Traced Elements

Category: farming

Blissfully Homesteading through a Pandemic

I don’t intend to downplay the seriousness of the present situation nor am I arrogant nor ignorant enough to suggest this will not affect everyone, including ourselves. My partner and I have been laid off over 2 months early and we rely on this income to get us through the lean planting and prepping season where were busy working and buying supplies with little income. We will have to adapt – something we are familiar with. “We will get by, we will survive”: an anthem and lyric from my favourite band.

Rural dwellers, being more isolated, have an advantage right now and farmers are optimists – they have to be, as every year poses new and unforeseen challenges. Different hits and misses, but things always seem to work out in the long run. Just planting seeds, building soil or incubating eggs is a sign you believe in the positivity for the future. Theres no short term gain. It’s all for a benefit sometime down the road.

Homesteading, by definition, is literally staying and working from home, something all others are being asked to do, many out of their comfort zone. Many of the practises the general public are being asked to do are commonplace for us. Farmers can’t be germaphobes, they are constantly exposed to bacteria, both good and bad. They also understand that such exposure builds up their immune system, same goes for plants and livestock. At the same time most understand the importance of disinfecting propagation rooms, equipment, and keeping stables and coops clean to prevent an outbreak of pests and diseases, which can get out of hand quickly. Once a problem is identified, it’s important to act quickly as the situation increases exponentially. Organic farmers will resist the temptation to completely nuke everything with chemicals – the idea is to regain a sense of balance, so nature can do the rest. You never get it all, just slow down and manage the overwhelming progression. Patience and persistence are the key. Sound familiar?

Quarantine is another age-old practice. It’s always a good idea to separate sick plants and animals for the greater good of the rest. The difficult decision to cull is something we all have to deal with. As Darwin observed long ago, it’s the survival of the fittest that lets the strongest genetics evolve. Sometimes you you have to let something special go, so others can live.

Organic farmers know that Mother Nature has a tendency to spank those who challenge her natural balance. The worst outbreaks occur in monocultures and factory farming. Mad cow disease, avian flus, E coli, listeria and now Covid 19 (apparently originating a dirty Asian market) are all examples of problems from an overcrowded, unsanitary, misguided system and unnatural methods.

Stocking up, preserving and being prepared are the cornerstones of homesteading. Pantries and freezers are like safety deposit boxes. It’s a currency that rarely devalues and becomes more valuable when times are tough. It’s something that is an ongoing process, not something you rush and do over a weekend. Toilet paper however, is not a survival item. Any naturalist knows water, newspaper, moss or leaves will do in a pinch, pardon the pun.

I’ve sometimes questioned my decision to live off the land, knowing if I did the math it would be much more economical to use my skillset and work as a landscape designer or operate heavy machinery, and buy food with a regular salary from regular sources. These options however didn’t offer to feed my soul. Working outside with nature is my happy place. In times like these, I have no regrets.

So it’s business as usual on the farm, with the always-lots-to-do list to keep busy. We will easily and naturally do our civic duty to self isolate, keep our social (media) distance, practice hygiene, stay active outdoors, and offer and accept help from the community. I just cleaned the chicken coop, I washed my hands thoroughly.

March 19, 2020
Soil Matters

“EVERY FARM HAS ITS OWN PERSONALITY,” says Amy Norgaard, a soil science student at the University of British Columbia, and former farmhand and market manager with Ice Cap Organics.

Her two-year-long Master’s thesis, which she will defend in late spring, required her to travel between 18 different organic farms across southwest B.C., the Pemberton Valley, the Fraser Valley and Vancouver Island’s Comox Valley, to collate data about nutrients and soil amendments.

At first, she thought this was going to give her the golden key to running the Ur-Farm, the perfect organic system, as she compiled tips and best practices from all the farms she was visiting and researching.

But what she discovered is, there is no homogeny in small-scale, mixed-vegetable organic farming. And the idiosyncracies, in contrast to Big Ag’s monotony, work. “I’m working with this very niche group and yet none of these farms look the same!” she exclaims.

Norgaard is an endearing combination of exuberance and intensity when she’s talking about her passions, of which snowboarding, soil and the tastiness of Pemberton-grown vegetables rank high. Now 27, she grew up in Merritt, hunting with her dad, and ripping around the mountain at Apex. She loved animals, worked at the local vet clinic, kept chickens as part of her 4H club program and captained every sports team she played on. She studied kinesiology for a while and hated it, took a season off to live in Whistler and snowboard every day and spent summers firefighting. Then, she stumbled into a soil science course. It was life-changing.

She started learning about farming systems and their complexity and beauty and “the complete mess we’ve made with food production.” Two years later, she interned for eight months at Pemberton’s Ice Cap Organics to get her final six credits and dissolve what seemed to her to be a romantic idea about farming. It didn’t work: She loved it.

Norgaard is still enchanted by the mystery of soil, and how, as much as we might have learned in the last 50 years, we’re realizing how little we understand of the infinite complexity of this system. “Soil is the basis of life,” she says. “This thin layer of topsoil we have on Earth is the medium for everything we depend on. Literally. For food and forests, for carbon cycles, for everything else it does like filter and hold water, and cycle nutrients. Literally, without soil we wouldn’t have a medium for decomposition.” And it’s one-metre thin—akin to a single cellular layer of skin on our bodies. And like our skin, it’s holding everything together. “Civilizations rise and fall with their soil management. It’s considered a finite resource in relation to our human lifespan.”

The goal is not to measure soil quality, but orient towards soil health. Health is an important reframe, because soil is living. “It’s super offensive to a soil scientist to call it dirt, because dirt is inert. There’s no life in dirt. But soil is life.”

And as much as a farm is a product of its landscape and its soil health, it’s also a reflection of the personality of its farmers, and the values and intentions they pour into it, liquidized as sweat.

‘FARMING WAS A WAY TO ALIGN WITH OUR VALUES’

When I first met Delaney and Alisha Zayac, they had one season under their belt running Ice Cap Organics, their mixed-vegetable organic farm. They’d just bought an old house on two hectares in the Pemberton Valley between the Lillooet and Miller Rivers, and had a baby. Having tree-planted and run tree-planting crews for the last decade, they knew how to work hard. They’d read Vandana Shiva, the legendary food security activist, and Shiva’s writing prompted Alisha to transfer out of marine biology and into agroecology. An internship with Helmers Organic Farmhad put Pemberton on her radar. But at the beginning, it all seemed like a high-stakes gamble. Their five-year goal was ambitious, and yet not: they wanted to still be farming, and to work out how to have one day off a week.

Fast forward to 2020. Would they tell their younger selves to change course, and try an easier life?

“Definitely not!” says Delaney.

“No!” echoes Alisha. “The other way around. It’s amazing.”

It took some time to find the balance, between pouring everything into getting the farm going, and making time for themselves, for family. Ten years in, it’s manageable. But it’s still exciting, because the only constant is not-knowing. “You’re constantly making decisions,” says Delaney. “What amendments you’re using, what you plant where, how you’ll harvest different things, what tillage equipment you’re going to use. You’re doing it so constantly, and every decision has such weight in terms of outcomes, that you really feel you are part of the process. You’re connected to the ground. If I go out there and it’s time to start planting, and I till up a bunch of land too early and make it all crumbly and into little balls of mud, by making that one wrong decision I’m going to totally affect the fertility of that soil, and I’ve done that and seen what happens.” The farm becomes a literal manifestation of their intentions, decisions, and actions, for better and worse.

One year, late in May, Delaney hiked up the ridge above Ice Cap Organics and looked down. He saw it suddenly, not as a manifestation of hundreds of decisions and learnings and missteps and logistics, but as a creative work, a personal expression of the two of them.

It’s their version of marching for the climate.

“Being an organic small-scale farmer, in some ways, is being a radical activist,” reflects Delaney. “It actually has more of a tangible impact on community and on ecosystem than protesting at the anti-world trade. I support that, too. I want to see change. I want to see big change in the world. We both do.”

When they were in university, they realized that more than running around and talking about change, they wanted to be the change. They wanted to put their life’s work into something that manifested positive progress.

“Farming was a way to align with our values,” says Alisha. “As soon as I started farming, I realized, this is actually enough.”

But it’s not just a one-day march, after which you get to leave your signs in the gutter and go home. Small-scale organic farming is an all-in business—a complex one to operate at the level of intimacy that two hectares and a family operation demand. “Farming isn’t just a manufacturing business where you get 1,000 parts made in China and ship them over and sell them,” says Delaney. “You are actually producing. You’re managing the production on the farm, you’re managing sales, you’re managing all the systems—the irrigation system, soil-health system, greenhouse system, staff.”

Ice Cap Organics plant, weed and harvest mostly everything by hand, pay fair wages and use farming practices that make the ecosystem healthier and more diverse. On their website, they explain the value their community-supported-agriculture (CSA) subscribers get when they sign up for a season (20 weeks) of harvest boxes. “It is cheaper to grow a head of lettuce on a 500-acre mono-crop lettuce farm in California with poorly paid migrant workers, massive capital infrastructure and harvesting equipment.” But, because buying direct from the farmer eliminates the middlemen in the supply chain, a consumer pays about the same.

So the question is not just what are you having for dinner, tonight, but what system do you want to invest in? What world do you want to help manifest?

Charles Massy, author of Call of the Reed Warbler, and a leading voice for regenerative organic agriculture—the use of farming to tend the soil and nurture living systems, rather than exploit, poison and deplete them as industrial monocropping tends to do—says regenerative agriculture is nearly two-and-a-half times better at burying carbon in the ground than anything else. “I see it as one of the very best solutions for global warming,” said Massy in a recent visit to Patagonia’s Ventura headquarters. “Since the Second World War, we humans have destabilized nearly all of the natural systems. We’re destabilizing things to the point where our own survival will become an issue. Yet because everything is integrated in a healthy system, with regenerative agriculture, there are all these positive knock-on effects—we store more water, we stop erosion, we encourage biodiversity. And it’s not just farmers that can get into this. The regenerative agriculture movement will only work when their products are supported by the urban community. It’s a two-way partnership and together we can really start addressing some of these major challenges tipping us towards [extinction].”

The Zayacs can attest to how much more embedded in the climate and landscape they feel since starting their farm. “There’s something about just staying in one place and working the same land, for year upon year upon year,” reflects Delaney. “A big part of our being is invested in this ground here.”

They’re also embedded in the community in a way they weren’t before.

Explains Alisha: “Before the farm, we were part of lots of little bubbles, but here, you’re farming, harvesting your vegetables, putting your vegetables in the truck, taking them to people in Vancouver.” It’s an intimate, hand-to-hand transaction. She can easily imagine their customers cooking up dinner for friends later that night. Delaney says that, with a couple hundred people visiting them at market, he can mostly remember each face. It feels like mycelium, the exquisite interconnected branches of fungi that make soil healthy, through which plants communicate and share nutrients—a living network.

It’s deeply meaningful. And yet, it’s constantly humbling. “Little things happen all the time to let you know you don’t have it all figured out,” says Delaney. “Farming is a lifelong learning process. And at the end of the day, we’re just growing some veggies.”

‘OUR SUCCESS IS ALSO EVERYONE ELSE’S SUCCESS’

Rootdown Organics started the same year as Ice Cap—and both benefitted from mentorship and enthusiasm of the Helmers. The organic ecosystem of the Pemberton Valley has since expanded to include community-supported-agriculture (or harvest box) offerings from Laughing Crow, Plenty Wild, Blue House Organics, and Four Beat Farm. The Pemberton Farmers Market has been named the Farmers Market of the Year in the medium (21-to-60 vendor) category, organic flower farms are sprouting up, North Arm Farm is still a stalwart, and using the metric of residents per brewery, Pemberton was just voted the Best Beer Town in B.C. by The Growler, thanks to the Pemberton Brewing Company and the Miller family’s farm-to-tap offering, The Beer Farmers.

As small, mixed-vegetable organic farms have sprung up in Pemberton, the growers have had to work out how to micro-target within the regional market—selling to restaurants versus Vancouver markets versus Squamish and Whistler markets—so they’re not competing directly with each other. “This farming gig is hard enough,” says Kerry McCann and Andrew Budgell, farming partners at Laughing Crow Organics,“without stepping on one another’s toes. We are in competition, even though all our businesses are slightly different. But our success is also everyone else’s success. If the other farms in the valley can’t thrive and be successful as humans and enterprises, that reflects on our ability to achieve success, too. Everyone is pretty good at finding their specialty and overlapping as little as possible.”

Laughing Crow started eight years ago in a leased front field on Meadows Road on “a tight budget and a lot of hope.” They expanded each season, thanks to a Trojan work ethic and landowners Scott Lattimer and Lynne Menzel, who were willing to support their vision. It was exhausting, but the vision was strong: create a livelihood that would give back to the community, allow them to work for themselves, and not create a burden for the future generation to inherit. Last April, they moved their operation to 2.4 leased hectares at the Millers’ farm, which meant relocating and re-installing all their infrastructure—greenhouses, irrigation, washing and packing stations—from scratch, just as planting season was underway. On the plus side, it meant being able to tap into decades of farming know-how and the Millers’ intimate familiarity with the subtleties of the ground that Kerry and Andrew were now working. Not to mention, Bruce and Brenda Miller pioneered some of the first CSA mixed vegetable harvest box offerings in Pemberton almost 15 years ago.

With the Millers’ newest farm experiment, the wildly successful Beer Farmers, having turned their new address into a destination, it made sense for Laughing Crow to try their hand at agritourism, so last season, they set up an honour stand, planted out a huge maze of sunflowers and grew what would become known as “The Grand Majestic Pumpkin Patch of Pemberton.” Of course, it was all an experiment.

“We had a moment in July,” reflects McCann, “when we thought the sunflowers were going to bloom too early.” In their nightmares, the stunted maze would have suited only toddlers, but as it turned out, the sunflowers exploded into the most Instagrammed, beloved and feted event of the summer. “It turned out to be far more amazing than we anticipated. Neither of us had ever been in a field of flowers that big. The spectacle was really wonderful to be around and walk through. On top of the general beauty, the reaction from the community was really awesome. Everyone was so happy. It was infectious.”

It felt like a win, to not only feed people through farming, but also be able to entertain and educate. “We know firsthand how thought-provoking it is to wander through the fields, to appreciate the plants and wonder about the food, the soil and the bugs,” says Budgell. Often their day will start or end with a walk around the fields, taking notes to create the next day’s to-do list.

Inviting people onto the land itself—school groups, families, pumpkin hunters and sunflower lovers—was a way that Laughing Crow thought they could grow not just food, but activists and allies of the Earth and soil, as well.

“We’d like to think that a visit to our farm and a wander through a field of sunflowers loaded with bees will crank up the urgency knob the next time someone is faced with the hard data on how we are endangering these very things,” says Budgell, “maybe in different a way than reading something on the internet or attending a climate march in Vancouver. Humans are always far more likely to protect what they feel connected to. Plus, what better way to build community than to meet up at a local farm brewery, on a local farm, chat with your local buddies and farmers and go home with some local food from the farm stand?”

FEEDING THE SOIL, FEEDING THE WORLD

Project Drawdown makes the case for taking up your knife and fork for the climate. “The world cannot be fed unless the soil is fed.” At least half of the carbon in the Earth’s soil has been released into the atmosphere over the past centuries. Putting it back, through regenerative agriculture, is one of the greatest opportunities to address human health, climate health and the financial well-being of farmers.

One thing Amy Norgaard can say with certainty, having dug deep into soil health for the past two years, is that the Pemberton Valley hit paydirt when it came to soil. “You’re sitting on an amazing expanse of soils, which is a really valuable resource, not only for food production but for the ecosystem services that farmlands provide to society.” Don’t squander it, she urges. “It’s important for those soils to be managed well. That is often more expensive for the farmer, so as consumers, we need to be willing to pay for that land stewardship. We have to allow for the food to cost more. If farming isn’t a viable occupation, then those lands won’t be used for farming. Those beautiful meadows will become billionaires’ playgrounds and vacation homes.”

When regenerative farming is economically viable, Norgaard concludes, farmers do the hard work of protecting and stewarding the resource. It’s probably the yummiest way of contributing to positive climate action.

Earth activism needs fighters, warriors, protestors, policy makers, lobbyists, dreamers, repairers, regenerators. It needs us all. And as much, if not more, than anything else, it needs people to stand for the planet who know the smell of dirt under their nails, of sun on their skin and sweat on their brow, who know the joy of planting a seed and tending it, and harvesting it when it transforms into fecund and vibrant life. It needs us to sustain and nourish ourselves and each other, and to gather around tables of fresh healthy food, just plucked from the bed, still trailing the heat of the sun. It needs us to be attuned to the rhythms and cycles of the seasons. It needs us to know, with a deep cellular knowing, that even when you can’t see it, the life force is thrumming within, just waiting for the conditions to be right, just waiting for the right ally to come along.

And that is how you can eat your planet whole again. The formula is simple: Soil is life. Support those who keep it healthy. And by way of return on your investment, they’ll keep you healthy too.

This feature ran in the Pique on February 27 2020 and was a follow-up to a story I wrote for the Patagonia Journal. All photos by Garrett Grove.

Follow the Pemby farm scene on instagram:

@laughingcroworganics

@icecaporganics

@thebeerfarmers

@amyyellen

And photographer @GarrettGrove

March 12, 2020
Pemberton farmers featured in Patagonia’s Winter 2020 catalogue: What the Farmers Know

Turns out the crucial work of tending to the land balances nicely with the release of deep winter rollicking in the mountains.

If you ever need to remind yourself to look up from the grind and enjoy life, go skiing with a farmer.

The stoke is real. They do not take their time away from the to-do list for granted. Well-versed in how to put the head down and keep moving, they use great conversation to keep the body going when energy would otherwise flag. They pack the best snacks, and are wonderfully nonplussed about changing a flat tire on a fully-loaded vehicle or digging you out of a snow-filled ditch. And they know a break is only what you make of it.

To find their sort, go where the mountains are high and soil is rich.

Run by a couple of avid skiers, Ice Cap Organics is a ten-year-old mixed vegetable organic farm, on five hyper-productive acres in British Columbia’s Pemberton Valley. All winter long, with snow covering the greenhouses and fields, Delaney and Alisha Zayac, 42 and 39, keep a close eye on the weather. And whenever the conditions are right, Delaney, is up at 3 a.m., blazing out the door, skinning in the dark with headlamps to pursue objectives out on Miller Ridge or Duffey Lake Road with a small crew of friends. Alisha often opts to show their kids what’s to love about winter.

The volcanic-rich river-silt blessed soil of the Pemberton Valley has earned many farmers’ attention, but it’s the massive Coast Mountains that catch the farming-skiing type. And if the mountains bring folks in, it’s sometimes the farming that gets them to stay—loamy earth beneath 8,000-foot mountains, and living to the sound of glacier-fed rivers.

“It’s why we’re here,” says Alisha. “Winters off is one of the things that drew us to farming,” explains the former tree-planter and agro-ecology scientist. “We love farming, we believe in it, and this is what we want to do, but we chose Pemberton, because we wanted mountains. We canvassed the world, to find places where you have mountains and farmland – Bella Coola, Pemberton, Chile, a couple of places in France.”

Delaney reflects on their decision-making process—a couple of young nomads who were dividing their year into three seasons—university, tree-planting, travelling or skiing. He’d spent his twenties and early thirties skiing over 100 days a year, bumming throughout the Canadian Rockies, Kootenays and Coast Range, and venturing farther afield to the Andes and the Alps. It was time to root down and think about having a family but Delaney knew that without big mountains there was no chance of his calling a place home. Pemberton was fertile, steep, proximate to a hungry market, and permanently set to stun—a place where there are no ugly views.

Now their year breaks into two parts: farming season, and winter. As the farm sleeps, the pair take turns driving their vegetables down to winter markets in Vancouver, a city of 2.5 million people two hours to the south. They make plans, research the latest science and developments in farming, ski, and regenerate. “We work hard in the summer, and play hard in the winter.” Every morning since completing the 10-day silent Vipassana retreat she’s wanted to do for decades, Alisha wakes up before dawn, before the kids, 6 and 8, have roused, to sit and meditate for an hour, watch her mind, and bank some equanimity for the day ahead. Delaney plans his last spring mission to the remote Waddington Range. Bad weather days, they tackle the farm chores, like sourcing an old upright freezer from a Chinese grocery store that they can upcycle into a germinator for their seed starts.

Then, come growing season, they take up their mantle as activists.

“That’s another reason we started farming,” says Alisha. “It was a way to align with our values, a positive way to be part of the community. I wanted to fight the good fight for agriculture and as soon as I started farming, I realized this is actually enough.” It’s a quiet, radical activism.

After he’s been at the markets in the city for the weekend, the first thing Delaney does is park the truck, grab the kids and walk around in the fields together, see how things are looking, noting the growth and changes that have unfurled in the last three days. The Lillooet River runs past the end of the narrow, pot-holed street, flowing down out of the ice-cap and past the sulfurous thermal sleeping volcano that still vents steam out its fumeroles. The Lil’wat Nation, whose traditional territory this is, says the wild land upstream of Ice Cap’s farm has a power that comes from deep in the earth. It’s so big and powerful that when he skis back there, it gives him goosebumps. He treads the soil of the farm to shake off the city, touch down, ground down, and tap quickly back into that energy.

Winter gives it the time to seep in.

“Every farm has its own personality,” says Amy Norgaard, who’s worked at many farms in the Pemberton Valley, including Ice Cap Organics.

Amy, 26, grew up in western Canada, in the 7,000-person ranching and logging town of Merritt, British Columbia, skiing and snowboarding obsessively from the age of two. When her mom got breast cancer, Amy, then in high-school, discovered that vegetables are potent and delicious medicine. Later, she floundered through university courses until discovering the faculty of Land and Food systems—that’s when Amy found her people.

“I took my first soil science course in 2013 and it literally changed my life. I started learning about farming systems and their complexity and beauty and the complete mess we’ve made with food production.” Two years later, to acquire her final six credits and prove to herself that her romantic idea of farming probably wouldn’t withstand reality, she interned as a farmhand for eight months at Ice Cap. All the pieces fell into place – her love of the mountains and her understanding that being stressed is completely different from working hard. She farmed so hard that years of brain-spinning insomnia disappeared, allowing her to fall asleep exhausted and satisfied.

Of course, the skiing helped.

For the last eight years that he has lived in Pemberton, Andrew Budgell rented a poorly insulated cabin near his farm fields, tucked off the narrow road in a giant grove of cedars. Winter is the only time he’s not covered in dirt, but the price he pays is in “cold.” Some days, it was so freezing, he’d blast hot air in his face with a hair dryer to bring himself back to life.

“He calls it the comfort gun,” says his soft-spoken farming partner, Kerry McCann.

Andrew, 44, and Kerry, 36, met in Pemberton eight years ago, when Andrew, a ski-bumming boot-fitter in Whistler and refugee from the suburbs of Ottawa, decided to experiment with growing salad greens as a side hustle. He knew nothing about farming, except that he wasn’t afraid of hard work, loved learning, and wanted to attune more deeply to the rhythms of the earth.

McCann, a beekeeper, yoga teacher and cranio-sacral therapist, had been working as the “hands” of an arthritic physiotherapist in the economically depressed community in Ontario where she’d grown up, home-schooled, on a self-sufficient homestead run by her back-to-the-lander parents. Changes in the health insurance legislation meant her work was drying up, so she ventured west, and stopped in the first place she found that had seven pages of help wanted ads in the newspaper – the Whistler-Pemberton corridor. She convinced her landlord to let her install garden beds alongside the field where Andrew was growing his greens. As her seasonal job as a park host wound down, Kerry began to ponder her next move when Andrew proposed next-leveling his salad bar. “Maybe we should start a farm? I can’t do this alone. We’ll get bees!”

Kerry is an instinctive grower. Where Andrew acquires knowledge through his brain, poring over books and websites, and studying dewpoint and freezing level and weather models, Kerry’s insight into the natural world flows through her actual pores – she will walk outside, sniff the air and announce, “Frost is on its way. We should cover the vegetables.” These approaches define their skiing styles, too: Andrew studies maps and trip reports; Kerry rests on instinct.

Seven years into operating Laughing Crow Organics – their certified organic mixed vegetable farm – they’ve doubled income and veggie production almost every year. But Andrew says, “The reality is, we’re both very challenged in pulling this off. We are living and breathing this farm dawn until dusk.” Farming, just like hiking and skiing your ass around the mountains in temps that turn any exposed hair into icecicles, is not an easy endeavour.

But they always eat well, and when winter arrives, they forget their 30-item daily to-do list and head for the hills.

Kerry spent years meditating and practicing yoga; skiing is her winter practice, exploring the backroads and drainages and skin laps around Pemberton. “I used to spend a lot of time looking for enlightenment. But when you’re skiing powder, it’s a kind of samadhi,” she says, referring to the yogic word for oneness, or meditative absorption, the goal of all her sitting. It’s a kind of short-cut.

Increasingly, Amy is part of Laughing Crow Organic’s winter crew too. After several seasons with Ice Cap, she went to graduate school to study soil science. She skis every chance she gets. “Part of the connection you gain from farming comes from being so exposed to the elements. There’s a lot of vulnerability. You don’t know what the day is going to look like, and you’re vulnerable to what Mother Nature wants to do to you.” She thinks about this when she’s out skiing, too—the natural synergy between mountain people and growers, and how they understand the thrill and sense of vitality that come from being immersed in the elements. The honest exhaustion at the end of the day’s effort. The risk, the reward of getting out among it.

Most of the modern developed world is a set of systems and habits and structures designed to limit our exposure to nature and keep us safe from variability, from discomfort or physical labor, and help us not even break a sweat. We tease our way back into our animal selves when we grab our skis and go back out. But the illusion of separation remains, constantly reinforced every time we jump into a vehicle, order a coffee to-go, stock up at the grocery store where an invisible, complex, global supply chain presents us with the illusion of a constant steady supply of fuel, of food, insulating us from our true vulnerability on this delicate earth.

It’s good to sit with that: what the skiing-farmers know.

This story was featured in Patagonia’s Winter 2020 Journal. All images captured by Garrett Grove.

Follow IceCap Organics on instagram at www.instagram.com/icecaporganics/

and Laughing Crow Organics at www.instagram.com/laughingcroworganics/

February 12, 2020
Winterizing your garden

The crops are in, the first frost has decimated whatever was left, markets are over, but the work isn’t over yet. In fact, it’s often one of the busiest times for farmers. That last push is crucial, and it can be difficult to get motivated in the cool mornings and reduced daylight. Most farmers are close to burnout by this time. My partner and I like to take a well deserved vacation in November so there’s a real fire under our asses to meet that Halloween deadline. Besides the usual firewood stacking and yard clean up, I’ve posted my autumn to-do list:

PLANTING: Most people are stoked to plant in the spring, and busy garden centers at that time are proof. Fact is, the fall is the best time to plant and deals can be had. I like to plant perennials, spring bulbs and fruit trees. Garlic, of course, should always be planted now. They will stay dormant throughout winter and get the earliest possible start in the spring. Cool wet weather should get their roots established before the hot dry summer.

PRESERVING SURPLUS: This is the time to use up what’s left. Pickle, make jams, freeze, dehydrate and juice. It’s a shame to see your hard work wasted. Trade, barter or give it away.

DIGGING/STORING/COVERING TENDER PLANTS: If your favourite plant is pushing its winter hardiness zone, you will have to protect it or move it indoors. Perennials should be cut back and mulched, roses and hydrangeas should be hilled with dirt. Really tender stuff should be potted and slowly acclimatized to the indoors. We are busy at this time digging up hundreds of dahlia tubers and storing them in crates in our garage. Some root crops can be mulched and covered with plywood and harvested throughout the winter.

REMOVING THE POLY FROM HOOP HOUSES: If you don’t do this now, you will inevitably be shovelling and/or waking up to a collapsed greenhouse.

SHUTTING DOWN AND DRAINING WATER LINES: If you don’t do this now you will inevitably be facing split lines and fittings in the spring. Roll up hoses and hang them up.

SERVICE MACHINERY: This is the best time to fix broken stuff, maintain and winterize anything mechanical. Put it away in a dry spot.

COVER CROP: Fall rye and legumes are excellent amendments and protect your soil from erosion and weeds. Plant them now and turn the green carpet under in the spring. Topdressing with manure is also an excellent idea.

FERTILIZING: This is often overlooked at this time. Look for high potassium (K) to increase hardiness and Phosphorus (P) for early root growth in the spring. Feed anything that didn’t thrive and seemed depleted. If you soil tends to be acidic, lime now to raise PH as it takes many months to adjust.

RAKE LEAVES: While this can be done in the spring, it’s easier to do now when they’re dry and they can be used as mulch or compost. Whatever you do, don’t burn them, you just smoke out your neighbours. Cleaning up under fruit trees is important to prevent the spread of pests and disease.

CLEARING AND BURNING BRUSH: With the leaves gone, its easier to brush cut. It’s also often the safest time to burn it. Theres nothing better than watching “Hippie TV” on a cool autumn evening.

PICK STUFF UP: It’s a drag to find rusted tools and odds and ends when the snow melts.

TAKE NOTES: While your memory is fresh, this is a good time to reflect on your successes, failures and what you plan to change next year.

November 5, 2019
Doomsday Gardening

First of all I’m not a doomsday prepper, but in these parts I know a few who are. I doubt however many of them have put much thought about what they could grow and eat to sustain themselves. Canned and processed food could get boring pretty quick. With all this talk about climate change, mass extinction, nuclear disasters, and displacement from war and environmental degradation, I have put some thought about how my garden might look in a post-apocalyptic world. Resourceful homesteaders will no doubt have the best chances of survival. City folk, no matter how wealthy, will be screwed. In this scenario, I am assuming there will be little availability of clean water for irrigation, access to fertilizers, electricity to heat greenhouses, gas for equipment etc. Time spent outdoors may be limited due to the harsh elements.

I have put together a short list of the hardiest, most foolproof, lowest maintenance crops that will thrive without any care while you idle away time in your bunker. Lazy gardeners without much of a green thumb, take note.

RHUBARB: This is the vegetable that doubles as fruit. Tart and nutritious and delicious when mixed with something sweet. It is one of the first things to sprout in the spring. I believe its impossible to kill once established. I assume in the worst case nuclear holocaust there will just be rats eating rhubarb. You can go to a farmstead that has been abandoned for decades and can always tell where the garden was by the rhubarb patch that has thrived without any care whatsoever.

ASPARAGUS: Probably the next thing to sprout in the early spring. Once established it will spread and return year after year, pushing though thick grasses and weeds. It can be eaten raw or quickly boiled. It propagates from both seeds and roots.

RASPBERRIES: A raspberry bush will produce pounds of berries for a couple decades. Some varieties will produce all growing season. Rich in vitamin C, they can be dried or made into jams. The canes will die off annually and send up even more shoots the following year. Suckering roots will keep spreading and create a big patch in a few years. Although they like a fair amount of water to produce large berries a good layer of bark mulch should retain enough moisture to do the job.

JERUSALEM ARTICHOKES: A member of the Sunflower family (Sunchokes). These tuberous roots can provide the starch as your staple. They are invasive and spread (give them room). Extremely prolific yield from a single tuber – all you have to do is leave a small percentage in the ground and they will return indefinitely. They keep for quite a while in a cool area.

AMARANTH: This is an ancient grain that the Hopi indians made bread from. It grows tall and quickly with large blooms of burgundy flowers that eventually produce an abundance of seeds that can be crushed to make a type of flour. Although an annual, they readily self seed so there will be no need replant. It is now mostly used as an ornamental cut flower, so you can also have a nice arrangement in your bunker.

MINTS: This is a very large family of herbs, with a myriad of flavours from lemon to chocolate. They can be used to enhance foods or make tea. They are good at soothing a bellyache and inducing sleep. An established mint patch is virtually indestructible and will continue to spread.

HAZELNUTS : Also called filberts, they are native to this area and can be naturalized easily. They are a good source of protein. You may have to kill the squirrels and birds before they raid the tree, but hey, that could be some additional meat protein.

GRAPES : Not only fabulous fresh or dried as raisins, wine might end up being the most valued product to uplift your dampened spirits. A grape vine can live for centuries in the most marginal soils.

CANNABIS: This is the most essential and versatile medicine you can grow. Seeds are nutritious and can be made into oil. It can be used to calm and provide inspiration. It’s easy to grow – that’s why it’s called weed.

So here you have it. When the shit hits the fan and you want to survive beyond what your 36 hr emergency kit offers, you’d better start planning your own doomsday garden because I don’t intend on sharing when push comes to shove.

October 25, 2019
10 Lessons learned from 10 years of homesteading: Sweetwater Lane Farm reflects on their decade milestone

This guest post was written by Gus Cormack and Jocelyn Sereda, homesteaders and B&B operators, who celebrate their 10th anniversary living with the land this year. Everything they learned they learned the hard way – by doing it, with skin in the game, and their young family depending on them getting it right. They have slowly turned a 7 acre plot of land at the end of Owl Ridge, originally set up for horses, into a permaculture-inspired homestead, where they raise all their own meat, eggs, honey as well as fruit and veggies. I caught them in a reflective mood (having just enjoyed an amazing home-grown meal with them, and been gifted some sourdough starter to kick off my breadmaking journey) and asked them to round up their best 10 learnings to share with us. ~ Lisa

by Gus and Jocelyn

This year marks 10 years of homesteading at Sweetwater Lane Farm.

It started with a dream. We had big ideas to solve the problems of the world so we packed up our lives in the Big Smoke, left careers and the comfort of family and old friends, and set off into the unknown, armed with just a bag full of clothes, our skis and our ambitions.

The first step was to find an ideal place to live – somewhere we could grow food and play in the mountains. After many lists and much deliberation, we landed in Pemberton, our new homesteading paradise, and started the journey that continues today.

Along the way, ideals gave way to pragmatism, pragmatism turned into frustration, then frustration became the realization that “hey, this is actually working”! And the cycle continues.

When Lisa asked us to write about 10 lessons learned the hard way in 10 years of homesteading, we jumped on it. We quickly found it was difficult to nail down just 10, because when you are homestead farming, every day is a lesson. And most of those days the lessons are learned the hard way. This list, by no means exhaustive, is just our top 10.

1. Chickens are a gateway animal: If you think you’re just going to get a couple of chickens for fun, and maybe enjoy some eggs for breakfast every now and then, you might be in for a surprise. They are addictive. You’ll lose hours of your life watching the chicken channel. And it will be the best thing ever! You somehow fall in love with the simplicity of their lives and the meditative way they meander around the yard eating bugs and grass. The eggs are fantastic and you’ll never go back to store-bought. The next thing you know you’ll have 30 chickens, 3 cows, 2 donkeys, 3 pigs, 6 ducks, 2 cats and 2 dogs. And I’m not sure if it ends there. Stay tuned!

2. Bait the Bears: Homestead farming necessarily creates a plethora of bear attractants. Some of our favorite things to eat on the farm also happen to be bear’s favorite foods. In the first few years, we had several incidents with bears breaking into portable chicken coops or climbing fruit trees. It wasn’t until we had one particularly problematic bear that killed around 100 chickens over the course of 2 sleepless weeks that we learned about baiting our electric fences. Simply wrapping some bacon around hot electric fences solved all our bear problems overnight. Once they put their sensitive noses on a 10 joule fence they never come back!

3. Ravens are smarter than you: These majestic black birds have earned their place in folklore the world over. Seeing them systematically dismantle our chicken coops to steal chicks, open doors to steal eggs or send decoy birds in to distract the guard dogs, you quickly realize why they are revered creatures. We have loved observing them over the years and are okay with them winning the occasional battle. They exploit your weaknesses and therefore help make you smarter in the long run.

4. Weeds will always be your best crop: The better you get at growing the things you want to grow, the better the weeds seem to get at growing! For years we fought a losing battle. The weed seeds come from literally everywhere and are very motivated to grow. Fast. Like with almost everything else on the farm, we started to look at how we could use them to our advantage (after trying all the other tricks we could come up with to beat them). It turns out that many of the “weeds” in the garden are actually far more nutritious than the salad greens we were growing so we started just eating them! Chickweed and lamb’s quarter salad quickly became a favorite. If you work in a fancy restaurant perhaps consider adding salade de mauvaises herbes to the menu and start feeding your customers weeds! Animals also love to eat most of the prolific weeds so they are essentially free animal feed. On top of that, when you pick the weeds and use them as mulch around the plants you actually WANT to grow, you add nutrients to the soil, conserve moisture, and save yourself the time and money buying and applying more commercial mulch around the plants. Voila. The enemy becomes an ally!

5. Water is Life: We can’t overstate this. Until your water pump dies and your plants are baking in the hot sun, you won’t know the importance. It’s nothing like city life where you turn on the tap and presto aqua de vita! It’s much more complicated to be self-sufficient. To further complicate things, pumps only seem to break down when the temperature is over 35C and most likely on a long weekend. Parts aren’t easy to come by nor are tradespeople who can fix them properly when you need them. Get educated and find a good supplier who answers the phone when you need to troubleshoot and make sure you always have spare parts on hand! This is also one of the first things you should look into when deciding which property to buy – how much water is available and where does it come from? This was another lesson learned the hard way, but that is a whole other story…

6. Don’t push shit up hill: This might sound like an old saying but there’s a very practical application for it. We inherited a septic system that uses a pump to push waste up a hill to a septic field. When you live in a rural area and the power goes out – what’s going to push your shit uphill? So given the chance to do it over, definitely let shit roll downhill. As a side note: This applies in a non-literal way to almost everything else in homesteading life as well.

7. Squash are sexual deviants: Squash are one of the coolest things to grow on the farm. They are very independent, not needing much love or attention; they are prolific and create a huge amount of food that can store all winter from just one seed. The problem with squash is, if left to their own devices they will happily breed with every other squash within close vicinity. This can create some really interesting and tasty combinations, but most likely you will end up with a soft shelled pumpkin. So plant your squash away from each other or be prepared for strange tasting and looking crosses.

8. Plan for Death: Before you get your first farm animal, take the time to think about how you are going to deal with their end of life. If it’s a meat animal, know how, where and when you are going to butcher them and how you are going to get them there. That little piglet you brought home in a dog crate certainly won’t fit in there at the end of the season! It’s impossible to get someone to come slaughter your animals with no forward planning. Also having the right tools and set up is essential if you are going to do it yourself. If it’s a long-term farm animal, still be ready for the off-chance your animal passes suddenly. We lost an almost full grown steer once. Without a tractor on hand we wouldn’t have been able to deal with it in a timely manner. It’s not something we want to have to think about but doing so can save you a significant amount of stress and give you better systems to work with in the meantime.

9. There’s no such thing as a free animal: Driving home one day we saw a sign on the highway that said “free chickens”. We excitedly went home to grab a dog crate and headed back to pick up our new free animals smiling about what a great deal it was. We loaded them up and got them settled into their coop. About 2 weeks later these free chickens started to crow. We had a dozen “free roosters”. They competed crowing with each other day and night. All of them. All the time. Moral of the story is, if they are free they will come at a cost. You just may not know what that cost is right away.

10. Everything should have a job: Every animal on the farm should have a job. Otherwise you will just be collecting pets that will take up your time and money. If you need to build up your soil then rotational grazing of cows and chickens is great. If you need protection from predators in your pasture then a guard dog or even a donkey works great. Having animals that instinctively add to the farm will help lighten the load and enhance your homestead. Right now we are using our donkeys to help fire smart the forest beside the house. Otherwise we might have to consider them lawn ornaments.

As a final thought, remember to be inspired by your big ideas but understand there may be many, many steps to achieve your goals. If something doesn’t work the first time, go back to the drawing board and try again. And then again, and again. And again until you figure it out. Every homestead is different so if you read something in a book, understanding that most of the time things won’t work exactly like they said can save you a great deal of frustration. The customized lessons you will learn are invaluable. Practice humility daily. Things don’t always work out. The environment will often dictate your success. If something doesn’t fit, let it go. No matter what you might think – you are not the boss! Most importantly, make sure you are having fun (at least some of the time) because that’s kind of the point of all this, right!?

If you are interested in following along our adventures at Sweetwater, you can find us on Instagram @sweetwaterlanefarm and FaceBook at www.facebook.com/swtwtrlnfrm… If you are very interested in learning more about what we are doing and how you can do it too, contact us at enquiries@sweetwaterlanefarm.com as we do offer homesteading courses from time to time!

September 16, 2019
Top 10 Worst Attributes if you want to be a Farmer.

10. GREED. There are no get rich quick schemes. If you try to compensate by overcharging, being dishonest or biting off more than you can chew, it will eventually bite you right back. Avoid monocultures and what appear to be lucrative trends. The market will usually bottom out. (Remember the ginseng craze of the 90’s?) You can fool some of the people some of the time, but not everyone all the time. Integrity is key.

9. LAZINESS. If you prefer leisure over work, like to take naps and shortcuts, you won’t last very long. Farming is long hours of hard work. It’s 24/7. You will be getting up early for markets or need to get up in the middle of the night to check on livestock or cover your plants when there’s a frost warning. There is no easy way or everyone would be doing it.

8. PROCRASTINATION. Putting stuff off will only lead to exponential work in the future. A quick, easy weeding job one week can turn into an epic nightmare the next. You can never really be on top of everything, you can only keep trying. If you see something that needs doing, just do it.

7. GERMOPHOBIA. You will literally be covered in dirt and shit most of the time. You will breath and ingest it and will not have clean hands for the whole season. There will be bugs, slimy and smelly things. Get used to it – it builds up your immune system.

6. OVERACHIEVING. It’s so easy and tempting to go big, which could end up being unmanageable and stressful. It’s better to have a small productive garden than a big one you can’t handle. Do what you do best and leave the rest to others. At the same time don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Diversify.

5. STUBBORNESS. Ask for help when you need it, delegate, and accept your failures and move on. Be aware of your strengths and weaknesses and hire someone who can do it for you if you’re not comfortable or able or have the right tool.

4. COMPLACENCY. If you let your guard down, pests, weather, and safety issues could arise without warning. There are many old farmers missing digits, limbs or suffering hearing loss. Be careful. Just because something worked once before doesn’t mean it will again. Be adaptable and keep learning.

3. ARROGANCE. Don’t assume anything or think your invincible. Be modest and humble. Don’t compare. Boasting and envy are not productive. Be a positive part of the farming community. Resist a competitive attitude. If the grass is greener on the other side of the fence… water your field!

2. ATTENTION DEFICIT. Farming is often long tedious hours of repetitive work. If you can’t focus on the same thing for hours, or even days, it will be a struggle. If you have to check your phone every few minutes, you’re doomed.

1. PERFECTIONISM. Things can never be perfect in such a dynamic environment, go with the flow and expect failures, and move on. Learn from your mistakes. Don’t over plan, let nature guide you. Enjoy.

September 3, 2019
My top 10 best farming and gardening practices

10 . BE PASSIONATE. Always remember despite the ups and downs you are doing something that you LOVE to do. If you don’t, the negative results will come through in your product and others will ingest that. Treat it as a lifestyle not a job. If you’re in it for the money, you’ve chosen the wrong profession. Expect joy, disappointments, successes and failures.

9. SET REASONABLE/ ACHIEVABLE GOALS. It’s so easy to take on too much and to try to grow everything. Just because you planted a ton of seedlings and tilled a huge garden bed, doesn’t mean you can maintain it. Focus on what you do best and keep it simple. Create a niche and take baby steps.

8. TREAT PLANTS LIKE DEPENDENTS. Plants are living entities that require food, water, shelter, love and care and then there’s the point where they mature and you have to let go by harvesting, letting go to seed, and waking up one fall morning to see that a frost has killed off all your annuals. Just like kids, adolescents and adults, it’s all a cycle of life.

7 . SAVE SEEDS. There’s often a single plant that out-performs the rest. Let it go to seed, collect and store for the following year. That’s exactly how humans created an agrarian society and prospered. Food security and biodiversity are now more important than ever.

6. KEEP YOUR OVERHEAD LOW. There are all sorts of fancy gadgets, expensive planters, machines and tools you will need once a year. Plants couldn’t care less. Borrow, rent, fix and improvise. Be efficient and devise ways to save time. Most farms go bankrupt, don’t be a statistic.

5. KEEP IT NATURAL. Look to nature for inspiration and explore organic, biodynamic and permaculture methods. Remember that a garden is part of the ecology. Consider birds, insects and animals are all part of the cycle. Mother Nature is the wisest gardener of all.

4. BUILD YOUR SOIL. Even if your planting in fertile ground, plants take nutrients and once you harvest you’ve created a deficit. Build and maintain a compost pile, rotate your crops, plant cover crops and nitrogen fixing legumes.Test your soil occasionally and amend as needed. Good soil is the foundation of a healthy and bountiful garden.

3. KEEP LEARNING. Its literally impossible to know it all. Read, experiment, discuss, research and always be interested in finding out more. Teach others as that re-inforces your own knowledge.

2. SHARE. Whether it’s your experiences, successes, failures or the final tasty product. That’s what creates a healthy garden and farm community. Use the barter system. Someone else has too much or too little compared to you so trading balances things out.

1. MULCH. This simple technique will save you hours of weeding and watering, while preventing erosion , encouraging beneficial micro-organisms, creating humus and future soil.

August 17, 2019
Ode to the Cherry Tomato

Cherry tomato, small and sweet,

Summertime’s grandest treat.

Orange or yellow, purple or red,

Sun-warmed is the best, I’ve said.

Dangling fruit, ripe and ready

On bushy stalks of green so steady.

That certain odor on my fingers

That your leaves leave, it lingers

But that’s okay. How I love that smell!

On sunny days, it makes my heart swell.

Cherry tomato, friend, not foe.

The only veggie I can grow.

August 16, 2019
It’s time to Slow Food as if the future of food depended on it. Sunday August 18!

Thanks to Carlee Cindric, the tireless event producer with Tourism Pemberton, behind Slow Food Cycle Sunday, for taking time out from organizing, to share this reminder of what Pemberton’s signature home-grown festival is all about. Connecting consumers with their food and the farmers responsible for it, seems more and more vital, as the UN releases its report forecasting the human population on Earth will go to 10 billion by 2050, and the way we eat and grow will have one of the most profound impacts on our planet, its habitability and climate stability, of almost any other thing we do. The headlines might read “world food security at risk” and “agricultural practices add to climate threat”, but what’s important to grasp (i.e. hook your soul’s momentum onto) here is that the way we grow our food (and our beer! and our booze! and our flowers!) offers one of the very best and most powerful ways we have of stabilizing the climate. It’s not a foregone conclusion. Don’t give in to despair! Get on your bike. And go meet some growers, who are practicing regenerative techniques and nurturing the soil that feeds us.

by Carlee Cindric for Tourism Pemberton

Do you Slow Food? It’s the 15^thyear of the annual Slow Food Cycle Sunday presented by the Pemberton Valley Supermarket! That’s quite an achievement given the modest beginnings of this favourite community event.

Most compatible road-mates: tractor and bicycle. Photo by Dave Steers

Founded in 2005 by two locals with a shared vision of the importance of farmland and connecting consumers with farmers/producers, the Slow Food Cycle Sunday has grown into a larger cycling festival complete with live music, food, drinks, art, crafts, treats and more – all with a local, grassroots vibe.

Visit The BeerFarmers, one of Slow Food Cycle’s founding farms, and learn how long it really takes to grow and brew a beer. We’re talking field to tap.

Pemberton’s Slow Food Cycle Sunday is an important event for Pemberton because it brings together consumers and producers in a unique ‘green’ agri-tourism experience, drawing participants from the Sea-to-Sky Corridor, Vancouver and worldwide. The event shines a spot light on the slow food movement – food that is produced or prepared in accordance with local culinary traditions, typically using high-quality locally sourced ingredients – and the importance of farm land, eating locally and supporting local food producers.

The event invites participants to choose their own cycling adventure using an interpretive map highlighting the various participating farms and venues along Pemberton Meadows Road. Participants can set their own pace and decide which farms along the 25 kilometer roud-trip route to visit. Along the way, participating farms open their ‘doors’ for the day and host a variety of vendors selling and sampling everything Pemberton has to offer from baking and honey to coffee, Pemberton potato fries, hamburgers and of course Pemberton fresh fruit and veggies.

Laughing Crow Organics have been “setting up” a sunflower maze for your pleasure at Slow Food Cycle, growing sunflower babies from seed for a field of sunny dreams experience.

We’ve got a few new farms/venues and vendors joining us for year 15 which helps to keep the event new and exciting for those participants who return year after year.

The Slow Food Cycle Sunday will take place on August 18. We encourage folks to register online before the event at slowfoodcyclesunday.com. Don’t forget to bring your helmet and water and remember to follow the rules of the road.

We look forward to hosting you during this celebration of Food, Farmers and the Joys of Biking! For more information, visit slowfoodcyclesunday.com

Website: www.slowfoodcyclesunday.com
Facebook: facebook.com/slowfoodcyclesunday
Instagram: www.instagram.com/slowfoodcyclesunday

#SFCS2019
#SFCS
#slowfoodcyclesunday

The amazing thing about Slow Food Cycle is that, just by showing up, you are being part of the event. But if you want to further inject your energy into the day, you can sign up for a 2 hour volunteer shift at the registration table.

August 11, 2019