Weathering Life's Storms
This spring, a forty-foot wave scaled the cliffs at the Point Cabrillo Light Station, busted open the rear doors, and flooded the interior with a two-foot surge of stormy sea. Lighthouses are known for perching above the rocky cliffs, weathering storms, and getting bathed in salt spray, the ceaseless swell below a constant presence. But I imagine it still came as a surprise when a rogue wave burst in, moving the furniture and swamping the gift shop.
This spring has brought upheaval into my own life. The passing of my stepmother has altered personal roles and shifted the make-up of our family. Even as the process of aging and illness is unsurprising, like the storm outside the lighthouse, her passing has sent a wave barreling through. My heart is drenched, and despite the fact that this loss was not unexpected, it will take a moment to adjust to this new perspective and set the furniture back to rights.
Kristina Brown came into my life when I was eight. A brilliant woman, she built a career in the early days of computer development, which was and remains a very male-dominated field. Her spirit shone when she was expressing her artistic self through textile arts—lace, quilts, clothing, and more. The beautiful image by a local artist inside the front cover of this issue reminds me of Kris. She will be missed by many.
As a relatively new resident of the coast settled in my house by the sea, I am becoming acclimated to the roar of the waves. It’s a constant reminder that change continues. The push and pull of the tides and the occasional storm stirs everything up. Our coast looks different this spring. On the headlands, powerful waves have peeled back the iceplant from the sand cliffs. As the days become longer and the gaps in the (much needed) rain lengthen, it’s a time to welcome the sun. More light is returning and the sunset thankfully shifts a little later every day.
In the spirit of weathering life’s storms with grace, and maybe even some joy, the team at Word of Mouth have put together a glorious issue for you. Chef Janelle Weaver waded into unfamiliar waters when she took on the challenge of creating plant-based cheeses worthy of fine dining (p 14). Learn about the movement to let go of the custom of spring mowing in order to provide forage for vulnerable pollinators during their lean months (p 33). Farmer Gowan Batist is exploring new dimensions to a previous adventure—ten years ago she and a friend decided to eat locally for a year, and now Gowan is doing it again to see what has shifted in the past decade (p 36). And funding provided by the passage of Measure P supports positive change as well, allowing the Mendocino County Fire Safe Council to help landowners and neighbors transform homes, land, and neighborhoods so they can endure California’s inevitable wildfires with more resilience (p 31).
The lighthouse at Point Cabrillo will welcome visitors this spring, and if you stop by, take a peek over the cliffs and marvel at the size and force of that wave. We never know what the future may hold, but for now, this structure continues to shine its light, a bright beacon to all.
Warmly,
Holly Madrigal, Publisher
Garlic Scapes
Snappy Spring Snacks Add Zing to Almost Anything
by Jainned B. McDonnell
Garlic scapes are the flower stalks of the hard neck variety of the garlic plant. They are the curly edible teasers that come up about two months before the garlic bulbs are ready for harvest. They have a mild garlic flavor, with a shape and texture similar to asparagus or green beans. Though they are a wonderful fresh addition to almost any dish and make a fabulous pesto, I can never eat them all at once. Pickling and canning these curly savory treats lets me enjoy them all year round.
Pruning back the scape allows the plant to put its energy into growing larger bulbs. I usually harvest the scapes all at once, cutting them down to the first set of leaves. When harvesting scapes for eating purposes, I would recommend doing so before they start to have a prominent bend or curl, because they can become tough and woody. Curly scapes can still be used for this pickling recipe, just trim off both the flower tip and tough bottoms and, instead of laying them in a circular fashion (as shown in picture), cut them to jar length and pack them in jar vertically.
Pickled Garlic Scapes
Set aside four regular mouth pint jars and new canning lids, sanitized. Though wide mouth jars are easier to work with during the packing process, the scapes will expand and uncurl when the hot brine is poured over them. The bottle neck of a regular mouth jar helps keep the scapes in the jar and maintain the ½-inch head space for canning.
Ingredients
1 lb garlic scapes
2 c vinegar, apple cider vinegar, or distilled vinegar
2 c water
2 Tbsp pickling salt or kosher salt
2 tsp mustard seeds, ½ tsp per jar
2 tsp whole peppercorns, ½ tsp per jar
2 tsp coriander seeds, ½ tsp per jar
Pinch of chili flakes per jar, optional
Lemon peel, ½ inch piece per jar, optional
Instructions
Start a water bath and bring to a boil. In a different pot, bring water, vinegar, and salt to a boil to make the brine.
Wash, dry, and trim the tough ends of the scapes. Pack the scapes into sanitized pint jars, leaving ½ inch space from the top. Add ½ tsp peppercorn, ½ tsp mustard seed, ½ tsp coriander seeds, a pinch of chili flakes, and ½ inch segment of lemon peel to each jar.
Fill the jars with hot brine, clean the tops of jars, and seal with canning lids. Process in water bath for 10 minutes.
I usually let these sit for at least four weeks before I break one open to snack on. These salty, garlicky, and tart pickles are a great garnish on noodle soup, stews, salads, savory pies, cheese boards, and martinis—really just about anything. If you come across garlic scapes at the farmers market or have extra from your garden this year, give these pickles a try for a year-round treat.
Jainned McDonnell discovered her love for food at a young age in her parents’ restaurant. She is a graduate from Mendocino College’s Agriculture Department. Inspired by local farmers of Mendocino, she is ardently growing a home garden at Shining Moon Ranch in Boonville, wild harvesting in the Mendocino area, and cooking her way through the seasonal offerings available in her garden and at the farm stands.
Ramen Cubed
The Best Square Meal in Willits
by Holly Madrigal
A steaming bowl of Tonkatsu ramen is culinary art—a visual arrangement of toasted nori sheets, nestled roasted kale, slivers of green onion, bonito flakes, and succulent pork belly atop mounds of noodles crowned with a perfectly marinated jewel of an egg. The aroma surrounds the diner in a cloud of savory depth. The broth is rich and thick, coating each noodle. “Ramen is the most comforting food of all the comfort foods,” says Taylor Pedersen of Ramen Cubed. “I became a devotee when I lived in Japan when I was younger.”
Taylor was an army brat and lived for a time in Sagamihara, a suburb outside of Tokyo. “We kids only had enough money to ride the trains around the city, and each station had an Ichiran Ramen noodle bar where you could get the most amazing ramen in about thirty seconds after you bought your meal.” This inspired Taylor to open Ramen Cubed in Willits in 2022. The name comes from the shape of the building, and Taylor leaned into the proportions of the space. The dining area is approximately 16 feet squared, with high ceilings and a cozy feel. The site was the home of the original Ardella’s Diner in Willits, next door to the Noyo Movie Theater. Graphic color cubes adorn the walls, and children’s wooden blocks with QR codes linked to the menu rest on each dark wood table. A live-edge redwood bar frames the space, which lets the lucky patrons who sit there peer into the kitchen and watch the action.
“I arrived at a time in my life when I wanted to do exactly what I wanted to do, exactly how I wanted to do it,” says Taylor. He feels ramen is the perfect canvas. He has chosen to keep the menu simple.Tonkatsu Ramen with a pork-based broth is both traditional and groundbreaking. Each perfectly cooked egg is topped with a dollop of ground-up black sesame, fresh ginger, blackened garlic, and a touch of honey. The flavor is addictive. A vegan ramen incorporates roasted vegetables and black garlic oil. The chicken ramen is a white miso-based broth with slow-cooked pulled chicken, marinated egg, roasted kale, and green onion.
“By serving ramen, I can prepare most of it ahead of time, like the broth and some of the toppings cooked to my standards, and then I can put it all together quickly for our customers. It’s not only a beautiful dish, but it’s extremely versatile,” says Taylor. “This also allows me to keep the staff small, which is great because finding employees is extremely hard these days.” The restaurant also offers of slow-roasted pork belly, John Ford Ranch beef, seared ahi, and more, offered as both a full meal or as small plates.
Willits is having a bit of a food moment in Mendocino County, with new options like Hatake Farm Kitchen making excellent sushi from their ghost kitchen behind Shanachie Pub, to Main Street Vinyl’s brick oven pizza, to Northspur Brewing Company serving up fresh quality beers brewed on-site. These have taken up residence next to tried-and-true local favorites like the hot sub-sandwiches of Loose Caboose Café, Busters Burgers, and El Mexicano. Ramen
Cubed joined the mix without much fanfare.
“I tried to do a silent opening,” says
Taylor, who wanted to perfect his systems before fully announcing the restaurant.
Having recently moved on from the Ukiah Brewing Company, which he acquired in 2017, he was adapting from working with a 113-seat restaurant to a 16-seat space. There were details to iron out. “But we have been really busy since we first opened,” he laughs. There seems to be a hunger for affordable quick meals prepared by a trained chef. Taylor studied at the French Culinary Institute in Manhattan and has worked at many different restaurants throughout California. This intimate space is allowing him to craft the food he wants to serve.
Taylor works with Vino Vendetta, a hospitality consultant company. Owners Alessandra and Andrew ensure that Ramen Cubed reflects Taylor’s vision, allowing him to focus on being the chef while they handle social media and outreach. The pair has worked throughout “Sonomacino” (Alessandra’s term) both in the culinary field and with other small businesses like T-Up Mini Golf, opening soon in Ukiah.
Vino Vendetta is committed to taking their experience of culinary professionalism, earned from many years working in the city, to help restaurants like Ramen Cubed reach their level of excellence. Andrew went to culinary school, and Alessandra was a sommelier in her previous roles, and both wanted to support the food culture of the area but know how challenging it is to run a restaurant. They worked with Taylor to help design the space and think through the details of opening a new food venture. And the strategy seems to be working. Word is out that Cube is a great place to pick up a delicious meal. Vegetarian friends have commented on the
joy of finding a ramen broth with depth and complexity, and gluten-free noodles are now available.
“Do you like spicy?” asks Taylor from the kitchen, providing a small dish of his signature “spice bomb” with birdseye chilies, Hunan chilies, and chili negro ground up with a hint of honey. It adds a complex kick of heat to the ramen or other dishes. It is clear that Ramen Cubed will continue to develop and grow. Taylor is already branching out beyond his tiny spot, and you can now purchase the components of good ramen to take home. With delicious toppings and an endlessly versatile palette to work with, this chef will continue to serve up elevated comfort food rooted in his distinctive out-of-the-box culinary creativity.
Ramen Cubed
35 E. Commercial St., Willits
(707)-234-6264 | RamenCubed.com
Open daily 11am - 8pm
Holly Madrigal is a Mendocino County maven who loves to share the delights of our region. She’s fortunate to enjoy her meaningful work as the director of the Leadership Mendocino program and takes great joy in publishing this magazine.
Faux-mage at The Bewildered Pig
A Deep-Dive into Crafting Truly Scrumptious Plant-Based Cheese
by Janelle Weaver
Look anywhere in history and you will find creative minds dealing with adversity and turning it into creativity. We were about a year into the COVID rollercoaster, and navigating the ongoing challenges of surviving the crisis continued to present huge burdens of uncertainty, stress, and discord. I decided it would be a good idea to disappear into a gastronomic rabbit hole for a while, and I decided that rabbit hole had to be located in new culinary territory. In order to enliven both brain hemispheres, it had to excite the creative right and pose endless opportunities for new and exciting flavor profiles. But it also had to fulfill the linear left with aspects of technical mastery. Hoping that something creative and delicious could be channeled out of all the hullaballoo, we closed The Bewildered Pig for “R&D Sessions” so we could realign our spirits and focus on the future. Making plant-based food was not the initial impetus for or the muse of this cheese-y venture. Rather, the idea was born as a confluence of a quandary and a quest. And in the process, we created delicious, nutritious, and beautiful plant-based cheese.
There’s a lot of hype about plant-based cheeses these days, and there’s a lot of confusion and quibbling about calling these products “cheese,” rather than “cheeze.” The current nomenclature, albeit somewhat abbreviated, is that they are referred to as “cheese” if the product is actually cultured, and therefore age-able, and “cheeze” if it is just a combination of starches and binders. As echoed in the dairy cheese world, the most sought after, complex versions are small batch, artisanal, and unique to the maker and/or affineur. Thankfully, the same trend is emerging for plant-based cheeses, and that is what I wanted to make. Not because I don’t like or eat dairy cheese—in fact the opposite is true. I love dairy cheese, and the stinkier and gooier, the better! Therefore, the idea was to make plant-based cheeses that both plant-based folks and dairy cheese-lovers would appreciate, and that has become the standard for how we grade our creations.
Early in this endeavor, a good vegan friend of ours (who also happens to be a big inspiration for this project) turned us on to a well-respected retailer in the country who specializes in vegan foods from all over. We ordered a smattering of plant-based cheeses, and we invited a dairy goat-cheese-making friend to taste them with us! I interspersed our own first renditions of cheese alongside about 10 other samples of plant-based cheeses and cheezes. Admittedly, much of what we sampled ranged from pretty underwhelming to nothing short of gross. There was only one cheese that truly impressed, and we offered it in the market until we could produce enough of our own to satisfy the slowly growing demand.
The lesson we learned from tasting lots of other vegan cheese products was that simply inoculating a substrate with culture(s) and watching it grow does not create a delicious cheese all on its own, and I’ve learned that with my own creations as well. I knew pretty much nothing about making any kind of cheese when I started, and that was probably for the best. I had no idea that I’d have to become a pseudo-mini-biologist, measuring temperature, humidity, pH, and other important factors that encourage the microbes to safely and properly transform into mouth- watering cultured cheeses.
Over the last 18 months or so, we’ve experimented with various wheel sizes, combinations of cultures, and different aging and processing techniques. These months of experiments have taught us much about what works and what doesn’t. Asking if it “tastes delicious” has become the very simple benchmark that we use to decide if we should continue making it.
The other simple benchmark is if people come back for more. I didn’t initially realize just how many folks are either sensitive to dairy or just want to consume less of it. We have so many people that love our cheeses and return for them repeatedly. It’s been very gratifying to witness the joy they have from being able to eat something that really tastes good and satisfies in the way people thought only dairy cheese could!
Faux-mage is what we call our collection of house-made, artisanal, plant-based cheeses. We make four different Faux-mage varieties, and the flagships are Faux-bert and Powerhouse. Faux-bert represents the initial vision of the project: a bloomed rind, aged, creamy cheese reminiscent of its dairy counterpart, Camembert. It is made from local baby butter (lima) beans and cashews and is comprised of 3-4 cultures, depending on the seasonal flavor profile desired. Its initial bloom starts at about 2-3 weeks and is lightly yeasty and buttery scented. As it further matures, the cheese develops more herbaceous notes. Fully aged (around 7-10 weeks), the nose yields fresh hay and barnyard characteristics, the flavor is more deeply pronounced and the texture more concentrated and firm. We vary the flavors to include a slightly smoky vegetable ash center or locally foraged wild mushrooms, and we grow and forage our own flowers and herbs to encrust the beautiful white, pillowy rind.
Powerhouse started out as a desire for a nutrient-rich, delicious super-food. This cheese is incredibly savory and delicious, with layers of complexity. Umami dominates—imparted by the culture, shiro miso, and koji—and is met with the brightness and spice of turmeric, local garlic, and mustard. The intense flavors are housed in an almost-whipped texture base made from Brazil nuts, pumpkin seeds, hemp seeds, and cashews. It’s great spread on veggies or crunchies, like our house-made sourdough nigella crackers. As Powerhouse ages, its young precociousness evolves into unapologetic assertiveness, pinpointed and bold. People either like it or they don’t! Most do, and some like it so much that they ask for a 16 oz container of it, so we happily oblige!
Faux-cotta is a cultured cashew version of ricotta and is reminiscent of clabbered cream. It’s amazing as is, can be melted onto anything, or combined with maple syrup or something sweet and added to desserts like fruit cobbler, scones, or biscuits. We often make a vegan “crème anglaise” from it at the restaurant.
Seasonally, we offer Faux-mozz. Modeled after burrata or fresh mozzarella, these savory, tangy, creamy spheres topped many a tomato and basil salad this past summer, surprising the heck out of our guests, who never once suspected that it wasn’t a dairy cheese!
People often assume that The Bewildered Pig is a meat-centric restaurant (or even a BBQ joint), so for us to make and serve plant-based cheeses to our guests, regardless of their culinary proclivities, completely correlates with our deliciously satirical reputation. Additionally, our provocative, ironic tendencies are reflected in the merchandising of Faux-mage: it is positioned right next to our impressive display of house-made, old world-style charcuterie like splendid pâtés, rillettes, and liver mousses, all made from heritage, locally raised pork, rabbit, lamb, and pheasant. People are pleasantly bewildered by this juxtaposition, which implies that our eating choices need not segregate us, but can rather unite by their shared roots of being made with delicious, healthy, and humane intention.
We offer Faux-mage as well as other gourmet “Pig-nic” items through the market at the restaurant. Distribution of the Faux-mage on a wholesale level requires a much more complex process, both bureaucratically and logistically. One of the key requirements is having a dedicated production facility, no matter how small the production. While this idea is a bit daunting, I cannot deny the appeal of visions of aging the Faux-bert in a coastal facility, with the fresh, briny air imparting the salt component required in the aging process.
Faux-mage has provided a wonderful way for us to engage with our community. We are a very small “mom and pop” place, and fairly logistically challenged. Since our opening in 2016, we have often been unable to participate in many community-held food events, as doing so usually requires closing the restaurant. Our remote location has also posed challenges in gathering valuable customer feedback. This year, however, we featured our cheeses at the Mendocino Film Festival and at the annual Good Farm Fund Gala. Sharing Faux-mage at these beloved events has helped us share our cheeses with over 400 people within a few hours! The overwhelmingly positive reception has been another wonderful gift.
Ultimately, the whole process has been an incredible experience. Faux-mage has grown to be a perfect union of participating with our community, as well as creating something delicious that everyone can enjoy. We feel as though we can be proud of a genuinely unique and locally-made product that fills a nutritious and celebratory niche.
It has also been a great reminder that it is often through the process of overcoming adversity that we experience positive change. No matter the reasons people like or buy our cheeses, the elation they express about having it on their table is the kind of joyful satisfaction that only a passion for food can inspire. So, every time you enjoy a bite, remember that change can be a catalyst for manifestation. It is true that food can and does unite us all.
The Market at The Bewildered Pig
1810 Highway 128, Philo | (707) 895-2088 | TheBewilderedPig.com
Open Wednesday – Saturday, 12:30pm – 5pm
Mosswood Market
Boonville’s Cross-Cultural Coffee Spot
by Dawn Emery Ballantine
Mosswood Market is one of the most popular jewels in the crown of downtown Boonville—a place both delicious and affordable, appealing to locals and visitors alike. On any given morning, finding a parking place in front of Mosswood can feel like winning the lottery. Once inside the cafe, waiting in line offers a moment to take in the local artwork for sale on the walls (installations change regularly) as well as the inspirations on display behind the cafe bar. Pilar Echeverría, Mosswood’s owner, has a personal favorite which has guided her life—“Insistir, persistir, resistir, y nunca desistir,” or “Insist, Persist, Resist, and Never Give Up.”
For decades, the Mosswood site has been a gathering place for locals and a delightful surprise for tourists, operating out of the Farrer Building in the heart of Boonville. Its first iteration was Cafe Glad, created and run by Glad Donahue for eight years before she sold it to Sharon Hurley. Sharon changed the name to Mosswood Market and redesigned the space with romantic vintage touches like antique light bulbs and copper finishes. Pilar worked for both Glad and Sharon before purchasing the cafe 12½ years ago. As a young woman from La Laguneta, Michoacan, with limited English and no formal education beyond the 8th grade in Mexico, buying and running the business is a significant achievement.
Most famous for their empanadas—goat cheese and bacon, potato and goat cheese, and five other variations—Mosswood also serves Flying Goat Coffee drinks as well as yummy pastries like cinnamon twists, cinnamon rolls, scones, fruit and cheese danishes, among others. They offer a short breakfast menu, and delicious lunch options include paninis, salads, and soups, all made fresh.
The Mosswood staff are personable and delightful, serving up tastiness with a smile. And Pilar is always there, setting an example, observing and supervising, and joining in with the customers during their morning chat sessions. Mosswood is one of the few places where the often segregated cultures of Anderson Valley come together, and it is lovely to witness and be a part of. As Wendy Lamer from Disco Ranch says, “Pilar walks with all people in town. It’s remarkable, and we need more of it … One of the best things in Boonville is Pilar’s Mosswood, and she probably hears more information in the valley than anyone.”
Pilar reflects, “It took me maybe five years to combine two cultures … Right now, I have all my Mexican people, and even from other places, South America, etc. It’s a blend … At the beginning, that was a goal. Sometimes now I am the interpreter between two cultures, and my English is not like, wow, but I am always trying to help here and there. It is fun. I love it.” Pilar laughingly explains about small town gossip heard in the cafe, “You have huge ears, but you have to have a small mouth. And sometimes I don’t understand enough English, so that helps a little.”
Pilar emigrated here 25 years ago, when she was 17. Her father came first to secure their papers, then Pilar arrived, followed by the rest of the family. Pilar explains that coming here launched a different stage in her life. She feels safer and more comfortable here, because in Mexico the life for girls is so different and not as free. The family moved here because they wanted a different life with more freedom and better options for earning a living.
Though she completed school in La Laguneta at the 8th grade, Pilar did not want to begin school again in a new country, so she decided to find a job. She initially worked in the vineyards before becoming a nanny for a local family for 12 years, while also working as a baker at Cafe Glad, a position she enjoyed because, as she says, “I like people.” And in the meantime she married Javier, her childhood sweetheart from La Laguneta, and she started her own family.
When Cafe Glad was sold to Sharon and became Mosswood Market, Pilar stayed on. She enjoyed baking and working in the cafe, which provided the opportunity to learn more English and conquer some of her shyness. She attended Mendocino College for a couple of semesters, which helped her improve her English, but she says that her English was only “about 30%” when she began to consider purchasing the business. In fact, another employee at Mosswood at the time scoffed at Pilar, telling her she could never buy the cafe and be successful because she was from Mexico and had no business experience or English. But Pilar persisted, saying, “Just watch me!”
The sale process took about six months, made possible with savings and family loans. Pilar claims she didn’t know anything about business, but she knew how to utilize the connections and resources she had to great effect. She took the leap and has never regretted it, stating “I never work, because I love what I do.”
Mosswood persevered through COVID with no federal assistance, a fact that makes Pilar very proud. They are weathering the current changing economy, though a recent substantial rent increase has them concerned. Pilar notes that much of their success through hard times is because of their devoted community and family. One day, a community member arrived at Mosswood with $1,000 to help them through the worst of COVID. He said, “You need to survive. We want you here. So this is for you.”
Others have assisted by trading produce or donating extra from their gardens. When asked where she sources her produce, Pilar says, “I don’t buy. People are very generous to me. My cousin Veronica trades coffee for tomatoes or wine for tomatoes. I’m blessed because people, when they have extra, they offer it. I live in a very nice community.” The best part of owning this business is the people, notes Pilar. Even when people are difficult, she exclaims, “I love them!”
Pilar’s daughter, Miranda, has joined her mother behind the counter, and they both share in caring for Pilar’s young son, Damian. Pilar is pleased and surprised that Miranda really enjoys working at Mosswood, though she is young yet and has other interests she might explore. Noelia, Pilar’s aunt, begins the daily baking at 3am, and Erika, Pilar’s sister-in-law, is essential during lunch service. Their sweet smiles and greetings can be glimpsed through the kitchen cut-out. Pilar can do all the tasks and can run the place alone when needed, but she prefers to rely on the teamwork of her staff.
Pilar is committed to maintaining affordable prices for pastries so that regular folks can enjoy coffee and a treat. During COVID, their entire clientele was just locals, and that was enough for the business to survive. Pilar likes to reciprocate by keeping prices reasonable and hopes the rent increase won’t require otherwise. Getting through week to week can be a challenge, but she says, “I don’t know anything about business, and I do it in a different way. But I love my place, and I even get paid once in a while. Maybe I don’t have money, but I don’t owe money.” Pilar’s persistence has paid off. Mosswood is many things—a social hub for some, a remote office for others, and most of all, an excellent spot to grab a morning cup of bliss.
Mosswood Market
14111 Highway 128, Boonville
(707) 895-3635 | MosswoodMarketCafe.com
Open daily 5:30am – 3pm
Dawn Emery Ballantine lives in Anderson Valley where she curates and sells books at Hedgehog Books and edits this magazine.
Alder Creek Ranch Icelandic Sheep
The Ovine Triple Threat
by Torrey Douglass
I love Mendocino County, in no small part because it is full of unassuming people doing remarkable things. If, for example, you passed Susan Engwall on the street, you might note her calm demeanor, direct gaze, and thoughtful smile, but you probably wouldn’t flag her as North America’s preeminent expert on artificial insemination for Icelandic sheep.
Susan knew by the age of five that she wanted a career working with animals, and she has realized that dream in multiple ways. She’s been a veterinarian for over 33 years and currently works at a practice in Gualala. She also taught at a vet tech program in Connecticut, raised Wagyu cattle with her husband in both Connecticut and Kentucky, and now breeds Icelandic sheep on Alder Creek Ranch just north of Manchester on the Mendocino coast.
The ranch includes over 60 flat, fenced acres where her 46 sheep can roam free range for most of the year. They are only confined to corrals during the short breeding season so they can be easily caught and paired when the ever-so-fleeting opportune moment arrives. Otherwise, they spend their days munching down the large expanse of lush pasture, with ambient music courtesy of the Pacific Ocean.
The Icelandic sheep breed is the ovine triple threat—raised for meat, fleece, and milk. The breed dates back 1100 years, making it one of the oldest and purest breeds in existence, and they are immensely hardy, particularly to cold, because of their long history surviving in the forbidding Icelandic climate. It is the only type of sheep in Iceland, and they have been carefully managed within its borders due to their importance to the country’s economy. The animals are forbidden to travel outside of defined regions to prevent disease from spreading, should an outbreak occur.
In Iceland, the sheep are primarily used for meat. In recent years, however, artisans have increased demand for the fleece, so breeding now prioritizes the animals’ coats as well. Susan goes her own way and breeds her sheep for milk. “I like sheep that produce lots of milk because they produce very healthy, fast growing, vigorous lambs,” she explains. She also selects rams with good temperament so they are easier to manage.
Icelandic sheep are stocky, with short legs and long, luscious coats with a crimp that makes them look something like a pufferfish with a perm. Their coats can be single-hued or mixed and include variations of white, cream, tan, brown, grey, charcoal, and jet black. Not surprisingly, the breed is beloved by weavers and other artisans who work with wool. Possessing fewer follicles per square inch of skin, their double-coated fleece resembles fur and consists of both an inner and outer coat. Susan explains that “the outer coat is strong, glossy, and sheds water, and is often used for weaving—historically it was woven into Viking ship sails. The undercoat, known as thel, is soft and fine. Both coats can be used together in the production of yarn and felt.” Local weaver Jennie Henderson creates her rugs with wool produced by Alder Creek Ranch sheep, and Susan’s fleece entries routinely bring home blue ribbons at the California Fiber Festival. She’s won first place in the Double-Coated Hand Spinner category six times, and earned six blue ribbons in the category of Icelandic ram and ewe fleeces.
While the breed has a long history in Iceland, its time in the Americas has been considerably shorter. Icelandic Sheep were originally imported to North America by Icelandic immigrant Stefania Sveinbjarnardottir-Dignum. Far from Iceland, she missed the sheep of her homeland, eventually importing twelve ewes and two rams to her farm in Canada in 1985. Because of their vigorous constitutions and multi-purpose uses, they adapt well to a variety of farming conditions, including coastal pasture in Mendocino county. Susan purchased her first sheep—six ewes and two rams—from the Dancing Lamb Dairy in New York State and Morning Star Farm in Connecticut in 2015.
Susan is a hybrid medical professional and ranch woman. She clearly loves her flock, smiling as she feeds them grain by hand—a rare treat, as their diet mainly consists of pasture grasses and hay. She moves calmly among the frisky rams, gently adjusting slipped halters while looking over each animal. While most Icelandic sheep ranchers in North America breed November through January, Susan breeds her sheep in December, like they do in Iceland. She says May lambs are healthier and experience fewer parasites.
Hiring help at the right time of year is not always possible, so Susan shears the sheep herself twice a year. The August/September shearing provides wool that makes excellent yarn, while the March/April shearing yields felted fleeces, sometimes in single, large pieces that make excellent dog beds. Felted fleece is also used to make wigs, replace traditional “fur” trim on coats and costumes, and even serve as mulch. If it’s dirty from the field, felted fleece can be soaked for three weeks in rainwater or well water, then rinsed to achieve a glorious and clean wool (see the ranch’s Instagram posts for some great images). The oils in the wool create their own soap, and the resulting mucky water is excellent fertilizer for flowering plants.
Susan’s vaginal artificial insemination (VAI) program combines her love of animals with her scientific expertise, and with so few ranchers raising Icelandic sheep, it’s a necessary part of maintaining diverse bloodlines so the breed can thrive on this side of the Atlantic. There are currently only a handful of sheep ranchers using VAI in North America, all trained by Susan, and she is working to expand that number by training more—a total of eight in the past two years alone.
Iceland runs a government-controlled breeding program, rigorously testing potential rams and their progeny for the best physique, leanness of meat, and other characteristics. The top performers are sent to South Ram, a stud farm in the south of Iceland, where they live out their days generating the semen used to artificially inseminate ewes across the country and around the world.
With the help of Google Translate, Susan peruses the catalog of South Ram studs, finding candidates to keep her flock genetically diverse and physically healthy. All of her sheep are registered with Icelandic Sheep Breeders of North America (ISBONA), a 250-member organization that tracks the lineage of Iceland sheep on this continent. Iceland ranchers get first pick of the “source material” provided by South Ram. Semen from exciting new arrivals can sell out before international ranchers get their turn, but since the rams are ongoing residents of the breeding facility, there’s always next year.
Choosing the right ram is like solving a puzzle, selecting traits that will help the flock prosper—keeping them healthy in our coastal climate and maintaining genetic diversity—while also emphasizing traits that keep the sheep commercially viable, resulting in the premium fleece, milk, and meat they provide. The breed has been around for over a millenium, enduring in the cold, sparse terrain of Iceland. With ranchers like Susan tending to her herd, keeping a careful eye on bloodlines, and sharing her knowledge with others, Icelandic sheep can thrive on this side of the Atlantic, as well.
Follow AlderCreekRanch1 on Instagram to purchase wool, meat, and registered Icelandic breeding stock, or to just consume your daily recommended allowance of ridiculously adorable sheep photos.
Susan Engwall photo p20 by Torrey Douglass. All other photos by Susan Engwall.
Torrey Douglass is a web and graphic designer living in Boonville.
Miner’s Lettuce
Springtime’s Tasty Weed
by Holly Madrigal
Springtime in Northern California blankets the coastal woodlands in lush green. If enough rain has fallen, then the moss drips, the forget-me-nots emerge, and miner’s lettuce flourishes. Most people can easily identify it, perhaps cultivating some ancient memory of coastal walks of their youth, or of an older companion saying “you can eat this.” Miner’s lettuce is characterized by a succulent, mild, yet slightly lemony green leaf—a heart-shaped oval with the delicate white flower perched atop like some sort of fairy fascinator hat.
Known as Claytonia perfoliate, large swaths can be found grouped under the shady side of oaks and buckeyes. It is so ubiquitous that many a forager overlooks it, like how your eye no longer registers the intricate glory of the California quail because it is so common. Food and forage writer, Hank Shaw, calls miner’s lettuce the “iceberg lettuce of wild foods.” In an article on the website Hunter Angler Gardener Cook, he describes how this humble spring green has enough vitamin C to prevent scurvy, which is how the miners used it during the gold rush. Native to North America, it is one of the few predominant “weeds” that can claim this providence, a plant indigenous to the Americas but which does not have the bitter weed-fame of the dandelion (native to Europe).
You can find miner’s lettuce quite easily near any trail within roughly thirty miles of the coast, and in fact it may be a pleasant surprise in many other locations. Keep an eye out for this overlooked gem next time you are on a springtime walk.
Spring Miner’s Lettuce Salad with Strawberries and Feta
Make the dressing:
Equal parts light olive oil & apple cider vinegar
Honey to taste
Fresh ground pepper & salt
Assemble the salad:
Two handfuls miner’s lettuce leaves, large pieces torn, rinsed, and dried
Half a basket strawberries, sliced
3 Tbsp feta, crumbled
2 Tbsp pine nuts, lightly toasted
Layer on plates and drizzle with the dressing.
Photo originally posted to Flickr by andrey_zharkikh at https://flickr.com/photos/33497841@N02/17725750654 and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en
Spontaneous Wanderlust
Kitchen Tips and Tricks from an Impromptu Excursion
by Holly Madrigal
April Cunningham can usually be found chopping vegetables and prepping delicious meals at the Caring Kitchen, a wonderful organization that provides nutritious meals for free to cancer patients. Last year, April and her husband Fred received a last-minute opportunity for what she described as “the trip of a lifetime.” April had made the acquaintance of Mara Jernigan twelve years back when they went to a culinary retreat at Fairburn Farm in British Columbia, spending each day gathering items for that evening’s meal. Mara was a Canadian representative for the Slow Food movement and an accomplished chef. April had continued to follow Mara on Instagram, so when Mara posted that she had an eleventh-hour spot on a trip to Sicily, April and Fred spontaneously decided to join her.
Mara has led annual tours to this region for many years. After a whirlwind preparation, they converged in Sicily with four other Canadian women and a guide from Torino. A villa had been rented in the town of Scopello on the northern top of the geographical football being kicked by Italy’s boot. The group settled in, often gathering on the terrace nestled amongst the hills with views high above the sea. Each day they would embark on excursions to quench their culinary desires. Mara and their guide explained the lay of the land, including a tour of Mount Etna. They hiked the edge of the caldera of this still-active volcano, which gives the island the soil to grow excellent wine and other crops. Visiting a pistachio farm, they tasted fresh ground pistachio butter and watched a shelling machine separate the pink-green nuts from their shells.
“Each day was a whirlwind,” says April. “They are so in touch with their food and where it comes from there. A visit to the market was required before dinner was decided each night. One day we visited a dairy where they crafted cheese for the town. It was amazing to see them making mozzarella and aged cheese, but the most incredible part was lining up with the townsfolk to have scoops of warm, fresh-made ricotta dolloped into our bowls,” she describes in reminiscent wonder.
Fred enjoyed learning about the history and culture of Sicily as they traveled. “One day we went out with a mycologist, Mario, and his truffle-hunting dogs. Mario was a big part of writing the foraging laws in Sicily to protect both the local fauna and the economy of the mushroom treasures to be found there.” Fred describes the scene: “We trekked through the forest, and you had to keep an eye on the dogs and hurry to dig up the truffles that they found so that they didn’t damage them. That day we made a warm salad with the mushrooms we foraged and sauteed, covering fresh greens that wilted under the mushroom’s heat. The only issue was that, at some point, I just couldn’t eat any more food,” laughs Fred. “I needed a break.” April agrees. “Each day our hosts would lay out the most amazing spread—locally cured meats, Castelvetrano olives that had been salt brined instead of lye, mandarin oranges, and prickly pears! And that was before we went out for the day,” she adds.
The education continued as the group traveled to Palermo at the southern end of the island, where fishing is more commonplace. They toured the fish markets, and Nicoletta, one of their local hosts, explained the local market culture to them: “When you visit the market, you find your favorite vendors and you become their patron. You are theirs and they are yours, it’s mutual. You choose them and they ensure that you are taken care of,” an idea that feels foreign to the western anonymity of the massive grocery store.
The group visited Planeta, an estate that makes olive oil, grows wine, and creates other foodstuffs. This business has been pressing oil for over 400 years. Seventeen generations of family members have played a part in its continuity. April and Fred marveled at the history of this place.
Along the ramparts of a seaport in Palermo, the group was invited to stay at Palazzo Langa Tomasi, the residence of a duke and duchess whose family helped restore the palazzo to prominence in the late fifties. The duchess created a culinary experience of sorts, where you stay in a collection of apartments in her Palazzo; she leads you on trips to the market, planning each meal; and then all retire to her spacious kitchen to learn from her mastery. April, who has worked in kitchens for North Coast Opportunities for decades and is no stranger to cooking foods at the peak of freshness, was tickled to learn a new method for making Trapanese Pesto (recipe below). This tomato pesto sauce is poured atop freshly cooked pasta, the heat from the pasta gently warming the sauce and helping to release the full flavors. Fresh parmesan was grated on top, and the group enjoyed an outstanding meal.
Aspects of Mendocino County are Mediterranean and similar to southern Italy, and a deep appreciation for produce at the peak of ripeness is shared here as well. “This was truly the trip of a lifetime” muses April. “I’m not sure I ever would have specifically traveled to Sicily, but I learned so much, so many culinary tricks that I plan to bring back to the Caring Kitchen in Ukiah. We are so lucky to get to have an experience like this.” There is so much to learn and implement from our neighbors across the sea to strengthen our connection to the food that we grow and eat.
Ruvidelli al pesto trapanese
Ingredients
1 lb Roma tomatoes
¾ c blanched almonds
Large bunch of basil
1 c unflavored breadcrumbs
Salt & fresh ground pepper
Extra virgin olive oil
1 lb Ruvidelli pasta
Instructions
Any sweet, ripe tomato with a thin skin would be perfect for this recipe. Put tomatoes, almonds, basil, salt, and pepper in a blender and start blending. Eventually pour the oil, little by little, until the desired consistency is achieved (I like it quite creamy). The sauce will be pink/orange in color. Pour half of the sauce in a serving bowl.
Bring plenty of water to boil in a large pot. Cook the Ruvidelli (or Busiate or any other short pasta, or if you prefer long pasta, Bucatini) until al dente.
For the breadcrumbs, heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat and swirl it all over the bottom of the pan. Stir in the breadcrumbs with a wooden spoon. Turn them repeatedly until they get a golden brown color, 2-3 minutes. Take care not to burn the crumbs! Immediately spread the toasted breadcrumbs onto a plate, allowing them to cool, stirring once or twice.
Drain pasta and put into the bowl with sauce. Add the remaining sauce and toss well. Decorate with basil leaves and serve with Muddica Atturrata (toasted breadcrumbs).
Photos by April Cunningham
The Italian Roots of Hopland Wine
Before, After, and (a Little Bit) During Prohibition
by Lisa Ludwigsen
Hopland is a small town on Highway 101 in southern Mendocino County where drivers are forced to slow down, usually on their way to somewhere else. The town hosts tasting rooms, a few restaurants, a charming Victorian hotel, an olive mill, and a couple of gas stations. With a population of fewer than 700 people, a collection of homes fills a small grid of neighborhood streets to the west of the highway. Hopland doesn’t draw in most folks as they whip by, but local businesses are attempting to change that. It is worth a stop or weekend stay to explore the area that lies just a short distance from the Bay Area.
Looking a little deeper, beyond the blur for most passersby, one can discover a rich history of native Pomo people. The convulsions of Mexican, Spanish, and Gold Rush occupations on Native peoples and lands gave way in the mid- to late-1800s to a flood of Italian immigrants who had been driven from home by failing crops, poor environmental conditions, and natural disasters. They were lured far away by the promise of workable land and a new life in idyllic northern California, which shared a similar Mediterranean climate. They carved out a place in the nascent days of ranching and farming in Mendocino County, dating back before 1859 when the town of Sanel, as Hopland was originally known, was officially founded. That original name, Sanel, was related to the Pomo word for sweathouse.
Descendants of those hard-working Italian families continue to shape the economy and culture of the area, contributing to its agricultural heritage, and, in the world of wine where French varietals take center stage, giving Italian wines a respectable place on the table.
Jim Milone is a fourth generation Hoplander. Jim’s families, the Rosettis and Milonis, immigrated from Italy to Hopland in the late 1800s. Their ranch was diversified by raising chickens and sheep, and farming prunes, walnuts, pears, and hops provided a steady living. Grapes were in the mix, too.
Jim shared great stories of his grandparents and great-grandparents in Hopland: “My grandfather, Vincenzo, was a decorated war hero in World War I, having survived a suicide squad in Italy. He left the military—as in, walked away—and came to Hopland to work at the Valley Oaks poultry ranch, which is now Campo Vida. He also put his military demolition experience to use by blowing up old walnut orchards in the area.”
Jim’s maternal great-grandfather, Achille Rosetti, was a winemaker from Geneva who immigrated to Napa and then to Hopland. Not much is known of his story except that he was an orphan who subsequently fathered eight children. His oldest daughter, Mary, was Jim’s mother.
When the 18th Amendment was signed into law in 1918 and went into full effect in 1920, Prohibition slammed down on the entire country, including the tiny hamlet of Hopland. The ensuing 13 years halted legal wine and beer production and eventually put a damper on the illegal operations that proliferated in and around the area. “During Prohibition, my grandfather would hide up in the hills whenever the Feds showed up to raid his ranch,” said Jim. “Eventually, he grew tired of the hassle and stopped making wine.”
Achille Rosetti wasn’t alone. When Prohibition ended in 1933, virtually all wine production in and around Hopland had ceased. Hops were almost done, too, since they were used solely for flavoring and preserving beer. There was still ranching and farming to be done, and the growing community thrived, taking care of themselves and each other. But wine did not begin commercial production again until 45 years after Prohibition ended.
Milone’s family story parallels the development in and around Hopland. Jim’s father, Frank, was born in 1925 and returned to the family farm after serving in World War II. He built a hop kiln in Hopland and worked the fields with a horse. A lot changed during Frank’s 97 years. He knew every aspect of farm operations and stayed abreast of the rapidly changing innovations and mechanizations of farming. Everyone pitched in to keep the farm going. “These were incredibly hard-working people, men and women alike,” said Jim. “They took just a half day off each week.” Diversified farming kept them going. As a high schooler in the 1970s, Jim resented going home to farm chores after school when friends were skateboarding or hanging out. “I learned to work hard just like the rest of the family.”
Commercial wine production was revived in 1976, when Jim and his friend, Greg Graziano, descendant of another Italian immigrant family with wine-making roots, decided to start a winery in Hopland. The collaboration of these two local young men, fresh out of college, was key in resurrecting and expanding the wine businesses in and around Hopland and beyond.
The two young friends brought together three plots of grapes from family members totaling over 100 acres, and their first wine was produced in 1977. Jim said, “We worked our butts off during that time. The great thing is that every job I’ve had since then has been easy.”
Those first plantings included the popular varietals of Chardonnay, Cabernet, and Zinfandel. As time went on, they branched out and cultivated wines of their shared Italian heritage. Greg’s family had also immigrated from Italy to Mendocino County before Prohibition. Vincenzo and Angela Graziano purchased 100 acres in Calpella, north of Hopland, in 1918, just before Prohibition took effect. When your livelihood is suddenly illegal, times are especially tough. They made it work through some creative endeavors. “The bootleg wine still equipment can be found on our family property to this day,” shared Greg.
Greg has spent over 45 years carrying on his lineage in Italian winemaking through his company, the Graziano Family of Wines, which includes brands Enotria, Monte Volpe, Graziano, and Saint Gregory. He remains committed to building awareness and appreciation for Italian wines. “Italian varietals make fabulous wine,” said Greg. “It can be argued that Italian wines are more interesting than many of the French wines proliferating the market. The acidity and tannin structure pair exceptionally well with food.”
Greg also credits his hard-working parents, grandparents, and extended family with his tenacity and success. His daughter, Alexandra, is moving into leadership of the Graziano Family of Wines, representing the fourth generation of Mendocino County wine-growing for the Grazianos.
Forty-five years after their first vintage, Greg and Jim have solidified their legacy as leaders in Mendocino County wine production. In Hopland, remnants of those early days remain in the form of the hop kiln Frank and Vincenzo Milone built, the ranches, and vineyards planted by Jim and his family. The Hopland Cemetery, which is undergoing a renovation, holds the final resting place of some of those early pioneers.
Italian wines produced in Mendocino County are often overlooked in favor of wines made in the flashier regions to the south. But vinophiles are missing out if they don’t give Graziano Family wines and other local options a try. Enjoying Mendocino wines not only introduces a person to a prolific area producing an impressive variety of world-class wines, but it also ties the drinker to the long history and inimitable spirit of the families who have been creating them for over 100 years.
Graziano Family of Wines Tasting Room
13275 South Hwy 101, Suite #1, Hopland
(707) 744-8466 | grazianofamilyofwines.com
Open daily 10am-5pm
Photos licensed by Historical Society of Mendocino County Photograph Collection, Ukiah, CA. Accession #09189, #09349, and #04562
Lisa Ludwigsen is a writer and marketer working with food, farms, and family small businesses. She has worked in organic agriculture, natural foods, and environmental education for over 20 years.
An Ounce of Prevention
Measure P Empowers the Fire Safe Council To Do More, Better
by Torrey Douglass
When Measure P passed in Mendocino County last November with 55.8% of voters in favor, supporters understood it as a long-needed, stable funding source for local fire departments. And it certainly is that. The majority of our fire departments are staffed by volunteers, so if you live in Mendocino County, it’s likely that you know someone who volunteers for a fire department, or even volunteer yourself. To survive, these departments are active in the community, fundraising and educating residents about the value of their services, visible at local events like the county fair and organizing events like toy drives and July 4th picnics. The departments are high visibility organizations with lots of community support.
But there’s another aspect to Measure P that is equally important, even if it is less well known. This is the prevention portion of the measure which funds the Mendocino County Fire Safe Council (MCFSC). Since 2003, MCFSC has been working to educate Mendocino County residents and provide programs to help them make their homes and property more resilient to wildfires. They’ve subsisted on grants for years, but thanks to Measure P, funding will be both consistent and predictable, allowing programs to escape the boom/bust cycle of grant funding and instead have ongoing support to expand their benefits to a much wider group of recipients.
Executive Director Scott Cratty has been working with MCFSC since January 2020. When asked about the activity of the council, he took a moment before admitting, “We do so many damn things it’s hard to cover it all.” The variety and scope of the many projects are all based on an understanding that wildfire is a reality for people living in California, and the steps we’ve taken for our homes and on our land will make the biggest difference in saving lives and property.
Scott explains, “Decades ago, it became clear that earthquakes were a part of nature in California, and we began the process of adapting how we build. It is equally clear that wildfire is also a basic part of nature here and is possibly an even larger threat to our communities. But we are just at the start of working to take the steps we need to adapt to it.”
The council’s website is packed full of helpful information about changes you can apply to your home and property so they will be more resilient when wildfires arrive. Maintaining defensible space 100 feet out from your home is an essential step. Ideally there should be nothing flammable in the 5 feet immediately surrounding the home, only thin and low vegetation from 5-30 feet, and low grass, cleared brush, limbed-up trees, and well-spaced vegetation from 30-100 feet—all healthy and well maintained with dead material removed.
Maintaining that space can take a lot of work, but fortunately there is a program to support low income, elderly, and/or disabled residents. It’s called the Defensible Space Assistance for Income-Eligible program, and interested property owners can sign up on the website (firesafemendocino.org). Accepted applicants will be assigned a team to do things like clear vegetation, clean roofs and gutters, and chip the removed vegetation.
The council is also currently offering free home assessments. These provide non-judgmental, non-binding analyses and recommendations, scheduling an assessor to come to your property and give advice on which fire safety measures should be the highest priority for you. The assessor can answer any of your questions and identify where your home is most vulnerable to wildfire. You can even organize a group of neighbors to schedule assessments together, walk through homes and properties as a group, and leave with an even better understanding of the issues and solutions.
Once your land and property have been “hardened,” the next step is to make sure the roads to and from your property are in the right shape for residents to leave and fire safety personnel to arrive. This involves clearing roadside brush, limbing-up trees so tall engines can pass through, and maintaining open flat spaces next to the road where multiple large fire trucks can park, turn around, and otherwise maneuver during a fire event.
Making the roads in your neighborhood safer for evacuating people and incoming fire fighters is a project that can be tackled cooperatively by forming a Neighborhood Fire Safe Council. There are already around 50 in the county, so check the MCFSC website to see if there’s one in your area already. If not, the site also provides guidance for starting your own. Working together allows local councils to participate in free community chipper days, attend leadership meetings, get help organizing projects, and get deals on equipment needed to get the job done.
Scott reflects on the necessity of working both individually and together to increase wildfire resilience for Mendocino County homes and properties. “It is essential for our long-term survival. The last decade has shown that the effort to suppress nature, which includes wildfire, by stomping out every fire, fails in the long run. It ultimately results in bigger, hotter, more dangerous fires. The good news is that, with education, work, and the proper support, we can reduce our risks tremendously. A recent study found that good home hardening and defensible space can reduce a home’s risk up to 75%. Getting to that point will involve a lot of steps from education about how to think about the dangers, to training and assistance with defensible space and home retrofitting, to regular systems for road clearing. We need to start on that journey now, which Measure P will enable.”
The funds provided by Measure P will not be available until 2024. For now, the council is working on specific grant-based projects, including $3.5M in CalFire funding, mostly for environmental assessments and specific fuel reduction projects. Among other projects, those grant dollars have paid for roadside fuel reduction along a substantial stretch of Orr Springs Road to allow safer passage for responders. A similar project in Willits’ Brooktrails area has also been completed.
The MCFSC is committed to applying the most recent and trusted science in the area of wildfire resilience and passing along that knowledge in ways that will provide the highest impact. With that in mind, they organized a course in March for contractors and hardware store workers throughout the county to share insights. That plastic skylight might be much cheaper than the glass version, but it will also melt quicker in the event of a wildfire, allowing dangerous embers into the home. In a similar vein, fences constructed with non-flammable materials in the zone six feet or closer to the home won’t carry fire to the structure. Educating the people who interact with home owners as they make decisions about home and land improvements will have a ripple effect and collectively make our county safer from wildfires.
Once Measure P funds do become available, they can be leveraged to attract federal dollars. Grants of that size and scope require well defined projects that have been identified, researched, and planned. That’s where Emily Tecchio comes in, whose role as the MCFSC County Coordinator includes finding and organizing those projects-in-waiting around the county, so that a plan is in place which can qualify for future federal grants when they become available. Emily shares, “It’s a big job, and with all the individuals, organizations, agencies, and governments involved with making our county more resilient to wildfire, I’ve only just begun making a dent this first year.”
Emily continues, “Measure P is the first substantial and reliable investment in fire mitigation for our county. There is so much that needs to be done! We need to clear roads for ingress/egress, create fuel breaks where firefighters can have a chance of stopping wildfires, enhance firefighting resources like water storage, but we also need to adapt the way that we as individuals and communities live.”
Scott figures there is easily $1B worth of wildfire hardening projects in the county. The Measure P funds put MCFSC on solid ground, providing a reliable foundation from which the organization can scale up. Over the next decades, the council hopes to serve as a critical resource for retrofitting our homes and neighborhoods so they can better withstand the inevitable wildfires that California endures.
All of these efforts—upgrading homes, reducing fuel loads in neighborhoods, and including everyone regardless of income—will require a lot of resources. Over the next decade, explains Emily, “MCFSC will use Measure P funds as leverage to access more state and federal dollars and continue to build out programs and services that bring our whole county closer to wildfire and climate resilience.“ Pulling together—to pass the measure and optimize the funds it provides, while also organizing our communities and hardening our properties—will move us toward a more fire safe future where we can endure the reality of California wildfire with greater grace and resilience.
Do you want to learn what fire safe upgrades you can make in a weekend? Check out the Home Hardening video series and more at FireSafeMendocino.org. Do you have an ingress/egress project in mind for your neighborhood? Send Emily an email: emily@firesafemendocino.org. Let’s get to work!
Photo by Ross Stone and courtesy of Unsplash
No Mow May
by Lisa Ludwigsen
Consider the sad lot of the common dandelion and the lovely white clover. Long relegated to the status of unwanted weeds in the great American lawn, these stalwarts grow effortlessly, provide medicine, and offer up flowers that are sweet and uplifting. They are also important food sources for a wide group of pollinators.
There is a movement afoot to shift our ideas about so-called weeds and rethink the environmental cost of a meticulously groomed, homogenous lawn. The campaign, known as “No Mow May,” started in England and has gained traction in the U.S., particularly in the Midwest. In 2019, the British conservation nonprofit, PlantLife, began encouraging landowners, from city-dwellers to suburbanites to larger lot caretakers, to let springtime grasses and wild plants mature to the flowering stage in order to attract pollinators. The idea is to transform lawns from plant and animal wastelands into diversity hotspots where important pollinators just coming out of hibernation can find crucial food sources. It’s a relatively simple concept with surprisingly powerful effects. It turns out that dandelions—along with other common weeds—are a powerhouse of nectar for pollinators looking for crucial springtime nutrition.
Some neighbors and homeowners associations frown upon the wild, unkempt look, and it can be a big step to let our carefully manicured lawns go untended. It certainly offers a new aesthetic—a lawn blanketed in bright yellow dandelion and flowers could be considered a cheerful welcome of spring.
Here in the drought-stricken West, residential lawns are being replaced with low-water landscaping, so we have a head start on diversifying plant life in our yards. But many public spaces still sport that uniform green grass carpet, mowed short year-round. Those large expanses provide excellent opportunities to encourage nectaring pollinators like honeybees, butterflies, bumblebees, beneficial wasps, and others. If not the entire field or open space, at least a section could be left unmowed.
In some places, No Mow May proponents have turned to local governments for support. Appleton, Wisconsin was the first U.S. city to officially adopt No Mow May, with 435 lawns enrolled in the community program. As of 2021, communities in Iowa, Minnesota, Ohio, and Montana have followed suit, joining a dozen communities in Wisconsin.
It can be surprising to discover which native plants pop up in an average yard. I’ve found dandelions, achillea, clover, poppies, miner’s lettuce, chickweed, and native grasses. After three years of letting go of my self-imposed strict springtime mowing schedule, I still must tolerate the messiness from the street view. “What must the neighbors think of me?” runs through my head. It’s a stretch, but I try to imagine myself as the caretaker of an English meadow.
On a recent trip to Wisconsin, I noticed a food co-op was giving away No Mow May yard signs, and I saw many signs in delightfully wild front yards. This year I plan on downloading and printing one of the yard signs available through the PlantLife website.
In addition to the benefits for pollinators, plants, and animals, No Mow May also benefits humans. We can delay the long mowing season and spend time enjoying the plants and insects that populate our lawns. Connecting with nature in your front yard can be great fun for kids and adults alike.
Once May flowering has dwindled, it is advised to make a couple of passes with the mower, beginning at a high mower setting, or use a weed whacker the first time, then resume your normal mowing schedule.
PlantLife’s motto for No Mow May—“Dawn of the New British Garden”—can carry over for us here in the U.S. “Dawn of the New American Garden” has a nice ring to it.
Learn more at beecityusa.org/no-mow-may.
Lawn of dandelions image by Archie Thomas.
No Mow May sign image by Lisa Ludwigsen.
Caffeine Cravings, Burnt Beans, and Anonymous Mushrooms
The Early Days of Eat Mendocino
by Gowan Batist
In Spring 2013, I was hungry and cold. We had just embarked on Eat Mendocino—a commitment to solely subsist from food grown in Mendocino County for one calendar year. I was 24, a young farm manager. I had radically underestimated how much stored food is needed to make it through the short, hard working days of spring before serious calories start coming out of the ground. Our spring crops of delicate arugula and curling garlic scapes are delicious, but not filling. This spring, I look back on myself with exasperation and fondness. It gets easier, it gets better, and it never has to be that hard. If you’re struggling through spring too, this is for you. As we repeat the project, you’re welcome to follow along with Eat Mendocino 2023, and learn with me which different mistakes I make this time around.
The redwood duff was soft under our feet, muting our steps below the way the fog muted everything above. The woods were soft and cool and dim, the slim redwood trunks left behind by generations of logging concealing and revealing themselves in the fog like fairies leading us deeper into the gloaming. It was everything a peaceful early spring evening on the Mendocino coast should be.
We were miserable. “There’s nothing here but the same little trumpet ones we saw back there,” one of us huffed out, our words carried on puffs of visible mist. My head was shot through by an arc of pain with each beat of my pulse, and everything was infuriating. The tiny clusters of orange and tan mushrooms seemed to mock us in their little winking groups, like a clique we weren’t being invited to join.
I had been a coffee drinker since I was in middle school. I grew up in the kind of shops and barns and garages that always had a tepid pot of burnt coffee with a film floating across its surface. I was generally the one who would bring a thermos of better coffee to share with the crews up north, where harvest work started at 5am to get ahead of the sun. I didn’t realize the level of my dependence on coffee for the simple reason that I had never been without it. I didn’t consider myself addicted to air, either. I didn’t drink alcohol unless I was in a social situation that expected it, and then not much. I thought I had a very moderate relationship to substances and it would be easy to let coffee go.
I intended to taper myself off slowly. I was pretty sure that was what I was doing, actually, even as the objective facts of the situation were otherwise. I tapered myself off of coffee so successfully that the evening of December 31st 2012, I was chugging the remains of a French press to get it out of my house before the day was officially over.
This is why, in the first week of the project, when Sarah and I went foraging for mushrooms in the misty woods, I did it with a full body withdrawal that was so horrendous, so gut-churning, so migraine-inducing, that the mere thought of coffee would turn my stomach for a decade to come. I stumbled, sweaty and miserable, through the dimming woods.
For Sarah, the days before the project were mostly about subtraction in the kitchen. She pulled the contents of her pantry, except for the ingredients she already had which were entirely local, and gave them to friends and family. For me, the preparation was months of addition to the pantry. I had been drying beans and vegetables from my garden, freezing summer produce and meat, and breeding goats in preparation for dairy five months ahead of time. I thought I had done a fairly good job, not having a real understanding of just how many calories it takes to sustain human life, especially while doing hard labor in the cold. I didn’t have the equipment or space to use a water bath canner, but I had done a lot with what I had. As I looked at my row of mason jars containing dried onion and tomatoes and a mix of beans, I felt ready.
In anticipation of the project starting, I went to the thrift store and did some dedicated kitchen shopping, including a crockpot. I had one in my garage shop, so I cringed at buying another, but as I used my shop crockpot to keep a boric acid solution hot to use for deoxidizing metal after heating it with a torch … I decided to get a dedicated crockpot for human food.
The night before the project started, I finished off the French press of coffee and put together my local ingredients in my new human food crockpot. Beans, dried onions (a worrying amount of my saved store of onions went into just that one pot, but I brushed that thought off), fresh winter vegetables like turnips and collards, and a bit of my precious frozen stock all went into the pot. I put it on low, and went to bed, feeling clever and secure in the thought that I was already a day ahead of the plan and would have a meal to share with Sarah the next day without us having to cook.
I woke up to the physical need for coffee and the smell of burning.
On this thrift store crockpot, apparently all points on the dial set it to “high.” The stew, whose ingredients I had carefully grown and stored, was a brown lump in the bottom of the pot, peeling away from the sides in flaking, leathery strips. It smelled noxious in that way that only overcooked beans can and was filling the kitchen with smoke. With a disgusted and despairing groan, I took the entire crockpot off the counter and into the yard, my huge sleepy dog trailing after me in confusion, plunked it on the grass, and ran the hose into it. I resolved not to tell Sarah anything about the monstrosity I had created or the meal we had both lost. Bucket, my honey-eyed and gargoyle-faced mastiff, sniffed it dubiously and backed away.
I hung the hose up and leaned against my tiny porch railing. I sighed and automatically reached for my coffee cup. It wasn’t there. “Well friend,” I addressed my solemn dog, “we’re off to a great start.”
Ironically, for people who lived within the constant sight and smell and sound of the ocean, so loud in the winter crashing against the high carved cliffs, we were soon out of salt. We had relied on the knowledge that there was a local salt company that made salt from the simple process of sea water plus time on drying screens. We anticipated being able to buy it in bulk. When a family member of the company had a tragic illness, the salt disappeared from the store. The season to gather salt from the flats is in late summer, and we did not yet know how to make it. Neither is winter the best time in terms of salinity of the ocean or safety of gathering. Cabbage soup without salt is a Siberian labor camp-level culinary experience. The textural homogeneity of a diet largely consisting of bland soup left me searching for anything with crunch and color.
I had never liked growing radishes. They’re prone to slug damage and they turn over in a bed very fast. And on the big farm in Oregon, I had spent long weary mornings, with the sun just beginning to pick out the corners of the buckets and the trucks, pulling handfuls of them out of the cold mud, twisting a tie around their always breaking leaves, brushing off the organic iron phosphate pellets the soil was covered with as well as any obvious worms, and tossing them into a bucket. In my mind, radishes are the worst kind of crop—a single harvest of the entire plant, requiring the harvester to crouch all the way on the ground, prone to damage, sensitive to weeds, and with a low sales price. In my new context, their redness and their sweet spicy crunch was miraculous. I didn’t use the iron phosphate pellets, so their globes, often twisted from crowded planting by kids, were pocked by small round scoops from the mouths of snails. I didn’t care. I was ravenous for anything that wasn’t soup.
With the short daylight hours, my hens weren’t laying much. A typical breakfast in those first weeks was a single egg, boiled for lack of oil to fry it, a swig of leftover soup, a cup of hot water with a sprig of mint, and ceaseless rain, all I could swallow for free as it ran across my face. Water, coming up from the ground and down from the sky, was all we had a lot of.
A spiral of self-reinforcing hunger set in, where the less I ate, the less I felt free to use the food stores I had saved the year before. I had a massive chest freezer sitting in the barn at the school program that I had crammed with local food, but it felt terrifying to dip into the reserves. We should have. We lost the freezer in February to a drunk driver hitting a power pole nearby and shorting out the electricity. We crammed what we could save into two tiny apartment freezers, and felt the scarcity even more keenly. I was frustrated and embarrassed. I thought I was ready. I didn’t want people to know how unready I was, which means I didn’t ask for help.
The fog and driving rain and monotony of short farm days felt like being out of time, disconnected from a community, existing only in a private state of lack. That was the opposite of what I wanted from this project. Meanwhile I was still having to do chores twice daily to care for animals that were not currently feeding me. Goats that were not giving milk still needed bedding, clean water, and hay, and chickens not laying eggs needed the same. My already short days were bracketed by these tasks.
This culinary boredom and shocking reduction in our daily calories pushed us into the woods to look for mushrooms. Mendocino County is rich in mushrooms, but their most abundant season is fall, not spring. The topographical variation in the county is immense. The land rises up from the ocean and passes through a myriad of biomes that are incredibly distinct from each other. In one short hike on the Ecological Staircase, a person can pass from the beach, through coastal prairie, deep fir forest, and up into pygmy scrub, an exceptionally rare ecosystem known nowhere else on earth where extremely acidic podalized sandstone grows twisted, acid loving plants like dwarf pine trees, towering rhododendrons, and thick huckleberries. This unique ecosystem, full of precious insights, already damaged by nearby logging, is of course also the home of our landfill, but there are many areas where edible mushrooms that love the acidic duff are abundant.
For weeks after work, with the short days already falling into darkness, we would head to the woods. We were looking for chanterelles, golden and black, hedgehogs, and maybe a precious last bolete in a grassy area under a pine tree, but the trails were popular and there weren’t many mushrooms out, except one type. It was everywhere, sprouting up with little orange trumpets topped with brown furling caps. They looked similar in form to a black chanterelle, but different enough in color and texture that I was sure they couldn’t be related. These mushrooms seemed to volunteer for our efforts, showing up everywhere we looked like kids raising their hands for a teacher, begging to be called on.
It took several days—in which we thoroughly came to resent these little mushrooms—to identify them, and when we did, I laughed. All around us, literally everywhere, were yellowfoot, also called winter chanterelle, a perfectly edible but not widely fetishized member of the family we had been looking for the entire time. They were so abundant that, had we the baskets and daylight, we could have harvested our weight just with the mushrooms within sight of the spot we stood.
Mushrooms are not plants, neither are they animals. They are something else, of which the mushrooms we see are only the fruiting bodies. When I was a kid, it was explained to me like an apple tree under the ground, whose apples popped up to the surface leaving the rest below. I found this image scary, envisioning the mushroom as literally resembling an underground apple tree—a gnarled, cephalopodic subterranean creature slinking and coiling mysteriously under the forest. It could grab me and pull me down into the soft humic darkness. Arguably the biggest living organism is a single mushroom that covers thousands of acres in Oregon. The mysteries of the fungi were vast and only just beginning to be revealed to me in part, but I know two things clearly from experience. Mushrooms contain a serious amount of protein, and I also know that they have a sense of humor.
Finding a glut of mushrooms reminded us that abundance was possible. We broke out of our stupor and reached out to the community. An elderly farmer, John, who was close to retirement and had mentored many of us, including teaching me to harvest ducks the previous year, had a few sacks of potatoes in his shed. They were second quality, going slightly soft, but they were rosy and full of calories. He gave us three bags, 150 pounds, and we ate them between us over the next two months. Skimmed chicken fat from stock made roasted potatoes possible, which felt like life itself. The next huge development, near the end of the spring, was dairy. Our friends in Boonville had a milk share with their cows. We signed up, and the combination of milk, potatoes, cabbage, and collards, with salt from the ocean water we gathered in perilous bottles, kept us alive like it had my Celtic ancestors. The freefall on the scale slowed, and then stopped. I will never, ever underestimate again in my life the power of potatoes and dairy for storing the solar energy of the previous year and passing it along, or forget the lesson that abundance is here in this place, as long as we learn enough to recognize it and are humble enough to accept it.
Farmer John has passed on now, but Farmer Kevin, a member of our collective in Caspar, as well as Brian in Covelo, have filled our 2023 pantry with potatoes. Mushrooms of all descriptions, including the one who frustrated us with its abundance until we learned we could eat it, yellowfoot, are packing jar after jar on our shelves. A decade of hard-won lessons are going into this reprise, and the pantry is stuffed, but I doubt it’ll be easy—the county agricultural landscape has changed and so have I. Join us on our social media and my Patreon for ongoing updates … including meals we cook in our new and improved, less flammable crockpot!
Gowan Batist of Fortunate Farm is a Post-Industrial Pastoralist working towards regeneration on landscapes her ancestors devastated. She is seldom seen, but sometimes glimpsed out in the fog or the oak savanna propagating native plants, spinning wool, hand shearing sheep, or sprawling on the ground with dogs.
Slack Tide Cafe
Coffee, Treats, and Harbor Views with a Side of Marine Science
by Torrey Douglass | photos by Clara Shook
In recent years, the Noyo Center for Marine Science has been eyeing various properties down in Fort Bragg’s Noyo Harbor, casing the joint like a would-be burglar, albeit with better intentions. They were seeking a permanent location that would grant them harbor access for observation and research projects, a spot that could serve as both an education and a research facility. Such a property would add a new and necessary dimension to complement their other locations: the Crow’s Nest Interpretive Center—a bluff-top A-frame by the ocean, and the Discovery Center—their downtown exhibition space and retail store in the heart of Fort Bragg.
The center particularly wanted their new space to include a dock for launching boats to give them and collaborating organizations easy access to and from the ocean. A harborfront location would also allow researchers the opportunity to study the harbor’s unique ecosystem, work on projects such as the Red Tide Program, and potentially have space for a wet lab. After investigating several properties with the usual mix of potential and problems, the center eventually took ownership of their own patch of North Noyo Harbor in February 2022 at the former site of Carine’s Fish Grotto, a Sicilian seafood restaurant and local institution from 1947 to 2014, run by three generations of the Carine family.
Richard Millis, II, worked for the Noyo Center for Marine Science as a part-time Marine Mammal Specimen Collections Coordinator for seven years before becoming involved in first the renovation and later the management of Slack Tide Cafe. Richard oversaw the many projects required to make things safe for visitors and to bring the building up to code. The location had sat empty since the restaurant closed in 2014, and while “the bones were good,” the space needed some significant renovations, including repairs to the interior, kitchen equipment updates, deck refurbishing, rebuilt railings, and the replacement of an aged ramp structure to the dock.
All that work made for a busy spring and summer of 2022, as the renovations and improvements slowly reshaped Carine’s Fish Grotto into Slack Tide Cafe. Because the organization was working with a tight budget, volunteers, staff, and board members were essential to preparing the cafe for its September opening. From deep cleaning the spaces, to sanding and painting the walls, to donating a shiny new espresso machine, the Noyo Center’s support network showed up with willing hands and infectious enthusiasm to get the space safe and ready for customers.
The planning team focused on a short list of goals when developing their vision for the cafe. The first and foremost was to bring something new and needed to Noyo Harbor, and the area lacked a morning coffee spot for the harbor’s various workers, sailors, and visitors. At first they considered leasing the food business. As Board President Dave Turner shares, “We weighed renting the restaurant property out and simply maintaining our ocean access goal … but the location was too beautiful, and the team overwhelmingly wanted to provide a ‘Noyo Center’ take on a sustainable coffee shop and lunch cafe.” Additional goals included generating revenue for the center’s educational and research programs, as well as creating jobs in the community.
Slack Tide Cafe is now the only place that serves morning coffee among the harbor businesses, offering up java and espresso drinks thanks to their partnership with Black Oak Coffee Roasters. Besides coffee, customers can enjoy a selection of delectable pastries, sandwiches, salads, and breakfast burritos. Everything is fresh and tasty, and management is keeping the menu simple for now so they can expand it intentionally as they get a feel for what works best.
The cafe’s vibe is casual and friendly. Large windows let in generous natural light, brightening the entry room where customers can order at the counter or browse a small retail section with shirts, jackets, books, mugs, and more. A separate room of tables provides seating for relaxing and visiting away from the traffic around the register, or guests can head out back to an expansive deck that looks out over the water. That deck warms up nicely on sunny days, and from pretty much any seat in the house (or out of it if you’re on the deck), you might see a harbor seal poke their head up from the water’s green depths and return your curious stare. Sea lions, river otters, and a variety of birds might be spotted as well.
As summer brings more people down to the harbor, the cafe plans to host science talks, develop educational programs for student groups, and host other marine science exhibits. The facility is also available for rent for private events, and there are plans to feature live music on Friday and Saturday evenings during the spring and summer months.
Future plans include a program for developing restorative seafood by ranching purple urchins. Purple sea urchins have decimated the bull kelp forests and in many cases are undernourished due to their high numbers. The program would be modeled after similar urchin-ranching efforts that collect live sea urchins, hold them in tanks, and feed them kelp-based nutrition to result in a sustainable commercial product. An abalone breeding program is also being considered.
As well as providing a location for hosting future scientific efforts, the space also honors the past. Photos of the Carines and their decades serving homestyle Sicilian seafood to the community are on display, along with other mementos from the family. The site bears the name “Carine’s Landing” to ensure the original owners, who transformed a former fish shack into a long-running and beloved local restaurant, are remembered.
For now, it appears that the cafe has succeeded in adding something unique to the harbor community. “It’s a spectacular place to be,” remarks Interpretive Facilities Manager Trey Petrey. “It’s part of the history of Fort Bragg and a great place for drinking coffee and watching wildlife on the river.” A busy dining area on the morning of my visit indicates that folks agree, appreciating the friendly atmosphere as the air fills with laughter and the rich scent of coffee.
Richard’s friendly and attentive manner make him an excellent choice for managing the cafe, as does his previous experience in carpentry, bartending, and barista-ing. “We lucked out,” he remembers. “There were lots of repairs to do and they all went smoothly. I’m grateful for the full-time work, and I love the people. This place has nothing but potential.”
Growing into that potential will be a long and deliberate process that will take years, but there’s time. In the meantime, the cafe is doing just fine living up to its name. A slack tide is the pause that occurs after low tide has finished piling its waters into the lap of the Pacific, a moment of stillness before the process reverses and the sea doggedly shambles back up the shore. If you need a moment to pause and escape the pull of life’s competing currents, head down to North Noyo Harbor in Fort Bragg. Slack Tide Cafe offers the welcoming ambiance, excellent coffee, tasty nosh, and harbor seal sightings to take your mind off the grind.
Slack Tide Cafe
Carine’s Landing in Noyo Harbor, 32430 N Harbor Dr, Fort Bragg
(707) 962-8808 | NoyoCenter.org
Open Thursday - Monday 8am - 3pm
Friday & Saturday 8am - 7pm
A New Day for Allensworth
Black-Led Sustainable Agriculture in California’s Central Valley
by Tiffani Patton
Originally published in Nexus Media News at https://nexusmedianews.com/allensworth-sustainable-agriculture/.
In 1979, an idealistic 44-year-old Black woman named Nettie Mae Morrison moved with her husband to Allensworth, 75 miles south of Fresno, in California’s Central Valley. “She wanted to be a part of history,” said her son, Dennis Hutson, who was in his mid-20s at the time of the move. The town had a distinctive past. It was founded in 1908 by Allen Allensworth, a man born into slavery who became the first African American to reach the rank of lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army. About three square miles in size, it was the first town in California founded and governed by Black people—and it served as a beacon of possibility for Black people all over the nation, its population growing to around 1,200 people.
But the community soon fell on hard times. In 1914, the Santa Fe Railroad Company moved its rail stop from Allensworth to nearby Alpaugh, a majority-white town, dealing a major blow to Allensworth’s economy. That same year, Col. Allensworth died after being struck by a motorcycle during a visit to Los Angeles. It was access to water, however, that proved the most challenging.
According to California’s water regulatory agency, “The company that sold the land to Col. Allensworth [the Pacific Farming Company] didn’t fulfill its promise to build an adequate water system, leaving the growing population with debt and dry wells. Drought struck the Central Valley soon after the town was founded, which led to poor crop yields and further decreased vital water supplies.” In 1966, the town suffered another blow when officials discovered arsenic in the drinking water, and by the 1970s, Allensworth no longer appeared on most maps.
The town’s storied past and ongoing challenges were what drew Morrison there, Hutson said of his mother. She dedicated the rest of her life—from 1979 until her death in 2018—to Allensworth, where she joined church efforts and nonprofit campaigns against local polluters and rallied to secure clean drinking water for the community. On weekends, her five grown children joined her in her efforts.
Decades later, two of her children, twins Dennis Hutson and Denise Kadara, felt a similar calling to Allensworth. Hutson, a Methodist preacher and Air Force chaplain living in Las Vegas at the time, remembered his frustration that little seemed to have improved for local residents despite his mother’s many efforts. As recently as 2020, nearly one-third of the population still lived below the poverty line. “I asked myself, ‘Why doesn’t the government do something?’” Hudson recalled. “A voice [in my head] responded, ‘Why don’t you do something?’”
So in 2007, Hutson and Kadara, ages 54, and Kadara’s husband, Kayode Kadara, decided to buy 60 acres from a retiring farmer in Allensworth, calling it the TAC Farm. (TAC originally stood for The Allensworth Corporation, an entity that has since been dissolved.) Over the next few years, Hutson moved from Las Vegas, Nevada, and the Kadaras from Half Moon Bay, California, to settle in Allensworth full-time. Their goal was to create a Black-owned, Black-operated farm that would honor Allensworth’s legacy and boost the local economy. They began to farm a mix of collards, okra, mustard greens, watermelon, and black-eyed peas because, as Hutson said, “I’m going to grow food that I know Black people want to eat.”
The Central Valley produces about 8% of the country’s total agricultural output and nearly 40% of its fruits and nuts. But climate change poses a serious threat to the region’s farms. Annual average maximum temperatures in Allensworth, and the surrounding San Joaquin Valley, increased by 1°F from 1950 to 2020. That figure is projected to increase another 4-5°F in the next 30 years, according to a state-commissioned report released in 2022. The region has also been experiencing its most severe drought in a millennium, according to a separate study published earlier that year in the journal Nature. (Editor’s note: the heavy rains of early 2023 hopefully alleviated some of the drought stress, but also caused extensive flooding in the region.)
The extreme heat and drought don’t just threaten crops. These conditions make farm work more dangerous and pose critical health risks for surrounding communities, according to Chantelise Pells, a water-systems researcher at U.C. Merced and co-author of the state-commissioned report. “When you compound the expenses of air conditioning, poor air quality, and limited access to water, [the climate crisis] is a huge economic burden for low-income communities,” Pells said. “They have to make a choice of whether to suffer in the heat or not have enough money to meet their basic needs.”
According to the same report, hundreds of thousands of residents in the San Joaquin Valley do not have access to clean drinking water and instead rely on store-bought bottled water. More frequent heat waves, which are often accompanied by poor air quality, increase the economic burden on low-income communities in the region that already experience disproportionate rates of asthma and heat-related illnesses.
Lack of rainfall and snowmelt runoff also mean farmers rely more heavily on groundwater, a practice that has become unsustainable, experts say. And amid the water scarcity, small-scale farmers like the Hutson-Kadaras are struggling to compete with larger farms. “Most small-scale farmers don’t have the means to dig deeper wells and compete with large farms for access to groundwater,” said Angel Santiago Fernandez-Bou, a researcher at U.C. Merced and co-author of the state-commissioned report. “During a drought, this can be a big problem for small or disadvantaged farmers.”
In 2007, for example, Hutson dug a 720-foot well on his family’s property, only to discover that his neighbors, who operate larger-scale operations, have wells thousands of feet deep. He realized that meant his well—and the farm’s lifeline—would be at risk of drying up long before his well-financed neighbors’ water sources would. “When you are in the midst of a drought in a state that is having severe water challenges, it seems to me that you would rethink how you do your farming,” Hutson said, “that it would encourage you to consider other ways to provide for your livestock [while] at the same time trying to provide for your environment.”
In 2011, the Hutson-Kadaras participated in an organic farming training program, where they learned adaptive practices, such as enriching their soil with organic compost and installing windbreaks—hedges of trees to protect crops against wind—that would limit their reliance on synthetic fertilizers, reduce soil erosion, and conserve water. In the past decade, the TAC Farm has adopted other climate friendly practices, including closed-loop agriculture, a technique in which farmers recycle nutrients and organic matter material back to the soil. The Hutson-Kadaras also raise rabbits, feeding them organic alfalfa and using their nutrient-dense manure as fertilizer.
Hedgerows and windbreaks reduce soil erosion, minimizing soil disturbance, which in turn leads to less dust and fewer pollutants in the air. Healthy soil increases water retention, leaving more water in the aquifers. The cover crops add fertility to the soil, reducing the need for agrochemicals that pollute the air and water. The benefits of these farming practices, if adopted widely, reverberate throughout the surrounding community, according to Pells. “Using regenerative practices [like cover cropping and reducing tillage] is a win-win,” Pells said. “It improves water and air quality, while lessening the economic burden on the farmers themselves.”
The experiences over the past 15 years have convinced the Hutson-Kadaras of the importance of small-scale and cooperative farming. The benefits aren’t just environmental, Hutson noted. Surrounding communities have been shown to benefit economically as small farms generate jobs and circulate income among local establishments.
State officials are now looking to the Hutson-Kadaras’ farm as a model for developing a new generation of small-scale, sustainable farmers. Earlier this summer, state lawmakers earmarked $10 million in funding to help Hutson and Kadara develop a farmer training program that focuses on sustainable practices and cooperative methods that can help fight the tides of climate change and transform the Central Valley into a more economically and environmentally sustainable region. The program will primarily recruit burgeoning Black, Indigenous, and other farmers of color in an effort to close some of the racial disparities that are rampant in food and agriculture. After seven months of training, participants can lease a small plot of land on the Hutson-Kadaras’ farm for the next 2½ years and sell their goods to local cooperatives.
Drought and extreme heat notwithstanding, Hutson said his dream—to make Allensworth once again a beacon of hope for Americans of color—is slowly becoming a reality. In June 2022, California Governor Newsom set aside an additional $32 million dollars in the state budget for Allensworth, a majority of which will go to building a new visitor center that will connect the town’s history of Black self-determination with its future as a sustainable and equitable farming hub.
“I want Allensworth to be known for training and producing the next generations of cooperative, small-scale, sustainable farmers—whether they are Black, Latinx, Indigenous, or Asian,” Hutson said. “That’s what I hope for and that’s what we are working toward.”
Photo credit: Jo Ann Baumgartner.
This article was made possible by a grant from the Open Society Foundations. Nexus Media News is an editorially independent, nonprofit news service covering climate change. Follow us @NexusMediaNews. Read the original article at https://nexusmedianews.com/allensworth-sustainable-agriculture/.
Tiffani Patton is a Bay Area-based food justice advocate and Co-Director of Real Food Media.