The Open Gate Farm On Camano Island, Washington

Margaret on the move...

Empty Nests at The Open Gate Farm

Dear Friends:

Thank you for a wonderful Harvest Jubilee last Saturday!  We saw so many of you old friends and made a bunch of new ones.   Welcome to all you new subscribers to this newsletter.  We hope you find it pleasant, useful, and something to send along to friends and relations around the world.  If we got your name wrong, please let us know!  And let us know what you are doing in the world of gardens and farming.  It is always a joy to hear from our friends.

It’s the time of year we begin planning the end.  For weeks folks have asked us how much longer will we be open this fall.  We’ve laughingly responded, “As long as folks keep coming and buying we can afford to be open!”   So far so good.  But between the shorter days and this thing called rain, we’re taking it a week at a time.  Will we keep the bakery going over the winter?  Not sure yet, though a holiday season opening of the bakery does make sense.  So stay tuned and keep an eye out for our road signs.  Long as they are up, so are we.  Until they go away, here’s what’s ready for you:

It has gotten quiet here at The Open Gate Farm.  We moved Margaret, the Muscovy duck, from her hen house nest to the little red barn where she could sit on her 4 eggs in peace and quiet and not chase the other ducks around the yard with screams and hisses.  While we caught her and moved her, the others stood around and watched with compassion and appreciation and when we were finished gave us a quack of thanks and took long, peaceful drinks of water.  Safe from Margaret’s chasings, they began to relax.  So did we.

Tuesday morning, after visiting the Washington State University Organic Farm Program in Pullman on the other side of the state, we put our dear WWOOFer, Anna, on a plane to head to her next adventure.  She will be in Chapel Hill, NC, interning in a horticulture therapy program there.  She was as sweet as Margaret had been mean but still, the car was quiet for a long time as we remembered her and our special times together.

Wednesday morning our lovely Kathryn, who had been house sitting with Snickers and the gang while we took our quick trip east, loaded her car with our love and a couple cinnamon rolls and headed to her Mom’s place over in Arlington. After she left, your farmers walked the farm together and talked about the tasks remaining and noted how quiet it was now with no young folks here with their questions and energy.

One thing about youth these days is they are not afraid to ask questions.  Or to start a conversation with, “I have some bad news for you.”  It might be anything from a duck in the rhubarb field to mold on some lettuce to Snickers needing a bath.  They also asked why we do things the way we do and not in what to them seemed a more efficient way.  They were wonderful!  It got us reviewing just about everything around here and really helped tighten up our processes.  Processes that now run in peaceful silence.

Margaret got bored.  She ignored her nest and flew over the fence to be with the others and never went back to sitting.  We picked the eggs up and “floated” them in a bowl in the mud room sink.  Two sank and were fine.  The other two floated meaning gas had formed in them and they should be tossed out.  But she had gotten the need to nest out of her system and was forgiven by the rest of the flock. So they all spent Wednesday grazing on the bugs in the lawn together again and without fear of one another.

It is odd that Margaret’s boredom brought peace and our wwoofer’s hard questions chased away wasted effort.  It calls to mind advice from your farmer’s father that noise is a sign of inefficiency, of something wrong.  Noise might mean a bearing is wearing out or that two pieces of metal are out of alignment.  Margaret sure was out of alignment when she was noisily chasing the rest of the ducks before we moved her nest.  But she’s running straight and true now as she quietly takes her place in line when they all head back to their pool for a drink and a break from work.

The same can be true in relationships.  When a relationship is full of noise and static, it may need an adjustment.  A good relationship will be filled with quiet, with gentleness, with kindness, and with compassion.  Compassion is a great word that encompasses empathy and forgiveness.  We see that a lot here.  The Parson Dudley Brown and his little flock showed compassion to Margaret in giving her another chance to be part of the flock after she had been so mean to them.   They understood that her chasing them had not been part of her better nature and that by letting bygones be bygones they were helping her become a better duck.  A duck that now can laugh at her mistakes and toss down a beak full of water with them and enjoy the quiet of the farm on a warm fall day.

As we walked past them when we were looking over the farm, they asked us to let you know about this.  They said it might be helpful if folks were reminded to be compassionate so they could live gentle, quiet lives.  Margaret added that it’s not always a bad thing when a nest gets empty.  It makes room for sweet, peaceful quiet.

Happy Hoeing,

Jon and Elaine, the quiet farmers, Snickers the darling dog, Mystery the contemplative cat, Ben and his flock of contented hens, and the Parson Dudley Brown and his flock of friendly ducks, all of whom live joyfully at

The Open Gate Farm
269 Russell Road,
Camano Island, WA 98282-8512
www.theopengatefarm.com
Open now until the end of October or longer, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays from 9 to 5 or by appointment.

Learning a Lot at The Open Gate Farm

September 20, 2011

Flying Time at The Open Gate Farm

Dear Friends:

It’s Harvest Jubilee week!  This is the weekend we give farm tours to hundreds of folks who come from near and far to taste life on a farm and teach their kids that chickens have two legs and ducks can lay eggs as well and how lettuce grows.  We’re open our regular Wednesday through Saturday 9 to 5 schedule, but Saturday is the big day.  There will be booths in town and maps here for getting to all 18 of the open farms and farm businesses.  Rain or shine, it’s going to happen and we’re delighted to be part of it.  Come on by!  We picked up extra flour and sugar and cinnamon and will be ready with lots of lettuce too!

If you want to come by early and avoid the crowds of Saturday, you can.  And here’s what you’ll find (notice a change in the Wednesday bread!):

A long time ago, a kind doctor explained to us that people live in two kinds of time.  There is “in time”, and there is “on time”.

He explained that “in time” is when we start to wax the car at 8 in the morning and suddenly it’s noon.  We lose ourselves in the activity and live so intensely in the present moment time passes unnoticed.  We see that happen here at the farm occasionally when we get into a good weeding session.  We’re ripping away and all of a sudden we’re late for lunch.

“On time”, on the other hand, is when you start to wax the car at 8:00 and you get it done in 20 minutes because you still have to get to the grocery store to pick up the deli tray for the wedding reception, wrap the present, get all four kids dressed and everyone down to Everett at 10:45 for the 11 o’clock wedding.

Here at the farm, we live like this every morning the stand is open.  By nine o’clock we have to have all the cinnamon rolls and breads baked, the 5 kinds of  lettuce, 3 kinds of kale, beans, tomatoes, basil, radishes, raspberries, and blackberries harvested, and all the signs out on the roads around here.

We live frantically “on time” until 9, and then appear to drop back into “in time” living as we greet customers and friends who come by for veggies and sweets and a plant or two and maybe to tell us a story about their latest dinner party.

We see some great “in time” living done here on the farm.  The ducks and chickens are a regular reminder that life away from a clock can be a pleasant one.  Not a single one owns a wrist watch, yet they do fine.  When hungry, they drift across the lawn eating crane flies or other bugs.  When they get hot and tired, they head to the shade of the tractor and watch us head off to our latest appointment and discuss how we people need to slow down.  They’ll gather around their swimming pool and discuss the lettuce crop or perhaps whether more worms can be found in the orchard or the nursery.  They are very present in the present moment.

Because the bulk of our time appears to visitors to be lived “in time” with a hammock swinging attitude, many assume we’re retired and this is just a nifty little hobby.  That your farmer may take a nice nap in the afternoons only enhances this idea.  But the truth of the matter is the nap is because he started baking at 4 or 5 in the morning and by noon he’s already gotten in his 8 hours and it’s a long way until the 5 p.m. closing which usually doesn’t happen until 6.  Then there’s at least 20 minutes more to go pick up the signs.  We live our lives here mostly “on time” and by doing so create an “in time” experience for those who come by.

Retirement, vacation, time off…they all stretch out before us, beckoning us to live more intensely in the present moment, don’t they?  They all call us to leave the clock, to live outside the relentless march of time.  They all are a taste of that fountain Ponce de Leon sought, the fountain of eternal youth.  He looked all around Florida for it because older folks see children as doing a great job of living in the present moment.  As they swing or slide or dig in the dirt, they are oblivious to the limits of time.  They don’t see the pressure mounting in their parents as their mother or father checks their watch and then calls the child from play to join them in an “on time” life.  “Time to go!” is announced and tears flow as the child gets one more lesson in how our culture controls us.  Becoming a civilized person is not always a joy it seems.

It’s tempting to think we gain cooperation, community, and a good life by learning to live “on time”, but do we really?  The children at play in the sand together or learning to take turns on the swings are doing that without a clock hanging over their heads.  What we teach them is that checking the clock can raise blood pressure, cause interruption in sweet hours, even bring tears.

We suppose that as long as some folks do live by a clock, live their lives “on time”, the rest of us will have to humor them and show up at 11 for the weddings of life or hustle to have the stand ready by 9, but it is tempting to think of what would life be like if we all lived “in time”.  How would your life change if you lived for an hour, a day, or even a week “in time”, lived without a watch or appointment book?  It could be charming, attractive, pleasant, and who knows, we might find Ponce de Leon there, chatting with the ducks and chickens about why the sun moves through the sky, not just how time flies when you’re having fun.

Happy Hoeing,

Jon and Elaine, the timeless farmers, Snickers the clock watching dog, Mystery the clockless cat, Ben and his flock of casual chickens, and the Parson Dudley Brown and his flock of relaxed ducks, all of whom live joyfully at

The Open Gate Farm

269 Russell Road

Camano Island, WA 98282

360-387-4449

Open Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays 9 to 5 until weather or lack of customers closes us down.

September 13, 2011

Falling Feathers at The Open Gate Farm

Dear Friends:

If you like our butterscotch bars, you’ll love the new Oatmeal Scotchie cookies.  They have just been taste tested by some professional cookie eaters and the reviews are mighty strongly in favor of them.  They’ll be there every morning!

Our farm T-shirts are not the thin material you get on the free ones from the radio station.  In our shirts you get substance, real material which will last you for years.  That makes them an investment, not a cheap freebie.  And when you give them as a gift, your loved one will know you know value.  At $14 for adult and $10 for youth sizes, they really are a great deal.  Plus you get the Parson and Grandma Betty on the front.

The weather has cooled off just enough to let us transplant hundreds of baby lettuces out into the farm garden.  This means we’ll have lettuce for a long, long time yet this fall.  When will we close?  When you stop coming by to support us!  Cash is king, you know.  Even on a farm.  Especially one that is no longer just a hobby farm.  So here’s what you’ll find when  you come by to help us stay sustainable…

Autumn is starting to drift in this week here at The Open Gate Farm.  The lovely grey skies with hints of rain are above us once again, the early leaves are yellow and dropping from the alder trees and the dry brown cones from the fir trees are underfoot on the path to the chicken house.

Seasons don’t change with a thud in the country.  In the big city a store window can have bathing suits one day and winter coats the next.  Auto parts stores take down the signs for coolant and put up the anti-freeze posters.  Here in the country though, change comes at a more reasonable pace, a pace that allows us to absorb the last of the old while sampling the first of the new.

In our farm gardens we have watched the cycles of flowers roll past.   We’ve seen the little scarlet runner beans break out of the ground holding tiny hands to the sun where they got energy to grow.  We’ve tucked wayward vines back into the fence.  Now we’re watching the vines climb to the top of the posts and reach towards the heavens for more support then tip slowly back to the fence to rest.  We have seen the bright red flowers drop off and become green beans that grow large very quickly.

And we’ve seen the chickens and ducks flourish on all the old lettuce and kale we’ve tossed over the fence to them by the brush hog mower.  There have been times though, when we’ve wondered.  For several weeks we were impressed by feathers littering the ground so thickly we thought someone had been hit by a hawk and hauled away.  But that was never the case.

Someone was always molting, losing their old feathers and growing in the new ones.  With these guys, the new feathers grow in and push out the old, just like we people did with our teeth, back when we had them.  We talked to the girls about this and they assured us it did not hurt to molt.  A little embarrassing perhaps, when bare skin was exposed for a week or two until the new  came in enough to cover.  They said it was like change in people.

They have listened in as folks have wandered around the farm. They’ve noticed that new ideas, new hopes, new dreams grow in these folks who have come by.  Like the chicken’s feathers, the new pushes out the old and leaves the ground littered a bit of what is no longer part of their life until the winds of a new season blow them away.   But once the new dreams get developed a bit and filled out and made real, the exposed core of who we are gets covered again and the bird and the person both shine with the health of new life.

It does not matter they said, whether it’s feathers or dreams.  Everyone feels better and is happier when they get the new ones in place.  It helps us all be ready for the storms of winter that follow this fall of preparation.

The girls are hoping you are preparing for the winter to come too.  They want to encourage you to let your new feather push the old out.  Let the old fall like the alder leaves that will be blown to where they can become compost that feeds the plants which we all can eat as we live our new dreams together.  They get a little philosophical, those chickens.  But with the help of Ben , our new rooster, they are getting it sorted out.  He’s teaching them all about it as his new tail grows in.  At the moment it’s kind of short like some of our dreams perhaps, but we can squint and see the glory to come and by winter it will be all in place and looking mighty handsome.

Happy Hoeing,

Jon and Elaine, the feather changing farmers, Snickers the feather chasing dog, Mystery the feather watching cat, Ben and his flock of feather lined hens, and the Parson Dudley Brown and his flock of feather cleaning ducks, all of whom live joyfully at

The Open Gate Farm

269 Russell Road

Camano Island, WA 98282

360-387-4449

Open 9 to 5, Wednesdays, Thursday s, Fridays, and Saturdays until…probably the end of October.

Lettuce transplanting for fun and profit!

Dear Friends:

If you want to practice your Spanish, come on by and meet our current WWOOFers!  Xiomara is from Panama and her charming husband, Rustin, is from Denver.  They’ve backpacked around the world and have stories to last a lifetime already.  So many we’ve asked them to stay on an extra week or so until Anna Strick comes back.  Besides, we have a fence to finish around the rhubarb field.

Wednesday evening your farmer will be giving a talk to the Lions Club in Stanwood.  It promises to be a fun time as Xiomara’s father is now treasurer of the national Panama Lions Club.  Maybe we’ll see you there!

Looks like weddings trump sourdough bread this week.  Our happy sourdough baker, Brother Timothy, has a son getting hitched so he’s off to the nuptials instead of the oven.  We wish them all well and hope for an early return of the man and his magic loaves.  We know the loaves of sourdough are magic because soon as they get here they disappear.   He promises next week those lovely loaves will land on the stand once more.

New T-shirts are in!  Soft green, bright green, rust, cactus…wonderful colors and in almost every size imaginable.  Also, we’re hiding the lettuce in a big blue insulated box on the stand while the days are in the 80’s.  Lift the light lid and look a long time.  Kale, lettuce, radishes…they all are there and more!  And look here for some new items…

There are a few buzz words swarming around us lately.  “Sustainable”, as in we’re making enough to survive without draining the environment (soil, air, water, finances) is one.  Another is “GMO”, as in genetically modified organism like corn with antibiotics in it that trigger reactions in folks allergic to antibiotics.  And it is resistant to herbicides so you can’t get rid of it when you want to plant some soybeans.  The third one on our radar is “gluten free”.  And this one is becoming really interesting to us.

We have enough customers now who come regularly that we can actually think in terms of demographics; of what kind of folks are they and what are their needs which we can help fill.  We are hearing more and more talking about either themselves or a family member or a friend who cannot eat wheat or grains with gluten in them.  They stare longingly at the cinnamon rolls and sigh sadly.  Those with celiac disease can’t have even a whisper of wheat or their tummies tie up in knots and they get sick as the dickens.

We’re seeing this concern melt into relief in the faces of folks when we talk about Graham Kerr’s recipe for using steamed kale compressed between two plates as a pizza crust.  Pizza can come back to their table when they entertain friends!  Eyes start dancing again and faces find smiles on board and they take a bunch or two and come back reporting success.  This tells us this is important stuff.

We want to provide gluten free bread products, though that seems an oxymoron, but know that because there is a continuum in the gluten issue ranging from those who just get a tummy ache from it to those for whom it can be fatal.  This is no casual matter.  So we are approaching it very, very carefully.

For example, we know that when we bake a test loaf we’re going to scrub down all the equipment extra well and dust off the knife rack hanging over the mixer so no flour can drift off into the batter.  We know that we’re going to re-wash every tool and bowl we use before we use it and dry it with a fresh, unused towel.  We’re going to make sure we are not wearing the same clothing we did when we made our regular breads.  And then we’re going to pray like demented beavers that it all goes well.

Even with that, we know we won’t ever have a kitchen which can become certified gluten free.  That would require more time and money than can be imagined.  So what are we to do?  There are folks needing this and asking for it and wanting it and supply is short.

What we are doing is putting our toe in the water, so to speak.  We have taken on a line of gluten free snacks from Sisters Baking out of Edmonds.  These two charming ladies have come up with a recipe for some granola and some munchies that are outstanding.  And not outrageously expensive either.  A bag full of their Rain City Crunch snack is only $6.50 here.  We got some in and sold ¾ of it in one day.  Hmmm.  Could there be something here we need to look at more closely?

We are.  We’ve got an order in for their next cycle of gluten free granola.  And tripled our order for the Crunch.  It is interesting that as we go through exploring this need, we are seeing clearly that it is also possible to be sustainable and GMO free and gluten free all at the same time.  It’s coming together folks, and it’s all very fun.

So we want to encourage you too, as you explore this fractured and fracturing world, to pick up this model and play with it.  Listen to what folks are saying, look at their eyes, and see how you can help smiles show up and eyes dance again.  Think about the niches of the world and find yours.  It takes a hermit crab a couple tries some times before he finds the right shell when he’s outgrown the old one, but eventually he does and off he trots to get lunch.  And today, his lunch will probably include some Rain City Crunch alongside the lovely lettuce he got from The Open Gate Farm.  It’s a good life.

Happy Hoeing,

Jon and Elaine, the sustainable farmers, Snickers the crunch sampling dog, Mystery the granola loving cat, Harley and his flock of crunch crunching chickens, and the Parson Dudley Brown and his flock of granola gobbling ducks, all of whom live joyfully at

The Open Gate Farm

269 Russell Road

Camano Island, WA 98282

360-387-4449

Open Wednesdays through Saturdays from 9 to 5, now until the end of September or later!