This One Precious Life
The worker-owners of Long Hearing Farm cultivate relationships with their community and the land as they farm.
In some parts of the farm, ryegrass has been sowed as a cover crop. It protects the soil for winter, and makes the plots indistinguishable from their grassy edges. In other parts of the farm like this one, the separation between the fertilizer-covered bed and surrounding area is obvious.
Story and photo by Kumiko Juker
In a cradle of trees nestled in the Upper Skagit and Stillaguamish valleys lies Long Hearing Farm. It spans four acres on the ancestral territory of the Sauk-Suiattle, Upper Skagit and Stillaguamish Nations, surrounded by mountains that reach up and graze the clouds. The farm is led by two worker-owners: Elizabeth Bragg and Kelly Skillingstead.
“Certified organic, mixed veggie farm—” Bragg explained.
“—in our 6th season of operation,” Skillingstead said, finishing Bragg’s sentence.
Neither of them set out to be farmers initially.
Bragg was somewhere between 8 and 11 when she had to give a presentation on what she wanted to be when she grew up. Completely confident, she got on stage and told the world that she wanted to be a medicinal ethnobotanist.
“Nerd!” she exclaimed, recounting the story through laughter.
She’d learned about the job in a book about a researcher in an Indigenous community. Her great-aunt had just died of breast cancer, and she speculates that her “little baby brain” linked those two things: plants and healing.
Growing up changed Bragg’s dreams, but she retained her bold personality. She moved to London. She got a master’s degree in law, development and globalization. She wanted to be a human rights lawyer and worked tirelessly.
One day, Bragg really looked at all of her professors.
“They were so cynical, so jaded, so dead behind the eyes,” she said.
The history of colonization intertwined with international law was something Bragg didn’t want to be a part of. She was managing a cafe in London, but she wasn’t sure what was next. Abruptly, one coworker asked about her dissertation on food sovereignty, the right to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced in sustainable ways.
“She was like ‘Well, there’s this farm in London and they do food sovereignty work.’ And I was like, ‘Excuse me, what do you mean when you say that?’” she recounted, almost as though she still couldn’t believe it. That farm in London was her first foray into farming.
Skillingstead attended Western Washington University and was involved with Compass 2 Campus, a program designed to help children from underrepresented groups access higher education. After graduation, she was brought on to continue working for the program as an AmeriCorps member. It was there she met Bragg.
“We were two of a wider cohort of 30 that were in programs all throughout the state. We just happened to both be placed at Western,” Skillingstead said.
Bragg was doing similar higher education access work with migrant youth. She was still on her path to becoming a lawyer. Their forced proximity made them fast friends; they even shared an office.
“Miller Hall,” they both reminisced.
Skillingstead later got a fellowship with an American education nonprofit in Nepal. She connected deeply with the children, quickly becoming a primary teacher and an interim principal.
At first, she wanted to make a positive impact and believed she was. Then, she began to have second thoughts. Her work was bringing American values and the English language into a community with its own vibrant culture; she was tasked with making things “better” without taking into account what was already there. It left her disenchanted.
“It’s pretty big, reconciling with what you've been told is a good thing to do versus the actual facts,” Skillingstead said.
It was at this point that she began to reconsider not only her beliefs, but whether she wanted to continue in education. Having kept up their friendship and arrived at the same conclusion separately, Bragg and Skillingstead both pondered one core question: What did they want out of this one precious life?
Putting their heads together, they conceived a land project out of their shared values and goals. They wanted the focus to be food, skill-sharing and community. They figured they’d do it if they ever could. If by some wondrous chance the opportunity could fall into their laps.
“And then it did within the year,” Skillingstead said.
In 2018, Bragg began working for Anne Schwartz at Blue Heron Farm in the Upper Skagit and Stillaguamish valleys.
“Anne Schwartz, organic legend. 40 years in the game, baby,” Bragg said.
“Rabble-rouser,” Skillingstead added fondly.
In her 40th year of farming, some of Schwartz’s friends became ill and she made the difficult decision to scale back her work. She gauged the interest of her employees in taking over the land.
“[Bragg] was an eager farmer who wanted to dive in,” Schwartz said.
Thus began the process of assuming the lease from Schwartz. She gave them the contacts of people who purchased her produce and some of her accounts at the Skagit Valley Co-op.
“We’re like the two members of a very exclusive incubator program called the ‘Anne Schwartz Succession Project,’ and we wouldn't have it any other way,” Bragg said.
Long Hearing Farm is a multiracial workers’ co-op, and Bragg and Skillingstead’s cultural identities inform the way they interact with the land and their reasoning behind doing so. Bragg is an Indigenous mixed person, and Skillingstead is yonsei: fourth-generation Japanese-American.
“Mixed veggies, mixed people,” Bragg said, matter-of-factly.
Skillingstead and Bragg continuously question and consider how people can be ensured dignity and the ability to grow food that invites them back into all facets of themselves. These are values they hold both personally and in their business.
“Growing up, it was super suburban. It was white. It was not in relationship to being Japanese and it was definitely not in relationship to growing food. Those are all things that I’m finding my way back into in the ways that I can,” Skillingstead explained.
Long Hearing Farm is named after Bragg’s ancestor, Long Hearing Woman. She survived a great deal of racist violence against the Blackfeet people and was still a warm, comforting and joyful presence, according to Bragg’s grandmother.
“That she could hold both those truths and take that experience and still somewhere find it in her precious spirit to love her family and find joy and connection in this world. It’s just like, well, we should sure try to do that,” Bragg said.
Holding multiple truths is something Bragg and Skillingstead talk about often. The COVID-19 pandemic began the year after they became Long Hearing Farm. While this impacted the business, the day-to-day of being a farmer was strangely undisturbed. Vegetables do not stop growing because of human circumstances.
“The whole world was falling apart. Meanwhile, we were just out there, bunching radishes,” Bragg said.
Lined with trees and neighboring fields, the road to Long Hearing Farm is rich with color, but unassuming. Finding the entrance to the property is a challenge, with only a numbered address and mailbox indicating the right spot. The farm reveals itself slowly, as worn-down paths guide visitors from a small plot in the front to the expanse of land tucked against the Skagit River.
The farm is a mixed-vegetable farm serving the Rockport community and the greater rural area. Its four acres are nestled in a larger 40-acre property which Bragg and Skillingstead help manage.
Wetland, forest, a stream, the river, Long Hearing Farm, some housing and other plots of farmland all coexist and interweave across the land. Birds flutter up into the patches of trees and Himalayan blackberries.
“We watch salmon come up the river every fall. We know that the bears come through at this time of year and are eating all the apples in the orchards,” Skillingstead said. “And leaving nice big presents on the ground for us to make sure we don’t step in,” she added, laughing.
Bragg’s beliefs on the matter are clear: if one develops a strong relationship with land, there is much wonder to experience.
She was looking out at the river with a coworker one day when she saw an incredibly large fish going against the current. Blinking a couple times as it popped its head out of the water, she realized it wasn’t a fish at all. It was a seal.
“That’s a bold little seal,” Skillingstead said fondly.
The beauty and the people are inseparable parts of farming in the valley. Schwartz cited them as the things she would miss most. At Long Hearing Farm, they repeatedly interact. Bragg and Skillingstead operate in ways conscious of the ecosystem, such as limiting plastic use.
“There was a family of coyotes that was living just across the river we think, or in the next property over, and every time the local fire station bell would go off … they would howl back at it,” Skillingstead said.
Bragg and Skillingstead speak with warmth of the people as well. They offhandedly mention many of their patrons by name, from one woman who enjoys the social aspect that comes from picking up vegetables, to two kids who have strong opinions about what veggies they’re going to have to eat.
“It is really cool to know the kids that you're feeding and—” Skillingstead began.
“—having fed them from when they were in the womb, you know. And now they speak,” Bragg continued.
Long Hearing Farm’s values extend from their mission — feeding their neighbors — to their naming conventions. A big part of the farm’s business is akin to a subscription service, where people pay to receive a box of vegetables weekly. This practice is usually known as Community Supported Agriculture, or a CSA. They call it a farmshare.
“We wanted to make it as accessible as possible. Because a lot of people we're feeding haven't ever participated in something like this before,” Bragg said.
The four acres of land Bragg and Skillingstead steward are still small for a farm. The Department of Agriculture (USDA) defines a “small farm” by income, but agricultural census data from 1995 shows the lowest acreage class being anything under 50 acres. The average farm size in 2022 was 463 acres, according to that year’s census.
Size constraints have not held Bragg and Skillingstead back. The original list of 30 farmshare members Schwartz provided to them has grown to 80. For the 2024 farm season, they grew 12 100-foot rows of sweet potatoes.
By late fall, the crops have been harvested and the fields are near-identical. Ryegrass is planted in the space left behind to protect the soil for next season.
A path through one field in particular leads to a break in the fence marked with a small bird statue. Taking a step forward, the sound arrives before the sight: a steady hum of small waves crashing tirelessly.
Skagit River comes into view only a couple of paces ahead. It’s wide and fast. A large broken tree tangled around itself rests against the shore and each current threatens to consume it. The river floods every winter, with the only variable being the scale.
“There are years when you can kayak to the greenhouses and there’s years when it’s just kind of like, the back field gets a foot of water,” Skillingstead said.
The regularity of the flooding shapes their farm schedule and habits. When Schwartz helped Long Hearing Farm get started, she also let them use her walk-in cooler and packshed because they were on more stable ground. Rain is a regular beast in the valley.
“Very different weather than I-5,” Schwartz emphasized.
She pointed out how each mile east adds about an inch of rainfall, a fact corroborated by a Washington State University (WSU) report on Skagit County agriculture statistics measuring from the Puget Sound. When flooding occurred in Whatcom County several years ago, Skagit was also hit.
“There was like, 8 feet of water,” Skillingstead recounted.
Some farmers choose to farm in rural areas, but take the produce to big cities where people will pay much more for the same product. Long Hearing Farm has made the conscious choice not to operate that way. They are a part of Rockport and they take pride in working with and learning from the local people. They’ve learned a lot about what it means to be a community.
“Really being there for each other when s--- goes down—” Bragg began.
“—no matter what your politics are,” Skillingstead finished.
Bragg and Skillingstead found themselves in trouble one day when their semi-truck full of compost fell into a ditch. It was a neighbor with opposing political opinions who pulled it out with his dump truck.
“And he still won't let me give him free corn! He still insists that he pays his $20 for his sweet corn, and it just drives me nuts,” Bragg said.
They’ve found connections between people who one might assume have no binding thread. This bond is another one of their multiple truths. They know that politics do matter, and that these small acts of kindness aren’t going to save the world. But they also believe building community makes people more resilient.
Farming is a ton of hands-on effort. Weeding carrots by hand is long, tedious work. Each pumpkin Bragg and Skillingstead sell gets rubbed down before reaching community members’ hands. Some kids nearby refuse to eat grocery store carrots, but will eat “Elizabeth carrots” plenty.
“They’re basically kindness,” Skillingstead said. Bragg echoed her joyfully.
Long Hearing Farm’s name is meaningful to Bragg for its connection to her family. While Skillingstead loves the story and finds it resonant, she also has spent time finding her own understanding of the name.
“The name for me has also come to mean: Are we rooting our actions in the long-term? In the long hearing?” Skillingstead said.
The future is uncertain, but Bragg and Skillingstead have a lot to look forward to. The WSU Mount Vernon extension is doing sweet potato research and encouraged them to grow a purple variety next year. They are starting the process of bringing some of their coworkers into leadership and continuing to build a democratic workplace. They always make time for people to see what they do and connect to the farm and the food.
Everything is different from when Bragg and Skillingstead were 11, or even 20. Their lives look completely different than they thought they would. Still, they have each other, their community and their passion. They’ve figured out what matters most to them in this one precious life, for now.