An Interview with Lise Hubbe
This is a long distance, long time, interview with amazing, stalwart organic horse farmer Lise Hubbe of Scio, Oregon. We are fortunate to have her as friend and inspiration. LRM
LRM: Has your farming life lived up to the dream you held so firmly all those years ago?
LISE: My farming life has far surpassed the dream. The original dream came to me spontaneously, at the age of 9 or 10, when I received a vision and comprehension of where things were headed with the world: ecologically, economically, societally. I didn’t want my family to be waiting in line for a food handout, wanted to see myself on the provision end of things, and figured that what we’d need, in order to take care of ourselves and help others, would be a farm. Starting then, I went after life skills learning and personal development opportunities, gathering abilities to enable myself to do what needs to be done to take care of basic needs. I was called to the path of farming, but had no idea what that path could or would hold for me, or how a life path unfolds.
Even in the early years of my farm-as-survival-when-things-get-tough imaginations, there were work horses. And it was a psychological/emotional/spiritual self-survival vision of “one-horse-one-gal-hermit-in-the-woods” that led me, at age 39, to cold call the only person I knew of who could teach me how to “harness, hitch, and drive”. When Harry Lehman invited me for ice cream and introduced me to his horses, I landed on my farming path. Within a couple of months he had pointed me in the direction of a collection of horse-drawn farm equipment being liquidated by a retiring farmer Fritz Lonsway.
I borrowed down payment money, and agreed to pay $200/mo to Fritz, and bought the collection for $4500. Then Harry called me about a team of Belgian mares… He took me to meet Ivan Nisly, the man who had raised the mares. Nine months after the cold call, I spent my last $500 on a down payment for the mares, borrowed the $5800 purchase price, made an arrangement with Ivan to bring them back to his place from the person he’d sold them to the year before, arranged with Harry to go with me to get them, bought the mares, and became thoroughly grounded on my horse farming path. Red roan, half-sisters, 5 and 10 year-old grade Belgian mares Grace and Daisy saved my life, and gave my life a very real context within which to learn, and grow, and unfold. I had no idea that connecting with the horses would determine the course of my life, or that the horses would become my personal development partners.
LRM: Your decades of farming have seemed to firmly embrace mixed crop and livestock operations. Was that a choice early on or something that evolved?
LISE: My early farming vision was probably something more like homesteading, and I think that’s the sensibility that still informs me. I envisioned being able to provide for the needs of the people and animals within a relatively simple set of human/ animal/plant interdependent relationships. Over the years, the specific livestock and crops and integrated systems I’ve engaged with has evolved. I started with a team of workhorses, growing a market garden and making hay. Then we added a few milk cows, and then pigs and chickens. I bought a stud colt, raised and developed my stallion, and managed a breeding project. Now, I focus myself with the workhorses, grow vegetable seed crops on contract for a local seed company, grow subsistence storage staples vegetables, make hay, and cooperate with a large scale sheep producing family who graze their animals on our farm.
LRM: Collecting seed corn, breeding work horses, selling produce to the local public – each of these pursuits command different attention spans and aptitude. Are you invigorated by the diversity or exhausted?
LISE: In brief, I am invigorated by having a relatively small set of integrated farm life enterprises. I don’t have just one job to do. But I don’t give myself 100 different jobs. Sometimes the needs of one enterprise conflict with the needs of another. For example, with the workhorse breeding project, my mares are both my workers and broodmares. It can be challenging to get field work done in a timely way when mares are pregnant, foaling, and have nursing foals. I have set down the breeding project in order to focus on my farming. Last year I only bred one of my three mares. So this year I had a pair available for work, and was able to accomplish my field work in a much more smooth and timely way. Much more enjoyable than struggling to juggle which horses and which few hours of which day! I didn’t breed any of the mares this year, and am really looking forward to the coming season, with plans to take on a couple of larger cropping acreages including getting the two fillies started to work. For me, it helps to have a central “enterprise”, with related and supporting activities. For me it’s the workhorses. The purpose is to provide for our needs in plenty to share. The marketing part is a difficult mystery. I stay focused on developing and maintaining capability. One of my guiding principles is to balance stability with maneuverability. Lynn- I’d like to take more time with this question. There’s more to share with this one.
LRM: Which of these character traits do you find most important and which most challenging: diligence, patience, care or good humor?
LISE: I find each of these to be important. Just don’t give up. Some things take time. Tend to the needs. Allow for joy.
Diligence and patience may be attributes or strengths which come more or less naturally to a person, but can also be practiced and cultivated. Care seems to be a natural human quality. It may become discouraged through the course of life’s pains.
LRM: How do you feel about young people wanting to learn from you?
LISE: I am open to, and interested in, young people and their interests. Over the years, I have learned how to respond to inquiries and requests in a way that helps focus a conversation, and specify a learning goal. I have figured out for myself what I can offer and what I can’t. I don’t get many young people coming to me for learning. It could be because I’m not on social media, don’t have a web site, don’t do any advertising… or any number of other reasons.
Lately, I’ve been interested to go to where young people are to learn what is of interest and concern to them. It wouldn’t have to be in a farming context.
LRM: How do you feel about strangers wanting to correct how you choose to work?
LISE: I don’t experience this. Twenty-five years ago, passers by would stop at the edge of the field to watch me working the horses, and I would stop to talk with them. Now, no one stops. They’re speeding by. If someone does slow down, they roll the window down and take pictures with their phone while driving by. I feel mostly invisible, though I and the horses are working in plain sight.
LRM: Is ‘Legacy’ something you think about as regards your farm and farming?
LISE: I don’t think about Legacy with regards to my farming. I hope that the work horse genetics that I’ve worked to preserve do continue in the hands of other people. I’m interested to do some vegetable crop development for our location through selection and seed saving. I think about infrastructure resource development, farm preservation, and seeing our farm into next hands stewardship care. Is that Legacy?
LRM: You are a sterling example of what is desirable and possible with small scale hands-on farming. Being an example carries weight, often unwanted weight. Any advice or caution to offer others coming up into farming ‘exposure’?
LISE: Again, I don’t experience this weight or exposure. I don’t feel seen as an example to follow. This could also be because I’m not on social media, don’t have a website, and don’t do any kind of self-promotion.
LRM: At this stage in your adventure is there anything farm related you wish you had included or tried but did not have the means or opportunity for?
LISE: I would like to have been able to grow grains. I did grow oats to harvest as hay. I did have an All Crop 60 combine but never was able to get it up and running, and sold it to a nearby small-scale grains farmer. I did have two very nice grain drills, which sold at our liquidation auction, and haven’t replaced them. I now do have a horse-powered grain grinder. I haven’t ever had the opportunity to acquire horsedrawn grain harvesting or threshing equipment. I would still like to have the opportunity to grow and harvest and store and process grains – for people food and for livestock feed – but would necessarily need to be doing this in cooperation with others.
LRM: Given the choice to farm ‘wholesale’ and sell your production in bulk versus selling to local folks, has experience given you a strong preference?
LISE: I much prefer to share what we produce directly with those who will eat it. I very much dislike and am very poor at “marketing”. Growing vegetable seed on contract for a small-scale local seed company is a real positive for me.
LRM: All obvious aspects of your farming tell us you feel the pulse of livestock, soil, and plants every single moment of the day. After all these years does the joy outweigh the responsibility?
LISE: Yes! Life is all around me here. So much natural beauty, so much life, completely outside my responsibility or control. I am so fortunate, privileged, and grateful to be living close with Nature. Even the animal relationships and agricultural processes which I do tend and “direct”, are full with their own life energies and natural ways. Life brings it all: interesting and difficult challenges, heart breaks and healings, blessings, and surprising delights.
I partner on the farm with my sister Sara. She tends a large house garden, saves seed, keeps bees, and recently added a small flock of duck hens for eggs, slug control, and daily good cheer. We’re a good team!
LRM: Mentors have been instrumental and important to you. Now you are one. Any cautions for hungry novices about how to make learning positive for all?
LISE: Develop self-awareness. Take responsibility for your own learning. Be specific with what you’d like to learn, and have an idea about how that will help you meet a goal or progress along your path.
Some people may think of and promote themselves as a teacher, develop a curriculum, and have an agenda for their students learning. I don’t. One of the things I can do for others is listen and reflect. I can and am willing to share my experience, my perspective, my understanding, and my approach. I don’t have a curriculum. What I have to share will come out most readily in personal conversation.
LRM: What livestock are you tending these days?
LISE: Right now I have 5 work horses. Three registered American Brabant mares: 7, 9, and 10 year-old half-sisters sharing a sire. And two yearling fillies: out of these mares and sired by the registered Percheron stallion I raised.
LRM: What crops?
LISE: This year I raised 4 vegetable seed crops on contract: Early Warwick dry bean; Kenearly Yellow Eye dry bean; Strubbe’s Blue dent corn; and Potimarron winter squash. I also raised two storage variety potatoes (from our own seed): German Butterball, and Satina. My hay crops are mixed species perennial.
Your strength and choices have always given us the warmest assurance. Thank you for being you. Lynn
