Allie's Student Blog

This past Sunday I made it up to the Paradise side of Mount Rainier. It was a beautiful sunny day. You definitely needed sunscreen and sun glasses. We spent the day snowshoeing up to Panorama Point, where we got excellent vista views of Mount Adams, Mount St Helens, and Mount Hood. It is avalanche season so we had to be a little careful, especially of cornices and tree wells. We heard a pretty big avalanche falling way up above 9000 feet elevation. Overall, it was a great way to spend a sunny day (except I did get a little sunburned).

I love the winters in the PNW because I love snow, but it’s also really nice to be able to go to the snow and not actually live in it day in and day out. Case in point, when we returned to Olympia is was sunny and in the upper 60s. It’s always fun to go play in the snow in March but its also really nice to come home to what feels like summer.

View from Mt Rainier (look closely and you can see Mt St Helens and Mt Adams!)

One of my favorite places to hang out on campus proper is Photoland (located on the lower level of the Library building), home to all things photography at Evergreen. I took a Night/Weekend 4-credit course Fall 2017 that was basically an introduction to black and white film photography. Basically I took this course because I’ve always wanted to learn how to develop film but never could really fit it into a program here at Evergreen, so I decided to do it at night while also taking a regular 16 credit program during the day. The really cool thing about Photoland, though, is that you don’t even have to be in a program to utilize the space. It operates on the Proficiency System, meaning as long as you are proficient in whatever it is you want to be doing (i.e. developing/processing black and white or color film, using Photoshop, etc.), you are able to use the spaces and equipment to do that. What proficient means at Evergreen is you are shown by a lab aid or faculty member how to properly use the space and equipment and pass a short quiz on that information. Pretty simple! I really enjoy having in-depth and hands-on teaching as well as critique of my work which is why I opted for the 4 credit course, but that’s not necessary if you just want to go in one day, learn about the space and equipment, and pass the quiz. You then are able to use the space for academic or personal projects.

I’ve been taking photos on film for a while, but never had to opportunity to actually process or develop my own pictures and it’s a really cool process. At the previous school I went to, I was a studio art major with an emphasis on process, meaning the process of making art is more interesting to me than the final product. Film photography, when you are actually doing all of the steps yourself, is so process oriented. I really loved the chance to step outside of my comfort zone and try something totally new for me.

Film developed by Allie at Photoland

What does Photoland have to offer?

• Black and White Darkroom
• Color Darkroom (one of the last color darkrooms open to the public in the PNW!)
• Studio space for taking staged photos (equipped with lighting)
• Digital Imaging Studio (a computer lab equipped with Adobe Photoshop for digital editing, 2 large Epson printers, and scanning equipment)
• Small-scale photography store (sells film and paper to student for wholesale price)
• Opportunities for employment (work in the photography store or as a lab aid)

In addition, our Media Loan Services Department (also located in the Library building) has all of the equipment you could ever need to actually take the photos. They have over 4,000 pieces of equipment for students to check-out, including film and digital cameras, tripods, cable releases, lighting equipment, projectors, etc. As long as you turn it in on time and its undamaged, this service is totally free to students. When I took my course, I was actually able to check out a camera for the entire quarter.

This past Saturday (Feb 24), I was given the opportunity to attend Oregon State University’s Small Farm’s Conference. This is an annual conference that is geared toward small farms (30 acres or less) located in the Pacific NorthWest. It is an eclectic mix of vegetable growers, orchardists, ranchers of all sorts of livestock, and cut-flower farmers, with courses geared to any and all of those topics, as well as things like no-till, business/finance planning, farm layout, biodyanic farming, farm policy, and much more. And because my program this quarter is an SOS, the way I get credit is based upon hours (40 hours/week for 10 weeks is the equivalent of 16 credits). Because of this, I am able to count the time spent at this conference toward my SOS.

WELCOME SESSION

Saturday morning started out early at 7:30AM in Corvallis, OR with some breakfast and some networking. As a lot of the sessions overlapped and all looked really interesting and relevant (and because the conference was only $50 total), I forced my partner Tony to attend with me so we could collectively attend more of the breakout sessions and thus gain more of the knowledge. It was definitely good he came not only because of all of the sessions he attended but also because he was able to my future bosses Denis and Diane of Jello Mold. They were there because Diane was giving a talk during the Cash Flow session on crop insurance (which Tony attended). It was good to chat with them and have them meet Tony.

The official welcome session started at 8:50AM with a recognition that the conference was totally sold out, all 1000 seats filled. I also liked that they addressed why the conference cost was so low. As most attendees are just starting out with farming and considered “socially disadvantaged” or “low income,” the organizers of the conference put most of the cost on the sponsors. They really don’t want to gouge those that are just starting out on their journey or are actively working on the slow, local, sustainable food movement.

The keynote speaker of the welcome session was Javier Zamora of JSM Organics located in Aromas, CA. Originally from Mexico, Zamora started with an acre and a half in 2012 but now has 120 acres of fruits/vegetables and 200+ acres of pastureland for cattle. My biggest take-away was that, to be successful you have to diversify and you can’t do it alone. He really stressed having a really solid crew that works well together is derived from paying people what they are worth ($13-$19/hour). To do this, he said he must educate his customers so they know why his produce is priced the way is it and the real cost of their food. He talked about sustainability and how businesses must be economically sustainable as well as environmentally sustainable.

SESSION ONE

Session One, I attended the “Profitable Flowers of the PNW” course. This highlighted three farms in Washington state and Oregon and went into depth about specific crop planning, successful crops for each farm, and avenues of revenue (how they sell their flowers). The three farms speaking were My Garden Overfloweth (Paterson, WA), Le Mera Gardens (Talent, OR), and Field to Heart (Snohomish, WA). Each farm was totally different than the next both in terms of what they were growing (i.e. lisianthus, sunflowers, chrysanthemums, eucalyptus, etc.) and what they were doing with what they grew (i.e. weddings, wholesale, U-Cut, direct to florists, on-site parties, farmers markets, etc.). It was really great to see all these different models of flower farms into successful businesses for them.

From Le Mera Gardens Slide 1/2)

From Le Mera Gardens Slide 2/2)

Tony attended the “Pack Shed Layout” course for Session One. This was lead by Josh Volk (of Slow Hand Farm, a farm we actually visited on a field trip in the Practices of Organic Farming program this past summer). It was all about how to set up your pack shed (where you process your vegetables, fruit, or flowers) to enhance efficiency.

SESSION TWO

For session two, I attended the “Marketing & Selling Specialty Cut Flowers” course. This showcased two farms that have two very different but successful marketing strategies. The first, Bindweed Farm, is located in Blackfoot, ID, right in the middle of Sun Valley, ID and Jackson Hole, WY.  The really unique thing about their location and market is that, as they are in the desert there really isn’t anyone else growing flowers in their area but these two towns have a lot of high-end resorts and vacation destinations. Because of this, they sell almost exclusively directly to florists, primarily for destination weddings and weekly resort floral arrangements and focus on varieties that don’t ship very well. The other farm, Whipstone Farm, located in Paulden, AZ, has 3 acres of flowers on their larger 18 acre vegetable farm. They sell mixed bouquets at local farmers markets as well as a bouquet add-on to their CSA (Community Supported Agriculture, where customers pay in at the beginning of the season and receive boxes of produce for a period of time) and focus on flashy and bright pops of color.

Tony attended the “Cash Flow” course. In this, an OSU professor talked about how to map cash flow throughout the season to ensure specific crops are profitable for your small farm and that you end up with something in the bank at the end of the season to be able to do it all over again the next season. At the end, Diane talked about the new USDA’s crop insurance program for specialty crops to further ensure profitability to a small farm even in the face of total crop failure. As someone who hates business planning but knows its essential to a small farm business, these types of courses are so beneficial and it’s really nice to have an actual farmer (Diane) break down what she does to ensure cash flow for her on Jello Mold.

SESSION THREE

I ended with “Accessing & Preserving Farmland” course for Session Three. This session was predominantly about land trusts and conservation easements. The speakers were from two different land trusts, Greenbelt Land Trust (based in the lower Willamette River Valley) and PCC Land Trust (based in the Puget Sound area). A conservation easement basically is a stipulation on the land that limits some of the rights of the land owner (i.e. development rights, subdividing the lot, buffer zones, habitat restoration, etc.) to ensure the land remains agricultural land. While this lowers the value of the land, that difference is paid for by a land trust (generally a non-profit or governmental entity). Conservation easements allow young farmers to access land because it makes the cost of purchasing land a lot lower. According to statistics PCC Land Trust shared with us, “in the last 4 years, the average price per acre of Washington farmland has increased by 47%, 71% of retiring farmers have not identified a successor, and some Washington counties have lost over 70% of its farmland since 1950.” Thus conservation easements allow young farmers to access land that would otherwise go to developers or be sub-divided.

What is a Conservation Easement?, from OSU Small Farms Conference

Tony went to the “Get Legit: Financials for a Small Farm” course for Session Three where they went over how to finance a farm and tax structures based on how you set your business up.

All in all, the OSU Small Farms Conference was a really awesome experience and I got a lot out of it (especially because I was able to get double the courses out of it with Tony going to three extra sessions for me). There was also a killer lunch meal entirely sourced from farms around the PNW that was pretty much worth the $50 fee in and of itself. I’m really glad Evergreen’s education model and SOS’s allow for students to get outside of the classrooms and learn from experts in their fields.

For me, snow is always super magical and fun. I always have a really hard time concentrating when it snows because I just want to be outside running around in it. This past week, Olympia got 5-6 inches over 3 days which made for a messy commute and couple days on the farm. But it made campus look amazing (especially the forest)! It doesn’t snow all that often here (especially considering I moved here from Minnesota) but when it does, you can expect everything to slow down a little bit. Campus closed early one night and classes started late two mornings, which allowed all those unfamiliar or incapable of driving in the snow to get home safely. It also allowed extra time to play in the snow!

Snow or no snow, definitely check out the forest on campus. We are so lucky to have 800 acres of new growth forest as a part of our college campus. It’s my favorite part of campus and I end up bringing my dog Ole there all of the time because he loves swimming at the beach. If you’re savvy enough, you can find tree houses and forts and rope swings.

Evergreen’s forest covered in snow

Normally I have my internship Mondays and Wednesdays, but this week was unique as I went to Seattle on Sunday for the special Valentine’s Day market event. Due to this, I had Wednesday off. I took advantage of this and went snowshoeing at Mount Saint Helen’s. About two and a half hours from Olympia, the south side (Ape Caves, Worm Lava Flow, Marble Mountain Snowpark) of Mount Saint Helens is great for snowshoeing, ski touring, and snowmobiling (if you happen to have access to one of those) in the winter. It’s also a lot less crowded in the winter than in the summer. I like the south side of Mount Saint Helens because you don’t need a guide to be able to hike (the northern side is where you can hike into the crater, which is really cool but can only be done with a paid guide) and because dogs are allowed off-leash.

If you’re feeling particularly adventurous, you can summit! It’s about 6 miles from the Marble Mountain Snowpark’s trail head to the summit, but it is 6000 feet elevation gain. Last winter I did it and it took about 9 hours roundtrip (but that was using touring skis, so I skied rather than hiked down), so definitely doable in a day if you really like to push your limits. If not, it’s about 3 miles to the base camp and not nearly as strenuous (maybe 1500-2000 feet elevation change). The base camp would be really nice camping, winter or summer (but probably pretty crowded in the summer).

Snowball to the face

Wednesday it snowed about a foot and a half overnight/while we were there. Being a Wednesday in February, we were the only one’s there so we made fresh tracks which was slow going but pretty magical. My dog loves snow and was having a great time zipping up and down the trail and in and out of the trees, chasing snowballs and eating the new snow. In the end, he probably went twice the distance us snowshoers went!

While I do have my own snowshoes, you don’t actually need your own to be able to enjoy Mount Saint Helens (or any of the Cascade mountains/volcanoes or Olympic mountains for that matter) in the winter. The Outdoor Program (TOP) offers super cheap equipment rentals for students looking to get out and about (snowshoes go for $7/day or $10/weekend; check out more equipment pricing here). TOP is not just for equipment rentals, however. They also plan trips students can sign up for. For example, this past MLK day (15 Jan 2018) TOP went to Mount Rainier for sledding and snowshoeing. Students only had to pay $10 to go on this trip. To see upcoming trips, check out TOP’s homepage. These trips are a really good way for students to get out and about, see all of the beauty of the Pacific NorthWest for really cheap, and meet new friends.

The sun finally peeked through when we hit the base camp

For my internship with Thistlehook Farm, I was given the opportunity to attend a special Valentine’s Day event at the Seattle Wholesale Growers Market Cooperative. Doug, owner of Thistlehook Farm, is a full member of this coop and sells all of his product at their market. As Valentine’s Day is by far the most profitable day for flowers in the US (Mother’s Day is a distant second), this was a huge event for this market.

During peak season (May-October), they have normal markets on Sundays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 6AM-noon (10AM-noon the market is open to the public). During the off season (November-April), they have one market on Wednesdays, same hours. However, with it being Valentine’s Day this upcoming Wednesday, they had a special Sunday event for florists to stock up on flowers for their Valentine’s Day orders. During these off-season months, they bring in a lot of product from California and Hawaii to supplement the lack of product from local growers, but all of this product needs to be salmon-safe as a base requirement to be able to be sold at the market.

Sunday morning, I woke up at 3AM to be picked up at 4AM to be to Seattle by 5AM.  It was pretty insane when we got there, with people running around and trucks coming in and out of the loading docks. Immediately, we were given a tour of the new space by Diane and Denis, board members and owners of Jello Mold Farm in Mount Vernon (and my future bosses!). The space includes a storeroom, lobby, and meeting room, and is about double the size of their old space (moved locations in November 2017). They are also located a couple blocks from the other floral wholesaler of Seattle, which is good because it is now more convenient for their customers to be able to go to both in the same day.

After, we were put to work uploading trucks/vans, unpacking boxes, filling buckets, sorting flowers/greenery, and chopping stems before sending them out to the floor. We saw so many really cool and totally new to me plants. Some of these included Proteas and other Leucadendrons, Chamelaucium (wax flower), Claycina, and Moroccan Date Palm. It was really cool to see all of these unique and downright weird plants in conjunction with the more native things like English Ivy (yes someone was selling this noxious weed at the market), pussy willow, and cedar as well as the more familiar things like roses, ranunculus, and tulips.

Protea for sale

Doug was really excited by the variety of things the growers from Oregon were able to bring this early. He thinks this is good news for him as Washington will get an earlier spring too. They had a lot of Oregon-grown tulips, ranunculus, anemones, and heather.

In terms of product, they received 90 boxes worth of flowers and greenery this past Wednesday for this market and we received 150 boxes Sunday morning. All of these were unpacked and processed by us Sunday morning. All of this product came from California and Hawaii, thus not even including the actual grower-members’ product. Doug said he believes all of the California/Hawaii product will be sold Sunday or else on their normal Wednesday market on actual Valentine’s Day. The stuff that is less likely to sell is actually the grower-member stuff that’s not the tulips, ranunculus, etc.—the things like the pussy willow and cedar as it doesn’t really say “Valentine’s Day.”

It was a long day—we left Olympia at 4AM and got home at 2PM. But it was fun and I learned a lot. Plus it was really good to see Denis and Diane of Jello Mold Farm as well as the new space for the market.

Ranunculus to be unpacked and processed

Just wanted to take a moment to describe the program model I’m currently taking at Evergreen this quarter. It is a Student Originated Studies (SOS). How is this different than a normal program or an Independent Learning Contract (ILC)? Well its actually a kind of hybrid of the two. You still have to option to meet once a week as a class and discuss whatever it is you are doing the rest of the week (be it an internship, a research project, or some combination of the two) as well as have the opportunity to seminar on a common read with your class. But, the rest of the week you are totally free to fill with whatever it is you want to be learning about.

Pruning apple trees for practicum component of class

The SOS I’m taking this quarter is entitles “Food & Agriculture” so obviously a huge array of topics fit under that category. Some of the projects in the class are researching sustainable textile production/visiting local sheep and alpaca farms/learning to spin wool, an internship with the local Landtrust office (working to keep agricultural land in agriculture), an internship at Burnt Ridge Nursery (owned by an alum of the Practices of Organic Farming or POF program), and implementing a Food Forest onto the Organic Farm at Evergreen.

A component of our in-class days are seminars and practicums. Every week we alternate between the two. Practicums mean we get out on the Organic Farm and do things like apple tree pruning, hardy kiwi berry pruning, and various propagation activities. Seminars mean we all read a common book and roundtable on it. Some of the books we’ve read are Restoring Heritage Grains (Eli Rogosa), The Cooking Gene (Michael W. Twitty), and Letters to a Young Farmer (Stone Barns Center on Food & Agriculture). Many of these books contain recipes, which people will cook for class, so we often have a meal with the actual foods we subsequently talk bout.

Planting freesia corms at Thistlehook Internship

In terms of what I’m doing outside of class, my project is actually two-fold. I am doing an internship two days a week at Thistlehook Farm, a flower farm that is also owned by an alum of the POF program. He sells all of his flowers to the Seattle Wholesale Growers Market Cooperative. I’ve been doing a ton of propagation for him this quarter; from taking cuttings of blueberries and California bay to seeding ageratum and snapdragons and cerinthe to planting freesia corms in an unheated greenhouse. I’ve also field-planted cornus (dogwood) and Pieris japonica (Japanese Andromeda), and pruned elderberry, blueberry, and apricot. We also converted a stall in his garage into a greenhouse and are using that for all of our seedlings and cuttings!

The other part of my internship is an online course through Floret Farm, another flower farm up north in Mount Vernon, WA. This online workshop breaks down tips and tricks and how-tos for starting and running a small-scale flower farm and floral design business. Some topics covered include defining your goals, planning the farm, financing a farm, expenses associated with having a farm, how-tos/best practices for growing different crops/varieties, sales & marketing, and post-harvest handling/storage. It is an incredibly helpful resource for my future goal of having my own flower farm.

These two components combined are really working as a capstone project to my time at Evergreen, and preparing me for life after Evergreen as this is my last quarter before graduating. I’m so grateful for Evergreen having these broad topic SOS programs that allow students to do their own work and really delve into topics they are interested and passionate about. Additionally, SOS programs allow students to tie together all of their work at Evergreen in a really unique way.

Yesterday I went hiking on Mount Eleanor in the Olympic Mountains with a couple of friends. Only about an hour and half drive from the Evergreen State College campus, it’s a really good way to get out in nature. Normally it’s a 4 mile round trip (summit and back) from the upper trail head and 6 miles round trip from the lower trail head, but it’s been so snowy that the road is impassable before you even get to the lower trail head. This meant we had to hike the road for a mile and a half just to get to lower trail head!

It was slow going without snowshoes and having to post hole the entire way so we weren’t able to summit yesterday, but I’ve done the hike a couple times before and can say it’s well worth the effort. During the springtime there are wild rhododendrons and trillium blooming, and from the top on a clear day you have an amazing view of the Puget Sound and Mount Rainier. Often times you will run into mountain goats, which can be a bit unnerving but they are harmless as long as you keep your distance and follow the posted rules about not feeding them or peeing near the trail (they are sodium deficient).

By moving to the Pacific North West for school at Evergreen, I have had the opportunity to visit and see so many incredible natural beauties–things people come from all of the world to see that are suddenly in your backyard. Mount Rainier is 2 hours away, Mount St. Helens is 2 and a half, the Olympics (depending where you’re trying to go) can be as close as an hour and a half. The Pacific Ocean is as close as an hour and a half. There are opportunities for hiking, skiing/snowboarding, snowshoeing, biking, rock climbing, surfing, and canoeing/kayaking. Even if you don’t like those things, on a clear day I’m able to see the Olympic Mountains and Mount Rainier from where I live. It’s pretty incredible. I’ve really enjoyed my time here in Olympia, not just because I love Evergreen, but because of the amazing outdoor opportunities I’ve had in this area.

Hiking Mount Eleanor