#The captain whidbey free#

The school currently offers a seven-month intensive training program for beginning farmers on South Whidbey Island.įeldman said the school plans to diversify the crops in the hay fields and use part of the site for cover crop seed production. Judy Feldman, the farm school’s executive director, said the school hopes to give new farmers access to land at Keystone Preserve. The long-term goal is to grow food for the community.

The Organic Farm School plans to manage the farm with regenerative practices to build soil health. The most recent owners raised hay and black Angus cattle. Before white settlers arrived, the Lower Skagit people grew camas in the prairie and relied on the plant for food, the historian wrote. The property was settled by Captain William Robertson and his family in 1854, according to a biography from a local historian.

Other restoration plans include adding native plant buffers, replanting trees and re-establishing a creek. The house will be removed and the building materials recycled. Elting said the land trust plans to remove the 300-foot-long barriers along with the creosote-treated wood. Up in the bluffs, birds such as eagles and pigeon guillemots make their homes.Ĭloser to the house, there is a short section of bulkhead and a riprap rock wall. “(The land trust) looks for natural stretches of shorelines so they don’t get developed and we don’t have to restore them,” he said.

#The captain whidbey free#

When people build structures like bulkhead walls to stop erosion, they block the flow of sediments.Įlting noted the beach at Keystone Preserve is mostly free of these barriers. He said the bluffs provide “a slow and steady supply of nutrients” for plants and animals. The group of trained volunteers works on projects such as forage fish surveys.įurther down the beach, Elting stopped at the “feeder bluffs,” special bluffs in Puget Sound that constantly erode. The land trust will work with the Sound Water Stewards of Island County to monitor the beach. The small fish, which lay their eggs on beaches like this one, are an important food source for salmon and other predators. In a recent stroll down the beach at Keystone Preserve, Elting picked up a handful of sand and gravel and looked for tiny forage fish eggs. The nonprofit school on Whidbey Island will oversee the 50 acres (20 hectares) of prairie and farm.Įlting said the vision is for Keystone Preserve to become “a demonstration site for ecological restoration, habitat enhancement and regenerative farming, and how all of those can work together.” The land trust has partnered with the Organic Farm School to manage the site. There are also plans to open public beach access as soon as 2024, as well as a trail network. With its newest property, called the Keystone Preserve, it will focus on habitat improvement and marine restoration. The nonprofit protects and manages about 10,000 acres (4,047 hectares) of parks and natural areas in Island County. The land trust plans to repay the loans with state and federal grants and private fundraising, Elting said. Purchase of the property was accomplished with two bridge loans, one from a private donor and the other from regional lender Craft3. “We don’t get many opportunities to protect a chunk of habitat that size,” Elting told The Herald. Conservation director Ryan Elting said an “emergency acquisition” was needed to protect the site’s 175 acres (71 hectares) of forest and 3,500 feet (1,067 meters) of nearly pristine shoreline. In late April, the land trust bought the property for $9.1 million, the most expensive purchase in the nonprofit’s nearly four-decade history. The site was at risk of being sold and developed into 22 high-end homes, according to the land trust. It also features a large forest and long stretch of beach. The property near Keystone is home to one of the oldest farms on Whidbey Island. (AP) - Staff at the Whidbey Camano Land Trust in Washington state knew they had to act quickly when a 226-acre (91-hectare) beachfront property south of Coupeville came on the market last December.įrom the water, boaters may have seen the red house, old windmill, and cattle grazing atop the bluffs.