Cascadia Grains Conference

Reporting from the Pacific Northwest, where it's 20-ish degrees. I'm freezing my toes off! It's not just because I'm from California. I walked into the equipment tour barn and found 40 shivering PNW farmers.It's wonderful to see the array of combines, seed drills, cleaners, and mills and to hear from the far. Dang, they have a plethora of cheap grain equipment up here. I think I'm farming in the wrong place.I'm at this conference because I was invited to talk about seed sourcing and raising consumer awareness about local grains. The organizers heard about the California Grain Catalog that I created, called me up, and we talked about the California grain scene. They were interested in my citizen science seed saving work, as well as the grain campaign and grain talks I frequently give.The seed sourcing talk will be the retelling of an old story, a 10,000 year old story. And the campaign and catalog will be a story as well as a call to collaborative action. Don't worry, I'm not giving too much away so you should still come by if you're near.So far, I've been impressed by the turn-out, resources, number of researchers, and overall dedication to local grains in Washington. We should create this here. Let's do it!