Securely embraced by the fertile Chimacum Valley, Woodbridge Farm is more than 24 acres of luscious green awaiting a bounty of crops, flowers, and livestock.
This item is available in full to subscribers.
We have recently launched a new and improved website. To continue reading, you will need to either log into your subscriber account, or purchase a new subscription.
If you had an active account on our previous website, then you have an account here. Simply reset your password to regain access to your account.
If you did not have an account on our previous website, but are a current print subscriber, click here to set up your website account.
Otherwise, click here to view your options for subscribing.
* Having trouble? Call our circulation department at 360-385-2900, or email our support.
Please log in to continue |
|
Securely embraced by the fertile Chimacum Valley, Woodbridge Farm is more than 24 acres of luscious green awaiting a bounty of crops, flowers, and livestock. The area is lined with hardy trees and bordered by a salmon stream. Small hills seesaw across the property, setting the earth alive underfoot.
“I got really lucky with this place,” the farmer said. “I mean, look at it.”
But up until recently, this land did not resemble the small slice of Eden that it is.
Peter Mustin, one of the county’s only Black farmers and the area’s largest Black landowner, bought the land in 2018. What used to belong to his father, years of neglect left the property in disarray, covered in decades of debris and scrap.
As the sole steward of Woodbridge Farm, one of Mustin’s biggest hurdles has been the rehabilitation of the property, working tirelessly to restore the land’s health and vitality. The main focus of the first year was removing the garbage and making the land hospitable, he recalled, having hauled off more than a dozen 20-yard dumpsters brimmed with refuse, plus a dozen more full of scrap metal.
“We’re just trying to make it better,” Mustin said, “Clean it up and live on it and share it with everybody that’s been so gracious helping us out here.”
It was through the help and support of neighboring farms, the surrounding community, and close friends that things like mass trash removal were made possible. A GoFundMe was also set up to help make the dream of Woodbridge Farm a reality.
A big victory was the recent building of a wooden bridge, the farm’s namesake, to allow for crossing the Chimacum Creek to the property’s main access road.
And with just a little clean-up left to do, the property is now in the early stages of being farmed with freshly tilled beds and budding flowers patchworking the earth. It is currently home to flashy turkeys, a variety of chickens, two outspoken geese, and a pair of llamas.
Mustin is currently getting the infrastructure for electricity, as well as getting a well up and running for irrigation.
Along with field preparation, getting the equipment and the tools for these projects is another hefty task.
He has hit plenty of roadblocks on this journey between funding, resources, and a serious work injury, but his persistence and determination has kept this project of love and healing alive.
“It’s been worth it,” he said assuredly, “I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.”
With a distinct vision for Woodbridge Farm, Mustin is working to create a place of refuge for the community – a space for Black, Indigenous, and people of color to experience what nature has to provide. Long-term plans are being put in place to serve the area’s BIPOC youth with educational programs; to provide the community with various workshops in permaculture and land management; to offer access to a rural setting that others may not normally get to experience.
“There’s a lot of farms and a lot of farm activity out here, but there’s not a lot of it geared for … intercity youth or people who are just disenfranchised from the land, especially people of color, or people of BIPOC descent,” Mustin explained.
“For people who have farmed this country for the last 400 years, we’re the smallest percent of the landowners and we now do the smallest percent of farming.”
He learned farming as a troubled youth, he said. It granted him an extensive knowledge of vegetation and instilled in him a lifelong love of the land.
It is something that kept him grounded, he explained, eager to share Woodbridge Farm.
Monetary profits are not the main drive of this endeavor. Since its inception, the focus of Woodbridge Farm has been on environmental stewardship and giving back to the community — while healing the land and others in the process.
“We want this to be like a community center,” he added, “where people can come out and have fun and enjoy themselves.”
His hopes center on creating a thriving place for education and learning.
“It’s something I want to share with other people and teach them there’s another way to live,” he said.
This Eden may be in its infancy, but Mustin is hard at work creating a space where, hand-in-hand, earth and relationships can be nurtured and cultivated.
To follow and support Woodbridge Farm’s journey, visit woodbridgefarm.net.
