At a potluck dinner on Lopez Island late in the summer of 2014, Sandy Bishop, executive director of the Lopez Community Land Trust, and one of LCLT’s farm interns, Ezra Fradkin, were having a conversation about a hot topic – eating locally-sourced food. Sandy told Ezra she guessed that Lopezians probably only get about 5-10% of…
Ah, the simple life. Pigs with abscesses. Ewes that die at birth. Sheep with mastitis. Rows of lettuce plagued by wire worms. Allergies triggered by the ever present dust and pollen in the fields. Though they make it look simple, life on Horse Drawn Farm for Ken Akopiantz and Kathryn Thomas is anything but. I had lunch the…
Most people, after a long, successful career, choose to turn things down a notch. Even though retirement doesn’t look like it used to, if people keep working, they’ll choose not to work as much; or they’ll focus on more leisure activities like golf or traveling. Doug Benoliel and Tamara Buchanan are not like most people.…
After people have lived on Lopez for a while, they find themselves giving out free advice for how to make the most of life on the island – everything from when to line up for the ferry to where to catch the best Dungeness crab. Well, after my meeting with two amazing women last Friday,…
These days, the mention of science and farming in the same breath immediately brings to mind the hotly debated issue of GMOs (against which, by the way, San Juan County recently scored a victory). But that’s not necessarily what comes to mind for Nick and Sara Jones of Jones Family Farms. Step inside one of the…
Lopez Island represents renewal, experimentation and improvisation. I can’t think of an organization that lives up to those ideals better than the Lopez Solid Waste Disposal District, otherwise known as the dump. My family pays a visit to the dump every few weeks to sort our recycling, pay a visit to the “Take It Or Leave…
Project 468 