The Good Earth Farm
The LeRoys and their haven on Guemes Island in Washington state's Puget Sound, and their belief that farming organically is a way of life and their choice to use their resources and ingenuity in a bold attempt to reclaim land that agronomists have labeled unsuitable for farming.
If the good earth farm came about through searching for
a way of life. I was not content with what I had come to
realize through my own ego-pursuits and certainly there was
little glory to be found in the method and achievements of
my society.
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Maybe I was tired ~ tired of toiling and killing and of
trying to live up to the expectations of others when, hell,
I couldn't even live up to my own.
So I asked around a lot, but it always come back the
same,"This
is a cruel world, boy, you've got to get out there and
struggle and fight hard. "Well, I had got out there and
struggled and fought hard, but it always came both pretty
much the same ~ more struggling and more fighting.
But then I came upon a verse in the Bible, somewhere in
Matthew, Jesus said: "Consider the lillies of the valley,
how they grow; they toil not..."
Everything's been fine since. The earth is good, and we
have a lot of fun."
by Gene Le Roy
From an article by ANN NUGENT
Originally published in NORTHWEST PASSAGE, Box 705,
So Bellingham Station, Bellingham, Washington
90225/fortnightly/$6.00 a year.
Gene and Charlotte LeRoy have found a haven on Guemes
Island in Washington state's Puget Sound. The dirt road
leading into their property from the highway tunnels
through woods and the first sign of their homestead is the
four-acre orchard. Over to the left stretches three acres
of pasture . . . the LeRoy's 75-year-old, two-story wood
house is visable beyond that . . . and four sloping acres
where the vegetables grow lie still further on. Woods
completely surround the clearing.
The LeRoys own 16 acres and make their living farming
organically. They sell vegetables to friends on the island,
in the nearby mainland town of Anacortes and to the Kagetsu
Restaurant in Seattle's University district. Their produce
is good: demand exceeded supply last year and the LeRoys
are increasing their cultivation this season.
To Gene and Charlotte, farming organically is a way of life
and they've chosen to use their resources and ingenuity in
a bold attempt to reclaim land that agronomists have
labeled unsuitable for farming.
"Those governmental officials are always on a negative
trip," Gene told us. "They're always good at telling you
what NOT to do. They claimed that my soil is a glaciated
type and, therefore, is too rocky and barren—compared
to fertile river beds—to farm. That's a lot of bull."
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