Eliot Woods Farm

15/03/2026

If you are in the Portland area, you may have heard the news that the Leach Botanical Garden is on the brink of closure. The Leach Garden Friends have currently raised enough money to keep the garden open through June.

The garden is the legacy of Lilla and John Leach. Lilla was an independent field botanist who, with her husband John, systematically collected plants throughout Oregon and other western states. She was particularly interested in the Siskiyou Mountains of Curry County in southwestern Oregon. She and John spent nine summers there between 1928 and 1938, exploring the heart of that rugged range where Lilla discovered several new species. In 1963, Leach donated her large private collection of more than 3,000 pressed plants to the University of Oregon; the specimens are now in the collections of the Oregon State University Herbarium in Corvallis.

Lilla and John bought property on Johnson Creek in southeast Portland and there built a home they called Sleepy Hollow. Their collecting slowed during World War II when Lilla began to suffer from arthritis. John died in 1972, and the home and garden became the property of the City of Portland in 1973. Lilla Leach died September 10, 1980, in Portland at the age of 94.

Learn more about Lilla Leach with this OE entry by Rhoda Love.
https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/leach_lilla_1886_1980_/

Learn more about the Leach Botanical Garden here:
https://www.leachgarden.org/

Photo: Lilla Leach at Horsesign Butte, May 1931. Courtesy The Leach Collection, Univ. of Oreg. Knight Library, Archives and Special Collections.

Leach Botanical Garden

16/02/2026

A new draft of the farm bill from House Republicans is being used to advance protections for pesticide manufacturers. The proposal includes language that would shield companies from state-level penalties or court rulings if their product labels don’t spell out potential health risks. It would limit states’ ability to hold manufacturers accountable for warning consumers about possible harms.

Link:

Agriculture Chair Glenn Thompson borrowed some Democratic ideas, but the panel’s ranking member called it a “charade.”

14/02/2026

Can we talk about what's happening to Mount Hood's water?

Today is Oregon's 167th birthday, and there's a bill in the U.S. Senate (HR 655) that would transfer 150 acres of Mount Hood National Forest to expand The Dalles' water reservoir.

Here's the part that doesn't add up:

The Dalles population is declining (down 300 people since 2021), but they want to triple their reservoir.

Meanwhile, Google's water use went from 12% of the city's water in 2012 to 33% today. They tripled consumption in 5 years, from 124 million to 355 million gallons annually. Two more data centers are under construction right now.

When a newspaper asked for Google's water data, the city sued to keep it secret. Google paid the legal fees. Took 13 months to get the truth.

Why this matters to us:

Dog River (where The Dalles draws water) flows down Mount Hood into the East Fork Hood River, then the Hood River, then the Columbia.

Same watershed. Same water system we all depend on.

We're in a multi-year drought. Glaciers receding. Snowpack declining. Every gallon matters.

Data centers use evaporative cooling, 70-80% of the water just evaporates. Gone. The rest comes back warm (kills salmon) and chemical-laden (biocides, phosphates, heavy metals).

HR 655 has no environmental review. No public input. No consultation with downstream farmers or tribes. No water quality standards.

This sets a precedent. If they can transfer public forest land for corporate water use with zero oversight, any PNW watershed could be next.

What we can do:

Call our senators THIS WEEK. The bill is in committee right now.

Oregon: Merkley (503) 326-3386 | Wyden (503) 326-7525
Washington: Murray (206) 553-5545 | Cantwell (206) 220-6400 (Columbia River is shared)

Simple message: "I'm a farmer. I oppose HR 655. Water is our livelihood. Downstream farms and communities must be consulted. Public lands stay public."

Three minutes. Make the call.

Please help share this with your farm networks and communities: Grange, Tilth, irrigation districts, farm bureau, wherever.

We're all trying to farm in a changing climate, dealing with water uncertainty, watching development pressure increase. Our job is to grow and preserve farmland for the next generation. That also requires protecting our watersheds.

If we don't speak up for our water, who will?

Please call. Please share. We have limited time to stop this.

04/02/2026

Please don’t sign this.

Primarily becaue it infringes in indigenous peoples rights to fish in traditional waterways, but also because it is an insanely restrictive blueprint for animal husbandry. It also makes it “child abuse” for children to observe mating/live birth of livestock. The funding behind this initiative is sketch as hell. The whole thing is hinky. If you like fresh eggs from backyard chickens, don’t sign this.

It represents one of the most aggressive assaults on animal ownership, agriculture, and private property rights ever proposed through a state ballot initiative.

27/01/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/1CEonesrM7/?mibextid=wwXIfr

People do not want to hear this, but the "purity of food" did not magically emerge from a yoga studio in 2013. The concept has a history that is dirty and complex. This ideology also connects to white supremacy and nationalism in ways that nobody will be happy to acknowledge.

Let's start with late 19th century/early 20th century Europe. In Germany, there were a number of groups who were promoting a lifestyle of naturism or natural living. The ideas included raw food, no drinking, no vaccinations, sun bathing (like reptiles), growing their own food. This movement was based on the belief that industrial society was harming the body and the soul. As this ideology developed, it started to morph into a belief that modern life was weakening "our people." Not "people," but "our people." This is a different sentence.

Next, the N***s appeared and went, "Oh wow, this looks great!" So now the Lebensreform ideology becomes an extension of Blut und Boden. Blood and Soil. You grow your food naturally and the land will create strong bodies; the strong bodies will create strong Germans. Cities are corrupt. Factory food is corrupt. All foreign food is suspect. The food culture of Jews is viewed as artificial and unhealthy. Whole wheat bread and potatoes become symbolic of patriotism. That is not a metaphor. It was policy. They used nutritional policy as a tool for racial classification.

In the United States, we have the same energy but different fonts. Sylvester Graham and John Harvey Kellogg. Yes, these are the founders of graham crackers and corn flakes. While they were concerned with the amount of fiber in their diets, they believed that spicy food would cause sexual thoughts, which would lead to ma********on, which would lead to a decrease in racial stock. Kellogg wrote about this extensively. Plain vegetarian food was supposed to save white civilization from...orgasms, I suppose.

Now, let's take a closer look at the formula:
Eating "pure"
Your body remains pure
Your mind remains pure
Your race remains pure

As soon as this reasoning is accepted, food ceases to be food. Food becomes a loyalty test.

We fast-forward to today. There is no one advocating for "A***n bread" at Trader Joe's. Instead, they advocate for:
"Clean eating."
"Detox."
"Seed oils are poisonous."
"Modern food is causing men to be weak."
"Eating an ancestral diet."

The sentence structure is the same. The nouns have changed.

Look at who shows up in those areas. Not everybody does. However, enough people do. Anti-vaccine advocates. Advocates of raw milk. "Sunlight heals all diseases." Advocates of doctors who lie. Advocates of immigrants ruining everything. Funny how often that overlap occurs.

You also see the nationalist component. "Our farmers." "Our soil." "Our traditional food." Sounds innocuous until it becomes "their food is trash" and "they do not respect the earth" and "they're poisoning the country." We are not discussing vitamins anymore. We are discussing who belongs.

For example: GMO crops in Africa that prevent crop failure. "Unnatural."
Fortified rice that prevents blindness. "Chemical."
Golden rice. "Corporate toxin."
Vaccines. "Poisonous substances."

Only purity matters. Results do not matter.

If something is not spiritually clean, then it may as well not exist.

Yes, buying organic does not make someone a N**i. Relax. Supporting local farmer's markets does not equate to supporting a militia. The idea that food makes you morally superior to others...that came from social movements that fixated on decline, weakness, and contamination.

You can draw a straight line:
European racial purity -> natural food -> physically strong bodies
American health reform -> plain food -> morally strong bodies
N**i agriculture -> soil purity -> nationally strong bodies
Modern wellness -> clean food -> "poisonous" outsiders

Same bones. Different packaging.

That's why some organic marketing always seems...judgey.
It is not "this contains more vitamin C."
It is "this is clean."
It is not "this feeds people."
It is "this is the correct way."

When food is seen as virtue, it is no longer lunch. It is politics with carrots.

25/01/2026

25/01/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1BodeXZiAL/?mibextid=wwXIfr

In the apple orchards of Wenatchee, Washington, 1936 meant apples plentiful but prices nothing, boxes needed labels to sell.
One packing shed evening, a Japanese American artist named Takumi Sato painted beautiful labels by hand—Mount Rainier, cherries, Native salmon—for boxes going to market.
Growers loved them. Soon Nisei artists, laid-off sign painters, high-school kids gathered after packing, painting labels free for co-op crates to make them stand out.
They called themselves the Washington Apple Box Label Artists.
Box after box, while strikes loomed and pickers waited pay, labels brightened. Co-op apples sold better with art, artists got fruit for payment, community crossed Japanese-white divides. Through cold storage, long waits, and worry about rot, beauty sold—art without gallery.
By 1939, Wenatchee labels famous, helping orchards survive. The artists shaped Northwest fruit marketing. Those brushes painted forever. Elders said the apples sold sweeter because boxes wore art painted by hands paid in fruit, colors chosen in cold sheds, and proved that when prices fell to nothing, neighbors could still add value if they just picked up a brush and made the crate beautiful enough to catch a buyer’s eye.

21/01/2026

If anyone is wondering, it’s not us burning down at the end of Eliot. Not today at least. It’s acrid and hard to breathe outside so if you live anywhere near Rosauers, we are so sorry and suffering right alongside you. Our air purifier has been in the red and oscillating at around 350-400 for hours now, for the second day in a row. No problem with burning appropriate materials at appropriate times, just warning everyone that IT IS ROUGH outside. If you have masks left over from covid, consider popping one on before taking an evening stroll or even checking the mail.

16/11/2025

https://www.npr.org/2025/11/16/nx-s1-5602844/why-honeycrisp-apples-are-the-peoples-favorites-but-the-farmers-nightmare

The Honeycrisp apple variety is popular around the world but poses problems for producers. NPR's Ayesha Rascoe speaks with Kait Thornton, a fourth-generation apple farmer in Washington state.

27/10/2025

The vibrant, nutrient-dense pumpkin—a staple crop for many Native American communities—posed a classic preservation challenge: how to store a soft, high-moisture fruit to last through the long, lean winter months. The ingenious solution was a technique that transformed the gourd's flesh into a stable, durable food source often referred to today as pumpkin leather or pumpkin mats.

For many tribes across the North American Great Plains the cultivation of corn, beans, and squash (the "Three Sisters") provided the foundation of their diet. Pumpkins were harvested in abundance, but their shelf life as a fresh vegetable was limited. Effective preservation was essential for survival, particularly for sustenance during winter and while on long hunting trips or migrations.

The traditional method for creating pumpkin leather was a careful process of dehydration and physical manipulation, maximizing the pumpkin's storability:
Ripe pumpkins were harvested. The tough outer rinds were removed, sometimes by roasting the pumpkin over a fire until the rind could be scraped off, a method that saved time and reduced waste. The inner seeds and stringy pulp were scooped out. Then the flesh was cut into long, thin strips—like ribbons. These strips were often hung on wooden racks to begin the drying process under the sun or near a slow-burning fire to speed up dehydration.

After the strips had dried slightly and become pliable, they were sometimes pounded underfoot or with a mallet to remove even more water. This crucial step condensed the material, making it denser and further reducing the moisture content, which is key to preventing spoilage. Once the strips were dry and had the consistency of a tough, leathery jerky, the strips were often woven into checker-plaited mats. These mats were typically arm's length and a couple of feet wide. The weaving made the strips easier to handle, stack, and transport, securing them into a compact, durable block of food.

The completed pumpkin mats were dried further until they were completely stable. They could then be rolled or folded and stored, reportedly keeping for years without spoiling.

Pumpkin leather was more than just preserved food; it was a highly convenient, calorie-dense snack for travel. In its dried, woven form, the pumpkin mat was lightweight and non-perishable, making it an ideal provision for hunters and those on long journeys. Historical records note that when fully dried, the pumpkin strips achieved a consistency similar to beef jerky. The preserved pumpkin could be eaten as is, or more commonly, it was rehydrated and boiled to be used in stews, cakes, or side dishes. Some tribes also ground their dried squash into a rich powder to be mixed into other meals, showcasing its utility as a valuable winter thickener and nutrient source.

This ancient technique exhibited the deep knowledge Native American cultures possessed regarding food chemistry and preservation, turning a seasonal harvest into a sustainable food source that ensured communal survival through harsh seasons. It stands as a reminder of the sophisticated food technologies developed long before modern refrigeration.

25/10/2025

https://www.latimes.com/delos/story/2023-10-20/pumpkin-origins-mexico-fall

There’s no symbol that screams Halloween more than the warm glow of an orange pumpkin. But as big a part of autumnal U.S. culture as they’ve become, their origins point a bit more south to Mexico.