Relocation

"Two inches or two miles"

The idea of moving a bee hive can can seem pretty intimidating if you spend any time reading about the many, many details that you are supposed to be paying attention to. Fortunately, we've approached bee keeping much like we approached farming in general, by using the ' jump off the cliff and flap really hard until you figure out how not to crash' technique.

Packy did take the precaution of telling the bees about their impending move, and I'm pretty sure that's what made the difference.

We inherited our hive from our good friends the Quennell Family a couple of years ago, when they left Oregon to move to upstate New York, where they are thriving on Three Stone Farm. (We mostly forgive them for moving.) The hive is a top bar design that Roger built himself, and he gave us some quick, basic advice about moving the bees before driving off into the sunset, which basically was:

Move the bees when it is dark, or on a cool rainy day when they will not be out flying around, so you won't loose the foragers. Block up the hole with something that will allow air circulation, but not allow the bees to get out- straw is good. Know where you are going to put them, because once you let them out, they need to be able to find their way home again. If you move the hive even just a bit more than a foot, but keep the hive within their familiar area, they will not be able to find the hive's entrance again, and will die. If you are going to move it, either move it a tiny distance–two inches– or you have to really move it, more than two miles. That way the bees will realize that they are in a totally unfamiliar environment, and re-orient to their new location.

It doesn't sound too complicated, right? Fortunately the bees took their first move to Seaside in their stride, which means we did something right. We decided not to harvest much honey from it the first year, as the hive was a bit small, although we did open it up under the guidance of our friend Mark, and enjoyed a wee bit of the most delicious, sweet honey we had ever tasted. Is honey more flavorful when it comes from your own hive? I think it might be.

Mostly we just loved having the bees on the property. I would often find Packy down by the hive, watching the bees in fascination as they buzzed in and out of the hive entrance, covered in pollen. The bees, not Packy.

It seemed a good idea to know exactly where we wanted the hive to go on the new farm before we moved the bees again, given that we did not plan to ever move them again if we could help it. Finally we felt that we had the right spot identified, near where we hope to plant our orchard next winter. The Quennells– Roger, Youngiee, Romneya and new family member Avani– were back on the North Coast for a brief visit a little over a week ago, and that seemed like A Sign- it was Time to Move the Hive!

Packy and I drove down to Seaside at dusk, checked the hive to make sure everyone was still alive inside (I have to say, putting your ear up to the entrance of a buzzing bee hive is an amazing sensation),

stuffed the entrance full of straw,

loaded it into the truck and then drove very slowly back to Olney.

Somehow, It didn't occur to us that it would be pitch dark when we got home. We found one of our emergency lanterns and set it out in the field to mark the designated spot, and then carefully carried the hive out, squelching and stumbling a bit in the dark through the boggy pasture soaked with recent rain, to the hive's new home.

After much arguing about which way the prevailing winds came from and which direction was which, (something you would think we would have sorted out before hand as it is not a discussion to be having in the middle of the night in a boggy pasture while carrying a hive of buzzing, annoyed bees) we set the hive down, unplugged the hole, said "Welcome!" and then took ourselves off to bed.

The next day was bright and sunny, and when Packy went out to check on our gang, there were bees buzzing in and out and all around the hive- exploring the new location and some even, he was relieved to see, coming home covered with pollen.

Now we just have to take some soil tests, get the orchard area sowed with cover crop (dealing with the Canada thistle infestation we've discovered in the area first), use the ten yards of compost that just got delivered to get some beds ready so that we can get our lavender finally moved, and figure out how to afford several thousand feet of fencing.

And that's just the short Farm To Do List.

Still, the Bees are Happy, and that is good for today.

All is well.

Burning Chair, Man!

I really meant to just have a small birthday party for Packy this year- a week late, since this year his birthday fell on the day before Easter, and people were busy that weekend.

Last year we had a great little birthday party for him- a farm work party followed by a bonfire, good food and a spontaneous Effigy-in-a-Chair burning. We dubbed the day 'Burning Chair Man'.

So we thought it would be fun to have Burning Chair Man 2 this year, to celebrate Packy's birthday on our New Farm. Which I guess really makes this our First Annual BCM for 46 North Farm. I want to apologize in advance for the shocking lack of good photos here- we were both too distracted to take pictures, so you will just have to use your imagination, or maybe people will send us some and I can add them in.

It wasn't a very well planned day. We started mentioning the idea of a birthday party to some friends, sending out some emails, and mentioning it to a few more friends, having the "Burning What Man?!?" conversation a lot. The 'work party' project was going to be attacking the invasive plants on the property- especially the impressive infestation of holly around the edges. We asked everyone to bring a potluck dish; extra points if the potluck dish included ingredients from local farmers. I made homemade marshmallows and graham crackers for s'mores again. (And for all our vegetarian/vegan friends- next year I promise we'll figure out the vegan marshmallow recipe!) Naturally there were delicious baked goods from the Blue Scorcher Bakery, and our great friends at the Fort George supplied a keg of Oatmeal Pale Ale for the thirsty workers.

The food and drink begins to assemble

I was chatting with our friend Tim Kennedy (the wonderful woodworker behind our new barn roof) about needing to find an old chair to burn, and he said, "You know, why don't you let me make you one? We've got all that scrap wood left from re-roofing the barn, and I'll get a bit more. I'll take care of that."

I think our Barn Nisse is still looking out for us, and took care of the weather because after a wretched week of rain and hail, the day dawned clear, with just a light breeze. It was a glorious, sunny day. Packy thinks we should have called the place 'Lucky Weather Farm', but I think that's tempting fate.

Tim and our friend Luke rolled up early Saturday morning to build the chair. Their rules were: only scrap wood, and the only tools could be a chainsaw and a nail gun. I glanced over at the field a few times in the course of my running around doing party prep and wondered "Why are they setting up scaffolding to build the chair?!"

As they arrived, Jean-Marc, Dennis and Luke #2 all joined in the construction project, and I stood there watching as they raised the first side of The Chair up off the ground. This thing was HUGE. Over 15 feet tall huge. Closer to 20 feet tall.

Trying not to think about what is happening behind me...

I confess to a few twinges of nervousness at the thought of setting the thing on fire, but the look of sheer joy on everyone's face as they banged The Chair together was so lovely, I just tried to let go of it. "Don't Worry!" Tim and Luke cheerfully assured me. "It's far enough away from the barn that when it collapses, it won't affect it. Probably." Packy turned to me with a huge smile on his face. "This is GREAT! " he beamed. "Terrifying, but totally great!"

Somehow the day just happened. People showed up. There was enough room for everyone to park. Everyone's dogs got along, and as the cats Eddie & Squeaky were safely hiding upstairs in the house, there was no cat chasing.

The holly brush pile begins to form...

An amazing crew of people with loppers and machetes followed the sound of Doug and his chainsaw to the holly infestation battle site, and they cleared out so much holly from our woods, Doug bucking the larger trunks up into firewood for us to season for burning next year. Mark and Kristen helped James get a lot of trees planted, although I don't know if he's managed to offset the carbon footprint of those trips to New Zealand yet.

Jean-Marc is always up for a destructive project....

Teaching the next generation about invasive plant removal

Dan tries out the straw bale seats, while Bob documents the day.

Dan brought hay bales for seating, as the ground was super muddy from all the rain, and a bushel of oyster too.

In fact, every one brought great food- special thanks to the Amazing Fred Johnson of Fred's Homegrown Farm & Produce in Naselle, WA. A chef turned farmer, Fred took charge of the barbeque, grilling the lamb ribs we got from Lance's Farm Vittles that were marinated in the sauce that Dana (chef at the Fort George) made for us, making burgers out of the local beef and elk meat that Doug brought, and making To-Die-For onion rings on his portable tempura set up. (!!) Our friend Sandy jumped in to frost the birthday cupcakes that I ran out of time to do, along with bringing some of her always delicious soup to share.

I think Michelle, our friend from Friends of Family Farmers wins the most local food points for her contribution. A former chef herself, she made the most amazing salad using ingredients both from her own garden and sourced from her local farmers around Portland, and also brought these incredible local ingredient fig and some-other-fruit cookies that were phenomenal. Everyone who had one was stunned. I need to get that recipe from her. We can't wait to have her and Fred cooking together next year. It was, as someone observed, a very high quality potluck, and there was enough for everyone to go back for seconds, and even thirds.

It was SO great to see the lovely Romneya again!

An award for the greatest distance travelled to the party goes to our beloved and much missed friends Roger and Youngiee, and their two lovely daughters Romneya and Avani. Former North Coasters, they now farm just outside of Ithaca, N.Y., and were back in town to sign the sales papers on their former farm land here in Astoria- it was bought by people who are hoping to farm it, which we are thrilled about. More farmers on the North Coast- yes!

But you don't want to know about the food, or the people. You want to see The Chair Burning, right?

All the creative energy had been spent making The Chair, and we never did get a Man put together this year. I decided that really, it's all about the punctuation.

This year it was ' Burning Chair, Man!'

From first ignition to final collapse: about 30 minutes.

The crowd waits patiently for ignition

Luke and Packy head to The Chair with the Super Fun and Handy propane torch

It was SO satisfying!!

Then a hard core crew of pyromaniacs burned all the holly brush, and everyone ate lots of s'mores and cupcakes, drank more beer, explored the property, ate more food and sat around and talked until the fire turned to embers, the sun went down and it was time for bed. And there really wasn't even that much to clean up.

It was a completely awesome day. Thanks to everyone for coming out to share your time, your food and your friendship with us, especially our farm friends like Fred, Lance, and Ginger who took a rare sunny spring day away from their farms to come celebrate with us. Our farm feels very warmed, and very blessed, and Packy says it way the best birthday party ever.

Tim and Luke are already plotting about next year. I thought I heard Luke mutter something about 'pyrotechnics', but I'm sure I was mistaken....

Inspiration

It's been four days since we got back from our weekend in Corvallis, and I am still buzzing. Last Saturday we attended the OSU Small Farms Conference- 600 people all gathered in one place to talk about small family farms, farmer's markets and the challenges and joys of running a small farm in Oregon. It was great, especially the opening talk by David Mas Masumoto, author of ' Epitaph for a Peach' and 'The Wisdom of the Last Farmer', which I look forward to reading as soon as Packy is finished with our new (signed!) copy.

We had never been to the OSU Small Farms conference before, and it was such a good experience for us both that we will definitely be back. It was great to run into so many friends from the North Coast food and farming community there, and to meet up with fellow farm enthusiasts from all over the state.

One of the best things was seeing how many other first time attendees there were at the conference. Interest in farming is exploding in Oregon, especially among younger people- I've heard that our state is actually seeing an increase in the number of farms in operation, running against a declining national trend.

Even better than Saturday's experience was the gathering we attended on Sunday sponsored by Friends of Family Farmers.

The Farmer and Rancher Delegate Meeting to discuss the Agricultural Reclamation Act has to be one of the most inspiring days of my recent life, as well as one of the best run meetings I have ever attended. (And given that this was a meeting of 60 or so highly opinionated farmers and ranchers, that's really saying something.)

The best description I can give for what this was all about is in the words of FoFF themselves:

On February 28th, 2010, we will host our first Farmer Delegation in Corvallis, where a cross-section of family farmers will come together to establish a statewide platform for food and family farming in Oregon. Through this process, the Agricultural Reclamation Act for Oregon will be written. Our combined strength, represented through this document, will put family farms first, and ensure that public officials hear and understand the needs of farmers who are practicing a type of agriculture that respects the land, sustains rural communities and contributes to the states economy.

You can go and watch this short film that FoFF made about the process to learn more- if I was tech-savvy enough to embed the video I would, but I'm not, so you'll have to just follow the link.

It was a phenomenal day- great discussions and debate about some of the biggest issues facing small family farmers all over the state. There are a lot of seriously talented and smart people farming in this state, which gives me great hope for the future of small farms in Oregon. I have never felt so sure of my decision to become a farmer, and of the importance of that work to the communities we farm in as I was that day. When we were all asked to come up at the end of the meeting to sign our names to the ARA declaration, it was pretty powerful stuff. I will admit that that was not just a speck of dust in my eye- I was genuinely moved by the courage and determination of all of the people in that room to find a way to continue farming and providing healthy food for our local communities. Packy and I both came away so fired up, and determined to find a way to get our farm up and running again. We had a lively discussion throughout the long drive home to Olney shifting between the ideas and questions raised at the meeting and our plans for our farm's future.

Many thanks to all the hardworking people at FoFF, both staff and volunteers, for organizing the meeting and for pulling the whole day off so brilliantly. You are all amazing.

Thanks also go the the Astoria Co-op for helping to sponsor the event when they saw that we were attending as delegates from the North Coast. Their commitment to supporting more local food production in our community is so encouraging, and we hope to be able to supply them with great locally grown stuff in the not-too distant future. (Maybe even some edible plant starts this year, if we can get the greenhouse rebuilt in time.)

Getting ready for more seedlings... you can never have enough!

It was more than a little hard for me to come back down to earth on Monday morning, get in the car and head off to work to help make sure our mortgage gets paid. We still have a long way- and several thousand feet of elk fencing- to go before we can truly start farming seriously, but for a couple of days I got to think of myself as a farmer again, and to remember why I love doing it so much.

Which is why I know that I will find a way to make our farm rise again- I can't not do it.

As hard as the work is, I have never done anything so satisfying in my life.

Little do The Elk know that they are standing smack in the middle of our future orchard.

We need SUCH a huge fence.....

Discovery

For any gardener, one of the most delightful aspects of getting to know a new growing space happens in the first year you live on your new property:

Discovery.

When we moved here in October of last year, things were pretty much dying back. The leaves on the trees were almost gone, the rose was covered in rose hips and whatever plants had been planted to cheer the place up and make it attractive to potential buyers figured that their work was done, and had long since given up and died off.

There are a number of older trees and shrubs around the house, some of which I am excited about, and some not. I love that there is a huge lilac right by the back door, and the tulip magnolia is covered in velvety buds- I can't wait to see what it looks like in bloom. I've never been a big fan of rhododendrons, but as they are the quintissential Northwest flowering plant that deer and elk don't eat, I am working on developing an appreciation for the three we have inherited- I just hope they are not that cloying pink one.

The big surprise so far has been this tree that we thought was possibly some kind of purple beech. We had only ever seen it in leaf, or without leaves. There was a huge, beautiful purple beech tree near our old farm in Seaside, and I suppose my mind just associated 'purple leaves' with 'purple beech'. It's a good thing I'm not an arborist.

Years ago, back when I was still fairly intellectual and read things other than seed catalogs and books about propagation, I read a book by Nikos Kazantzakis called 'Report to Greco'- not in the original Greek, I'm not that good. I have always remembers this haiku that he wrote in that book:

"I said to the almond tree,

"Sister, speak to me of God,

and the almond tree blossomed."

I'm not a particularly religious person, but the morning I walked out of our back door to see that tree blooming, backlit by welcome winter sunlight, I really got it why people are. I could almost hear that choral note sounding around me, which in Western pop culture is always the signal that something miraculous has happened.

Or that the credits for Star Trek (original version) have just begun.

We are off this weekend to attend the OSU Small Farms Conference in Corvallis on Saturday, and even more exciting, we are North Coast delegates to the Friends of Family Farmers 'Agricultural Reclamation Act' gathering the following day. I know we will come back inspired and even more determined to make our farm a success. I will let you know how it goes...

...and when Packy got close to the tree, he realized that it was

humming with happy honey bees.

Reassurance

I've gotten a lot of questions lately from concerned customers and friends about plant starts. "What do you mean, you've moved the farm?!" said the guy ringing up my purchase at Costco the other night. "I just got my garden all sorted out and ready to plant this year, where am I going to get those tomato plants?"

It's going to be OK.

We have to take a short trip to visit family this weekend, and as soon as we get back, the seeds are getting started. (It seemed a bit much to ask the lovely person staying with the cats to also babysit several hundred seedlings as well.)

It won't be as big a selection as we've done in the past, but all the North Coast tomato favourites will be there: Stupice, Sungold, Paul Robeson, Black Cherry, Yellow Pear, San Marzano, and several others that I am blanking on right now. It's terribly hard- the seed catalogs have been SO tempting this year, and I am trying hard to maintain some self control.

We'll have lettuce, spinach, peas, beans, greens and an assortment of other veg plants, as well as the flower and herb favourites- calendula, poppies, nasturtiums, cerinthe, cilantro and basil too.

It won't be the same, but it will be better than no plants at all. I've got to get poppies and calendula growing here as soon as possible to start building up the seed bank in the soil. Things were just getting perfect at the old farm with plants sowing themselves (mostly ones that I wanted) and I just cannot imagine not having poppies growing randomly throughout the farm. I am interested to see what comes up here this spring, but I fear it is mainly going to be some morning glory right around the house, and Canada thistle in the pasture (right where we want to put the orchard). Ugh. I don't see many bulbs at all- I will miss Mrs. Ostman's daffodils.

We've been spending time walking the property, figuring out what will go where, and if that makes sense from a work efficiency viewpoint. We've marked out where the greenhouse will go, and as soon as we get a stretch of dry weather our friend Dan will come over with his tractor to scrape down the site, and we can get it re-built. We're dreaming of adding on to it, on the theory that it was already feeling too small. We'll see if our budget can squeeze out an extra twenty feet of growing space- I will happily live on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches if it gives me more room for seedlings!

Stay tuned.

Eddie the Cat can't wait until we turn on the Indoor Sun again

46 North Farm

After a tremendous amount of talking and searching and way,way too much thinking about what to call our new farm, we realized that there was never going to be a perfect, bolt-of-lightning-out-of-the-sky name, and that it really didn't matter.

In looking for our name, I came across hundreds of farm names, and you know what? They are all pretty odd. Some are boring, some are obvious, some are funny, some are weird, and in the end if a farm is a great farm and has a good reputation, people will think highly of it and the name will just work.

I realize that this statement flies in the face of the work that many highly paid "branding professionals" make careers out of. I don't mean to claim that if we had fixed upon 'Rabid Flying Killer Squirrel Farm' as a name, we might not have someday come to question our decision! But I think that as long as your farm name isn't too offensive or bizarre, then it's up to you to make it work and make people connect to it and remember it.

With all this winter rain, we are learning where the wet spots on the property are...

So thanks to my brother-in-law Andy, cartographer with the U.S. Census Bureau (it is so cool to have a professional map maker in the family- we always know just where we are), we were able to agree upon a place-based name that no one else had yet registered the domain name for, 46 North Farm. Our farm's location is at roughly 46 degrees North (latitude), and 123 degrees West (longitude). There are minutes involved to make the location more exact (why are they called minutes, Andy?) which I believe are somewhere in the comments section of the last post, if you really need to know exactly where your fabulous heirloom tomato plant will be grown this year.

Yes! We are going to grow some plant starts this year Not many, and we probably won't do any markets- maybe one or two days depending on our schedules. We are talking to the Astoria Co-op about selling plants at their store, and if that doesn't work for you, we will figure out some way to get you the plants you want. I think we've figured out where to re-build the greenhouse, which will start happening soon, but in the meantime our basement is going to become the grow-light capital of Olney.

It will be a much shorter plant list this year, because we just don't have the time to do a huge run. But we will make sure to grow all our best and favourite varieties of tomatoes, lettuce, peas and beans, leafy greens, herbs and flowers. If there is a particular variety you want to make sure we are growing, ask for it now while there is still time to order seeds!

I'll post a plant list soon. In the meantime, stay warm and as dry as you can, and savor the longer days. Spring will be here before you know it.

Coming to this site soon: Greenhouse 3.0 (Or would it be 46 North Farm's Greenhouse 1.0?)

The Farm Formerly Known as Ostman

New South Roof! Our resident Nisse managed to hold the good weather for another week, so Tim and his crew blew through the barn's south side roof in a couple of days. Unfortunately we weren't able to document it due to our Real Job commitments during daylight hours- but it is Beautiful to see it DONE.

I agree with what Shakespeare was getting at with his "What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet" comment. Fortunately for him, Mr. Shakespeare never had to deal with modern marketing issues like domain name availability.

When we decided to leave the land Ostman Farm lived on, we knew we would be leaving the name behind as well. We called the farm that in honor of John and Hilma Ostman, the land's original farmers, who ran Ostman's Dairy there from the thirties until sometime in the early sixties. We are not related to the Ostmans or their descendants except by friendship. The idea of keeping the name– even though we are now reasonably well known on the North Coast by that name– always seemed weird and just wrong to us. If we ever started a new farm, we knew would start over with a whole new identity. Possibly not the smartest marketing move, but the only one that we could live with.

Up close, the roof is incredible, but even standing twenty feet away you can smell the fresh cedar shingles. It is a wonderful scent- to me, it smells dry and safe and secure.

So here we are! New land, new farm, new barn with gorgeous new barn roof. So our new name is now.... hmmm.

Originally, when we first tried to buy this land back in the summer of 2008 and had to call it something in our business plan, we were calling it Home Farm. Simple, easy to remember, and meaningful. While trying to work out how to run our farm on land we were leasing from someone else, we had come to understand that essentially what we needed was a place to call Home. A safe place where we could put down roots, both figuratively and literally, and know that we had some say in what would happen to those roots in the future. We wanted to spend years getting to know a piece of land- how the sun moved across it, where the water went, what wildlife lived there, when the migrating birds arrived and left. I wanted to spend time building our soil, watching the plants respond year after year, and someday, hopefully late in my nineties, I wanted to just keel over while picking green beans in the sunshine. Just toss me on the compost pile, I will have died content.

I had always liked the simplicity of how in England, the Home Farm was the name given to the farm near where the local landed gentry's estate was, and was where the household would get their eggs, milk and produce from. It's almost a generic term for a farm in England. Simple. Easy to remember.

Unfortunately in this age of online marketing, no small business that wants to be even reasonably successful, farms included, can be without the obligatory website, blog, e mail list and possibly facebook page at a minimum. I don't think our farm will twitter, except in the traditional sense when the migratory song birds are moving through. But the rest of it? Working on it, as much as we are working on getting the greenhouse and the rest of our plants moved.

When you fix on a name that is so simple, and already very much out there in traditional usage, you can be pretty sure others will have gotten there before you, and such is the case. There are several Home Farms, (even the Prince of Wales has one), and on top of that, someone is squatting on the domain name. If we had an extra $40k to spend on homefarm.com it might be something to consider, but I would rather put any funds we have into rebuilding the farm itself.

Looking for a New Name- Tall Trees Farm?

So we now find ourselves playing a verbal game all day long. Name that Farm! We've been through some of the obvious choices. We could name it after ourselves, or a combination of our names. Retzlaff Farm? Too hard to pronounce. Coleman Farm? People will think we sell camping supplies. Retzman, or Coleoff Farm? Not quite right. Teresa's Farm? Packy's Farm? TP Farm? Definitely not. There isn't a creek running through the property to give us one of those obvious landscape feature names like 'Circle Creek Farm'. We do have a unnamed gully cutting across the pasture that runs seasonally, but 'Seasonal Gully Farm' just doesn't sound right.

What about where we are located- 202 Farm? (We are on Highway 202.) Kind of bland. 9 Mile Farm?(We are just past the 9 mile marker.) Aside from being an oddly popular word combination, (and the name of a Canadian pop band) we don't want to be confused with the Nine Mile Point Nuclear Reactor.

Olney Farm? Olney is the name of the area we live in- not a legal town with it's own post office and such, but there is The Olney Store (with the Big O Saloon next door), and the Olney Grange already out there. Would the Olney Farm be unique enough? Apparently not. There is already an Olney Farm- a fifth generation pony breeding farm located in Maryland that has the domain name olneyfarm.com nicely tied up.

We love wildlife- what about naming it after some bird or animal that lives here (that we are not planning on driving away). Packy is very stuck on Kinglet Farm, because during all this freezing weather, we had little kinglets flying into our enclosed porch looking for warmth, and banging on all the windows trying to pick bug remnants out of the frozen cobwebs. But to me that is way too close to Kingfisher Farm, the legendary organic farm that Jeff Trenary runs down in Nehalem.

Olney Elk are bold as brass and take no crap from anyone.

We are going to need some serious fencing if we are

going to be good neighbours...

40 Elk Farm? We've now met the herd, and they are a somewhat daunting prospect as neighbours. But will people think we raise elk for meat? We'd love it if some beavers would take up residence down in our seasonal gully, so what about Welcome Beaver Farm? Yeah, get your minds out of the gutter. See? This isn't easy. Plus we run the risk of alienating all the University of Oregon Duck fans. The Beaver-Duck rivalry in Oregon is fierce, best not to wade into those waters. Wildlife names can be tricky. We haven't hit on one that is just IT.

Plants? We have a lone apple tree (possibly crab apple) on the property from an earlier agricultural time, so I thought about Wild Apple Farm, which I like and of course Packy doesn't. However, it's irrelevant, because the domain name takes you to a weather site in Maine. (?!? More squatters, I think.) I kind of like the idea of using the word 'wild', so what about Wild Roots Farm? taken. Wildroot? taken. Wild Life Farm? Takes you to a family website with lots of photos of their travels.

Packy liked the idea of naming the farm after our newly discovered Nisse, in hope that it will continue to do good work on our behalf, but guess what? Nisse Farm? Taken.

I thought about a comment someone made to us when we described all that was going on with our farm. "You sure do have your hands full!" "Hmm", I thought. "Hands Full Farm?" Already taken. But not Full Hands Farm, so that's still on the table, although Packy isn't keen on it. He might be persuaded if things get desperate.

Full Belly, Full Moon, Full Harvest, Open Hands, Four Hands, Many Hands, Clapping Hands, Wild Moon, Harvest Moon, Wild Harvest... taken, taken, taken.

It's a good thing we've never had kids. They probably would have spent the first 18 years of their lives being known as ' Hey You' or 'Number Three'.

How is it that we can immediately come up with snappy names for our cats, but not for our farm??

Got any Farm Name thoughts? You may as well toss in your two cents. Maybe we can figure out a prize for the winning suggestion.

Even if we don't have a new name, we have a New Barn Roof.

In late December on the North Oregon Coast, that is even better.