Being a L.I.F.E Gardener & Teacher’s Assistant
For my first co-op, I pursued the opportunity to move to Lopez Island in the Pacific Northwest for the term and intern with LCLT (Lopez Community Land Trust). It has been a life-changing experience, thus far. Both in my personal life and from an educational stand point. I’ve never been so far away from home for such a long period of time! This experience has definitely strengthened the confidence I have in myself. It’s helped me realize just how true it is that anyone can do anything that they truly set their minds to do. Pairing an unwavering belief in yourself with hard work makes the most delicious recipe for materializing your dreams.
My position is at the Lopez Island School, in their L.I.F.E. Garden program. I am also a teacher’s assistant for the schools Garden Enrichment class and their SAP (Sustainable Agricultural Practices) class. At the school, I’ve gotten to work with some really great people! The L.I.F.E. Garden’s staff consists of Sara and Brett, who work at the school year round, another intern Adyson and then me. There is also a handful of volunteers that come help in the garden ever so often. It’s a very small staff but we get the work that needs done, done! Hard work feels a lot easier, when you are surrounded by people that are enjoyable and I can say that the L.I.F.E. crew has been nothing short of that.
A Day in the L.I.F.E.
The garden consists of 4 hoop houses (greenhouses) and 2 outdoor gardens, for crop production. The food grown in the production garden goes straight back to the cafeteria for students lunches! One major thing I’ve learned during my time here is that Lopez Island knows the value of fresh, locally grown, raised and curated goods. I believe that implementing the value of non-processed foods to children at a young age can aid in their health, greatly, in the long run.
There is also an area for the Garden Enrichment classes Kids’ Garden. K-6 graders each have one class a week, where they get to learn about gardening/nature in and out of the classroom. It’s been fun to not only help them learn about the world outside, but I’ve also learned so much from them! We also have the SAP class, which is for the high schoolers and they participate in that everyday.
In the garden, I’ve gotten to help care for some livestock as well. The school houses 5 hens named Ebony, Red, Fanny, Sunny and Lil’ Peep. The kids got to name them! We have a rooster named Meatball, 2 unnamed ducks, which I call “Duck Ducks”, a bearded dragon named Gladys, a white female turkey named Eenid and her little baby Dinee. There is no male turkey, so when our turkey got broody we gave her a chicken egg and she hatched it out. They’re so cute together! The school itself has an unofficial “mascot”, Huckleberry. He is a cat who wonders around receiving love everywhere he goes. <3
Life Made by a Rootball
I was lucky to have found a Co-Op that provides housing for their interns, and even luckier with the host family that took me in as their own. I have had the honor of staying with Joe Schneider and Kim Clemens on the great island of Lopez. They call their home on Lopez, “Rootball”, which means the main mass of roots and the soil immediately surrounding them at the base of a plant (like a tree, shrub, or perennial). It is the critical foundation that anchors the plant and determines its ability to successfully survive being transplanted. Rootball and the people that live and frequent this place radiate an atmosphere that one can’t help but feel at home in. Although I became majorly homesick at times, Joe, Kim and the many people that are their family and people that are like family, have made this place feel like a home-away-from-home. I feel like my roots were successfully transplanted into a new pot and I owe a majority of that, to this family.
If you know me, you know a short route to my heart is through some good food and good sweets. The night I arrived on Lopez, Joe had supper ready, which consisted of pork tacos and a plethora of sides. Kim has this wonderful cookie recipe memorized, that can become almost any cookie flavor that you can think of! She’s made a few flavors, that I will remember forever. Each meal they have ever cooked is nothing short of deserving a Michelin Star. They have been the most kind and hospitable people that I have ever met, and I hope to one day have a place like this, where I can make people feel as welcome as they have made me feel.
They are both architects. Their property and home reflects the creative hardworking geniuses that they are! They have a joke where they say that Rootball is a forever going project, despite its awe-striking beauty. I’ve come to realize that you can have beautiful things and have beautiful dreams, but every beautiful thing in this world remains in need of work to keep the beauty that was instilled in its first breaths.
Lopez is for Lovers
The moment I stepped off of the ferry after my 12-hour travel day from Dayton, Ohio to Lopez Island, I instantly felt at peace. The chain of San Juan Islands have been an experience of nonstop beauty. From the lush evergreen forests that bleed into beaches of turquoise waters, to the people that inhabit the village and never hesitate to meet you with a smile and a 2-fngered wave as you drive by. I’ve had the thought that Lopez Island is a lot like Yellow Springs, in the way that a majority of the community looks after one another.
I cannot say or think this enough. I feel so lucky to have gotten accepted with the Lopez Community Land Trust. A few of the locals have said that the Island will either pull people in with the tide, or spit them back out. I believe I’ve been pulled in. I hope to come back to Lopez many times in my life, and I hope that everyone gets to experience a place where you feel at home in your skin from the first breath in the environment.
