes a lot more time and, he reminded us, time is money, even on a farm.  He said he heard of an Episcopal priest around here who uses a big tire to keep his pieces upright until the whole round is split.

He suggested on the larger ones to hit them once on the far side, once on the near side and once in the middle.  Continue that pattern and even big rounds will soon pop apart.  The really huge ones of course we hit along the edges, nibbling away at them until they are small enough to give up.  But he was right.  Most of the time.

Occasionally though, one round would not surrender to this onslaught.  Pausing to catch our breath, we heard the Parson’s quiet voice suggesting we flip the round over.  He had seen lightning strike a tree once and was impressed at how, when you strike from the top down it splits more easily than when you try to split from the stump up.  And he was right again.  We spotted which way the trimmed off branches had been pointing, set the round with them pointing up and with a few strokes had more wood ready to stack.

When we had a wheelbarrow loaded and ready to go into the woodshed, we found the good duck waiting for us there.  He made sure we got the ends of the piles built squarely and without wobble and then told us to be sure to place the wood on the stack with the bark side up.  He said it helps lock the wood pieces together so the stack is less likely to fall in an earthquake and if rain does get on it, the bark side being up it can shed the rain like water off a duck’s back so to speak.  The wood, like the duck’s skin, will stay drier longer and we’ll all be happier.

He’s a good duck, that one.  Concerned that his farmers be warm in winter and not work too hard in the summers.  Glad to share what he knows, the Parson Dudley Brown has become a friend to all who pass by.  His tall, stately demeanor, his modest style, his humble way of relating to everyone, his peaceful nature all speak of what anyone would want in a true friend.

As we finished up, he gently commended our efforts and then wondered if we might have a minute to change the water in their little wading pool.  He needed a good bath after giving us a hand with the wood and that’s always nicer with clean water.

So now the woodshed is filled, the ducks are clean, and the heat of summer can come and do it’s work to prepare us all for a wonderful fall together.  And we suppose it would only be proper to invite the ducks in for a marshmallow roast some winter’s evening, to enjoy together the blessings of our shared efforts.

Happy Hoeing,

Jon and Elaine, the wood warmed farmers, Snickers the stick chasing dog, Mystery the snoozer cat, Ben and his flock of wood picking chickens, and the good Parson Dudley Brown and his flock of fireside ducks, all of whom live joyfully at The Open Gate Farm.

PS  New update on Growing Gardens For Life at the farm web page!  Click this link for the latest!  http://theopengatefarm.com/?page_id=697

Dear Friends:

Peanut Butter.  It’s here.  In the cookies.  And they are so large only one pile at a time fits under the clear glass cookie dome.  So if you are ready for a great gift to yourself or someone else, come on by!  The proceeds ($1 each) all go to support Agua de Vida Orphanage in Mexico so that is a good thing too!  And yes, they are the walls to the Whoopee Pies we’re offering this weekend.

Garlic.  As they say, “Eat a clove of garlic a day and you’ll sleep well, but you’ll sleep alone.”  Well, you don’t have to do that, but if you take one of our garlic plants from the stand ($1.00 per) and make it into a pesto, your pasta will be pleased and your tongue tingled and your health improved.  We even have a jar of the pesto up there for you to taste before you commit this culinary hari kari.  Folks, this is the formal announcement that our produce department is open for the season!  Our offering is limited to the garlic this weekend, but stay tuned!  The rhubarb can’t be far behind.  And just over the horizon…hmmm.

We have kept a secret here at The Open Gate Farm for many, many years.  Ages and ages, if you are a duck.  There is a reason, of course, for every secret has a reason for the secrecy and ours was quite reasonable we thought.  The ducks aren’t so sure.

If ever you have wandered down our back lane, you may have noticed a small trail leading into the woods where the lane turns it’s corner and heads past the hoop house.  Last week, Quackers, the mottled black duck, finally summoned up the courage to stand on tip toe and peer down that path.  It looked safe.  It sounded safe.  And it smelled entrancing so down the trail she trotted, ready for an adventure.

And she found out our secret.  The Pond.   An enchanting, entrancing piece of paradise that no duck had ever discovered before.  She felt like Lewis and Clarke, or one of the Spanish Conquistadores, gazing on a world never before seen by her fellow ducks.  Not even suspected.  We watched her stand and gaze for the longest time, tilting her head to check out the canopy above for danger, peering around into the bushes for trouble, and when none was found, returning her eyes to drink in the sight before her.  A pond.  A little pond in the woods, just the right size for 5 good friends.  Turning slowly, she trundled back the way she came until bursting into the sunlight she began calling the others.  This kind of really important news needs to be shared right away!

This little landscaping feature was dug by a previous owner when he had some spare time with a borrowed backhoe.  It’s about the size of a bedroom but lots more interesting.  Especially if you are a duck.  It serves as a gathering place for water draining from up hill that is guided into a French drain which is piped to the top end of the pond.  A little dam at the back, deep into the woods, gives it depth.  It overflows in winter and dries up in summer.

For several years we kept feeder goldfish in it, watching them grow and fatten.  Then a heron would drop in and the pond would be empty again.  We’ve seen raccoon tracks on the little ramp down into it.  Now it just sits, filling and drying out and as the seasons pass, becoming home to an occasional branch.  We’ve never told the ducks about it because we worried about coyotes cruising the woods looking for sandwich material.  Now, however, that was not an issue.  At least not for Quackers.  She had the news and was eager to share it.

Secrets are important, of course.  There are things in all our lives which will never be told.  But we might consider the secrets we hold and see if they shouldn’t have a sunset clause attached.  After our presence here had penetrated the woods and coyotes had changed their travel from the back lane to beyond the neighbor’s fields, we didn’t really need to keep the pond a secret from the ducks.  We could have told them years ago.  And while they will expect us to keep it filled in the hot days of summer, it will be worth it to see them swimming in the shade and bathing in the water they love so well.

Now in the mornings, when we open the gates to the chicken run and their big coop, the ducks have taken to shooting past us in a hot foot race out the door and down the back lane to the little trail to paradise.  They pick up their skirts and hustle like matrons at a church picnic racing to see who can ring the bell to call the men and children to lunch.  And once there they dive right in, splashing and laughing and drinking deeply of our secret; they are delighted with life and all it holds for them.

So the ducks want you to know, if you have any secrets, this might be a good week to consider them and if they are old and out of date and no longer needed, share them.  It may well bring a duck in your life more joy than you realized.

Happy Hoeing,

Jon and Elaine, the secretive farmers,  Snickers the all knowing dog, Mystery the wise cat, Ben and his flock on non-swimming chickens, and the Parson Dudley Brown and his flock of delighted ducks, all of whom live joyfully at The Open Gate Farm.

Moles eat meat.  Voles eat mostly vegetables.  Moles like grubs and worms, whereas voles lean toward the leaner cuisine of beets and baby lettuce and your apple tree roots.  The market is filled with mole moving chemicals, traps and noisy excitement for those whose lawns erupt with little volcanoes of dirt.  One friend nailed a mole by sticking an M-80 down the hole and when the earth moved, touching some wires together.  He said the created crater was impressive and the clear departure of the mole worth the load of topsoil needed for repairs.

Voles, on the other hand, have had nothing really organic to move them along to a new home.  Until now.  After some careful research and cautious testing, it appears there is a low cost way to get those little relatives of the mouse crowd to pack up and move on.  Voles don’t leave mounds of soil.  They love the underground tunnels left by the moles and are good at making their own, but come and go through round openings in the dirt.  Those holes look like somewhere a snake might live.  When you find a hole in the garden like that, take a couple cloves of garlic and drop them in the hole.  Seal it all off with a bit of dirt and head to the patio for a cool beverage.  Nature will take it’s course.  Seems they don’t like garlic and will pack up their bags and move on like an annoying relative when you lock the fridge.

We’ve had an extended family of these rascals take up residence this winter, but now with regular application of garlic cloves down their holes, we are almost free from their pesky presence.  And once it’s all over and the garlic green and tall, we’ll pull it up and make a dandy pesto that will wrap your ears around your eyes if you eat it straight.

Dear Friends:

Local grain for local bread we’re saying around here.  Our whole wheat and whole grain breads now are made with wheat grown up in Lynden.  Compared to Montana or Utah, that’s local to us!  It’s a wonderful wheat.  We grind it fresh each day in our stone grinder and savor the flavor all week.  We’ve tested it and a loaf of our natural bread lasts over a week on our counter when kept in a plastic bag.  Good to the last crumb, as they say.

So come by for some of this excellent bread.  Come by for some wonderful cookies – Maxine’s this week.  Come by or send the kids over to get some cinnamon rolls and goodies for the sweet tooth.  Or, if you are in the planting mood, come on over and poke through our little nursery and say, “Hi” to the ducks and chickens.

Some newcomers were asking how we get to do baking in our home kitchen.  Well, the health department has a cottage kitchen law that allows it if the breads are for sale at a farmer’s market.  And yes, we are a Washington State WIC certified market as well as an Island County Farmer’s Market.  So we’re in!  And we’ve been inspected.

We’ve been wearing sweaters and sweatshirts a lot lately here at the farm.  Our supply of firewood has been melting rapidly into the wood stove until it’s almost gone.  With the power company so proud of their electricity, we didn’t want to use much of that for heat so we dug out the thick sweaters and flannel lined Levi’s and are making the best of these few cold days before summer gets here next week.

However last week when the young fellow down the road got in a load of logs to cut and split for firewood, we dug into the fiscal reserves and had him drop off a cord here.  A fair bit of it is good and dry so we put the sweaters away and split more kindling and the stove is roaring once again.  In doing this we’ve noticed something odd about the value of firewood.

When you have a huge pile of wood ready to burn, it’s easy to make fires every morning and evening to protect against a possible chill.  However when we have just a short stack left, we only burn wood to protect against the serious cold, using clothing to cover the “only chilly” times.  Waste not, want not, you know.

Money’s the same way.  Seems there is cheap money and there is expensive money. On payday the bank account feels fat so it’s easy to spring for that milkshake or meal at a favorite hash foundry.  Money’s cheap.  But when it’s Tuesday and payday’s not until Friday and we have to shake down the couch for gas money to get to work, those bills and coins are very expensive.  A dollar means more when you don’t have very many.

The same thing can be cheap for us one day and dear the next.  Look at life.  Today we make plans for a retirement 15 years from now and do so with confidence.  We can spend an evening watching the Super Bowl ads and don’t think it’s wasted.  Tomorrow though, we might discover we have cancer and only a week to live so we make every second count.  We would give an arm to have that wasted evening in front of the TV back so we could spend it with our children or grandchildren.  There’s cheap time and there’s expensive time it appears.

We have a bumper sticker in the rear window of our car.  It reads “Live like you’ll die tomorrow, farm like you’ll live forever”.  We think that captures this idea pretty well.  Actually live your priorities.  For many of us that means God first, family second, and job third.  Embrace your priorities madly, passionately, and in the right order.  For when we here at the farm do, it makes the “farming like we’ll live forever” easier.  We’ll farm in such a way our children and grandchildren will have the home place in good shape when it goes to them.  And when you farm for your family like that, you understand it in a new way.  You farm with a clear mind for you see the generations coming at you carrying with them the vision of your personal eternity.

It can be intense at times, this living at full speed and never letting a moment depart without our being used to the full.  But we figure it’s better to wear out than rust out, to arrive in the coffin with loose joints and a library card illegible from over use than to land stretched out and looking handsome.  We’re not here to watch life but to put it on and wear it out.

So when you come by for your bread or cinnamon roll or just to chat, if we seem a bit tuckered, it may be we’ve been not bothering with sleep.  We’ve been busy getting ready for the eternity we have seen in the eyes of those we love.  We’ve been living the rich, beautiful, expensive time, the kind of time that could end tomorrow.  Though we pray it won’t.

Happy Hoeing,

Jon and Elaine, the toasty farmers, Snickers the running dog, Mystery the stirring cat, Ben and his flock of hustling hens, and the good Parson Dudley Brown and his flock of non-stop ducks, all of whom live joyfully at The Open Gate Farm.

There is a nifty little periodical that comes out every two weeks here on the Island.  Called, “The Crab Cracker”, it captures all the activities of all the groups and throws in some fun articles by and about local folks for good measure.  We’ve been published in it with a regular column for a year or so it seems.  Just struck us though that some of you regulars to the web site might like to look over our shoulders and see what’s going into our column, “Fresh From The Fields” there.  So here goes the one for this next issue!

Golden drops of sunlight come to earth...

Flower Power at The Open Gate Farm

Camano Island is a charming place to live.  When the cold winds of winter have brought slashing rain, we have smiled sweetly at one another out here.  We can smile at each other for those of us who know know that Seattle gets 37 inches of rain a year, the south end of the island only 27 inches, and we at the more northern end a mere 20 inches.  It can be pouring rain on the other end of that new bridge to America but in our island paradise it can be dry as a housebound dog.

Until this year.  It’s seemed a trifle moister than usual so a quick check of the statistics has shocked us.  With the year not a quarter over we are already at 25 inches of liquid sunshine.  This may explain the bloom of moss in the lawn.  And why our ducks are in such good humor.  It has rained so much the chickens need rubber boots to march across the lawn in pursuit of worms and lacking them, the ducks have had the whole place to themselves.

But we are seeing a shift lately.  We are thinking the daffodils now blooming by the grape arbor may be causing the skies to rethink their mission.  The rains are coming only in the night now and the winds of the day are drying it all out.

Spring cleaning has begun with weeding and pruning under way at last.  And now the flowers of spring are here.  With their arrival, weather patterns change.  Never underestimate the power of a flower to change the direction of major forces in life.  If you want to test this theory, try taking a bunch home from the store to your family.  You’ll find them much happier when you do.

The winter roost, ready for the evening.

Dear Friends:

Bread is back!  Beautiful bread made fresh daily here in our health department authorized cottage kitchen.  Brown whole wheat loaves, white egg braids of Challah, sweet slices of dark oatmeal / molasses, flat focaccia full of flavor, kalamata olive loaves with purple nuggets sticking out through the pecorino cheese, and the platter of cookies waiting for your pleasure.  And of course the trays of huge cinnamon rolls stuffed with raisins and pecans, ready for a snack now or breakfast tomorrow.

Special treats are rolling in too!  Banana loafers, whoopee pies, bread puddings, olive cheese boats…surprises for your families and friends.  Surprises so fine they’ll send you back for more.  We know.  It’s happened!

Bread is back, folks, and The Open Gate Farm is the place to get it.  Our hours for the rest of this year will be Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

We are in the middle of a lovely week, here at The Open Gate Farm.  The skies are getting back to their regular schedule of opening only at night to dump rain all over the place with wind to drive it into the ground and leaving the days decent for working outside.  The commute from the back door to the gardens has improved with the yard finally drying out enough to mow.  Even the chickens are thinking winter may finally be drawing to a close.

A long time ago in a beautiful children’s book called, “Rabbit Hill” by Robert Lawson, Tim McGrath was an illiterate equipment operator.  When offered the opportunity to learn to read, he declined saying, “Reading rots the mind.”  His refusal to learn was presented in a charming way which taught us children that reading is actually what keeps the mind from rotting.

And so it was this winter we read a fair bit including a powerful book by a favorite farming author, Gene Logsdon, on the topic of how properly handled manure can save America. We learned that as manure rots, it produces the perfect world for plants and seeds and soil and it heals as its constituent chemicals go back to their original place in the world design where they can feed the plants which feed us.

One of his suggestions was we return to an old farming method of manure handling by creating a “manure pack”.  For us, this meant we don’t clean out the chicken run every couple weeks and spread a fresh $10 bale of straw around.  Instead, let the manure collect under the roost and cover it with a bit of fresh straw every week.  The accumulated pack will begin to rot down into compost on the spot, providing a bit of heat for the flock in the cold nights, and if done properly won’t stink either.

We’ve given it a try and found some amazing results.  Regular application of a thin layer of straw did, in fact, keep the smell down.  The ducks began spending their nights on top of the heap, reporting it was warmer there than in the little cave beneath the nesting boxes.  We used much less straw, saving trips to the farm supply store, money, time, and the hassle of pushing wheelbarrows full of straw through muddy paths to the straw compost box.

In fact, we felt kind of guilty about how easy this was.  But the real treat was to see the chickens hopping down from their roost in the mornings.  It was not as far from the roost to the floor so it was easier and more gentle a drop.  On cold mornings when their little legs are stiff from roosting all night, this is nice for the crew.  Imagine if you had to hop out of a bed 6 feet in the air and that changed to a 3 foot drop.  We would feel better too.  Especially those of us with creaky joints and stiff muscles.

Now though, the pack has gotten so high the ducks tell us their heads are bumping on chicken tummies during the night.  Monday they were walking around under the roosts to show us the problem.  They estimate another month of this and they’ll have to crawl on their knees to get to bed at night.  So soon it will be time to clean it all out like farmers around the world do in the spring.  Time to grab the pitchfork and get to work.  If only to help the chickens.  Nobody sleeps well when ducks are bumping around under the bed at night.

Spring cleaning at the farm is not just beating out the rugs and washing out the dust of winter from cupboards.  It’s also hauling the partially rotted chicken manure out to the compost pile and carpeting the coop with fresh, fluffed up, deep straw.  And it’s cleaning up the detritus of winter from the gardens.  Raking up buckets of pine cones and twigs, weeding the rhubarb, cleaning the paths, and putting the huge tomato pots back in a stack from where the winds of winter have blown them.

And if we start now we’ll feel the grip of the season of storms let go and we’ll be out there when the sun shines at last and the daffodils stand tall as the warmth of the smiling sun coats their blooms with the gold we all know and love.  There’s a lot of spring cleaning to be done in all the parts of our lives.  We all have mental manure packs to haul off to the compost.  We all have cupboards in our minds that need the dust and cobwebs of habit wiped out so useful ideas can be stored in them.  And there may even be a relationship or two that would benefit from letting the light of the sun shine on it so it can become the gold we all would love to see more of in this changing world.

And if we do a good job and put down fresh material in our personal chicken coops, our ducks and chickens can sleep well knowing the ducks can wake up in the night, hold their heads up high and not bother a buddy who is asleep.

Happy Hoeing,

Jon and Elaine Stevens, the manure packing farmer, Snickers the winter watching dog, Mystery the slowly springing cat, Ben and his flock of belly bumped chickens, and the good Parson Dudley Brown and his flock of head ducking ducks, all of whom live warm and joyfully at The Open Gate Farm.

Dear Friends:

We have had to hit the pause button on the bakery until March 22^nd.  The mixer is so worn it’s getting dangerous so we’ve sent it off to the shop for repairs and they can’t get it back to us before then.   So now it’s a two week “time out” for those great breads and buns and treats.  When we return though, it will be with all the baked goods you love plus a new set of quick breads and goodies from our friend, Suzanne, who has created the Boathouse Bakery here on Camano.  She’ll be supplying us with quickbreads this summer so get ready for romance for you’ll be falling in love with them!

And the same weekend we re-open the bakery we’ll be having our first plant sale!  Saw some great looking red currant bushes down by the hoop house today.  You might want to phone ahead to reserve one of those.

Remember, this Saturday night at The Snow Goose Bookstore in Stanwood, we’ll be showing that great movie, “Queen of the Sun” about the honeybees.  It came out late last year and was widely acclaimed.  Show time is at 7 and reservations are recommended as space is limited.  Call the store at             360-629-3631       or email jon@theopengatefarm.com to save a seat!

A long time ago in a country far away called “Michigan”, your farmer used to spend weekends at his grandparents 3 acre truck farm on the fringe of Saginaw.  Often, when it was time to head home, his Grandpa would take him aside and tuck a dollar or two into his pocket to thank him for the help.  And more than once, Grandma would do the same.  When he pointed out one time to her that Grandpa had already paid him, she reminded him the Good Book says to not let the right hand know what the left is doing.  He knew she was Grandpa’s right hand so he kind of got the idea.  Never keep track of the good you do and more good will get done.

But there comes a time when you do have to wonder about this right and left hand thing.  Around 4 years ago the hardware store here had a great sale on leather faced work gloves.  At $4 for 3 pairs your farmer bought a dozen or so.  Well stocked at first, over the years that supply has finally been exhausted and now gloves get hunted down like lettuce in a winter garden.

To help in the hunt, your farmer’s wife put a basket on his workbench in the shop and another on her potting bench on the deck.  This has really helped.  Until this week.  How was it that the stack of gloves in the basket in the garage were all right handed and those on the deck left handed?  Six pairs between the two of them, but no pairs together!

Getting those pairs sorted out and matched did not take long, but how could such a thing happen?  Doesn’t the right hand know what the left is doing around here?

Maybe not.  But maybe that’s o.k.

Reflecting back over the past year we remembered picking the wild blackberries which have been packed into the scones this winter.  And we remembered taking left hand gloves to help do the picking to hold up the prickery vines to make it easy for the right hand to pick the fruit.  One can reach a lot more fruit a lot faster with this little trick.  And then we realized what had happened.  Your farmer did not usually put that left handed  glove back in the basket where he found it.  And so the migration began.

Life is full of little annoying migrations like that.  But in the important things, in the good things, in the things which are right, we must let each hand alone to do the good it can do  and we must let the whole of our giving be larger than the sum of the parts.  In their seemingly uncoordinated charity, those grandparents sowed a seed that bears fruit to this day.  They sowed a seed in the soil of a heart that figures now if the right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing, that’s o.k.  More good gets done and more berries get picked that way.  And that is what we are to be about doing good beyond all measure.

Happy Hoeing,

Jon and Elaine, the one gloved farmers, Snickers the glove chewing dog, Mystery the glove and work free cat, Ben and his flock of gloveless chickens, and the Parson Dudley Brown and his flock of glove wearing ducks, all of whom live joyfully at The Open Gate Farm.

The Colors of Life at The Open Gate Farm

Dear Friends:

Big news from the farm!  The Open Gate Farm has been chosen as the “Sustainable Agriculture Merit Farm” for 2011 by the Snohomish Conservation District!  This honor comes from the folks (the federal Conservation Districts Program of the Department of Agriculture) who back in the 1930’s taught America’s farmers how to fix the dust bowl in the mid-west so well that it never happened again.  The award will be given at a special reception March 22, 2012 down in Everett.  Let us know if you can join us there and we’ll get you exact time and location details.

And the totals are in on the Cookies for Kids project for February.  You all bought and gave a total of $149.06 for the children at the Agua de Vida Orphanage in Ciudad Morelos, Mexico.  We’ll be sending them a check this week.  And the jar is up and the molasses Frisbee cookies are flying off the stand for them again this weekend!  Yahoo!

After careful and prayerful consideration, we have given our orphanage project a new name.  “Growing Gardens for Life” is the full and permanent name…subject to getting incorporated as a 501 (c) 3 of course.  But we have the domain name locked up and a web page under construction.  Let us know if you would like to help in any way!  There is a conference in Redmond, WA in April where we would like to have an information table for several thousand families to see this project, but need $300 for the registration fee to make that happen.

Closer to home, here’s what’s up at the bakery this weekend:

Seeds!  We have seeds we have grown, saved, cleaned, dried, and packaged for you!  At $2.00 a packet, they are a real bargain.  Yellow Nasturtium, Apricot Nasturtium, Hollyhock – mixed, Peach Hollyhock, Yellow Hollyhock, Pink Poppy, Red Poppy, 4 Season Lettuce, Blue Hubbard Squash, and probably more by the time you get here.

And now for the rest of the story…

Ben, our big red rooster, started crowing early the other morning.  Loud and long.  Then the duck choir kicked it up a notch and there was no sleeping to be done so we got up, rubbed our eyes, and looked out the window to see what they saw.

The sky was filled with stunning pink and orange clouds as dawn formed and shaped its way into the new day.  The air was crisp, the scent of spring beginning to drift in on a gentle breeze, and the music of the morning brightened by our friends voices from the coop.  Our stiff muscles of sleep dropped off as we entered the day with enthusiasm and joy.   What a glorious morning!  Our birds had seen it and wanted us to have the pleasure too.  They like to share.

It was a glorious dawn.  Just the kind made to order for a spring morning.  As we walked back to the house after letting the poultry loose to pounce on unsuspecting worms and beetles, we admired the soft colors shifting and fading overhead as the sun reached the eastern horizon and greeted us warmly.  And it got us thinking.

There we were, enjoying this incredible display of color.  In ten minutes the sky would all be faded back to that northwest grey we love so well.  In the evening, the colors would  come back and give a departing toot on their horn as the day disappears over the horizon to the west and we all head in to bed.  But in that morning, just as the colors faded in the east for us, for some lucky soul over on the Olympic Penninsula, those colors were just breaking out at the beginning of their morning display of glory and majesty.  We were now grey just as they became gold.  Our glory was gone just as theirs was beginning.  And that is so typical of life.

We launch into a new day, a new job, a new project, a new life with colors glowing.  And if all goes well when we leave it, we’ll leave with a blast of beauty too.   But in between those two bookends of color and glory we have a lot of grey times.  All the color is gone and we just plug along hoping to get our tasks done before the rain lets loose again.

Yet while we are in those grey times, we can remember the colors of the dawn and know that somewhere, beyond our range of vision, beyond what we can see and know, those colors are dancing in the skies above awed chickens and ducks who have started calling their people awake to come see the glory.  The calls may be in Chinese or Urdu or Russian or Gaelic, but out will go the call from the coop to come see the wonder of new light.  It’s a nice, comforting thought, isn’t it?  Somewhere it is always a glowing dawn and somewhere the colors of sunset are putting the polish on someone’s day.  We might not be seeing them, but they are there.

If beauty could be measured like a pound of potatoes, we would see the scales climbing, climbing, climbing up to infinity for new patterns and colors and beauty in the dawn are  constantly being formed somewhere on this earth.  Just because the beauty has left our lives doesn’t mean it’s gone completely.  It is being made out there somewhere, adding to the storehouse of the lovely.  And maybe that is where heaven is.  Maybe heaven is in that storehouse of beauty and when we get there, we’ll be surrounded by every dawn that ever was.  Wouldn’t that be lovely?

And you know, just the thought of that made us glad the chickens and ducks had woken us up.  It made it possible to smile broadly as we walked through the growing grey light of the new day, back to the house to get ready for working in whatever weather the day would bring.  And we hope it will make it possible for you too, that in the grey days of life memories of the colors of your morning will call forth a smile to your hearts.

Happy Hoeing,

Jon and Elaine, the glowing farmers, Snickers the sleepy headed dog, Mystery the dozing cat, Ben and his flock of cheering chickens, and the Parson Dudley Brown and his flock of delighted ducks, all of whom live joyfully at The Open Gate Farm.

Dear Friends:

The “Seedy Farmer Bread” is doing so well it’s now in the bakery every day!  Whole wheat bread with sesame, sunflower, flax, and poppy seeds all through it and coating the outside…yum!  And the cookies for kids to support our first orphanage project is also getting a lot of traction.  Mexico, Chile, Panama, China…we’re hearing of orphanages all over the world who would love to have us and our team come and teach the children how to grow food.  Come on by and hear the story!  Or at least buy a cookie for the kids!

It is planting time again at The Open Gate Farm.  We may get fooled by this warm weather, but it’s worth the risk!  One fellow did thoughtfully remind us of the late March snowstorm a few years ago.  Heck.  We’re farmers.  We know how to live on the edge of the ice flow and survive.  Besides, if the plants get frozen out we’re only out the cost of the seeds and a few hours’ time.  But if we’re right, it’s a home run and we’ll all be eating salads that much sooner!  So this week we’ve been out in the big garden weeding and raking and sowing seeds and planting black currant bushes.  And waving.

We do that a lot here.  Always have.  There is a sort of noblese oblige to living in the country.  Country folks are supposed to be friendly so we try to show that side of us whenever we can.  Besides, more than once it’s been a car full of tough looking teenagers who, after waving back, seem to be saying “keep driving, he could I.D. us in a lineup.”  So a friendly wave protects the neighborhood and keeps the arm muscles loose and useful.

There are lots of obligations when a person lives in the country.  We’re supposed to have a soft, not quite southern twang in our voice that comes from spending days in the sun and nights under the stars.  Our drawl should produce a calmness that sooths the spirits of those souls who try to survive in the vicious canyons of the city.  We’re supposed to be full of wisdom and good solid values and not afraid to say what we think.  Our children all grow up clean and bright, get advanced degrees and then start loving families just down the road.  Folks from the city know that our grandchildren are well versed in how to butcher a hog and will know when the blackberries are the sweetest and can recite the Gettysburg Address from memory by the age of three.  There’s a lot of responsibility to living in the country and it’s not for everyone.  And we’re supposed to be healthy too!

But we can do this!  We can do all of that and know when to plant seeds in the spring without fear.  And we do!  Most of the time.  Well…some of the time.  O.K.  Occasionally we get lucky and get it right.  But that’s how so much of life is any more.  You just have to step out in faith and as soon as the soil is loose enough to pull a weed and get most of the roots we must dig in and start planting those seeds.

Just like with people.  If you wait until the situation is perfect to propose, you’ll never get married.  If you wait to ask until the boss is smiling, you’ll never get the raise. If you wait until all is well to do anything, you will wait a long, long time.  And then it may be too late.  So be brave and do it now.  Go ahead.  Slide that seed for thought into the soil and watch it grow into a great life.  Risk the freeze.  Don’t let a little snowstorm keep you from a bumper crop!

And if you are lucky and get it right and the seeds become plants and the plants become ripe earlier than usual, you’ll have bragging rights for a year.  And if not, you can always fall back on the seeds you started at the same time inside the greenhouse in little pots.  You know those guys.  The “just in case it freezes out there” rows of little plants peering out the window watching the weather.  And when it turns white outside, listen closely.  You might hear them cheering.  Their hour for glory has come and it will be up to them to save the farm from economic disaster.

So folks, plant away!  But plant wisely.  Inside and out.  And either way, have your best season ever!

Happy Hoeing,

Jon and Elaine, the seedy farmers;  Snickers, the seed sniffing dog;  Mystery the seedy looking cat;  Ben and his flock of seed gobbling chickens;  and the good Parson Dudley Brown and his flock of seed slurping ducks, all of whom live joyfully at The Open Gate Farm.

Dear Friends:

Good news can be hard to believe.  Tomorrow is February 1^st and according to the sign hanging on our fence by the road, we are re-opening!  The vacation was great but the return is greater.  We left, we saw, we returned changed forever, but not so much we are throwing the horse out with the saddle, so to speak.  And we return excited about our future together.

In honor of the month of love and hearts and red roses and promises of eternal affection, we are planning some special treats at the stand.  Stay tuned as we pull them from the oven and slide them into the case up in the little yellow house by the side of the road.

But now, here are a few of the first changes…

Cookie sales – all the proceeds from them during the month of February will go to our new friends at Agua de Vida (Water of Life) Orphanage in Ciudad Morelos, Mexico.  Come by and we’ll tell you the story.  “Cookies for Kids” – a way we all can help!

Cinnamon Rolls – the most lost day of our lives is the day we don’t get an Open Gate Farm Classic Cinnamon Roll.  Yes, folks, they will be back and at the same price.

Breads – we have toured some classy bakeries in our travels and are filled with more ideas than shelf space.  So be ready for some nutty breads, some forms and shapes not seen on the island ever before, and maybe even some new sweet breads!  Recipes are in beta testing so stand ready with your tables set.  Until then, our favorites will still be marching out there…White on Wednesdays, Oatmeal Molasses on Thursdays, Braided Challah on Fridays (and some whole wheat too), and Whole Wheat on Saturdays.  And yes, Virginia, there will be olive cheese boats on Saturdays too and special orders happily baked.

Once the growing season is going well, we are planning to open up our produce market on Saturdays to backyard gardeners in the Triangle Cove area…if you can see or smell the cove you’re probably qualified.  We are going to call it, “The Triangle Cove Farmer’s Market” and neighbors may be here with their specialities and fun.  No one is good at growing everything.  We struggle with potatoes for some reason.  But our friend up the street can grow them by the bushel, so Tim, bring on the spuds!  And don’t forget your raspberries!

We’ll start next week with the chart of what is available when, but now…it’s off to the kitchen to check on Maxine’s cookies.  Do we need to get more butter?  They’ll be out there tomorrow!

Good news can be hard to believe.  Take our poultry for example.  The fence around the big garden has been pulled open for three weeks and only now do we see them in there gobbling slugs and cleaning up pest nests.  We saw footprints of an occasional foray taken into what they thought was forbidden land when they knew we were not home.  But this morning at last they are starting in one corner and working their way through it all.  Ben, the red rooster, tells us they hope to be done in about 2 weeks.  That’s good news because that is when we need to close the fence and start transplanting the lettuce we seeded in the hotbeds back in the middle of November.

It is odd how news is always about change.  There is the good news of a raise or the bad news of a job loss.  We’ve all known people who are news junkies, up on the latest implication which a hangnail in Havana has for us.  They feed upon change.  So long as it is in the lives of others.  The change they cherish in others is what gives meaning and direction to their lives.  Isn’t it odd that they embrace changes in the lives of others without making any in their own?  It seems they grab onto the changes they see around the world as hard as they reject the smallest change in their own lives.

And yet, when we look at the world around us, “static” is a passing thought.  Permanence in this world appears an illusion.  Oh the mountains may last my lifetime but they do erode into the plains that feed us.  Leaves bud out, break the case, grow cell by complex cell, and eventually die and fall.  We too are born, we live, we die.  To say, “That’s life” really means, “That’s life and death.”  Death is the child of life and like the old song said about romance…”Love and marriage go together like a horse and carriage.  You can’t have one without the other.”

And now, in this February, the month of forever promises, we discover that which looks like a forever thing really is only temporary when we pull back to a longer perspective in time.  For some, to take the longer view is frightening, so we hug our TV’s close and cling to the moment and avoid our own mortality, lost in the stories of the short lives of others.  The pain of parting, of seeing the green leaves of our own lives become the brown of autumn to land on life’s forest floor is an experience we spend great effort to avoid.  And yet, it happens.

The chickens and ducks are loving their time in the big garden, digging where they’ve only dreamed of scratching for long months.  But soon, we who know more and limit the activities of their lives, we will reinstall the fence and these special friends will once again be reduced to racing for worms in the acre available to them.  It is for the better for the grand scheme of things around here.  However, for them it will be a tragedy to talk about in the shade of the grape vine when the hot sun bakes the soil and the worms head down deep, burrowing for China.

We know that we are not unlike the chickens and that for us in a larger plan than we can see now, we will someday be kept out of our gardens of delight where the digging is easy, the worms fat, and the slugs delicious.  We can dwell on that far away moment when the fence in our lives will go back up and our future is sadly changed.  Or we can, like the chickens and ducks, not worry about what we cannot control and instead celebrate with each other the great life we have here now; we can try synchronized scratching (team projects), group gobbling (potlucks), slug slurping (coffee and cookies around the kitchen tables), and realize that those memorable experiences in the moment, in the here and now, are what give the best meaning to life.  Fear of the future never brought a smile, a rose, a promise of forever love.  Fear does not bring healthy living.

So when someone comes at you with the latest book filled with dire predictions of destruction and disaster, let’s invite them into our gardens, into our lives and show them how we keep the future in its proper place by filling our lives now with joy.  The place of the future is in the future, not in the present. The future can gum up the now to the point we lose our perspective and sitting too close to the TV we can get poisoned by the breathless concerns of some newscaster over the liposuction and nail polish of the stars.  Let’s remember the real stars, the ones worth watching, are those who will join us in our now, in our present, in living together the lives of love we are capable of living.  And those you won’t find on any television or computer in the country.  Look up.  Look around.  Look with love in your eyes and you will see them clearly.

It can be summed up by suggesting we all eat slowly, eat well, eat together.  When we do, we will break a chain of fear, a fear of change.

Happy Hoeing,

Jon and Elaine, the ever changing farmers, Snickers the coat changing dog, Mystery the chair changing cat, Ben and his flock of unchained chickens, and the Parson Dudley Brown and his flock of change challenging ducks, all of whom live joyfully at The Open Gate Farm.