News from Grayling Lane

Photos and Text by Sage & Nathan

The summer is fading fast into Autumn here on Grayling Lane. The willows in the thickets have hatched the tent worm moths and their leaves are yellowing in slow pulses as the nights cool — the secret gold of summer sun saved for one last show before the bare branches of winter set in. The woods are full of the fruiting body of mushrooms; bright red shrimp russulas, the giant dented caps of the woodland russulas, the secret butter softness of silk chanterelles. We cleared the forest paths of a summer’s worth of trailing blackberry and the rangy seeded stalks of fibrous nettle and the kids slip back into the mossy hidden places to play games of subtle nonsense.

We’ve harvested the Jaljuli wheat that grew through the summer along the driveway. This is an ancient durum wheat from the Jordanian plateau, oddly out of place here on our northern island, but finding its way — another chapter in the three-thousand-year story of that seed. Our two lambs happily graze the flush of green growth under the dry stubble, these steady late summer rains were hard for a good grain harvest, but a boon to graziers across the island. We dug our potatoes from the small kitchen garden we keep for the home and bakery – and despite the wet and cold we are getting some ripe tomatoes here in September. The giant sunflowers hang their heavy heads, the blushing purple elderberries attract the songbirds, the chickens scratch happily through the edges of the clearings.

This is our sixth autumn on the land here, but it is our first one since we came into the community of the Lopez Community Land Trust. As we walk the trails and make plans for new buildings or new plantings we check in with ourselves – does this feel different now that we aren’t, on paper, the owners of the land? We wondered if there would be a shift in our feelings of investment but instead we feel a deeper commitment in making this place abundant and functional because it now has broader ownership. As the full moon rises over the east field and the croak of a lonely frog comes from the thicket we feel that connection, that urge to tend, that rootedness more, knowing that the land is held, for all intents and purposes, in trust forever.

Part of this trust involves the idea of regenerative agriculture. There is much attention paid to the techniques and tools of this approach to food and farming, focusing on the vitality of the soil — cover crops, minimal tillage — but the bigger picture has to address how we hold and value our land. A functional local food system needs not only the farmers who are willing to dig the food out of the soil and the customers who buy it, but land that is affordable, secure, and well-tended. The LCLT is fulfilling that third piece of the sustainable agriculture triangle as it works to set aside land for farms and food businesses. Regenerative agriculture will be a huge piece to the puzzle of climate and long term human health and stability on this planet. And, we are believers that the systems that create problems are not the ones to solve them, so as we see the consequences of growth driven capitalism and its relationship with “de-generative” industrial agriculture we know other systems and relationships are necessary for change. So the developing system of regenerative ag in relationship with the work of Community Land Trusts is just exactly what we need going forward and we are so pleased to have Grayling operating through that same space.

As we do our autumn chores here at Grayling and watch and listen to the land for the next steps — should we clear that thicket? Should we dig a swale here? Where should we plant the huckleberries? — we feel the security and community of joining in relationship with the other Land Trust folks here on island to keep alive the connection and the future that food brings.

P.S. Nathan is away on a second trip to Italy where he and Sage taught at the University of Washington Study Away course led by Dr. Kerry Reding earlier this summer. This time he’s there  for the global biennial conference of the Slow Food Movement aptly named “Terre Madre” with the theme of “We are Nature.”  The presentation will be on Slow Grains: Ancient Grain Experiences from Far Away Countries. Gatenyo Can (Turkey) and Nathan Hodges of the artisanal Barn Owl Bakery (WA – USA), share their experiences with ancient grains. A journey between continents to rediscover and enhance the cereal traditions that unite the entire world.