Special Sections - Clallam County Farm Tour 2018

21st Clallam County Farm Tour Saturday, September 29, 2018 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Lazy J Tree Farm • Agnew Grocery & Feed Finn Hall Farm • Dungeness Valley Creamery Five Acre School • Jardin du Soleil Enjoy a variety of educational demos, hayrides, live music, and farm fresh food.

Event Sponsored by

2 • WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2018

CLALLAM COUNTY FARM TOUR 2018

Keep farmland for farming ...

By Tom Sanford,

North Olympic Land Trust executive director Driving or biking across the Dungeness prairie and delta, I’m always awed by the open and beautiful farmlands, historic barns, rolling landscape and wildlife habitat – it’s impressive, peaceful, calming and idyllic. I silently give thanks that somehow, as if by magic, the wonderful rural character of this place remains intact. Since working with North Olympic Land Trust, I’ve learned that this beautiful rural has not been preserved by magic, SANFORD landscape but by the purposeful and hard work of a community of passionate local citizens, landowners, farmers, non-profits, and government agencies including groups like WSU Extension and North Olympic Land Trust.

Great strides have been made, but the work to conserve the remaining rural landscape from Agnew to Sequim Bay is not yet complete.

Since 1950, Clallam County has lost over 75 percent of its farmland.

Thousands of acres of rich fertile soils and critical habitat remain unprotected.

Today, our community has the opportunity to ensure a 132-acre farm known as Wonderland & The 80 will remain available for farming forever. Located at the corner of Port Williams and Schmuck roads, this land has been stewarded by the same family since 1933 and provides orchard grass and corn critical to one of the North Olympic Peninsula’s two remaining dairies. Donations are currently being collected to support the permanent protection of this farm. This Friends of the Fields

Campaign will be in full swing at the time of Farm Tour, so look for donation stations at the farms to join in the effort.

Today’s efforts to preserve farmland, such as Wonderland & The 80, are building on the work and vision of those like John Willits. In 1995, Willits took his ‘Quacker Farm’ in the midst of the Lower Dungeness basin and entered a land preservation agreement with North Olympic Land Trust. This agreement states that these 42 acres will be managed solely as prime waterfowl habitat into perpetuity – forever. With this first land preservation agreement, or conservation easement, John also began to form a vision for the lower Dungeness that would ensure that the lands best suited for farming would remain as farmland, those best suited for wildlife would be left for the wildlife, and that all of this area would retain the rural character that is so valued by our community.

Since, thanks to the vision shared by John and many others, more than 1,200 acres of land north of Highway 101 between Sequim Bay and Siebert Creek have been conserved for farmland and wildlife habitat by local landowners, agencies and nonprofit organizations, much of it by the Land Trust. Across Clallam County, that tally exceeds 3,300 acres.

On September 29 you can experience the magic of the Dungeness prairie and our wonderful agricultural landscape. Farm Tour is an excellent way to celebrate the harvest with family and friends. While out on the farms, you’ll discover that three of the farms in this year’s Farm Tour have been permanently protected as farmland through private land conservation.

Dungeness Valley Creamery is one of the two remaining dairies in Sequim. The 38-acre Creamery with its herd of Jersey cows are protected by a North Olympic Land Trust conservation agreement finalized in 2009.

Lazy J Tree Farm, renowned for their Christmas trees and produce, includes a 19-acre Land Trust land preservation agreement along Siebert Creek that helps protect salmon habitat and is a connecting link in a wildlife corridor that stretches several two miles upstream from the mouth of the creek.

Finn Hall Farm, in Agnew has been actively farmed by the Jarvis Family since 1920 and its 60-acres were permanently conserved in 2011.

Two other Farm Tour sites - Jardin du Soliel and Agnew Grocery and Feed – are located next door to permanently conserved farmland and are wonderful locations to look out on protected lands that define our community.

The Land Trust is proud to be a part of a community that values its land base, and that realizes that if we work together to conserve the farms, fish and forests of this land, it will pay back direct dividend to our own quality of life.

Tom Sanford is Executive Director of North Olympic Land Trust.

To date, the Land Trust has conserved more than 520 acres of working farmland, over 12 miles of river and stream habitat, more than a mile of shoreline along the Strait of Juan de Fuca, over 1,800 acres of forests, including 460 acres of working forests and over 650 acres of land open for public recreation.

They’re not making any more farmland this good. When it’s gone, it’s gone.

The 2018 Friends of the Fields Campaign: Your chance to conserve best-in-the-nation soil for future generations.

Every gift makes a difference in Clallam County Donate TODAY: www.northolympiclandtrust.org 892203216

(360) 417-1815 • P.O. Box 2945, Port Angeles, Washington 98362

CLALLAM COUNTY FARM TOUR 2018

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2018 • 3

The Important Link Between Food and Health

By Mark Ozias,

Clallam County Commissioner Here in Clallam County we spend a lot of time thinking about “local food,” and with good reason! We have some of the most creative farmers and food producers in the country who grow and produce some of the finest food products available.

My wife and I are reminded of how fortunate we are to live someplace with vibrant local food producers every time we travel somewhere else…the greens are never as sweet, nor is the meat as flavorful, nor is the milk as fresh as we enjoy every single day in Clallam County.

OZIAS As your County Commissioner I have learned that while on the one hand we enjoy access to the healthiest and best food anywhere, on the other hand we experience some of the highest food and diet-related chronic illness statistics in the state: 74 percent of Clallam County adults are overweight or obese; nearly 40 percent of adults have been told they have either high cholesterol or high blood pressure, and more than 10 percent of adults have diabetes. This disparity highlights the need to better understand the connection between food and health.

The good news is that a variety of creative and inspirational efforts are underway across the county to begin to bridge the gap between “having the best healthy food anywhere” and our citizens’ growing challenges with debilitating chronic illness. One of the best examples is a partnership involving our local food banks, the WSU Extension, the Olympic Peninsula Healthy Community Coalition and Texas A&M University (yes, you read that correctly!)

These visionary community leaders are bringing federal dollars via a USDA grant into our county to pay local farmers to grow produce which is then distributed to vulnerable populations across the county and paired with appropriate nutritional information and cooking techniques. The goal is to teach people how to use their local bounty, eat a more healthy diet and reduce susceptibility to chronic illness by strengthening connections with local, fresh, healthy food.

I am convinced that one of the keys to helping people understand the link between food and health (We are what we eat!) lies in programs like this that begin to re-establish connections to what food actually is,

and to where it actually comes from. These connections have been lost in the last 50 years as our food system has become increasingly corporate, distant, processed, packaged and industrialized.

A simple example of the power of re-establishing these connections involves successful school nutrition programs. Those that have simply replaced french fries one day with carrot sticks the next have tended to fail…who would want to eat a bland carrot stick when yesterday they were eating a satisfying fry?

Those that have tended to succeed featured carrots that were grown by the students themselves. These students have experienced both the magic of growing a vegetable and the wonder of its amazing flavor when ripe and fresh. This direct connection is the simplest path to behavioral change.

As industrial agriculture and economies of scale work against “local food,” partners across Clallam County have come together to promote what amounts to a cultural change in our little corner of the world.

We are actively working to create a culture where local food is valued, where the healthy choice is the easy choice and where all county citizens have regular access to locally-grown vegetables and fruit.

You can be a part of this cultural change by participating in the Clallam County Farm Tour. I encourage you to get out, meet your farmers, walk their fields, enjoy some of their bounty and in doing so begin to build, or re-build, your own connection to where YOUR food comes from. Not only will you find yourself eating the most amazing carrots, greens, onions, garlic, berries, apples, milk and meat imaginable, but you will also find yourself feeling better.

Being a part of the solution has never been so delicious, or so much fun!

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4 • WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2018

CLALLAM COUNTY FARM TOUR 2018

Farm Tour Profiles Lazy J Tree Farm

225 Gehrke Rd., Agnew Steve Johnson George and Eloise Johnson bought 20 acres in 1955 and started a berry farm on Gehrke Road in the Agnew area.

In 1960, the family changed the focus of the farm from berries to Christmas trees and Lazy J Tree Farm was born. Now the third generation still sells u-cut Christmas trees and stunning natural wreaths.

Steve Johnson took over management of the farm at age 16 after the death of his father, and has built Lazy J Tree Farm into the diversified 66-acre operation it is today.

While the primary enterprise on this farm remains Christmas trees, the farm also features a certified organic orchard of various apple varieties, a variety of potatoes, garlic, rhubarb, landscaping clumping bamboo and their own apple cider sold only at the farm.

Steve added a composting operation to the farm in 2005, which receives yard waste and other organic materials. From that natural material a finished chemical free and bio solid free compost is made for sale.

The farm also has a variety of mulches and their newest product, top soil for a complete line of natural soil building products.

Steve and Ann Johnson love and nurture the farm land with consciousness and care. His family and employees exhibit these same traits and when you are on the farm you can feel the dedication they have made to be stewards of the land.

Lazy J Farm is a family owned and operated farm that is community minded and environmental progressive.

Agnew Grocery & Feed

2863 Old Olympic Hwy Chris Frankfurth The Agnew Store is one of the oldest operating businesses in Clallam County, playing an important role in local agriculture since 1926. For years, hay truck operators stopped here to weigh their crops while their children grabbed an ice cream. Although no longer in use, the scale remains on display. The cold storage building was in use until 1984 for families to rent freezer space. The building had to be torn down because of fire damage, but there are still customers that remember their locker number. Some of these locker doors now decorate the store.

During Farm Tour, stop by and see how the store is keeping a bit of areas history in everything it offers! There will be antique tractors on display, a small petting zoo, live music from local artists, a u-pick pumpkin patch and lots of local goods and drinks including sandwiches from Olympic Bagel Company.

Neighboring Johnston Farms will also have a fresh produce stand.

Finn Hall Farm

940 Finn Hall Rd, Agnew Suzie Bliven Finn Hall Farm was homesteaded by Adolf and Fanny Ranta in 1920. They converted 60 acres paralleling the Strait of Juan de Fuca to farmland and built their log home, which still stands today. Adolf and Fanny were among first Finnish emigrants to settle in Agnew, coining it “Finn Town”…hence Finn Hall Road that we’re familiar with today.

By the mid-1920’s Ero Jarvis, Fanny’s son, had joined his parents and purchased an adjoining 20 acres to start his own family and farm. He was a avid vegetable gardener and electrician. He and his wife Olga had two children, John and Nancy. At a time when Agnew and the Sequim-Dungenesss Valley were home to hundreds of dairies, Ero purchased his parent’s 60 acres and began dairying too. Ero’s son, John Jarvis then purchased the dairy in 1959 after serving in the Korean War and attending Washington State University to study agriculture.

John continued the dairy tradition and was quite successful until the mid-1980’s. He then switched primarily to beef and hay production. He married Carmen Stence and had one daughter, Suzie. Carmen brought her love of antiques and trains to the farm including a vintage caboose that once ran along the Olympic Discovery Trail.

In 2011 the Jarvis’s collaborated with North Olympic Land Trust to preserve their farmland for future generations and to conserve its natural wildlife corridor and wetlands for water fowl and migrating birds.

Today the farm is managed by Carmen, Suzie and her daughter Jonel. The farmland is leased to a neighboring farmer, Eric Adolphson, who continues to produce hay and raise beef cattle. Suzie has remodeled one the farmhouses as a massage studio and farm stay so that locals and tourists can experience life on the farm.

Take a step back in time during Farm Tour and come see this historic farm - a reminder of the area’s once booming dairy industry. Young and old will enjoy seeing the antique farm and dairy equipment on display, as well as touring the refurbished caboose, the “crooked” house and the Farm House Studio. Enjoy live music from noon-2 p.m., and before you head home, be sure to collect some apples from the orchard.

Five Acre School

515 Lotzgesell Road, Dungeness Brian Walsh and Autumn Piontek-Walsh Five Acre School is an independent school, serving students pre-K through Grade 6, located on 5 acres adjacent to the Dungeness Wildlife Refuge in Washington’s first commercial straw bale building. The school prides itself on its child-centered approach to education focusing on the whole person with an emphasis on the outdoors, community stewardship and sustainability. Created and founded by Bill Jevne and Juanita Ramsey-Jevne in 1994, Five Acre School is celebrating its 24th year with current owners Brian Walsh and Autumn Piontek-Walsh and Director Lauren Denton.

Five Acre invites you to visit the beautiful school grounds. At the school, visitors can take short walks through the Wildlife Refuge, see the elementary agricultural projects in action, and experience the playground and preserved wetland. On farm tour, be sure to enjoy cider pressing and a community bake sale at Five Acre School.

CLALLAM COUNTY FARM TOUR 2018

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2018 • 5

Dungeness Valley Creamery

1915 Towne Road, Dungeness Ryan and Sarah McCarthey Built in 1992 our small family farm began its life as a conventional dairy. With the rise in industrial farming, family farms continued to go extinct. It was time to “get big, or get out!.” No longer wanting to be at the mercy of corporate agriculture, we knew something had to change.

In 2006 we began bottling and selling whole raw milk under the current brand name Dungeness Valley Creamery. The change proved successful and in 2012 the farm transitioned to the next generation when Ryan and Sarah McCarthey took ownership of the farm from Sarah’s parents Jeff and Debbie Brown. This succession along with the preservation of their farmland through a conservation easement with North Olympic Land Trust ensures fresh dairy products and more from Dungeness Valley Creamery for years to come.

Today we are Washington State’s largest and longest running raw milk dairy, producing 350 gallons per day from our herd of 75 milking jersey cows. Our products are available in over 70 locations throughout Western Washington.

Farm Tour day at the Creamery buzzes with fun and activities. Guests are welcome to tour the barn and milking parlor where the Creamery’s delicious raw milk is produced, and meet the calves. A hay ride will escort visitors around the farms 38 acres of lush pasture and grazing milk herd. Interactive classes including butter, yogurt, and kefir making will be demonstrated throughout the day, as well as food vending from Pacific Pantry and live music by Bread and Gravy. Don’t forget to visit the 4H petting zoo, a favorite for children of all ages.

225 Gehrke Road

Farm Tour

Live music & hayrides!

2863 Old Olympic Hwy

C

Anderson Rd

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Gunn Rd

Old Olymp ic Hwy

Highw ay 101

Visit this 60-acre historic dairy now used to farm beef and hay. Tour the refurbished caboose and "crooked' house, enjoy live music & anitques on display.

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Historic farm & antiques!

Five Acre School 515 Lotzgesell Road

See student ag projects, enjoy a natural playscape and cider pressing, do arts & crafts, and explore the preserved wetlands.

Future farmers in action!

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Olympic

More Farm Tour info:

Discovery

northolympiclandtrust.org

Trail

Saturday, Sept. 29th

10 am - 4 pm

Simply go to whichever farm you want to visit first. At that farm, you’ll pay $10 per carload and receive a ticket to place on your windshield.

Then proceed at your own pace to whichever farms you want to visit. So pack up the family, grab your friends & come learn about life on the farm!

Go by bike and get in for free!

Please leave your dogs at home !

Hayrides, games, local food, live music, and fun for the whole family!

Dungeness Valley Creamery 1915 Towne Road

Tour the milking parlors, eat farm-fresh ice cream, enjoy butter/yogurt making demos, live music & a petting zoo.

Great food, music & demos!

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Food & lavender fields!

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Finn Hall Farm

940 Finn Hall Road

Towne Rd

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Old Oly m

R iver

3

geness Dun

2

Carlsborg Rd

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Take a tour of the beautiful lavender fields, see lavender processing and distillation demos, and enjoy fun kid activities.

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Wild Current Way

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Woodcock Rd

Woodcock Rd

Finn-Hall Rd

Kitchen -Dick Rd

Gehrke Rd

el l R ges

Cays Rd

Lotz

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Jardin du Soleil 3932 Sequim-Dungeness Way

Sequim- Dun ge

Classic farm store built in 1926!

1865 E. Anderson Road

ay sW

Clark Rd

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Nash’s Organic Produce

Grab a refreshment or fresh produce at the store of the area's largest organic farm.

6

Agnew Grocery & Feed

Check out the antique tractor display, enjoy a petting zoo and fun kid activities.

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3932 Sequim-Dungeness Way, Dungeness Jordan and Paul Schiefen Sequim prides itself on being the “Lavender Capital of North America” and Jardin du Soleil is one of the most beautiful lavender farms in the area. The certified organic lavender farm was planted in 1999 on land that was part of a dairy farm established in the 1880s. Thousands of lavender plants on 10-plus acres create a wonderfully fragrant vista at the farm.

Join owners Jordan and Paul Schiefen for a tour of the farm.

Learn all about how to care for, harvest, and process the lavender. See demonstrations of the distillation of fragrant essential oil of lavender at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Children will have fun finding hidden treasure, running in the maze and making farm crafts to take home. There will be resource booths to explore and Pacific Pantry will be onsite serving up amazing food made with farm fresh local ingredients.

Come join us for farm-fun at one of the jewels of the Sequim-Dungeness Valley!”

2018 Clallam Co. 7

Lazy J Tree Farm

Enjoy hayrides and music, tour the orchards, learn about composting, and let kids play on a giant sand pile.

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Jardin Du Soleil Lavender Farm

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We are excited to share with you our many improvements to sustainability, environmental stewardship, and cow comfort through a walking tour this year. The tour will feature our 72 panel solar photovoltaic array, an up close look at our newly installed fully automated barn cleaning Biolynk system, an overview of our recent animal comfort upgrades, and a sneak peek at some of our future environmental sustainability projects.

Lots of fun and learning to be had by the whole family awaits. The McCartheys welcome you!

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6 • WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2018

CLALLAM COUNTY FARM TOUR 2018

Honoring past land stewards North Olympic Land Trust is seeking words and ideas from land stewards who came before us

By Dean Miller,

North Olympic Land Trust development director Local wags had called it “Poverty Flats,” but history books say Elsie Clark thought the land west of the Elwha where she and her children settled in the late 1870s was a Garden of Eden. She renamed it “Eden Valley.” Five generations later, the Clarks are still there and that open land, one of Washington’s Centennial Farms, still feeds families.

MILLER In the midst of a 2018 Friends of the Fields farmland conservation campaign, North Olympic Land Trust is taking time to highlight the earliest Olympic Peninsula land stewards, those who took care during the prior centuries and have saved key pieces of this startlingly beautiful place.

One look at historic photos shows how more than 75 percent of the Clallam County’s farm land has been converted to other uses since the 1940s.

While past short-sighted land use decisions may have resulted in fragmentation of much of the area’s agricultural open space, there are also families with long histories who play an important role in keeping open lands open.

“People who came here and stayed often have a passion for natural beauty,” said Land Trust Executive Director Tom Sanford. “This is one of the values that bind us all as a community.”

The Land Trust team is looking for photos and short excerpts from family histories that can be used to illustrate the stewardship ethic of early Peninsula dwellers – those who saw more than easy riches here, or learned

SUMMARY FACT BOX:

The Land Trust hopes to include your family in Land Trust materials about this community’s commitment to land conservation, both on our website and in presentations about land conservation.

Do you have photos or family history material that illustrate love of the land among early inhabitants of the Olympic Peninsula or among your family’s youngest generation?

If you’re willing to share them, contact dean@northolympic landtrust.org or call 360-417-1815x8 from early mistakes and took steps to correct them.

“To be truly successful, a campaign like the Friends of the Fields Campaign must do more than raise the needed funds,” Sanford said. “It should also expand the community’s ability to determine its own future.

Here on the Olympic Peninsula, we make our livings and our lives on this land. Conserving land for farms, fish and forests is an investment in our quality of life. It pays off every time we enjoy great local produce, or a pastoral view or a fishing outing.”

Just as early land stewards determined the rural character of Clallam County by keeping open lands open, the community served by the Land Trust seeks to build a future that conserves the aesthetic value of the landscape while banking lands that provide a mix of job opportunities.

North Olympic Land Trust development director Dean Miller is one of several dozen family members who co-manage the 100-year-old Fritz Family homestead above Sequim.

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CLALLAM COUNTY FARM TOUR 2018

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2018 • 7

Why Eat Locally Grown Food? It Benefits All of Us!

By Dr. Monica Dixon One of the greatest advantages of living in Washington State is the abundant fresh produce, dairy, seafood and animal products available to us throughout each season. Here on the Olympic Peninsula, we’re even more fortunate that our temperate climate supports an extended growing season for our farmers, giving us the opportunity to buy much of our DIXON food close to home.

Buying food grown within a 100 mile radius of where we live has several advantages, both for us and for our community: 1) Local food has more nutrients because it has a shorter time between the harvest and your table, decreasing the chance of nutrients depleting during transport. Food imported from other states or countries is often older, has traveled many miles to get here and spends a lot of time in distribution centers. Produce picked when ripe has been found to have higher total vitamin C content than when picked before ripening.

2) Local food is full of flavor, because in order to have food arrive in your local grocery store ready to eat, produce must often be picked prior to ripening for the long shipping process, in contrast to local farmers who pick at peak ripeness and often within 24 hours of your purchase. Also, since local farmers aren’t distributing their crops across the country, they are more likely to choose varieties for flavor rather than yield.

3) Local food benefits our economy and our families. The wholesale price that farmers get for their products are low, often near the

cost of production. Local farmers who sell direct to consumers cut out the middleman and get retail price for their food, helping farmers to stay on their land. It also keeps our money here on the peninsula with local businesses.

4) Local food is good for our environment. It decreases the greenhouse gases necessary to get food to us and supports maintaining our farmland and green space in our communities. It also promotes control over our own food supply, as food production and distribution is controlled by those living and working right here.

5) Local foods help promote a safer food supply by decreasing the steps between you and your food source. At each stop in food production, whether its harvesting, washing, shipping or distribution, there are increased opportunities for contamination along the way.

6) Local growers can tell you how your food was grown or raised and what practices the farmer used during production, helping you to be a much more informed consumer.

7) Purchasing and preparing local food with children allows them to learn more about where their food comes from, why it’s important to eat a nutrient-dense diet and introduces them to flavors and textures to expand their tastes. Local farms also give children and grandchildren places to go to learn about nature and agriculture.

8) Local food keeps taxes down. According to several studies by the American Farmland Trust, farms contribute more in taxes than they require in services, whereas most development contributes less in taxes than the cost of required services. Cows don’t go to school,

tomatoes don’t dial 911.

9) Local food is an investment in the future. By supporting local farmers today, you are helping to ensure that there will be farms here tomorrow. That becomes especially important here on the peninsula, where we are geographically isolated from much of the rest of Washington State and it helps increase our self-sufficiency.

10) Probably the most fun reason for choosing locally grown or raised food is the ability to eat in sync with the seasons. Even though we can buy strawberries from Mexico or California in January, they have nowhere near the flavor or nutrition of those coming to us from our local growers in the summer. Our markets burst with peas in the spring, fresh fruit and greens all summer and bountiful squash, pumpkins and pears in the fall. Eating what’s in season allows us to experiment with a variety of flavors and reduces our food budget by buying when foods are least expensive.

Maybe you can’t get to our local farmer’s markets or farm stands regularly, but many of our stores offer local selections so keep an eye out for their signage. And the next time you are out shopping and grab something to throw in your cart, keep in mind the many reasons why choosing something produced closer to home can help your body, your neighbors and your greater community.

About Dr. Monica Dixon

Monica is a psychologist and Registered Dietitian and the President of the Olympic Peninsula Healthy Community Coalition.

In the Barn – Organic

• Garlic – Harvested July • Potatoes – Harvested September • Apples – Harvested October • U-pick Rhubarb – Harvested Spring • Apple Cider – Year Around • NEW - Apple & Pear Wood for Smoking Meat & Fish – Year Around

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(360) 457-5950 892203218

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Farm open to the public during regular business hours

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8 • WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2018

CLALLAM COUNTY FARM TOUR 2018

WE HAVE THE POWER

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