Tour de Coops - Saturday, July 24th + WORKSHOP

Naomi is teaching an Advanced Chicken Troubleshooting Workshop here at the shop, register through PCC. Held the morning of the Tour from 9 to 11am, start here and head up through SE into the northern coops on adventure.

Tour tickets /booklets just came by bicycle last night and are here for sale, with the cute drawing Jon Wagner made on the cover. There are beautiful photos and descriptions of 25 coops around Portland and a map with routes to walk, bike or carpool. Including the Mayor's chicken coop, it is a tour you can't resist.

One $15 booklet, covers each family or group of people going around the tour together, though you may want one of your own as a souvenir... all proceeds benefit the awesome non-profit, Growing Gardens!

There is a Chinook Book coupon for Growing Gardens - just bring it in and your booklet to tour as a group is only $12 AND if you mention seeing it here, we'll give you a 10% Book Coupon when you buy your booklet here, for the book of your choosing.

New SITE needed for inFARMation and Beer!

inFARMation and Beer! at - ** CANCELED this Wednesday - we all just found out that Roots Organic Brewery just closed ** - Friends of Family Farmers is looking for a new regular spot for monthly gatherings.

From FoFF, "We discovered this afternoon (Tuesday 7/13) that Roots Organic Brewery has closed its doors permanently today. An alert Friends of Family Farmers' supporter sent us this blog post from today's Oregon Live website. Our condolences go out to Craig Nicholls and his wonderful staff and we wish them the best of luck in the future. There is an additional post about Roots here.

After many phone calls, an afternoon driving around SE Portland talking to bar managers, and much deliberation, we have decided that we will need to cancel tomorrow's InFARMation (and Beer!) event. We are expecting to have a new venue lined up shortly, hopefully in time in time to host InFARMation (and Beer!) in a couple weeks at a new location. We will get that information out to you as soon as possible.

If you have any wonderful ideas of a new venue that will fit 150 people and that serves good beer and food, it would be highly appreciated. Drop Michele a note at michele@friendsoffamilyfarmers."

The Upcoming Topic: Eater's Bill of Rights - with guest speakers from: Kookoolan Farms, Sokol Blosser Vineyards, Portland Farmer's Market, Multnomah Food Policy Council and Lost Arts Kitchen

Shop Closed on 4th of July, Sunday

and hope you have a fun relaxing day with friends and family! : )

SUNSHINE !

The sunshine is finally out and it is hot. This heat should cut back on the slug hunting. Cabbage Moth larva, still needs serious prowling (both on display pre duck feeding.. in this lovely cabbage)

Hens and goats learning to share... ; )

InFARMation was really great - thank you to everyone who came out! More about it when it and a list of the farms here soon (when it's dark and cool).

Enjoy the sunshine !!!

Urban Farming at InFARMation

This Wednesday June 9th at 6:30pm, I'm moderating an awesome panel of 10+ urban farmers for InFARMation at Roots Organic Brewery in SE Portland for Friends of Family Farmers. We wrote to over 30 farms we know that live and farm in the city or commute to land in neighboring towns with a questionnaire and are really excited to introduce you to them and get a great discussion going.

It's FREE and the organic beer is cheap, so if its raining... it will seem wise to go inside a cute organic beer establishment and chat about farming ; )">Wooo hooo!!

Edible PORTLAND's new issue is out and talks about watermelons to drool for in Hermiston, marionberries and includes an article on the Growing Farms program through OSU, featuring a bit on Diggin' Roots Farm, Red Truck Farm, Tipping Tree Farm and also a sweet photo of Shari of Dancing Roots Farm!

The sun is out right now and it feels shocking and familiar at the same time. Maybe a bit more rain to bear and then a lot more of this? The last few weeks of Northwest Monsoon have been hard on so many people. We all knew winter and spring were too dry and often too warm (that's always hard to admit)... but it's impacted a lot of home gardeners, landscapers and farmers dealing with unseasonable flooding, and more pest and disease pressure for plants unable to put on normal growth needed to be healthy and out compete them. There's been some hibernation. In December it was unseasonably dry and then the freeze hit many plants both ornamental and edible pretty hard. In theory, we could have been out watering to some degree and providing more cover and insulation, but when it pours repeatedly in late May and June and land can't keep up, creeks and rivers rise, it's much harder or impossible to manage on the fly.

With the old sun coming back out on a more official basis, it's good to remember how dramatic it can be for us and animals. Shade and water are things we haven't all had to think about too much yet, but soon will be part of our normal life, (right?) We've started improvising more shade areas here and additional water buckets in different spots. Good to remember to take care of ourselves to. Just came to terms that the boots I love are finally blown out after 3 years of living in them.. found some on sale and wow, it makes a big difference. (Rossi, made in Australia, sweet shop in Rainier, WA and they have sale pairs on ebay) Are you taking good care of yourself, perking up with the idea of summer really landing?

Our old window (red) greenhouse is up! Relocated from our old house on N. Williams. The chickies got a new run within the pen. There's a skinny ramp in and out and a little ledge. It looked goat proof and they appeared uninterested, but before we could add the additional egg shape to the door, Sebastian did manage to suddenly be in the run, enjoying the Q-Bar Lucy Diamond Pullet Developer....... illegal. For a couple days it seemed he definitely strained himself on that effort, but is back to full spunk. We're working another enclosed run for the ducks with a water feature and more space to stay up late and not be snackable, since there's no chicken bedtime with ducks and they're not fond of being completely housed... some time this summer we have to have a photo and idea sharing with fellow duck keepers. Let us know if you're interested. Duck workshop?

Workshops! The goat workshop was really neat. Emily and Amanda of the Going Goaty Collective in NE Portland, brought their Mini LaMancha, Darlin', for a milking demonstration along with one of the kids, Milky way, so soft brown and smelling so good. Thanks to everyone who came and if your interested in a future goat workshop, let us know and we'll start another sign up list. (+ more photos on our facebook site)

And teaching more chicken workshops for PCC here in June and July and again in the fall.

Our sunflower berm along the fence and the straw bale beds really loved the rain. Our demonstration garden is growing and we are working on signs (it wants to talk), so it will be getting more informative and funny soon... Got mobile electric fencing for the goats to start moving them around the far sections, but may need to get more so we can make a bigger roving pen or make an additional fixed day pen.

We're working on finishing the clean up of the neighboring lot we're adjacent to along 99E. There is a lot of free wood left, especially suitable for firewood and possibly other projects. We'll also have some irrigation parts for sale soon. (Nellie's called dibs on this piece... goat raft adrift in a sea of woodchips)

Thanks to everyone sending and bringing in photos what you're up to and your animals for our binders in the shop and to post online!

Bee's Friend & Nellie in Clover

a.k.a Phacelia... the first curling fiddlehead blooms opened up on Mother's Day (so sweet!) and after this week of sunshine, they're happily covered in bees and loving it. Nellie grazing the clover on the goats daily session on the far reaches of the property, seriously loving it. Last batch of super cute indian runner ducklings. Chickies here for two more weeks. Farmageddon Grower's Collective has a very yummy array of tomatoes starts here. An assortment of Rogue Hoes being made for us and super cool tools from Hida later in the month..... Here now are the Vashon Island Broadforks handmade by Meadow Creature! They have landed, specially priced at $25 off. Come and get 'em! Yee haw!

Ooooh!! also cool info on Farming & Gardening for Pollinators from the Xerces Society, including the book Pollinator Conservation Handbook: A Guide to Understanding, Protecting and Providing Habitat for Native Pollinator Insects and other great pamphlets.

Taming the Plastic Mountain + insect buddies + STRAW Bale Gardening!

the extension of our lease has renewed our excitement to keep cleaning up the property. taming the plastic mountain. lurking on the south side of the building... an ugly beast of the past nursery, we have been craving to remove. white truck in shining armor..arrives from Agri-Plas..comes to the recycling rescue, we thrillingly helped load. more photos here...

Neil, Naomi and two awesome drivers from Agri-Plas fill a 24' box truck with debris from the past nursery. it was completely thrilling.

Landing this week: Ladybugs, Praying Mantis, Green Lacewings and Beneficial Nematodes (how can you resist them?)
+plus another 20 pounds of worms by next week... wiggly buzz buzz

and a super neat Organic Straw Bale Gardening Workshop here on Saturday from 2 - 3pm with Randall Cass of Oregon Tilth - call or email us at the shop to register, drop-ins welcome, too! Info on the workshop on OT's Organic Education Center site.

sweet photo we just got of Lily holding Minnie and on the right of the Szymanczyk family's ladies: Hope, Gloria, Princess "Leia" (laya..), and Clarice in their beautiful coop. we're going start a photo album of people's chickies and ducklings growing up on our facebook site. you're welcome to email photos or bring in photos for our binders... for show and tell : )

SEEDS

Horizon Herbs + Uprising Seeds just landed, more Adaptive and Siskiyou on order..... yay!

Our lease is extended !

Through at least March of next year !!!

We are excited to have more time to nurture this land, get more plants growing and plan for more workshops and fun stuff at this site...

Thank you for all of your collective positivity and incredible support!

Ducks: Foof and Cooper with goats Nellie, Sebastian and hen Banti, celebrating their future water feature, another climbing mountain and hatching further plans........xox

Indian Runner Duckling Darlings

today's new arrivals... you takin' my picture?

.....more to say in a bit : )

of gardens and friends

not sure how to put a little slideshow here yet... so i just added on our facebook site and here. Randall, Erika, greenhouse going up, Liz, ducklings and Anna with one of the huge coir coconut blocks that just landed:

Cat and Dog food is in!

Felidae, Canidae, Taste of the Wild, Organix, and Natural Plant Organics + yummy treats including Zuke's, Greenies, Snap Bits, Red Barn, and organic catnip... we'll have catnip starts and more organic herbs from Gales Meadow Farm this Saturday! More chickies landed and ducklings, too : ) Plus wheelbarrows and a variety of hand tools.