Today was another one of my favorite things here on the island – the Annual Orcas Island Farm Tour. After an optional $15 breakfast at The Kitchen (they make fantastic fresh, healthy food from the ground) from 8:30-10:00 AM, the self-guided farm tour was between 10:00 and 4:00.
You pay $10 per adult, $5 per child, or $20 per family online ahead of time, download the map of the 10 places to stop, and set out in your car at your leisure to visit some or all of them throughout the day, ending with a potluck provided by all the farms, which is such a wonderful, so-very-Orcas-y soiree into the evening – like an old-time-y community barn picnic with lots of fantastic food and a few hundred happy people.
Here’s a visual tour of our day today. We began at the Orcas Island Public School garden…
Next stop, Girl Meets Dirt, for preserve and fruit-infused soda sampling thanks to locally-sourced fruits…
Then to West Beach Farm for some sheep shearing. Kathy loves her sheep and makes it look so easy…
Next up, Coffelt Farm…
Time for Red Rabbit Farm for more preserve-sampling on the deck of their professional kitchen…
Next up, Warm Valley Farm. Joel, the owner, is also the captain of a Greenpeace ship. Last year when we first visited this farm, he said while pressing apples into cider that he had recently been in the Amsterdam harbor, blocking palm-oil-carrying ships from entering. Today, his partner Annie said he is off collecting data in the Pacific garbage patch. Wow!
And finally, one of the island’s mainstays, John Steward’s Maple Rock Farm… 
There were 3 other farms on the tour. The only reason they are not shown here is because we didn’t make it to the east side of the island today. They are: Doe Bay Garden, Island Thyme Farm, and Orcas Farm. They are wonderful too!
And now, the finale…a fantastic potluck at John Steward’s other place. His signature Hogstone wood-fired pizza, dozens of plate-sized apple pastries from Brown Bear Baking to share all around, vats of cheesy pastas, trays of polenta triangles, gallons of freshly pressed cider, and several spicy salads. We all ate heartily and stayed into the night, kids baking apples by the fire outside, adults cozying shoulder to shoulder in the warm, filled barn…
Thank you to everyone who helped to put all of this on, in every capacity from start to finish!
