The Willamette Valley – Hey Hay!


I headed south from Portland Thursday about noon. I meandered down to Corvallis on side roads to the west of I-5, shooting pictures of barns, picking berries, enjoying the beauty of this valley. It is uber-agricultural. Rich soil, lots of water, 3 months of summer heat. It’s hay harvest time and I saw more hay here in 2 days than I’ve seen in all my life.

Huge bales, way different from my hay-bucking days in Colusa, Calif. (2 guys, a flatbed truck, hay hooks). It’s now a big machinery operation. Hay everywhere—just cut, or baled into huge rectangles or cylinders sitting in the fields.

This valley is on a more human scale than say, California’s San Joaquin Valley (along Hwy 5), with its bizarre monocropping. It’s a little like the fields in England, but on a larger scale.

Had standing room only at my event in Corvallis. Sending this from Portland airport — on me way home. Got a number of really nice barns — will post when time.

About Lloyd Kahn

Lloyd Kahn started building his own home in the early '60s and went on to publish books showing homeowners how they could build their own homes with their own hands. He got his start in publishing by working as the shelter editor of the Whole Earth Catalog with Stewart Brand in the late '60s. He has since authored six highly-graphic books on homemade building, all of which are interrelated. The books, "The Shelter Library Of Building Books," include Shelter, Shelter II (1978), Home Work (2004), Builders of the Pacific Coast (2008), Tiny Homes (2012), and Tiny Homes on the Move (2014). Lloyd operates from Northern California studio built of recycled lumber, set in the midst of a vegetable garden, and hooked into the world via five Mac computers. You can check out videos (one with over 450,000 views) on Lloyd by doing a search on YouTube:

One Response to The Willamette Valley – Hey Hay!

  1. i live not far from this sign.the man put it up to mock the new readerboard that cost thousands of dollars just south of this mans sign.

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