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I have always loved the fall. Even though it meant the end of carefree summer days and working for Hedlin Farms, I enjoyed the way the light and air temperature changed, and I enjoyed the anticipation of starting a new school year and establishing a new routine in La Conner Schools. I am pleased that the start to our 2024-25 school year has been very positive and successful overall. The roll-out of the Yonder cell phone pouches has gone very well, and I have my staff to thank for their work in making this a smooth process. Teachers have...
My name is April Emanuelson-Barnett. I am working on my doctorate in natural medicine and work at Thrive Direct Health Care as a certified functional nutrition coach. I plan to continue to offer my expertise there, in the clinical setting and offer the fitness and fresh food side of health at La Conner Wellness and MMA. My husband, Tracy Barnett, is a retired paramedic. He did rescue work for over 24 years and has taught martial arts and self-defense for 23 years. Our SBA (Small Business Administration) lenders love our idea of turning the old...
Don McMoran’s recent promotion to full professor with Washington State University is built on a lifetime love for Skagit County and its farmers. Born on the driveway of his parents’ home on the dividing line between the Mount Vernon and La Conner school districts, he joined the WSU Skagit County Extension in 2006 as Agriculture & Natural Resources extension educator. He earned tenure a few years later and became the county Extension director in 2012. His two-year quest to become full professor was backed by community members who wrote let...
Town Administrator Scott Thomas is known for his occasional use of dry humor, but there wasn’t anything funny about his report to Town Council members last week regarding drought conditions this year. “We’re already in a state of drought,” Thomas told the council during its April 23 meeting at Maple Hall. “So, we may be looking at water restrictions down the road.” Thomas reported that Washington’s snowpack, based on state Department of Ecology statistics, stands at just 68% of its average levels. “With chances for significant additions to the...
La Conner High School senior Hallie Walls has been selected as the Soroptimist International of La Conner Honored Student for the month of April. It's easy to see why when you look at all the activities she is involved in. Most recently Walls narrated the school play. She enjoys drama and participated in the play her freshman year. She just finished up her fourth year on the Knowledge Bowl team, this year as co-captain. Walls has played golf on the school team since her sophomore year. It is a...
You may not know John Roozen – but you probably know his truck. On any given day, a red F250 Power Stroke diesel truck from the late 1990s may pass you on Calhoun or McLean roads – or may be parked in a field on your route. "John has about 500,000 miles on his Ford pickup," Dave Hedlin told attendees at the Skagitonians to Preserve Farmland auction last Saturday night. "About 100,000 of them are in support of the agricultural infrastructure of Skagit County, whether that's through the Ska...
Amber waves of grain are beautiful, until you can't sell them. Dave Hedlin's barley fields along Chilberg Road – labeled "Spring Malting Barley" on crop signs – will be ripe in about a week, along with several other fields tucked in around La Conner. Unfortunately, Hedlin's barley buyer, Skagit Valley Malting, closed abruptly on Friday, June 16. Hedlin grows about 100 acres of conventional barley and 100 acres of organic a year for Skagit Valley Malting, which turned locally grown barleys int...
By Aven Wright-McIntosh “I should be able to do whatever I want on my land to generate revenue and enable me to continue farming,” a farmer commented. An engaged group of two dozen attendees gathered last Thursday evening at Maple Hall to discuss with Skagit County planners the development of agritourism and its impact on farms and farmers. Staff are reviewing what agritourism means to the County’s agricultural community, rural residents and other stakeholders. Agritourism is generally considered to be a commercial enterprise at a worki...
The La Conner municipal code did not receive a complete facelift upon Town Planning Commission review at Maple Hall last Tuesday. But there are a few new wrinkles for the town council to consider. Perhaps the most significant development during the 90-minute public hearing, continued from Sept. 20, came when commissioners embraced town planner Michael Davolio’s proposal that they rule on conditional use permit applications and not the contracted hearing examiner. The idea floated by Davolio came near the end of the commission’s Oct. 4 mee...
After a vigorous week at the Skagit County fair, two leaders with La Conner roots are taking it easy. As 4H dairy supervisor for the whole fair, Chelsy Mesman of Mesman Farms helped 18 young people between the ages of nine and 18 prepare and show their cows. "It's a lot of responsibility and a lot of kids," she said. Valley Green Acres 4H Horse Club supervisor Lauren Hedlin of Hedlin Family Farms worked with 10 young riders who performed in the horse arena. All county 4H clubs arrived two days...
A good farming year is easy to recognize, says John Thulen of Pioneer Potatoes. “My ancestors bought a pickup, built a barn or added on to the house,” he said. It’s all in the county register. With record rainfall, late freezes, a cool spring and rising prices for diesel and fertilizer, 2022 looks like a no-pickup, no-addition year. Many fields have been too wet to plant, like four of Jason Vander Kooy’s under the east side of Pleasant Ridge on Bradshaw Road. Water from the Ridge “comes off faster now that the east side of Ridge is getting m...
Fully Contained Communities (FCCs) may have Skagit County residents on edge, but they are not the most significant threat to local farmland. The real villain? Low-density residential land use. According to the American Farmland Trust, 11 million acres of U.S. farmland and ranchland – 2,000 acres a day – were converted to urban and highly developed or low-density residential (LDR) land use between 2001 and 2016. Seven million of those 11 million acres were turned into 5-, 10- and 20-acre farmettes and other low density,...
Drive the roads surrounding La Conner, and you’ll see, depending on the season, everything from brussels sprouts and fava beans to berries, wheat and barley. You’ll also find half a dozen farm stands and farm stores, at least two wedding venues, and four of the county’s largest “seasonal events:” Tulip Town and Roozengaarde in the spring, the Gordon Skagit and Schuh Farm Stands, U-Pick and traditional autumn activities in the fall. Whether and how to define and develop rules for these “agritour...
For farmers evaluating Governor Inslee’s Salmon Recovery bill, the devil is in the details. Details like what exactly constitutes a Riparian Management Zone and whether the riparian buffers proposed in the now withdrawn HB 1838 will not just target salmon-bearing streams and side channels but encompass delta farmland behind Skagit River dikes. The million-dollar question: Inside those buffers, is farming permitted? The bill is clear about the need to maintain and enhance natural resource industries like agriculture and to encourage the conserva...
Three greater La Conner family farms will participate in the Skagit Festival of Family Farms this weekend: Roozengaarde, Schuh Farms and Gordon Skagit Farms. Longtime participant Hedlin Family Farms is not on the roster. Started 20-plus years ago by the Washington State University’s Skagit County Extension program, the event took a break last year, a result of the coronavirus pandemic. “Last fall there was no vaccine, so we as a group decided it would be better not to encourage people to com...
For three or four days, Dean Swanson could hear the corn grow. The corn he planted Saturday, June 26 was up four days later. Stalks that was already a foot tall doubled in a week. “It was fun to watch things grow so fast,” he said. “Like they say in the Midwest, you could hear it!” Meanwhile, Swanson’s raspberries took it on the chin. He estimates the heat bleached about 20 percent of his crop, mostly berries on the west side of north-south rows. Kai Ottesen saw the same phenomenon at Hedlin Fa...
Based on the many comments by neighbors and friends, opposition to developing the Hedlin Play Field is abundantly clear. Additionally, comments at the June 22 town council meeting identified critical issues that are problematic and need to be addressed, including, but not limited to: • possible litigation costs relative to the original deed covenants • traffic and parking issues related to the proximity to Maple Avenue and Hedlin Farms “When you find yourself in a hole, quit digging” – Will Rogers A Path Forward: • Dev...
Parking has always been a thorny issue in La Conner, most notably on First Street parallel to the town’s popular historic waterfront. Now it figures in yet another flap, this time over joint use easements the Town signed with Landed Gentry the day the developer bought the Hedlin Farms Maple Avenue property, April 16. Town Councilmembers last week heard objections raised by residents that the easement at the rear of the property would cut into the 24,000 square feet set aside for the park. Seventy per cent of the former ballfield will be d...
I have let down my dear friend Elizabeth Hedlin. She was the most generous and kind-hearted woman I have met in my lifetime. She passed those and other virtues to her descendants who still live and work here in La Conner. They are the kind of folk who keep their heads down and work hard and do what they can to serve their community. I was not aware when my representatives in town government were planning to sell the majority of the ballpark that the Hedlin Family Farms had so lovingly shared with our community and baseball lovers from all over...
“In 1960, all the people in Washington (state) could fit into King County today. That’s how much we’ve grown.” Director of Skagit County Planning and Development Services Hal Hart was addressing the 50 participants in the sixth annual – and first virtual – Skagit Ag Summit. The Jan. 29 event’s 16 presentations focused on water, opportunities and threats facing agriculture and economic viability and development. Threats first. While the pressure of growth and development on agricultu...
For decades it has been the scene of local youth sports, most notably as a hub for little league baseball. But now Hedlin’s Ballfield is in line for a changeup. The nearly two-acre site – roughly 80,000 square feet – is the subject of a rezone application that would allow the public use property off Maple Avenue to be developed for residences and a park and playground area. The Town Planning Commission will hear an initial public hearing on the rezone request as part of its 6 p.m. Dec. 15 teleconferenced meeting agenda. The Town C...
La Conner-area farmers used Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and other measures to keep COVID-19 out of their workforce. Many also embraced the U.S. government’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) to stave off financial problems. Funds could be used to cover payroll, rent and utilities over a 24-week period. The Hedlins, on the town’s east edge, credit the PPP program with facilitating a quick pivot from field crops to row crops. “We had to go from some big grain contracts to ramping up produ...
With Congress on summer recess, U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen (D-Everett) took a field trip to the La Conner area last Tuesday. Make that field trips. Larsen made stops at the Hedlin’s Family Farm stand near the roundabout and at Tulip Town on Bradshaw Road northeast of La Conner as part of a Second Congressional District tour to learn how Paycheck Protection Program loans issued earlier this year have helped save jobs in the area. The responses? The funding packages proved vital as local farms dealt w...
A new grant from the US Department of Agriculture will equip the Puget Sound Food Hub on Best Road to increase food security for families in northwest Washington. The Food Hub’s 80 member-producers will also benefit. Using funds from the USDA Coronavirus Food Assistance Program, they will supply 3,000 boxes of fresh food a week for the Bellingham Food Bank and other organizations in the northwest Washington food relief system. For 90 days, Viva Farms and Ralph’s Greenhouse will supply 2,000 boxes of their produce, and the Food Hub will prepare...
“Thank you for wearing a mask.” That’s how Nicole Garcia-Swanson greeted La Connerite Sandi Davidson when she purchased berries at the Swanson Family Farm on Monday. Affirming positive behavior is just one new habit adopted by La Conner-area farm stands as they conform to Department of Health rules. Add in masks, gloves, sanitizing, social distancing and plastic barriers, and family-owned stands look a lot different this year. Since Schuh Farms opened in mid-March, “our monthly safety training has been all about the virus and how to keep yo...
