Stone Lake Farm

There's nothing quite like the sound of a shovel scraping goat droppings from the packed dirt floor of a barn. There's also nothing quite as soothing as making this activity part of your daily routine.

I lived and worked at Stone Lake Farm for two weeks. On my second day, I told Francis, the man who runs this homestead, that I didn't feel like I was earning my keep with the simple chores I had been asked to do.

"Just wait til tomorrow.  We'll be hauling logs off the mountain for firewood" he said after his usual long, contemplative pause.

Yet despite the sometimes smelly, sometimes messy, sometimes physically demanding work it takes to keep a piece of land self-sufficient, my weeks on this WWOOF (World Wide Oppurtunities on Organic Farms www.wwoofusa.org) farm were far more enjoyable than anything.

My day typically began around 8AM when I woke naturally, turned off my alarm before the unbearable screeching could start, and shuffled through the shelves of dry goods (beans, rice, flour, spices) that were provided as part of my work-trade, and made pancakes and eggs from the farm chickens. A cup of fresh herb tea, tahini, goat cheese and garden greens completed the meal as I gazed out one of the many large windows in the Octagon, a solar-powered log cabin available to interns there.

From 10AM-2PM I worked on the day's project. This could be stacking wood for the winter, painting signs, making a scare crow, coring and peeling apples and pears for sauce, or gathering herbs for drying.

Earth and moon decorations for hanging in trees on.  Made of salvaged oil drum tops.

 

Lunch was an all-you-can-eat buffet from the garden: all kinds of greens, tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, carrots, beets, potatoes, apples, rasberries, strawberries and herbs, and something hot and filling cooked in a carboard and aluminum foil solar oven, which requires a little change of positioning and a few hours of afternoon sun to cook.  You can literally cook and bake anything in it besides twinkies (only because twinkies aren't food)and it will never burn. One day's meal was kamut-cornbread and chili and a nice strawberry goat-cheese cake for dessert!

Mmm! Salad!

Rice and beans, heated by the sun!

At 5:30, I fed the chickens, refilled the goats' water, cleaned up after them, and sent them to pasture by luring them out of their pen with tempting greens or apples. 

At sunset, Francis and I would watch the sky turn pink over the mountains of the Coast Range, and make a fire when it got dark.  Even though it was just the two of us, and neither of us really left the farm, it was hard to miss the city (the closest is a 2-hour drive) and all of its conveniences, bustle and noise.

There, I could simply relax, carve a spoon, write down my thoughts, take my time, paint, hug goats, and harvest the bounty of the garden. I adored carrying my bok choy and rosemary, an egg, a handful of basil, an apple or two back to the Octagon.  I took pleasure in slicing my carrots and seeing progress in the solar oven.  Living [mainly] off what the land provides is how people have always lived (until recently) and will have to live again.

I picked up Ernest Callenbach's Ecotopia (1975) from the bookshelf in the cabin during the first week, and was barely able to set it down until I finished it. 

It's a fictional account of a future in which Northern California, Oregon and Washington secede from the United States and form a seperate country called Ecotopia, from the perspective of an American journalist who visits to report on whether rumors of barbarianism and squallor are true.

The story quickly reveals Ecotopia's history- the demolition and reconstrucition of government, businesses and cities, the abolition of petrochemicals, plastic and cars, the restoration of forests and waterways, and the establishment of train networks, small towns and communes.

Reading this book and living on this farm got me thinking about the future again, and the paradigm shift that has to happen sooner or later (and wondering why it can't be now).  

If only people were like the goats at Stone Lake; just wave a rotting apple and some cumphrey leaves, and they come running.  They'll follow you anywhere for the promise of something sweet or something crunchy.

For now, I'll be content to shovel manure and pick chard and learn what I can, both at the farm and on the road.  I could have happily lived there for months, but I really must keep walking (and biking) this path until I am ready to lead with confidence.

First, become educated.

Then, educate others.

Tell them how sweet those apples are, then toss them as far as you can , and watch them dash into the open field with the breathtaking view of the Earth.