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**Page Three**

OUR FARM ON ORCAS ISLAND

**Wild Naturally Organic Farm and Wildlife Preserve**

**Agriculture - Aquaculture - Education - Forestry - Permaculture**

**PO Box 148 Deer Harbor, Washington 98243**

**Bob and Meg Connor 360-376-2480 Home Office**

2002 Has been a banner year at OUR FARM on ORCAS ISLAND We enjoyed working together to build on the accomplishments of Chris and Athena who moved on to Hawaii. We wished them well and hope to see them back again someday
Faith contacted us last year in the fall hoping to work with us to organize the 2002 farm plan She had been working with the Bullock's [world famous permaculture obsessive and all around great people] for the last couple of summers. She was reported to be a take charge, enthusiastic, intelligent, go getter by all that knew her. She loves everything about sustainable organic everything. She was our fearless leader even though she had no perks to speak of except see her dreams slowly manifest. There is no doubt that farmers have always worked hard receiving mostly the wholesome way of life as their reward. She has high hopes of high profits which keeps us all thinking hard of ways to reach her goals. Faith is working toward a degree in sustainable agriculture. We all know she will succeed. There is also no doubt she deserves to be the leader of the crew beyond 2002.
Satia met Faith on Orcas Island during mutual garden projects. They saw in each other the love of the organic sustainable life style. Faith saw in Satia all the good qualities to which we all aspire yet in her they were already naturally attained. Satia loves plants like the bees must. No time to fritter away with idle chatter. Even while she has her hands in the earth she is mostly talking about the garden and trying to gently motivate all around her to do their best. She looks ahead always drawn by a need to do what needs to be done when it needs to be done. Satia loves her teepee. It suits her. She is happy living on the earth, in her garden, surrounded by the ancient shape, the shape of simplistic perfection. Satia unpretentiously truly is the native princess of today. She wants to return in 2003. We hope she does. She is a quiet leader whom we follow thinking it was our idea.
Holly met Faith around the Island where Holly had been gardening, cooking and processing for others while raising her young son Aiden. Holly is also a worker bee extraordinaire. Faith saw in her the most revered qualities of a hard working loving mother. Enough in itself yet she is also an experienced entrepreneur in farmers markets, fairs, retail, wholesale, processing, cooking, gardening, and well she's just anon stop vibrant confident down to earth wonder. Holly plans to wed her fiancé Jeremy in the garden next June. It will be a beautiful event. We will work hard to give her a beautiful day to remember.
Aiden reminds us what is important. Planting seeds even if by accident. Aiden like to be involved in any of the projects that anyone is involved in He has a great sense of humor. He will do well growing up with his mother Holly and his father-to-be Jeremy. Growing up spending at least some time on a farm will always be rewarding for children. We bought this farm 28 years ago so our children would grow up in the country where neighbors are neighborly and a hard day's work makes for a good night's rest.
Jeremy met Holly in Alaska. It's easy to understand why they like each other. Holly is exceptionally wonderful and Jeremy knows he needs to be whatever Holly dreams of in a man if he is going to keep her. He's doing a great job living up to Holly's dreams and we all benefit by it. He works every day as a carpenter and spends the rest of his hours building things for the garden and making the grounds attractive. Aiden and Jeremy are the best of friends. Jeremy understands the mind of a young boy. Aiden will learn all the good points of becoming a man from his great teacher and father-to-be Jeremy.
Jess and Dana left to right are young at heart, young in spirit, well actually they are just plain young and full of energy. They are college girls who love organic agriculture and permaculture 'cause it just makes good sense. They always did their part knowing little from the start. They're riding on a solar powered hot water tank ,other parts for the shower behind them. We are grateful they were here. It is amazing to me to see such young people choose such a hard life and keep on smiling. We kidded them about this summer being "Jess and Dana's Excellent Adventures." We hope they will return.
Jeff came to us toward the end of the summer. I met him working with Jeremy on the grape arbors. He was willing and able. He seemed to be sent to finish those projects we each started but then bogged down on. For Jess and Dana it was the Shower box. For me it was the water system. For Jeremy it was the Arbor. I hope Jeff comes back again even if it really means that we have a lot of unfinished stuff.
Sam Bullock in foreground seen here with Rich was a behind the scenes fountain of help to us at Our Farm this year. Sam did some mowing for us in the beginning of the summer when our tractor was broken and loaned us his tractor during the start of the 2002 permaculture course which he and his extended Bullock family puts on each year. He is always available with help or advice. Here Sam and Rich are seen preparing a garlic bed in late September. He is in a landscape nursery area on our property waiting for Saturday customers for his landscape plant sale day.


6" 7" Nic Connor shown here in his high school football uniform. Incidentally he was All League and all Western Washington State A/B center in 2000. He is now enrolled At Western Washington University where he is in his junior year planning to become a Marketing Tycoon of the 21st century. He spent his summer on Our Farm and Wildlife Preserve putting in countless hours on the excavator clearing brush before fruit harvest, building habitat for wildlife and mowing fields before the 2002 plant and tree flagging project. We hope to entice him back again in 2003. 2003 is also a big salmon run year. He is definitely a top notch catcher.
Meg Connor has been doing what ever is the most important thing to do for the entire 28 years we have been on Orcas Island. I have a strong feeling that what ever gets done that is productive is because of her work or inspiration. I know that anything I do that is meaningful I do because I think she will be better off because of it. Meg manages our two retail stores; Rhapsody of Orcas Island and Spirit of the Northwest, our two vacation rentals; The Gnome House and Maggie's Manor, all of the financial arrangements of all of our businesses, all of the scheduling of everything, all of the domestic responsibilities, and has the task of helping me with nearly everything, I do. She's perfect in every way and I asked her to be my wife for at least the next hundred billion lifetimes. She agreed. :)
I'm Bob Connor. I have always had a strong desire to bring together all of the important things in life. I believe in heaven on earth and I'm willing to do my part to make it happen. I believe if you like the rural character of the islands then you have to make sure there are rural people doing rural things. I know you have to do what you love to do. I love my family, wild fruit and berries, wild fish, wild flowers, natural honey, children laughing, families warm and secure, neighbors neighborly, hard work, sunshine, heartfelt sincerity, challenges, community projects, preserving food, cold winters, vibrant springs, long hot summers, colorful crisp falls, homemade everything, helping young people get started, listening to friends, achieving goals, far out physics, northern lights, stars, hoots of owls, cry of the loons, fair trading, the feelings from well made memories, innocence, sunrises, sunsets, wind and rain, smell of baking, obsessive exercise, esoteric thinking, discovering, fishing, every kind of snow, competitive sports, planting, harvesting, vacations as a family, designing, building, enlightenment, writing, music, hospitality, cooking, getting up early, passion, mountains, rivers, streams, holidays, potlucks, sailing, backpacking, skiing, giving presents, chopping wood, heavy equipment, tugboats, digging by hand, all animals, all birds, all pets, learning. teaching, singing, well almost everything and certainly more than that.

There were several others who contributed to this year accomplishments at Our Farm who we will be reporting on soon.

Still working on other pages to include Amanda, Patty, Brandon, Karen, Curtis, Robert [Scottie[ Connor

A few thumbnails to click on of some scenes around Our Farm on Orcas Island.

The Bullock Family--Permaculturists Extraordinaire
Wonderful Neighbors who bought 9 acres of our 150 acre farm

Since 1982, Douglas Bullock has lived with his extended family, friends and interns on their Permaculture site on Orcas Island. Douglas has facilitated or directly participated in comprehensive Permaculture projects and classes at their site and at sites around the world, including Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, Costa Rica, California and Washington. Having traveled extensively collecting and studying plants, he is familiar with a wide range of climate strategies and crops. His specialties include Permaculture, tree crops, nursery practices, creating small and large scale wetland environments and implementing appropriate technologies. Douglas has also written articles and pamphlets on Permaculture that were featured in the Permaculture Activist and in the International Permaculture Journal. Douglas, it has been told, put the "cult" in Permaculture.
I grew up squeezed under the armpits of my two enthusiastic older brothers. Always interested in the natural world (frogs, snakes, turtles, salamanders, etc.), our transition to growing plants as teenagers in the 70's led directly to growing food plants and to the awareness of a holistic, spiritual, sacred and natural world which we are all a part of. Years of doing "as much as possible, in so little time" has forced me to "dragnet the great ocean of knowledge" in search of the clues that give meaning to the "mystery that we call life", and get really good at paraphrasing, and to realize that all I really want is a little shack amidst a food forest, adjacent to a good surf break. Samuel Bullock
I was raised in post-war Japan and allowed to play like a boy when young, by my parents who had lost two sons during the war. This gave me the freedom to get dirty exploring the creeks, woods, and seacoast of my town. I took an interest in gardening at a very young age and to this day can spend hours a day working with plants. I have spent much of my life preparing food for large numbers of people; growing up in my family's birthing clinic, meals were regularly prepared for the twenty or so patients, live-in nurses and my family. I have studied macrobiotic, vegan, and several ethnic styles of cooking, including of course Japanese. I currently use my cooking skills in my catering business on Orcas Island. Yuriko Bullock
I live on Orcas Island with my wife and three kids. I have been involved with horticulture for almost 25 years. My interests range from fruit trees to perennials, from food forests to fungi; in fact, I haven't met a plant that I didn't like. My horticultural interests have taken me to Latin America and to the former Soviet Union, and as a result I speak both Spanish and Russian fairly well. I completed a Permaculture Design Course with Bill Mollison in 1981 in California, and have taught, thought and lived Permaculture since then. Joseph Bullock Bullock's Permaculture class of 2001