23 Apr Horse Plow Event at Mother Earth Farm
The Emergency Food Network organization has been a client for… three years now. I’ve really enjoyed working on a number of projects for them, some which have opened my own eyes to the really great contribution they make in the Tacoma and surrounding area communities. My favorite and most in-depth work so far with EFN was the video I created a couple years ago, you can check that out HERE.
EFN also has it’s own organic farm, where they grow food specifically for food donation on 8 acres of land out in Puyallup, Mother Earth Farm. They host a fun event every year to kick-off the seasons, called the Horse Plow. Sure, with the invention of tractors horses aren’t really needed any more to plow fields for planting, but EFN likes to keep things old school. They make a day of it, invite the community out, and get some fresh air. With this event happening in April, it’s really touch and go with the weather, and you can imagine, it’s hard to predict a nice day to hold the event a couple weeks out. Three years ago, the first year I was doing work for EFN, the event had to be called off due to nasty weather. Luckily, the last two years we’ve had great weather, and the plow events went great.
I really enjoy photographing the horse plow. The farm has so many things to capture. Aside from the plowing, I took some time to capture all the little details that are hidden around the farm. Even though we just hit Spring, there were some beautiful things to document. Just wait a couple months from now, you wouldn’t recognize the landscape. They do things right at Mother Earth Farm, even brining in a couple bee hives to help populate the farm. It’s quite amazing the first time you discover just how important of a role bees play in agriculture. Without those little guys buzzing around, there wouldn’t be much growing at all.
The kids really enjoy the horses. The draft horses are so large, kids’ reactions range from delight to sheer terror once they get close to the horses. This year had a pretty good turnout, considering we are out in the middle of no where, a lot of people came to watch.
Enjoy the photos, and if you have some time, search for “EFN” on my blog search to see some of the other posts I’ve written about the organization.