#McKenzieStrong Diaries — Amber and Brian @HoneyPaddle

#McKenzieStrong Diaries — Amber and Brian

It was a week before the Holiday Farm Fire when I first met Amber and Brian Jackson. They were making the Honey Paddle delivery rounds and visited my plot of land in Blue River with a quart of the most excellent honey I have ever tasted.

Months of careful planning and hard work had produced an incredibly flavorful golden honey with punchy notes of blackberry, phacelia, and borage.

“We named it the McKenzie River Blossom in honor of all the beautiful bounty around us,” Amber posted on the Honey Paddle Facebook page in what was a very different world back then.

I remember reflecting at that time how wonderfully the character of a landscape such as the McKenzie is distilled in this most perfect of natural products. It is easy to see how they caught the “honey bug” as they put it.

“This is the place where we want to spend our rocking chair years,” says Amber as we meet again at their farm near Leaburg. “We really built this from the ground up, paying special attention to the soil, so we planted ten acres with ten acres of phacelia, and borage and three different types of clover.”

When they evacuated on Labor day Tuesday, Amber and Brian only had time to gather up a few things, but they quickly came up with a plan to try and evacuate the bees too. They enlisted the help of another beekeeper who helped them move the hives from two of their yards which could be reached. Yet in spite of all their efforts, they were still unable to save 8 hives, which were lost due to the heavy smoke.

“Those hives meant the world to us, and although at the time, we didn’t know whether our house was going to burn down, saving some of them gave us hope for the future.”

Then on the 18th of September, they got the news that their property had gone back into level 2, which meant they were able to return. “I was doing laundry at a friend’s house, and Brian was at the hotel with our son,” Amber recalls. “He was so excited he had us packed up and on our way home in ten minutes. So we felt this enormous relief to sleep in our own bed, but that came with a heavy heart too, knowing that so many people had lost their homes upriver.”

Plans for next year include getting opening up a farm stand and experimenting with different cover crops to set up a good spring harvest. Yet just as important as rebuilding their own business, is to support the broader community in its journey of recovery.

They were most encouraged by the warm reception they got from the honey harvest, which also had local businesses reaching out to them, such as Serendipity Coffee Cart in Blue River, where owner Sarah Slowick had crafted a signature honey vanilla latte using their produce. Similarly, there are plans for the Vida Café to serve up honey-based brunch cocktails when they reopen on November 15th.

They are also keen to explore possibilities around agritourism to expand the scope of the business. “We really enjoy going out to farms and sampling products, and we already started playing around with making our own cider and mead at home,” says Amber.

“That is something that would really contribute to the area and would be a draw for people coming up the McKenzie as well,” she adds.

In fact, the McKenzie Community Development Corporation just ordered 400 jars in advance to “include” in the holiday baskets that it will distribute to local families along the McKenzie who have been affected by the Holiday Farm wildfire. This will hopefully not only support Amber and Brian’s efforts in rebuilding their operation, but also give residents something to look forward to as they prepare to face the challenging winter ahead.

Brian believes the next few months will be difficult as many people face the difficult decision of whether or not to rebuild, but he is hopeful that the majority of people will decide to stay.

“I think in the process of rebuilding, it would be really nice to have a lot more small local businesses that can bring in things, specially related to food and entertainment,” he says. “Just having more choices of places where we can go and support people upriver.”

“Ultimately what we really want to see is more businesses in the area supporting each other.”

For the latest information on the recovery and rebuilding of the McKenzie Valley, and to contribute to those efforts, visit McKenzie Recovery and follow @CdcKenzie on Twitter

About the author: Alice Bonasio is a journalist, writer, and proud McKenzie Valley resident. She is Director of Communications at the McKenzie Community Development Corporation. If you have a great local story to tell, drop her a line on alice@mckenzierecovery.org