LAnd as mother..
the first day I set foot on this land I knew we had known each other in a past life, I felt home in my bones, and I knew it was time to stop searching. In 2007 My family purchased this land. It had taken 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 Gove 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 Fitzgerald