Goldmund Gardens

12/13/2023

😂

12/03/2023

Most of the modern sustainable farming practices are really throwbacks to a pre-industrialized food system.

Joel Salatin quotes from a 1942 agriculture textbook the following reasons that farming is not adaptable to large-scale operations:

1. Farming is concerned with plants and animals that live, grow and die.

2. Farming is greatly dependent on climate and weather conditions.

3. Farming requires the making of many quick decisions by the individual worker.

4. Farming requires enough personal interest on the park of the individual worker so that he will assume major responsibilities and work harder or longer hours on some days than on others.

Time for us to remember what farming is all about 🤠🐝🐄🌾

12/01/2023

One aspect of farm life that I am excited to practice is matching my activities with the seasons.

As I touch base with farmers through my interviews now, they have finished their busy harvest season and are transitioning into a quiet, thoughtful, indoor period of reviewing their business plan, updating their budgets, and planning for next year.

This is how everything natural runs: not with the relentless consistency of office jobs or train schedules but with the ebb and flow of what is needed now.

I think this feels good to us biological beings - responding to the weather, having a variety of experiences that we return to for a few months each year, not forcing changeless productivity but embracing the ebb and the flow 🥰

11/26/2023

This past season was my first year subscribing to a CSA - it was a great experience!

Having fresh, local, organic produce delivered to my door was beyond convenient. This was also a neat way to be introduced to new vegetables that I wouldn't normally cook with like white radishes or rutabaga (the box comes with recipes which is super handy).

Highly recommend joining a CSA in 2024 as a way to support local farmers and get better quality food while saving on the travel and time spent grocery shopping.

Thank you Snoqualmie Valley Farmers Cooperative ❤️

Find the CSA plan that is right for you! Free home delivery with weekly and bi-weekly options. Add fruit or eggs to your box. Pay up front or in installments, the choice is yours!

11/09/2023

'tis fall!

I've been skipping the gym to walk outside lately because the leaves are beautiful and the air is all kinds of CRISP. 🍂

11/07/2023

A heartwarming story. Imagine making it to 97 and retaining this level of enthusiasm and purpose.

The article also highlights how interconnected nature is and how much animals impact, and often benefit, plant life (something we sometimes forget in farming practices).

"The main reason for the decline of these plants is an unusual one – not enough sheep. The number of sheep on the fells had been reduced by half by 2000, as the uplands were generally believed to be “overgrazed”. Bradshaw says while some upland areas are “sheepwrecked”, reducing grazing on Teesdale has been devastating. Longer grass overshadows the delicate flowers, taking away the light they need to grow."

Margaret Bradshaw has spent decades studying Teesdale – and is fighting to preserve its unique mix of plants

11/05/2023

On a rainy Saturday.....

11/03/2023

I really like this quote.

I also really like that Joel Salatin is a libertarian Christian farmer but says woo-woo stuff like that. We hear all these messages that lead us to believe most people are very right wing or very liberal when in reality people are all over the spectrum.

That makes for some pretty interesting people with pretty interesting ideas. 😎

10/31/2023

100%

10/31/2023

❤

10/29/2023

I recently moved to a friend's 5-acre parcel in Arlington, Washington and can begin practicing what I have been learning about farming! So far, we just have 5 chickens. 🐔 I'm looking forward to starting a small garden, getting more chicks in the spring, and getting a goat or two as soon as I rebuild the fence. 🐓🌱❤

10/27/2023

🌿 Embracing the Sensual Joys of Nature 🌿

In the hustle of our computer-centric and office-bound lives, we often miss out on the rich tapestry of sensual experiences that nature offers.

The gentle caress of the wind, the scent of earth after rain, the warmth of sunlight on your skin, the symphony of insects in the stillness, the crisp texture of fresh apples. We were made for these experiences, and when our days consist of fingers tapping keyboards, florescent lights, and stale air, we crave them.

Letting our senses awaken through direct contact with nature can shake us up and make us feel alive. If things are feeling stale and stressful, try making some time this weekend to go outside (even if it's raining) - touch things, smell things, pretend like you are 5 years old again - what would you do? 🌱✨

10/25/2023

Lynne Green is a resilient farmer and shepherdess who is pursuing her farming dream in Arlington, Washington. She's transformed her 36-acre property into 'A Shepherd's Retreat,' a haven offering her guests rest, restoration, and connection with nature. Lynne's story illuminates the unwavering spirit of a woman who found solace and purpose in the rhythm of farm life. ❤️ Read her story at www.goldmundgardens.com.

10/21/2023

Check out the farmer I am featuring on my blog this month: Lynne Green of A Shepherd’s Retreat 🐏❤

10/19/2023

A Call for Generalist Thinking

In our quest for understanding, Western culture has excelled in breaking down complex systems into digestible parts. However, amidst this specialization, we often lose sight of the intricate web that connects these elements. Take farming, for instance. Focusing solely on maximizing beef production can blind us to the broader implications. Nutritional quality, animal well-being, sustainable practices – these factors cannot be isolated; they are threads woven into the fabric of responsible farming.

Why does this matter? Because everything in our world is interlinked. When we optimize one aspect without considering its ripple effects, imbalance follows. We're at a crossroads where embracing generalist knowledge is not just beneficial; it’s essential. Permaculture promotes the necessity of understanding interconnectedness. As Dave Boehnlein, Project Manager at Rooted Northwest and permaculture designer and educator, emphasized in our conversation (read more: https://goldmundgardens.com/2023/05/25/14-rooted-northwest-dave-boehnlein/), generalist knowledge equips us to navigate the world sensibly.

Have you noticed instances where a lack of holistic thinking led to problems? What steps can we take toward building generalist knowledge as individuals?

Thank you Vivienne Nieuwenhuizen (Unsplash) for the image :)

10/14/2023

10/06/2023

"If you build it, they will come."

Nature has a way of drawing people like a magnet, and often when you work in partnership with nature to create something beautiful, folks take notice.

I've had the privilege of hearing inspiring stories from farmers like Lisa Oostema who didn't set out to run farm stays but found people eager to stay at their scenic locale and soak up sunsets in the fresh air. This is a sentiment echoed by Tim Southwell of ABC Acres who had parents stopping their cars in front of his suburban lawn-turned-garden to ask if their kids could walk through his pumpkin patch.

Then there's the heartwarming tale of Frisky Girl Farms, where owners Ellen Scheffer and Ashley Wilson opened their onsite farm stand in response to people coming to their market garden every day asking to buy their fresh veggies. And Ruth Pepler of
whose Airbnb transformed into a full-fledged farm experience, all because curious guests wanted to milk a cow.

These stories remind us: if you nurture the earth, people are drawn to come experience it. You can read more about people doing this kind of work at www.goldmundgardens.com.

10/03/2023

10/02/2023

Got to visit Laura at Glimmercroft and meet her beautiful Mini Lamanchas (and lots of other critters!). Thank you, Laura, for teaching us about your operation, showing us around, and answering a million questions from an aspiring goat farmer. ❤

09/30/2023

09/27/2023

“The thing is,” said my sister, with her classic frankness as we talked about the realities of farming, “it’s never really that great.”

I laughed. It doesn’t mean she doesn’t love it – it just means she keeps it real.

She lives on a 5-acre homestead in New Zealand where she grows much of the food her family lives on and is passionate about living in an environmentally friendly way. The farming lifestyle, however, is one impregnated with realism.

There is a lot of failure. There is a lot of learning. There is a lot of trying again. When you finally succeed, it can be bittersweet: a healthy animal is ready for butcher or some tasty home-grown vegetables are finally ready for you to now slave over the hot stove to transform them so un-magically into a delicious dish on the family table.

As Sarah and Matt Brunner, one of the farmer couples I've interviewed, put it: “You can’t get down with failures. You have to just learn from them and move on because it happens a lot. The constant motto of the farmer is ‘there’s always next season.’”

You can read more about the farm lifestyles of my sister, Sarah and Matt, and lots of other farmers here: www.goldmundgardens.com.

09/25/2023

Ellen and Ashley operate Frisky Girl Farm, an 8-acre market and flower farm at the base of Mount Si in North Bend, Washington.

They candidly share the struggles and joys of farm life, the web of support from their costumers and the farming community, and their commonsense approach to soil health and sustainable farming practices.

You can read their story here: https://goldmundgardens.com/2023/09/22/17-frisky-girl-farm-ellen-and-ashley/.

09/20/2023

You can't fence a goat in!

As an aspiring goat keeper, this is a quote I really love from my conversation with Tim Southwell, owner of ABC Acres.

“When I started farming, they said you can't keep goats in pens, they'll just jump the fence.

Well, that is the approach and understanding of someone that is used to conventional farming. An animal is only going to challenge the fence if what's inside it is not beneficial to them.

So that's where the concept of rotational grazing comes in, how you're monitoring the health of the paddock so when you move then to the next pen and the next pen they're constantly in a place they want to be, so there's never a negative connotation with the idea of a pen or a fence because it's holistically designed, and it's operated properly.”



[image: https://unsplash.com/]

09/17/2023

Perspective shift ❤

09/15/2023

Ecotherapy for the social media generation (that's you ;).

Such a cool website and concept. ❤

The idea that a lifestyle rooted in nature and the outdoors is fundamental to our physical, spiritual and mental wellbeing

09/13/2023

One of my favorite podcasts is the Regenerative Agriculture Podcast with John Kempf. I recently listened to an episode from January with Dr. Erin Silva.

She challenges the current predominating worldview that is linear and mechanistic: there is math, she says, but it’s not JUST math, living systems aren’t that simple. This is one of the challenges with ecological research since it is impossible to change just one variable without affecting the whole system.

Joel Salatin, in The Sheer Ecstasy of Being a Lunatic Farmer, says the same thing in a different way in his criticism of the modern farming industry and why it isn’t balanced: “It’s all linear rather than cyclical.”

Interesting to think about the complexity of this earth that sustains us and how we can expand our worldview to include the messy, chaotic, and impermanent processes that are a better reflection of real life.

Dr. Erin Silva is an Associate Professor and State Extension Specialist in Organic and Sustainable Cropping Systems in the Department of Plant Pathology as well as the Director for the Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences at UW-Madison.  After ...

09/09/2023

The natural can never be inferior to the artificial; art imitates nature, not the reverse. - Marcus Aurelius



(image: https://unsplash.com/)