My thirty-first farm was Terribly Happy in Cottage Grove, Oregon.

The Farm

The farmers are Beth, whom I never met because she was off meeting her new grandchild, and Richard. Back in San Jose, Richard was a professor of geology and Beth taught middle school math and high school home economics. But they decided they wanted a lifestyle change. They wanted to reduce their use of fossil fuels and make a smaller footprint. Having a homestead where they grew much of their own food using organic and permaculture techniques would help them do that. They also wanted to be part of a community where they could make a difference. Big cities, they felt, were too large to be a big part of. In 2010 they took early retirement to start their homestead and a new, small town life.

The four-acre property they bought outside of Cottage Grove, originally was a dairy farm. Later it was bought by on older man who planted a lot of orchard trees. That was the attraction of the property for Richard. He knew nothing about trees (it turned out the original planter of the orchard didn’t either) and became a student of orchard trees before buying the property. The previous owner planted the trees in 2006-2009 so few trees were producing when Richard and Beth moved in in 2010. Also, many of the trees had been planted in tight root balls and were dead. Richard bought new trees and dug up the dead ones. Eventually, a two-acre orchard was established.

All was not well in the early years. A pot farm with 4,000 plants went in across from them. The aroma from the plants spread throughout the neighborhood. People moved out. Richard and Beth thought seriously about it. The owner eventually reduced the number of plants which reduced the odor. Still, in the evenings when the temperature drops, the smell of marijuana wafts through the open windows.

Richard and Beth are finally settled in. The orchard and fruit trees are producing, and they’ve connected with their new community by becoming key members of Sustainable Cottage Grove. At 60, Richard is one of the younger members. “It’s hard to get young people to move to small towns,” Richard explained. “I didn’t think I’d like living in a small town, but I really do!” 

My Experience

“August is the cruelest month” Richard.

The full force of the harvest hits in August. Richard was glad to have my help. I was interested in the nut trees. I’ve never harvested nuts and Richard had an orchard of ripening filberts. (Outside of Oregon they are called hazelnuts.) My introduction to them was tasting the filbert butter Richard made from his toasted nuts and copious amounts of olive oil. The flavor is subtle, and the texture is grainy, and it is a perfect compliment to the quince jam that Richard also makes.

My main task for the two weeks I spent on the farm was harvesting filberts. The nuts hang in little clusters under large leaves. When they are ripe, the shell turns light brown and they fall to the ground. The squirrels arrive as well. It was their dog Sherlock’s job to keep them away. And she took this job very seriously. To harvest the nuts, I put on my tree-debris protection outfit of sun hat, sunglasses, and long-sleeved shirt, and went inside a tree. Looking up, I could see the clusters hanging down. I plucked them off and tossed them into a bucket. For the lower nuts, I reached under the leaves to check for clusters. There were clusters under just about all the leaves. Richard and I worked as a team. Being short, I collected the lower nuts. Richard, being tall, harvested the higher nuts. One we had a tree or two done, we hauled our buckets to the shaded back porch, settled in with a beverage, and separated the nuts from the green husks. Then the nuts were put onto drying racks and placed in the greenhouse. The trees were ripening fast, and the greenhouse quickly filled with nuts!

Richard likes to find things to make with what he harvests. Before I arrived, he had harvested a large amount of elephant garlic. He didn’t like it as regular garlic, so what to do with all of it? He decided to make some into the trendy and expensive delicacy called black garlic. Garlic ferments when kept heated and moist for several weeks. The fermentation changes the color of the garlic to black and changes the hot bite to sweet. Richard experimented by putting some garlic in a small rice cooker and leaving it on for three weeks in the barn (in case of fire). When the three weeks were up, he found the garlic had been cooked too long and the heads were hard as a rock instead of soft and jelly-like. Undaunted, he turned them into powder with a Vege Mixer. We sampled it with low expectations. The thick grains were molasses-sweet and sticky, and a bit addictive like candy. We tried it on everything and found nothing it didn’t enhance. It worked on pasta. It worked sprinkled on toast spread with filbert butter. It probably would be delicious topping ice cream, but we didn’t try it on that.

 

 

 

 

 

The advantage of harvesting by hand, as opposed to by machine, is you can harvest only what’s ripe. It takes more time to harvest this way, but you get the best tasting fruit and produce. The black elderberries were ripening, and I was on a ladder going around the tall shrubs picking the dark, purple-black clusters. The problem began when I got to a spot where I’d already picked from. There were dark clusters that looked ripe compared to the lighter clusters that were left on the plant, but they were not fully ripe. When you take away the fully ripe clusters, the next in line are the darkest and can be thought to be ripe. Richard noticed I was picking unripe berries. He wasn’t worried since these elderberries were going into a bucket with water and wine yeast. The ripeness flavors would balance out.

“I haven’t been sick since I started taking it. I used to get sick all the time.” Richard.

Black elderberries also can boost the immune system. Richard makes a tincture with them (steeping the berries in vodka) and claims he hasn’t been sick in the three years he’s been taking a daily dose. He gave me a bottle to try. It tasted like Sucrets. I added a dropper full to a cup of Good Earth’s Sweet and Spicy tea. Yum! I hadn’t been sick in the last three years without taking black elderberry extract, but I’m going to add it to my tea making routine in the future. It can’t hurt!

One morning I found Richard’s pickup filled with boxes of different colored apples sitting next to his wooden cider press. It was farmers market day in Cottage Grove and he was pressing fresh cider to sell. One variety of apple had reddish flesh. It made the cider a neat reddish color. It was also delicious. All the varieties came together to make a sweet, complex cider.

Once the filberts were dry, I got to see the rest of the process. They were put into a cracking machine that I was too weak to crank. The nuts were separated out by hand. (I could do that.) And then they were roasted for five to seven minutes in a toaster oven. Once cooled, they went into a blender with neutral-flavored oil and came out as creamy filbert butter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Breakfasts were a conglomerate of many of Richard’s products. Homemade granola was the base. To it we added the apple cider, quince jam, homemade raisins, and filbert butter. We drew the line at black garlic, but maybe we shouldn’t have.

Richard and Sherlock start each day early in the morning with the watering routine. On one of my first days I walked with Richard and he shared his philosophy. “I’m trying to make things efficient and less labor intensive,” he said. Something that farmers come to realize with experience and advancing age, I’d noticed. Like most farmers I’ve met, he’s also trying to be sustainable. All of the water for the farm comes from rain barrels. It does not rain much in the summers in Oregon, so water must be conserved. Short showers are the rule. Straw mulch on the garden beds holds water that would drain quickly through the sandy soil.

One stab at sustainability and efficiency was a failure. Richard threw tree trunks and branches into raised beds called Hügelkultur. The idea is the decaying wood will add fertility, hold moisture, and become a perfect place to grow plants. In reality, the piles of wood became the perfect home for field mice who eat the plants. It became Sherlock’s and my job to deconstruct the wood piles and eradicate the mice. As I got deeper into the down, mice started to run out. “Sherlock!” I’d yell and point to the fleeing mouse. In no time at all Sherlock took care of the mouse. We were a good team. Mice and habitat destroyed.

Our final project was weeding the blackberry patch. Normally blackberries are the weed you are pulling out. This was new. In the side yard was a special area of trellises and a handful of cultivated blackberry plants. There were canes crisscrossing all over the ground. The goal was to remove the old brown canes and select the best new growth which will bear next year’s berries. Richard was nervous I might step on or break a delicate cane. This was serious work. We untangled the canes and laid them out so we could weed underneath them. Then the old ones were cut out. Richard spent much time hemming and hawing over which of the new growth to keep. Length was important. So was reaching a trellis wire. Once canes were selected, the unchosen were clipped out, and the winner was attached to a wire. Eventually, all the wires had a cane and patch looked as nice as any vineyard.

 

 

 

 

 

 

During my free time I took Sherlock for walks to look for squirrels and explored Eugene, a home of The Simpsons. Eugene was founded by Eugene Skinner, and I visited his cabin by the Willamette River. He was one of the original Californians moving up to Oregon in the mid-1840s. A trailhead up Skinner’s Dome is across the street. Mr. Skinner liked to climb the dome and survey his town. The town of Springfield is right next door to Eugene.

The Cascades Raptor Center just outside of Eugene was fun. They take raptors that can’t be returned to the wild. On each enclosure is the story of how the bird ended up at the center and what its current position is. Many of the birds are ‘ambassadors’ who are taken to schools to help educate the public on ways to protect raptors. Others are ‘apprentices’ still learning the ropes. I got to watch a young volunteer feed a small owl a dead mouse. The tail seemed as long as the little owl, and it took her a few swallows to get it all in and down. When I passed her again, she was in her wooden box at the top of her enclosure looking out at me with one eye. Only half her head was past the side of the box. I wished I could see her whole face. (She was cute!) When I read her description, I learned that she was at the center because she had lost an eye. In fact, reading the descriptions, eye damage was the leading cause of these birds not being able to return to the wild. If they couldn’t see well or didn’t have depth perception because they were missing an eye, they couldn’t hunt successfully and would die. Hitting wires and windows are problems for birds. The Spencer Butte trail starts next to the center. I had fine views of the Eugene area. It was greener than I expected. I finished my afternoon relaxing outside with a beer and my journal at Ninkasi Brewery.