OUR STORY
Welcome to 40 acres of Growing, Learning and Gratitude!
When you push your feet—your bare feet—into the ground here, you will engage with this living, cultivated ecosystem.
You will feel:
-Earthworms tunneling through living soil, black and nutrient-dense from many years of careful no-till cultivation.
-Squash, potato, and corn plants recycling our waste streams into sugar and starch and protein
-Filbert and walnut trees deepening their roots to provide us food for generations to come
-Water flowing downhill from our gardens to our forest to our wetlands
-A parade of geese rallying for shade on a sunny summer afternoon
-Adolescent Icelandic sheep jumping over fallen alder branches to find their midday snack—the juiciest patch of blackberries
-The love from the many hands that have held and built, mended and embraced this place.
This might feel like an oasis. But in many ways, this is a model for everyday life. We don’t seek to romanticize. We offer the labor of our bodies; we bring our most challenging questions; we sweat; we get really dirty; we make mistakes; we redesign, and we try again. At Compass Rose Farms, we find beauty in both slowing down and keeping up with nature’s seasonal rhythms. We lay low—to the ground—to listen with humility, generosity, and curiosity. And we learn from the best teachers: Mother Nature and each other. Over the years, the energy invested into this place from our community far and near has cultivated a living sanctuary. Surrounded by old growth forest, bio-diverse gardens, a developing food forest, orchard, and meandering streams, we welcome healing, self-(re)discovery, growing pains, and rejuvenation.
From our vantage point—on the Olympic Peninsula along the Discovery Bay, just east of the Olympic Mountains—we see a need to restore the connections between human beings and all other earth beings. In nature, every single organism and element has a specific role and function. As humans, it is time to sink back into our role within this larger system and do our part to build community, abundance, and resilience.
Meet The Owner:
Kateen Fitzgerald
“The first day I set foot on this land, I knew we had known each other in a past life. I felt at home in my bones, and I knew it was time to stop searching.” -Kateen
“In 2007, my family purchased this land. It took six months of work to weave a tapestry of organizations who worked together to create the project we now call Compass Rose Farms. Working with Jefferson Land Trust, NOSC, The Conservation District and Shore Bank (now Craft3), we became the first farm launched by the Jefferson Land Works Collaborative.
This land has seen many changes, the change from the quiet of its ancient years to the coming of people, the changes of stewardship and development. My family too has seen changes as members have come and gone. Compass Rose Farms LLC was started with my mom, Bev, we worked as farm partners for many years taking food to the Farmers markets, Coop and Chimacum Corner Farmstand. The need for labor brought us volunteers, the need for training drew out my inner teacher. I spent more time teaching than farming and soon The Dirt Rich School sprouted from the garden soil. I soon had more farmers and homesteaders than vegetables.
Shifting to Permaculture and teaching a Permaculture Design Course was the answer to the questions driving my students, what is happening to our world and how can we responsibly care for our needs? These questions and many others have been the driving force to reconnect to land as sacred, land as mother, land as relationship. The Weavers Grove has answered the call, this small woodland has become a classroom to explore what it means to connect, to sit quietly and listen, to learn from the land.
The patience of this forest is a deep lesson in forgiveness and trust. This land has seen the coming of loggers, pioneers and farmers and still stands with arms open to teach those who will sit and listen to the wind in her leaves. This Land is Farm, Field, and Forest and most of all my Friend.”
-Kateen
Permaculture Consulting
with Kateen
Stepping onto new land or reimagining your existing homestead can be exciting and overwhelming. You likely have many ideas and plans but are not sure where to start, or perhaps there are constraints or opportunities you need creative ideas to make the most of.
Let me give you a hand, I will come walk your land with you, and listen to your ideas. Together we will find your starting place and weave together new Ideas you have not yet imagined.
Schedule a 1-2 hour land walk with Kateen and transform the way you see your land.