Jackie Clay-Atkinson preparing seeds to save from Hopi Pale Gray squash.
Everything is going in a circle here, said Jackie as we ended our afternoon visit. And I could see what she meant. She had just split a rare heirloom Hopi Pale Gray squash and given me half, leaving some seeds for me and harvesting the rest for the seed business that she runs with her husband, Will. The squash would become dinner for each of our families. The skin of the cooked squash goes into the compost, and the compost, in turn, feeds her five gardens, which feed the humans and the seed business. Spoiled produce from the gardens and the orchards goes to the chickens who provide eggs and whose manure, in turn, feeds the gardens. The horses eat hay and poop lovely fertilizer as do the cattle, who also provide quality meat. The goats eat all sorts of excess vegetation and waste and produce meat and milk. And the circles continue as the downed trees on their 200 acres heat the house and provide raw lumber for the mill which produced the lumber for this house I’m visiting and quality building material for the barns and sheds. There’s lots of log and stone construction here too. And a fair amount of what others might have considered “trash,” rescued from the dumps and Craig’s Lists to be retrofitted into the solar and wind system that powers this whole place.
Jackie and Will live completely off the grid near Angora, Minnesota. As I drove the snowy 1.5 mile driveway deep into the woods to reach them, one question was at the top of my mind. How on earth did they find this place? It turns out that Jackie had flown to Minnesota to look for property in 2005, having lived here for 20 years earlier in her life. She and her husband and son were moving back to Minnesota from Montana where they had lived off grid for a number of years. She looked at “hundreds” of places and landed right here, even though the realtor was so convinced she wouldn’t like it that he didn’t even bring her out here to look, but drew her a map. So she had come down this very long driveway with curiosity too. At the end of the driveway was clearcut land previously owned by Potlatch. Nothing even came up to her knees. But she spotted a beaver pond down a little hill, and a creek. Water had been an issue in Montana, and she know how important it was. This would be the place, she decided right then.
They moved in February, bring horses, cows and goats along. Luckily, they had left the horses with friends in central Minnesota for the winter. But the humans and remaining animals, along with a travel trailer filled with survival supplies and an insulated ice fishing house had to traverse that long driveway. It hadn’t been plowed in years. Jackie’s son started with a pick-up fitted with a plow, but it was 25 below zero, and he wasn’t making good progress. Then a most unlikely offer presented itself. A man driving by stopped to say that he had a D4 Caterpillar and for $250 he would plow them in. It took 5 hours and the Cat had no lights, so they followed with their vehicles and finally reached “home.” The travel trailer had a propane heater, thank heavens. And they had some 100-pound propane bottles they could use to get started. The stock trailer they had brought with them became a barn and the ice fishing house, a living room. Jackie remembers that her son’s hair froze to the trailer wall that first night as they slept.
Jackie’s aging parents came to live with them just four months later, and shortly after that, her husband died of a brain bleed. Times were difficult. Her beautiful homestead today is a testament to her tenacity. The book Jackie wrote about those times is titled Starting Over: Chronicles of a Self-Reliant Woman. Jackie is a writer above all else, regularly contributing to “Backwoods Home Magazine” which has also published her many “how to” books. She has four Westerns out through Mason Marshall Press (https://masonmarshall.com/) And she publishes a blog (https://www.backwoodshome.com/blogs/JackieClay/). She met Will Atkinson, another off grid farmer, through correspondence during her rebuilding time. And later they married. Now they share the work and the glory of this remote place. And Jackie writes the wonderful seed stories that fill Seed Treasures catalog, the annual offering of their seed business. It started with giving away seeds that they had grown and saved but grew into something larger. As I looked at their collection of seeds, I wondered why I hadn’t thought to seek out local seeds, tried on local land in the climate where I live? It just hadn’t occurred to me, I guess. And I didn’t know about Seed Treasures ( https://seedtreasures.com/seed-catalog/ ) Check it out!
From now on, all of my garden seeds are coming from right here. It all started in the early 1980’s when Jackie bought some rare Hopi Pale Gray squash seeds from the Abundant Life Foundation in Washington. A few years later the Abundant Life warehouse burned down and Jackie had some of the only remaining seeds. Since then, folks have given her rare and heirloom seeds in the hopes of preserving them. And they’ve shared the seed stories—every seed has a story. Jackie and Will grow everything they sell and keep the seed of only the best tasting varieties that do well here in far northern Minnesota. I asked about tomatoes because they’ve been a challenge in our garden. She tells me of a plant with nearly 100 pounds of tomatoes on it!!! Okay, I’m sold. Buying “Bill Bean” of large fruit fame, and “Morovsky Div,” a Russian heirloom variety for summer 2020!
Where the seeds are stored, right off the dining room in the log house.
How about you? Will you join me in buying local seed? I hope so! As I leave their place, Will takes me on a short walking tour to meet the horses, cattle, chickens, goats, and turkeys that live here and form part of the big circle. We look at the wind turbine that has served them for 10 years, made from something found in a garbage can, the solar panels bought used and retrofitted, and the new barn of lumber milled from downed trees on-site and other pieces salvaged from everywhere. I see the fenced gardens, the stands of pine in between, the well, the orchard of grapes, apples, berries, pears, plums, cherries, apricots, the ridge of wild fruit, all asleep under a deep snow. And I leave with my story and my squash, looking back at the log house overlooking the beaver pond that told Jackie this was the place. They are nearly self-sufficient here, a circle indeed.
Jackie and Will in their wood-heated home looking out on the beaver pond.