A Farm Fresh Start: Thiselle Creek Farm
Over 100 blue globe thistle plants line the paths of Thiselle Creek farm in Yacolt. They are all that survived the fires that destroyed MacKenzie and Sean Krumhauer’s first farm in Ventura County, California. With hope and anticipation for the future, the thistle roots were carefully dug up and packed in pots to make the long trip to their new home in the Great Northwest, where the Krumhauers started over, founding Thiselle Creek Farm in July 2018.
MacKenzie Krumhauer has always loved the outdoors. A California native, she began working on farms with the World Wide Organization of Organic Farmers (WWOOF), a group that helps place individuals on farms through a work-trade arrangement. Krumhauer received free room and board and some pay for her work on a variety of different farms, from livestock to fruit orchards and even a flower farm. On these farms, she learned all she could about true sustainability by nurturing every aspect of the land and wasting nothing. She came to identify the indigenous flora instinctively and witnessed every system in nature working in harmony. She also experienced the reality of farm life. The long days were hard, yet enjoyable. “My mental and physical well-being thrived so much more with being outside every day versus other jobs I had where I was inside for eight hours a day,” Krumhauer says about her early experiences in farming. “[WWOOF] helped me really get an idea of the lifestyle I would be looking forward to, showed me the amount of work it takes, gave me endless skills and education and instilled my passion for the agricultural industry.”
Determined and confident in her talents, Krumhauer set out to start her own flower farm on a leased plot in Southern California. When she found herself in need of a greenhouse, a friend told her they knew a guy who was handy and could help her. Normally a boat captain sailing yachts around the world, Sean was in town and able to take on the job. Sean and MacKenzie discovered that they worked well together as they designed and built the greenhouse. Their friendship blossomed into love and Sean left the boat life to accompany MacKenzie on her dream of farm ownership.
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