By KATHLEEN O’CONNOR/YachatsNews
For the past four years Sean and Erin Geary have been intentionally building a particular kind of lifestyle for themselves and their three daughters.
The Gearys own Coastal Permaculture Fiber, a small company which sells soft, warm, unique pillows and blankets/throws made from natural fiber yarns. They have just finished a busy summer season selling at the Yachats Farmers Market and the Artisan Faire at Salishan and are getting ready for the Christmas market in Eugene.
They arrived in Yachats from completely different parts of the country. Erin was born and raised in Indianapolis, and Sean spent his childhood in San Diego, moving to the Washington D.C. area for high school. They met at Bethany College in West Virginia, where Sean got a degree in English literature and Erin started in psychology. But those initial interests changed, and Sean went on to get a digital design certification and Erin became a hair stylist.
They stayed in the Washington area for several years; Sean working for an online university, and Erin learning that being a hair stylist can often feel like being a psychologist. But Sean remembered his childhood in San Diego and always wanted to return west, particularly to the Oregon coast, which he and Erin had explored while visiting his sister in Portland.
They moved to Florence in 2017 when Sean got a job with the University of Washington that allowed him to work remotely, then to Yachats in 2020.
Question: What is the lifestyle that you are building with your three daughters?
Answer: Permaculture is defined in a lot of different ways, but a good definition would be that we, the five people in our family, are trying to integrate ourselves with the land itself. We are working to create a small, sustainable, resilient, self-sufficient ecosystem on the land that we own. During the pandemic, Erin enrolled in a one-year permaculture certification program offered by Oregon State University. Her permaculture project had to include some income-generating features. Since she loves everything to do with fabric and fiber she settled on investigating how realistic it would be to form a business creating one-of-a-kind woven home goods, specifically pillows and blankets/throws.
We have implemented many parts of the plan she developed. For example, we collect rainwater to use in our garden, we use three-tier composting, we have a rabbit whose dung is used for red worm composting, we have a greenhouse, and we have planted a mini-orchard.
Q: Explain the process of your farm-to-market business.
A: We buy wool, linen and cotton yarns. Then we dye them using plants we grow in our greenhouse. Each year we focus on two different dyes. This year it was Japanese indigo and Hopi sunflowers. Dye is made from the leaves of the Japanese indigo plant and the shells from the seeds of the Hopi sunflowers.
Erin then weaves the blanket or the fabric for the pillows. For the blankets she goes on to create the fringe, and for the pillows she sews the pillow cover. Our daughters, whom we homeschool, help us stuff the pillows and sometimes help with the booth at the markets.
Q: How have you been able to integrate Sean’s full-time job with the fiber business and homeschooling?
A: We have a big workshop in what used to be our garage. Sean has an office there, Erin weaves there, and the girls do their schoolwork there. We’ve been working this way for several years, so it seems natural to us.
Sean develops online classes for the University of Washington. He drives up to Seattle occasionally, but working at home with an occasional commute is so much better than commuting every day as he had to do in the Washington D.C. area. He works with a variety of people — professors, administrators, and the companies doing the camera work. He’s usually working on four or five projects at a time.
The permaculture approach to our life on this little farm provides an endless number of homeschooling projects for our daughters. They are quite different in age: 13, 10 and 5, so we are always working on three different levels. Sean’s mom used to be a teacher, so she helps us quite a bit with planning. She and Sean’s dad followed us from the east coast to Florence.
Q: What is going well with your business right now, and what is the biggest challenge you are facing?
A: We are really pleased that our business has grown 100 percent every year for the last three years. We decided to add baked goods to our booth this year, which helps draw people to the booth to look at the weaving. Sean does the baking. We sold over 1,000 baked items this year. The most popular items were cardamom rolls and chocolate chip banana bread.
The biggest challenge is that production is limited right now because Erin’s loom is very basic. It takes her a week to make two throws. We have just purchased a production loom which automates many of the weaving functions and should dramatically increase the number of items she can make. But it arrived in 10 boxes, and we just haven’t gotten it put together yet.
Q: What is the next thing that you want to add to your property as part of your permaculture approach?
A: This last year we added six chickens, and we chose a variety known for high egg production. So now we have a source for eggs for ourselves, eggs to sell and fertilizer for our garden. Next year we hope to add bee hives which will help with pollinating our fruit trees and plants and will provide honey for us to eat and sell.
Tell us a secret.
We like to forage for lobster mushrooms because we can use them to create multiple different dyes. If we add citric acid to the dye mixture we can create pink or orange dye. If we add baking soda we can get plum or red wine dye. We enjoy the creativity.
- Kathleen O’Connor is a Waldport freelance writer who can be reached via email at kmoc8916@gmail.com
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