In today's episode I sit down with Maud Powell of Wolf Gulch Farm in the Little Applegate Valley. Maud and her husband, Tom, have owned and operated their certified organic farm for the past 24 years. Tom works full time on the farm while Maud works part-time and also for OSU Extension, Small Farms Program. They started in diverse vegetable production and have now transitioned to exclusively growing seed. They helped to run Oregon's first CSA cooperative, the Siskiyou Sustainable Cooperative. They purchased their property knowing it was marginal farmland and were excited to implement water conservation, water catchment, and soil building strategies to make it work. While they found success and made it work for over 20 years, climate change, specifically severe droughts in their region, meant that they lost access to water for irrigation in 2021. Faced with the inability to farm their property they have leaned into their farming and rural community to find leased land as an option. They are uncertain how long farming will be viable in their Valley and Maud shares with us her views on adaptation. Maud is a humble community builder and talented storyteller, I am grateful for her vulnerability and willingness to talk about the hard stuff. This episode was recorded on July 19th 2022.
