Field Notes 001 / Family Farm

The Homestead

Pacific Northwest · April–November

My great-grandparents came to the Pacific Northwest from Sweden and Norway, with Sámi roots in Lapland, and established the homestead where generations of my family would live and farm. Over time, the land changed with them—shaped by new crops, new machinery, changing agricultural practices and the needs of each generation.

I returned to the farm for one growing season, from the first seeds of spring through the final wheat harvest of fall, to document the land as it exists today. I followed the everyday rhythms of a working farm: planting and tending the garden, gathering and preserving food, putting up hay for the animals, watching the wheat mature and, finally, bringing in the harvest.

The Homestead is a portrait of a piece of land shaped over generations—and of the relationship between family, labor, food and the earth beneath it.

Spring is always a bit of a race against time. First we wait for the ground to thaw and the freezing nights to pass, then suddenly everyone is busy getting things into the ground. There's only so much time to grow and harvest everything before the frost comes back in the fall.

The babies help plant the seedling trays, although we won't know for a while which ones got a seed and which ones got twenty. Tractors need fixing, fences need mending, and the soil needs tilling. Even the bees got involved this year, swarming into the old house and setting up camp just in time to help with the garden.

One of my favorite things is watching Dad head out into the wheat fields after the first rain following seeding, looking for those tiny green sprouts pushing through the dirt. After all the preparation and waiting, there's something wonderful about seeing the fields come alive again