“She who wants to leap high must take a long run.”
I should probably have named it 'mid-life crisis' farm...
but I stole the name "Long Run' from my grandfather's farm in N. Central Kentucky. That farm was named after a year round creek that had no name, but traversed two counties-locally a creek was known as a 'run'-this was a long one-so that's what the locals called it. That farm is still in the family, but now called something else. We have a creek too, but it, like our farm, is much smaller (Short Run Farm just didn't have the same je ne sais quoi)....
I could blame it on the bees, or my love of growing things, or the horses I had as a kid, but when I started facing down 40 I realized if I was going to live this dream of having my own farm, it was now or never. It took a long run to get here, but I quit my job, my husband and I sold the house in Portland and we have happily landed on ten acres in Oregon's wine country where I keep rabbits, chickens, ducks, dogs, honeybees, a BLM mustang...and a BIG garden.
In the city I always had a vegetable garden, and fruit trees, and then I started keeping honeybees. The fact that honeybees travel up to 3 miles to forage, and are particularly susceptible to pesticides and herbicides made me hyper aware of what I and my neighbors use on our lawns and gardens. For the bees, and for all of us, I wanted to take a piece of Oregon and make it as healthy, productive and diverse as I could. I wanted access to the freshest, most nutritious, chemical and GMO free food I could find or grow, and I wanted to make that accessible to my community as well. Finally, I wanted a gathering place for my community, and reasons for my community to gather.
Stewarding this lovely piece of land is a dream come true-and sharing the bounty of the farm with others feeds my soul! I use only non GMO and organic seed and use better than organic low-till practices on the farm. We had a vegetable CSA from 2014-2017, but are currently rebooting our farm model.
