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Master Luthiers Make Music in Central Oregon

Mention Bend and folks say “beautiful” and “beer.” But there’s another descriptor taking the stage. “Central Oregon is an incubator of instrument building,” said Brad Tisdel, creative director of the Sisters Folk Festival. “People here have an expansive view of music and art as an expression of culture and economic vitality. We have created a very healthy ecosystem.”

For more than three decades, Central Oregon companies and luthiers have created fretted, stringed instruments—works of art played around the world. Some conjecture that Central Oregon has become an incubator for instrument building because of its manageable humidity and temperature, or perhaps it’s proximity to the robust builder scene in Portland and the availability of ideal wood in the Pacific Northwest. Then, there’s Bend’s laid-back, music-centric culture set in nature’s playground.

“Every builder I know appreciates just being around wood,” said Andrew Mowry, a Bend mandolin and archtop guitar builder who spends free time outdoors. “When I see a giant spruce tree, it’s hard not to think of how many instruments could be made out of it.”

While living in Montana, Mowry harvested an Engelmann spruce—a favorite for instrument tops. With undergrad and graduate science degrees, he uses a computer-controlled device to rough-carve his tops. But he’s a scientist who also likes to draw. “The convergence of art and science is one of the draws to lutherie.”

His work is in high demand, as attested by a waiting list of more than three years and clients in Canada and the United Kingdom. That’s without a single dollar spent on marketing. “Hand-made instruments are sold mostly by word of mouth,” he said.

Jayson Bowerman and Susie Zeither's glass guitar made in Bend — Jayson Bowerman and Susie Zeither’s glass guitar

A Reverence for Wood

It all begins with the wood. Instrument builders hoard it, hunt it and honor it. In essence, it’s the soul of a hand-made instrument.

Bend luthier Butch Boswell thinks about wood incessantly, spending most of the year locked in his Franklin Avenue shop bending, carving and gluing pieces of wood together. At least once a year, he heads off to the Siskiyou Mountains where he harvests old-growth redwood from an abandoned railroad tunnel. “Tunnel 13” is the title of a Mark Knopfler song and the wood used in one of the several Bowell guitars Knopfler owns. The former lead of Dire Straits has collaborated with Boswell on a signature model. The 20 slots sold almost immediately when the model was announced.

Boswell studied engineering in college while learning guitar repair at a music shop. Although he played in several bands, he was more drawn to instruments than performing. He spent 15 years repairing guitars but eventually began building them. About 12 years ago, he relocated from California to Bend, and his reputation soared. Boswells are described by Fretboard Journal as Martin-flavored, “inspired by the classics, but also sporting forward-thinking features.”

What makes a good instrument builder? “Drive and tenacity,” said Boswell. “You must give 150 percent to the work.” Being a luthier is hard on the body, with hours spent hunched over a bench. All the carving, binding, inlaying and finishing require nuclear-level focus. Many materials, tools and operations performed by 21st-century luthiers would be entirely familiar to Stradivari, the 17th-century Italian string-instrument master craftsman. Unusual materials exist: Jayson Bowerman, a former Breedlove luthier, recently made one of the world’s first lap steel-glass guitars with Sister’s fused-glass artist Susie Zeitner.

Andrew Mowry makes mandolins in Bend, Oregon — Andrew Mowry mandolin and archtop guitar builder in Bend, Oregon

Tradition Meets Innovation

In 1990, two Taylor Guitar alumni, Larry Breedlove and Steve Henderson, founded Breedlove in a Tumalo studio. Breedlove’s brother and banjo builder Kim joined them. The three builders carved a niche in an industry dominated by Gibson, Martin and Taylor by combining a distinctive modern design with Pacific Northwest woods, such as myrtlewood, redwood and Port Orford cedar. The operation moved to a new Bend facility in 2008 and encountered financial headwinds, leading to the sale of Breedlove to Tom Bedell, a guitar entrepreneur. Today, Bedell and Breedlove’s two guitar brands are crafted by an almost 40-person team under the corporate entity “Two Old Hippies,” Bedell’s company. More than 1,500 Breedlove and 200 Bedell guitars are made in Bend annually. A luthier working alone would be hard-pressed to make more than a dozen instruments a year.

The two brands are strikingly different: Bedells harken back to another era of guitar building and are, in essence, an “old classic car,” according to Robert (RA) Beattie, marketing and artist relations director. Breedlove, on the other hand, stakes its claim on innovation and sustainability, a kind of “Tesla of the guitar world.” Breedlove pioneered the use of Oregon myrtlewood, which is wavy-patterned and more sustainable than most instrument wood. Company outreach includes donating materials to Sisters High School’s luthier program and annually donating a guitar for the Sisters Folk Festival.

Also in Bend is Weber Mandolins, once part of the Two Old Hippies cohort. Since 2022, former Breedlove luthier Ryan Fish has run the company independently, with a reputation for making top-flight mandolins. If listening to Counting Crows, Trampled by Turtles or blues musician Keb’ Mo’, the bell-like mandolin pickings come from a Weber.

Tom Nechville banjo maker — Tom Nechville, Banjos West, Sisters, Oregon

Sisters Joins the Band

The small town of Sisters is another hotbed of instrument building. Thompson Guitars, founded in 2013, is a boutique shop, building about 100 instruments a year. The company was founded by Preston Thompson, a guitar maker who fashioned instruments in the 1930s, the golden era of Martin Guitars. Master luthier Thompson passed away in 2019, but his approach to building continues at his Sisters shop. Thompson devotees include Grammy-award winner Peter Rowan, who bought his first guitar from Thompson in the 1980s, and Billy Strings, a wildly popular contemporary guitarist whose band played the Redmond “Farewell Festival” in July. Molly Tuttle, who won a Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album in 2024, has several Thompson guitars in her collection, including a Thompson Signature model.

Down the street from Thompson Guitars is the retail location of Banjos West owned by Tom Nechville and his partner Linda Leavitt. Nechville, an inventive banjo maker formerly based in Minnesota, recognized kindred musical spirits in Sisters. “Our alternative designs take the best ideas from the past and improve them, for an interesting balance of tradition and innovation,” Nechville said. He found the designs were more readily acceptable in the northwest, making Sisters a natural location for Nechville’s new production facility, Banjo Revolution, which allows him to spend more time on every banjo he creates.

The Billy Strings band embodies the instrument building scene in Sisters: Not only does Billy Strings play a Thompson guitar, but his banjo player Billy Failing picks a Nechville Vintage Eclipse.

Luthiers of Bend Oregon — CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Tom Nechville , Butch Boswell, Jayson Bowerman, Andrew Mowry & Rebecca Urlacher

The Artistry of Lutherie

Rebecca Urlacher is a rarity in the lutherie world. In the early 2000s, she Googled “female luthiers” and found only three women in the field. Urlacher, who moved to Bend in high school and earned a BFA at the University of Oregon, is also rare as a luthier who doesn’t play music. “She’s one of the top 10 builders I’ve encountered,” said Boswell. “She can voice a top like no one else.” Voicing a top involves tapping the wood, carefully listening to the tone and then adjusting its thickness and shape. When Urlacher taps a guitar top, she’s imagining “how that guitar will sing.” she said. Her finger-style guitars are known for their playability, amazing sustain and wide dynamic range.

Urlacher was a decade into a successful career as a porcelain ceramicist when she took a right turn toward guitars. “I saw a picture of a luthier’s shop—all those tools and wood—and said, ‘That’s it.’” Urlacher learned instrument building by reading books, watching videos and interacting with other builders. “You can approach building very scientifically, but I approach it more instinctually.” Her instincts—honed by years of hand-building classy, simple vessels of clay—help her shape magnificent instruments of wood, and she builds only five or six guitars a year, which allows her meticulous focus.

She said she builds guitars for the music. “There’s no greater thing than creating something people play.”

Rebecca Urlacher of Bend Oregon female Luthier — Local Guitar maker, Rebecca Urlacher of Bend Oregon

Casting Spells with Custom Fishing Rods

Whether seen through an artist’s or angler’s eyes, Bill Amerongen’s one-of-a-kind fishing rods are breathtaking. Mesmerizing colors form intricate bands and diamonds around the aptly named rod “blank” from foregrip to tip, weaving a spell of beauty, anticipation and—over time—memory and appreciation. Intricately conceived, these beauties are not meant to hang above the mantelpiece. With half a century of fishing expertise under his belt, Amerongen creates rods engineered to ensure the big one doesn’t get away. “They are designed and built to be fished hard,” Amerongen said. He has shipped them to anglers around the world, even as far as to the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Wrapped thread on the foregrip is the site of the most flash and personalization. Farther up the rod, colorful threads secure guides through which the line flows. Amerongen’s artistry was inspired by the work of the late Steve Paterson, a custom rod maker from Grants Pass, Oregon. “I knew I just had to learn how to do this,” he said. Paterson began teaching him how to create patterns, some of which may involve as many as 250 different threads. Amerongen taught himself the rest.

Everything about his rods is custom-designed through an in-depth interview. He asks questions to determine: Where and how does the client like to fish? What length of rod, in how many sections? What kind of reel? How should the grips feel and work? Amerongen works closely with each client to select the proper rod blank, which is itself an alchemy of strength, sensitivity, power, flexibility and speed. Then comes the choice of hand grip, whether carbon fiber or cork imported from Portugal. Next, the client selects the reel seat, a functional little sculpture of metal, figured woods and tough composites. Finally, thread samples are mailed to the client for precise hue selection. Barney Page owns six of Amerongen’s rods and is awaiting the arrival of a seventh for catching large rainbow trout in Alaska. “These are pieces of art,” said Page, “but number one to me is their performance.”

Amerongen made his first custom rod at age 14, but wasn’t always a full-time craftsman: He worked as a stockbroker, stay-at-home dad and his son’s baseball coach before transforming his rod-building hobby into a business about a dozen years ago. Each rod takes up to 80 hours to complete, so there is time to savor the creative process. Amerongen makes about 20 rods a year, they are often ordered to celebrate life’s milestones such as birthdays and retirements, and most owners hope to pass them on to the next generation.

While Amerongen creates salmon and steelhead rods, as well as fly, spey and traveling rods—saltwater rods are where the magic of custom rods first appeared for him. As a child, he’d fish with his father off the coast of Southern California and remembers the first custom rod he ever saw. During those early fishing days, he learned that “highliner” is a term to describe the most committed, experienced and respected commercial and recreational fisherman in the world. Amerongen’s work is a reflection of the highliner spirit. See highlinercustomrods.com.

Art by Megan Nielsen

One summer afternoon, Megan Nielsen and her family were canoeing on Suttle Lake when the Sisters artist felt the unmistakable zing of inspiration. “Just looking at the lake, I knew what I had to paint,” she said. Back in her studio, she sketched a bear and rabbit fishing that are oblivious to the bounty of fish swimming beneath their boat. A mountain resembling Black Butte rises above the scene.

Nielsen’s whimsical work embodies the solace and magic of Central Oregon’s surroundings. “I want to capture those moments that reset you and connect you to both the natural world and to the people you are sharing it with,” she said. Her artistic enterprise, Canyon & Cove, features original paintings, prints, cards and stickers.

The artist’s path toward becoming a full-time artist began when she was very young, tracing Disney images while dreaming of becoming an animator. An ardent animal lover, her work honors creatures because of “their simple, peaceful nature,” but she is drawn to some in particular. “I’ve always been attracted to bears, compositionally. Though they appear ferocious, I love their big, peaceful spirits,” she said. Otters are another favorite.

Her goal is to hit a sweet spot: “Not too cute, but not too realistic either:” A bear catching lightning bugs in a jar, a dog paddleboarding on a river, a moose riding a ski lift. Her drawings invite a smile, but her adept brushwork, clever composition and sophisticated color palette reflect an artist with studied talent. During college, she focused on interior design. The architecture courses inspired her creatively, and the teaching faculty urged her to experiment conceptually.

The charm of Nielsen’s art reveals a fierce aesthetic curiosity; she continually pushes herself to learn new techniques. “I deconstruct paintings and illustrative styles I’m attracted to and then figure out how to uniquely apply those techniques to my work,” she said. While many artists of her generation work digitally, Nielsen prefers watercolor, pencil and acrylic gouache. “You gain so much when playing by hand.” The next stop on her artistic journey may be paintings that are “larger and looser.”

Lazy Days art piece by Megan Nielsen — “Lazy Days”

Although she has a successful stationery and print business, Nielsen asserts she doesn’t relate to a production mindset. “I must feel something to follow an idea. The intention comes from the artwork, not from a deadline.” Her husband Jarred Nielsen joined the company in 2021, applying his business background. “Jarred’s dedication, focus, organization and faith in the artwork have allowed the business to grow and shine,” she added.

Megan was born in Alaska and raised outside of Seattle. Her move to Bend in 2015 came after a single visit. “I got that feeling that so many get when they visit Central Oregon,” she said. In 2022, she and her family sought closer access to nature and moved to Sisters where she feels a particular affinity to the sight of the mountains and forest. In 2023, she rebranded and named her business Canyon & Cove to reflect “the places of erosion where beauty is found.” See canyonandcoveart.com.

Multilingual Learning Hub at the Bend Language Institute

When Bend residents Peggy Sherrer and Anna Pollino boarded a high-speed train from Milan to Venice in May 2022, they sat near two Italians who wanted to chat but claimed they couldn’t speak English. For three hours, the Bend residents—both students at the Bend Language Institute (BLI)—spoke with the Italians without once lapsing into English. After exiting the train, Sherrer turned to Pollino and said, “I guess we’re fluent.” The two classmates had BLI, and its founder Christina Cappy, to thank.

Born in the United States to an Italian-American family, Cappy grew up in Florence, Italy. She attended an American university and earned a joint Ph.D. in anthropology and educational policy studies, doing research in South Africa, where she became fluent in Zulu. With family in Bend, she visited several times before making it her home. Fast forward to 2019 and Cappy decided to open a language institute—a model of learning popular elsewhere in the world but somewhat unusual in the United States. “Bend is becoming much more international,” Cappy said.

Through both private lessons and small classes, faculty at BLI teach Italian, Spanish, German, French, Russian, Mandarin, Arabic, Japanese and American Sign Language and English as a Second Language. Bend Language Institute students range in age from teens to octogenarians, and they come from all backgrounds and for all reasons. For some, travel is the impetus. For others, it’s a requirement of their work. School-aged students take classes to advance in a curriculum, to speak with their non-English speaking grandparents, or simply because they are passionate about learning another language.

Each semester, about 150 students enroll at BLI in small classes or private lessons. Language acquisition happens many ways at BLI—film classes, book clubs, game nights and informal gatherings—and all activities are face-to-face.

“The point is interaction,” said Cappy. While online applications can be useful, “there’s nothing like a small class to practice speaking.” She said her older students can face different challenges when learning a language, not just because it is more difficult to develop a native-like accent after teenage years, “but adults allow their egos to get involved. To counteract that, I ask everyone in my classes to pretend as if they are in kindergarten,” she said.

The Bend Language Community and Commitment

Learning another language has endless benefits, attested Cappy, citing the research on enhanced brain health and community building.

To advance conversation skills, students are encouraged to talk about their backgrounds, families and friends. “There’s a vulnerability in sharing personal information with strangers,” she said. Friends are quickly made, and entire cohorts of students progress through the curriculum together.

The commitment to both language learning and their classmates means some students go to extraordinary ends. “One couple dressed up every anniversary in their wedding clothes. And so, when their Spanish class fell on their anniversary, they didn’t want to miss class and let their classmates down, so they came to class in a gown and tux,” Cappy recounted.

Silvi Galmozzi, a native of Argentina and an instructor in Spanish at BLI, began her career at BLI by “teaching under an apple tree in Christina’s backyard” during the first year of the pandemic. “We got very creative,” said Galmozzi. The “walk and talk” classes along the Deschutes River that sprung up during the pandemic continue today. She also runs a Spanish book club, a Spanish game night and a Spanish conversation group at BLI. “There’s a freedom we have here as students and faculty members,” said Galmozzi. See bendlanguageinstitute.com.

Outdoor Ukuleles are Adventure – Ready Instruments Made in Bend

“Quintessentially Central Oregon” is just one way to describe Outdoor Ukulele—a local company making stringed instruments that can weather any kind of wild.

Outdoor Ukuleles have sailed the Arctic Ocean, paddled down the Amazon River, hiked the Pacific Crest Trail and climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro. They are not only waterproof and indestructible, they have a remarkably rich tone rivaling that of wooden instruments and are, according to musicians, a dream to play. Plus, they are simultaneously playful and works of art, with colors drawn from beer and saké bottles: Deschutes Brewery brown, Japanese saké blue and Stella Artois green.

Outdoor Ukeleles — Ukulele color inspirations drawn from Deschutes Brewery brown and Stella Artois green

Outdoor Ukulele, the only company making composite polycarbonate instruments through injection molding, is the brainchild of Bend residents Scott and Jennifer Seelye. In the early 2000s, these native Oregonians built the world’s largest online skateboard retailer (Nowadays). After selling that company, Scott watched a CNBC story and learned that 90 percent of all ukuleles were being made overseas. Lightbulb moment! Their next manufacturing venture was born with a typical Bend twist: instruments for the outdoors.

The company’s tale is one for the entrepreneurial textbooks. Making polycarbonate instruments through injection molding—something that hadn’t been done before—was a vexing challenge requiring Scott’s inventiveness and patience. “We lost a year working with one manufacturer trying to get it right,” Scott said.

Early days also found Scott tweaking the design. “I had to balance technology with tradition,” Scott said. “While the software indicated a square neck would be stronger, most performers wanted a round one.” Buyers from different cultures had preferences, too. While Americans didn’t want solid-friction tuners, the Japanese preferred them. Today, the company uses custom-made precision tuners.

Finishing touches are added to the instruments.

Today the instruments are molded at 600 degrees Fahrenheit under 420 tons of pressure by a manufacturer in Albany, Oregon. The materials—polycarbonate reinforced with carbon fiber strands—give the instruments a natural grain structure that greatly increases strength and acoustics. The instruments are assembled, customized and shipped from Outdoor Ukuleles’ offices in northwest Bend.

Outdoor Ukulele makes soprano and tenor ukuleles and also banjo ukuleles (or “banjoleles”), an instrument popular in the 1920s. A sleek, black guitar was added to the company’s lineup eighteen months ago. During the first year of the pandemic, when all the world was looking for something new to do at home, sales at Outdoor Ukulele doubled. Twenty thousand of the Seelyes’ instruments have been sold since 2015.

“We’ve very lucky to have something of a cult following now,” says Scott.

Several modifications and advances now create instruments that sell all over the world. “The dealer’s store in Beijing looks like Tiffany’s,” said Scott. Ukuleles are especially popular in China and Japan, he surmises, because of residents’ smaller homes. About 1.2 million ukuleles are sold in North America each year—and about 2,500 of them ship from Outdoor Ukulele.

The indestructible nature of the instruments makes them popular for children, and Outdoor Ukuleles are used for music education in schools across the country, including Bend. When the roof on the gym at Bend’s Kenwood Elementary collapsed in 2017, video showed that the Outdoor Ukuleles survived. “They were lifted right out of the wreckage, still on the holder, completely intact,” Scott said with a laugh.

Scott and Jennifer are the definition of “makers”—those who use their hands and their wits to make beautiful products. Jennifer, a passionate knitter, is also developing a vineyard, orchard, olive grove and farm in the Willamette Valley. Ironically, neither are musicians, which Scott feels is an asset. “We are not bound by tradition or playing habits.”

Outdoor Ukelele: 543 York Drive, Suite 140, Bend | 541-392-9937 | outdoorukulele.com

Meet the ‘New Farmers’ of Central Oregon

What do a doctor, a math teacher, a diesel mechanic and an entrepreneur do when they want to change careers? Farm, of course. For a number of enterprising Central Oregonians, farming is a passionate second act.

While an older generation of local farmers have “aged out,” said Annie Nichols, farm and ranch support manager for the High Desert Farm and Food Alliance, younger (though not always young) farmers are emerging. Despite many challenges including the weather, the rising cost of land and contentious water rights, some people with big dreams and a spiritual draw to the land are changing careers and choosing to farm.

“To get started, new farmers need to believe that they are helping their communities and the land,” said Nichols. She noted that small farms “are an important way to combat climate change—and the new generation of farmers gets that.”

Here are the new farmers: romantics and realists, driven by a belief that cultivating something—amaranth or alpacas, honey or hay—is a meaningful way to contribute to Central Oregon’s vibrancy and self-sufficiency.

Naftaland

From Entrepreneur to Hemp and Alpaca Farmer

Dave Naftalin is as comfortable in a boardroom as he is on a tractor.

Naftalin came to Central Oregon after owning a Washington D.C. commercial real estate firm and working as a Maryland park ranger. Upon arriving in Bend, he became director of operations and director of the global supply chain for Humm Kombucha. After a few years, he looked around at his Tumalo land and asked, “What’s next?”

The answer arrived in the realization that “my purpose in life is to raise children, plants and animals.” Now in his third season, Naftalin’s farm (five of his own and twenty-five rented acres) includes sixty alpacas and 5,000 hemp plants.

“Central Oregon is the Napa Valley of hemp,” Naftalin declared, noting that the climate, water and soil are ideal. While half of all hemp farmers who entered the market when the law changed in 2015 have already quit, Naftalin has gone all in, raising hemp that produces CBG (cannabigerol), one of more than 100 cannabinoids whose significant medical benefits are emerging through ongoing research. Recently, both Japanese and Swiss government representatives flew in to investigate Naftalin’s approach to growing hemp which is, he said unapologetically, “producing some of the highest potency CBG crystals ever seen. When top European and Asian distributors are contacting a small farmer in Tumalo, you know this is huge.”

Naftalin and his full-time farm hand are “like mad scientists,” tending each plant every day, piping in classical music and using drip lines to transport live bacteria and amendments to the plants. And while he initially got into alpacas for the fiber, he’s now “breeding for the best genetics in the world.”

“I work this land and the land works me,” Naftalin said, noting this is the hardest he’s ever worked for the least remuneration. However, when the single dad takes a rare moment to look out on his flock, his fields and his three children, he says, “I’m living the life I’m meant to live.”

naftaland.com

Lazy Z Ranch

From Math Teacher and Therapist to Historic Ranch Owners

John and Renée Herman have run the Lazy Z ranch just south of Sisters since June 2020. Leaving behind their “cushy” (John’s word) life in San Diego and coming to Central Oregon to care for the eighty-three-acre iconic ranch is the culmination of a long-held dream.

“Farming was in our blood in different ways,” Renée said. John grew up on a northern California ranch and Renée’s Kirkland, Washington, parents were mad gardeners.

While living in California and starting a family, John worked as a math teacher and Renée studied to become a marriage and family therapist. Still, they knew they “wanted to tie down into the soil somewhere.”

What are their hopes for the Lazy Z? “A mix of a plan and surprise,” Renée said.

To create the plan, they spent months meeting with neighbors and experts to suss out practices to restore the soil, which John described as “compacted and dead” from years of flood irrigation, overgrazing and too many horses. They will spend their first growing season adding organic material to sixty-three irrigated acres, planting thirty different seeds for pollinators and waiting for the surprise. “We want to see what will grow here,” John said.

Their goal for the irrigated land? To create half a foot of organic material over the next five to ten years. They’d love to lease some land to other growers who share their farming and ranching values, which they describe as “regenerative.” Also already in place are hundreds of bees and a dozen bee boxes, which were colorfully painted by art students at Sisters High School.

The scope of their dream echoes the hopes of 19th century homesteaders. “We describe ourselves as a regenerative nectar and pollen farm, focusing on bee products, u-pick and potentially, someday, a small winery,” said John. They are already boarding horses, hosting cattle who are “massaging” and fertilizing the soil, planting berries and pumpkins, raising goats, and cultivating bee hives (John is the beekeeper). Soon they hope to brew honey mead, restore their impressive 100-year-old barn (could it become a farm brewery like those they saw in Belgium?) and, very importantly, turn the Lazy Z into a community resource for Sisters. “The reality of how the community has responded to our dream is so much more than we could have imagined,” Renée said.

They have no delusions about the Lazy Z supporting their family of four; Renée works as a therapist in Redmond. “Our goal is to have enough money to live and to give back to our community,” John said.

lazyzranch.com

Sakari Farms

From Natural Resource Manager and Diesel Specialist to Indigenous Agriculturalists

The sign on Highway 20 just north of Tumalo says “Sakari,” which means “sweet” in Inupiat, the language of its owner’s Native Alaskan tribe. “There aren’t many words for farming or plants in the Arctic,” said Upingakraq “Spring” Alaska Schreiner with a laugh, “but many words for snow, whale and walrus.”

Spring is the indigenous agriculturalist, seed keeper, farmer, owner and educator at Sakari Farms. Ten years ago, she launched the Central Oregon Seed Exchange, growing on rented plots across the county. In 2018, she and Sam Schreiner bought a six-acre farm, and their work shifted into turbo.

The compact farm is humming with activity. Greenhouses burst with vegetables and specialty tribal peppers (Sam’s passion). Fields feature Native plants for ceremonial use as well as eating and dyeing. Flowers, squash and rows of lavender and thyme attract bees tended by a keeper. In the off-season, they prepare healing teas, hot sauces and other plant-based products and sell them through Sakari Botanicals. Additionally, the farm is home to a cold-climate seed bank, along with both educational courses and cooking classes. Outreach to Native populations throughout Central Oregon is part of Sakari’s mission. Organic and biodynamic growing practices guide their work. They hold the Intertribal Agricultural Council’s “Made by Native American” patent certification.

Before they turned all their attention to farming, Sam, a Camp Sherman native, was a diesel specialist, and Spring was working for the Deschutes Water Soil and Conservation District. In
the ultimate “meet cute,” they were introduced while Spring was running the county’s manure exchange program.

For Spring, farming is both a way of making a living and an act of social change. “With the social unrest last summer, I had an ‘aha’ moment,” she said. “Different voices were needed.” Serving on multiple regional and national agricultural boards and educational committees as an advocate for local farmers and tribal members, Spring was awarded the 2021 Na’ahlee Tribal Fellowship and the 2019 National Association of State Department of Agriculture Women Farm to Food Award. To reinforce her indigenous products and practices, Spring says she “hires BIPOC employees,” noting that her crew currently includes a turkey farmer with Navajo roots and a pig farmer from Peru.

Serving her neighbors and surrounding communities is in Spring’s DNA. “Farming is a brave act,” she said. “The more we can show healthy food-growing success in Deschutes County, the better quality of life we’re all going to have.”

sakarifarms.weebly.com | sakaribotanicals.com | seedexchange.weebly.com

The Scott Farm

From Doctor and Realtor to Hay Farmers

Dr. Yvette Scott, a Los Angeles internist, and her husband Frank, a commercial real estate broker, had only spent time in Central Oregon on vacation until 2011. Then, they became owners of twenty beautiful acres between Tumalo and Sisters. They hired a caretaker to tend the land until realizing, five years ago, that they wanted
to do it better—and do it themselves.

“We were living to work in L.A.,” Yvette said. “We wanted to be able to work to live.” While Dr. Scott thought she would join the Central Oregon medical community after moving here, she reversed course. “Taking care of my family, the property and my animals became my new career, and I haven’t looked back since.”

When the Scotts took over the land in 2016, locals said their hay fields were so neglected they would have to be replanted. Instead, Yvette—who had spent some time on her father’s family farm in Georgia—tended the land with helpful input from nearby farmers, restoring the blue and orchard grass fields to health. Seeing the bounty from each cutting, and doling out flakes of her baled hay to her horses, gives her intense satisfaction. Still, she’s aware of ecological issues. “Using up our precious water to grow hay is a source of conflict for me.”

With Yvette in the lead, the team does almost all the work on the farm themselves—moving wheel lines, caring for horses, repairing equipment. The lone exception: cutting and baling hay.

Unlike Naftalin, Scott doesn’t consider farming her business. “We sell and trade hay, yes, but we are mostly stewards of this land.” Stewardship includes caring for two horses. Her mother’s family in Cuba were competitive horse jumpers, and she had boarded a horse in L.A. Now horses are integral to her life.

“Who would have ever thought, me, a Cuban-American doctor who has lived her whole life in cities, is now doing what I do? I pinch myself every day.”

Support LOCAL FARMERS

The High Desert Food and Farm Alliance has a great guide to buying local: getataste.org.

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A Reverence for Wood

Tradition Meets Innovation

Sisters Joins the Band

The Artistry of Lutherie