One spring evening at dusk, Carrie O’Keefe and two of her neighbors carried a large dog kennel deep into the woods of her 10-acre property in Snohomish. They removed the sheet covering the enclosure, tapped gently on the top, and watched the great horned owl inside fly off. 

Nestled on the grounds of St. Michael Catholic Church in Snohomish, there’s a flourishing garden that’s been supporting the Snohomish Community Food Bank since 2009. Just last summer, the garden produced over 3,500 pounds of fresh vegetables and nearly 1,000 bouquets of flowers.

When Adam and Tracy Farnham first began improving their pastures, they hauled in loads of horse manure from local farms and quickly turned it into compost using a method called aerated composting.

If you visit Adam and Tracy Farnham’s idyllic 4.9-acre property, you’ll find lush pastures, rain gardens, and native plant hedgerows buzzing with life, along with three content horses. But the Farnhams—who recently completed every single action in their farm plan—started their journey in 2008 with something completely different.