Suddenly, I'm a Farmer

^{Beacon Hill in Hoquiam, Wash., 2026}

I guess I'm homesteading now.

After 12 years of apartment living in Hoquiam, Wash., I have picked up stakes and moved to a farm 20 miles north, near the census-designated place of Humptulips (population 236 per the 2020 census).^Source

^{Humptulips River, 2022. The river is about three miles from my new country digs.}

I'm working as a farmhand 20 to 30 hours a week in exchange for a place to stay (a travel trailer), utilities, and various other goods and services.

The farm, LaBeste Farms on Ynot Ranch, is, according to its Facebook page, an “upstart permaculture farm concerned with viability and sustainable practices.” It's a work in progress established in 2020: my role is to tilt the scales toward profitability by assisting the married owners, Chris and Chloe, with whatever labor is required to bring the various projects on the farm to full production mode.

Central to my new work is caring for the farm's 10 pigs, 13 goats, and two dozen or so chickens. I start every morning bright and early with my 6:30 rounds to feed and water the animals. Then I'm available to jump in to whatever Chris has planned for the day. So far that has been a lot of weedeating around the outbuildings (which includes gathering clippings for the compost), providing a hand with building new pens, and broadforking and planting rows in the garden (it's late for planting, but we're hoping for an extended growing season with this “Super El Niño”). I also am charged with finding and cutting firewood in the woods on the property.

Collecting eggs for sale is another of the projects they would like to see brought online. I gather them every morning, but so far I'm only finding three or four eggs, just enough for my breakfast.

I've only been here two weeks, and we're still getting used to the new arrangements, so it's not clear exactly how things will develop yet. Tons of potential though, and I'm thrilled with the deal I'm getting for a place to live.

I think it's a spectacular deal: country living is way better than apartment living, and all I have to do is put in a bit of labor.

^{U.S. Highway 101 bridge over the Humptulips River, 2022}

How Did I Arrive to This Place?

In December I quit my job as janitor for Swanson's Foods. I worked jobs for 35 years, from the time I was 15 years old, most of them minimum wage service jobs. Looking forward to my 50th birthday in February, I just decided that I was done with all of that. As I put it in my Creative Journey GoFundMe campaign description:

I will no longer be working jobs to pay the bills, but instead I am committing myself exclusively to creative work as a writer and a photographer.

When I made this declaration in February, I was fully prepared, if it came to it, to be homeless in order to pursue my creative dream. By June, six months into my leap, being five months past due on rent, with the landlord having turned off my hot water in April and delivered one 14-day pay-or-vacate notice, and running out of the three months of food stamps the U.S. government provides without a work requirement (in essence being half a step away from actual homelessness), I was ready to amend my commitment to working exclusively as a writer and a photographer no matter what.

In April, I had texted Chris and Chloe asking about a trade of labor for a place to stay. I worked for them on the farm back in 2020, when they were just getting started, and I knew that they had a travel trailer that they might allow a farm hand to stay in. On June 7 they replied to my text, and by June 12 I had moved to the farm.

^{Humptulips River, 2022}

A New Lifestyle

I'm excited. Although I am not working exclusively as a writer and photographer, I am certainly not working a job to pay bills. For one thing, I have no bills: rent, utilities, and even internet service are provided in exchange for my labor, and because I'm working but not getting paid in money, I qualify for a full allowance of government food stamps. And, I don't feel like this is a job I'm working. It's a new, alternative lifestyle: my work is simply to pull my weight, do my share, on the community farm.

And, as far as writing and photography goes, I have a ton of new things to write about and photograph.

^{Surface of the Humptulips River, 2022}

Getting Back to Photography

I'm looking forward to sharing photos of my new surround. But, a couple weeks before I heard from Chris and Chloe, I pawned my camera for a bit of cash. I need about $500 to get it back from the pawn shop. If anyone is interested in helping me achieve that objective, you can donate to my GoFundMe, or send HBD to @cliffagreen.