Orcas Farm

This week I am tending to the animals at Orcas Farm in Doe Bay. Farmer’s George & Molly took off on a well deserved vacation, visiting another island in a much warmer climate.

Many islanders try to escape in January or February, the coldest months of the year, to find sun + adventure.
This morning the sun came out just as I was finishing with my chores. Such a treat!

 I took a walk in the sunlight doing some inventory on how George prepared the gardens to be wintered over, and reflected on the beauty of the land.

This land and I have our own history.

I’d play here as a child with the family who lived here then.That was almost 27 years ago. In my late teens, I spent a summer living in one of the tiny cabins. It was the summer after I left Art school, deciding to attend culinary school that fall, I saved money paying $100.00 in rent a month.

Now (for the past 15 years), under new ownership or should I say stewardship, because that is how George approaches the land. knowing it only belongs in his hands for his life time, and once the dirt hits the earth again it belongs to something larger than all of us. I still feel effected by this place in the most magical way. Like so much of this island, it holds many stories for me, over the last 30 years,……a keeper of my most vivid childhood and coming of age memories.

Fig. 1 Skill for  Simple Living, found in the bookcase.

Fig. 2 Garden Gate made out of found rusted bits of old farm tools.

Fig. Dried Chayenne peppers and rat traps in the green house.

Fig.1 Last Summers Barn Sale poster, designed by yours truely.

Fig.2 Mint with long roots saved in a masin jar.

Fig.3 Birds nest in a tractor seat.

Fig.4 Bulbs in the green house.

Fig.1 Bee Hives with sleepy bees flying out the bottom.

Fig.2 Honey comb from a rouge sworm.

Fig.4 Honey+wax.