Grape Lane Poultry Farm was farmed by the Calapulia Indians before a Trapper named Frazier (due to family conflicts during the Revolutionary wars, spellings varied) came to the site about 1836, seven years before the first wagon trains came to Oregon. In the style of the Calapulia, Frazier built a two room, two story trappers cabin and then left to go back East for his wife Sara and his daughter and two sons. Somewhere along the way back he died, leaving Sara a widow who, in 1843 spurred by the knowledge of the home her husband had left her in the Oregon Wilderness; with her children traveled to Oregon on the first wagon train. Arriving in 1843, Sara married Mr. McHaley and together help found the city of Aumsville, leaving her son William to homesteaded this farm. The original structure built by her first husband still stands today in the interior of the home pictured above with the sheep. In 1915 our family traded Land Grants for the farm, and the farm has stayed with us ever since. In 1926, Mrs. Davis, who was born in the house, was working on the farm cleaning eggs for our family. As she was cleaning eggs she stated to our family that the portion of the home she was standing in was almost 100 years old.
We grow an unusual historically significant garlic competitive in size with Elephant garlic, at times tipping the scales at 3 pounds! The garlic traces its roots back to the 1700's in Europe and was hand carried here by an early pioneer. In 2000 we discovered 6 remaining garlic plants and began raising them for seed. Now we grow an approximate acre per year and sell to dedicated accounts.
We have 21 antique walnut trees and make walnut butter and press walnut oil that I use in my home-made lotions and oils. This tree one is one of our best! It was blown over during the Columbus Day Storm and has re-rooted itself from it's trunk into the ground.
Our apple trees were planted by pioneers and are some of the best late apples I have ever eaten.
Our 100 year old pear trees were planted by the early settlers and are a bumper crop each year. We make a fabulous pear honey with them.
The farm was named Grape Lane Poultry Farm in the 1900's because of the hundreds of grape plants lining the road and the 1000's of chickens raised and sold each year. We have salvaged two remaining grape plants from the original stock and they are a rare and early pioneer wine making variety.
We are also working to preserve the antique two story chicken house built in 1901. The picture above shows it as it was being built and as it stands today. We have 100 years of farming photographs of the farm operations, including farm receipts, feed sack clothing, feed sack fabrics, and much more.
We make a dried candy from our plum trees.
We raise a small herd of Black Angus mix cattle. Just for the record I am a vegetarian. And have been so for the last 20 years When we inherited the farm the cows came with the package. Because I do not support the cattle industry by today's standards and the abuse of land to raise them; I did not sell the cattle but choose to let them live their lives out on the farm. They were old I thought, and will soon be gone by natural causes. I did not know cattle can live to be 20 years old! I give the calves Biblical names and sell them as breeding cattle to small sustainable farming operations in the hopes they will not be eaten, or not eaten very soon anyway. Below is Gidian, our current young bull.
We grow herbs for teas, tinctures, seeds, oil, and all medicinal purposes.
We practice composting with leaves,
manure from our cattle, llamas, and horse. We manage and apply this according to Oregon Tilth Certification Standards. Below the garlic bed is prepared using aged manure, bent over stalks from last years grain with added straw and weed control bio-paper. Notice how nice the Blackberry bush looks! Good berries, medicinal leaves, wonderful year round birds to watch and all for a price less than a lawn both in labor and dollars!
We grow a variety of grains for hand harvest, cleaning, seed saving and sprouting for food products such as breads and crackers.
We keep bees.
We harvest rain from our buildings and we use solar power to operate it. The two large tanks are up against the cedar and the solar panels are on the roof. It looks like the cedar limbs are too near it but it is simply the angle of the picture.
We practice rotational grazing using cattle and our chicken tractor.
We promote Chicken Tractors.
We support the all cedar movable chicken coops made by www.TheChickenTractorCompany.com located in Lake Oswego, Oregon 503-753-4678. They deliver too!
Of the 7 grants I wrote, I received 5 to revive the farm and create an award winning Upland Savannah Riparian program.
We dry herbs and harvest seeds. Shadrack is watching over the drying of Borage and Echinacea. This room also serves as an outdoor laundry room. As soon as I figure out my scanner, I will be downloading pictures of the farm featured in the Capital Press Newspaper and with Shawn from Mountain Rose Herbs standing with me in our Borage field in their 2010 catalog on page 16.
We teach classes on sustainable living.
One Quarter Horse Power Private Workshops. See details under "Workshops."
My best bud Stevie-Love-Gift-From-Above is the mascot for my Not-For-Profit www.OreCat.org. An organization I started because of a plant that came to my farm that I thought was Dog Wood. Instead it was a plant called Possum Haw and it had a story to tell me. I learned from this plant that it is extinct on the Eastern coast because the cougar has become extinct in those areas due primarily to sports hunting. So, go to my other web-site, www.OreCat.org to learn more about how to save Oregon's cougars from the same tragedy.
There are subtle differences between Draft horses and registered hot-blooded Quarter horse race-horses and the speed of which things get done....
From the several grants I was able to plant over 1000 trees and understory, double fence the whole farm, plant 121 laurel around the lower pastures. We have 3 wells and water-rights and soon a pond. Here I am planting 38 of the 1000 trees on our first grant. I planted all and every one of these trees with a shovel.
