A view from the Jenson Field neighborhood

Just beyond the deer fencing, lying between this old rotting house with fruit trees just as old, between these and a dense development, lies what used to be called a “vacant lot.” It might have been called a “swamp,” also, rather than a vestige of an estuary. It did take on some water in the 2022 flood. One engineer called it a “natural catch basin.” But all that belies an amazing feature: it’s ability to grow food. Eons of decomposing salmon bodies makes this soil, like much of the Skagit Valley where I live, among the top 1% of agricultural soils in the world.

The field was “reclaimed” by Dutch settlers who knew how to dike and drain by hand and transform a bay teeming with fish into farmland. The original inhabitants were not consulted, nor the land, I’m pretty sure. Is it too late?

Rumi helped us see beyond the field, beyond ideas of right and wrong. I’m a little stuck here, with this dirt beneath my feet, tending the vegetables, the centenarian orchard they say I own, but wondering none-the-less as I break my labor to gaze beyond the deer fence eastward towards the field.

It’s been measured: 0.53 acres according to the county assessor. In 2022, La Conner’s mayor saw this “property” as the perfect place to build a dense cluster of houses. I’ve gone to town to ask that this field be saved as a growing space. Please.

While the fate of my species seems in question, the destiny of this field is held by humans for the time being. Words are important to humans, as Rumi illustrates, in shaping our imaginations. “Food Desert” takes us somewhere in our minds, as does “Food Jungle,” the name of a community garden space in the nearest metropolis. When I mention “community garden” to my neighbors and the town council, it seems to evoke what has been termed a “pea patch.” But I see the possibilities as far more vast. Climate changes will leave us begging for new vegetation that can provide shade and is drought tolerant. Those green beings that might deliver our public and private spaces from hell don’t grow overnight. I’ve started a family of shore pines from seed, already 6 inches tall, trees that are more versatile than our suffering western red cedars.

Already a few have found homes with friends who can imagine the shape of things to come.

Maggie Wilder lives on land alongside Jenson Field. She is grateful to her own ancestors who led her here, tribal ancestors and their descendants, and those who still roam and tend these spaces.

Sybil and Tom Jenson sold the parcel to the Town of La Conner in 2022 at below market price “with the criteria it was used for the good of the public.” The use of the property will be decided by town council.

Published and excerpted from “The Madrona Project Volume IV.”