Where We Live
The Ecological Landscape
We live on the unceded ancestral lands of the Dakubetede people at 2300 feet in elevation in Southern Oregon. Situated along Yale Creek, a tributary to the Little Applegate River, we are about 45 minutes from Medford and an hour from Ashland.
Our community land is comprised of 282 acres of farm, pasture, forest, woodland, and riparian zones below the crest of the Siskiyou Mountains. We are nourished by the year-round song of Yale Creek, and are supported by several other seasonal streams. Our two swimming + irrigation ponds are fed by the snowmelt waters of Yale Creek, and a well provides us with an abundance of drinking water.
The north-facing side of our little valley is filled with Douglas-fir, incense cedar, madrone, alder, and big-leaf maple trees. Our residential and cultivated areas are on the south-facing side of the valley and are surrounded by oak-madrone-manzanita woodlands and ponderosa pine forests.
Because the Siskiyous trend both north and south and then east and west, our land also hosts coastal species, including redwood, Alaska yellow-cedar, and Pacific silver fir.
A diversity of shrubs and flowering plants thrive beneath the tree canopy. Black bear, deer, fox, bobcat, mountain lion, coyote, ground squirrel, raven, heron, turkey, swallow, red-wing blackbird, hummingbird, and many other creatures make their home here.
Our farm is currently devoted to a native-wildflower-seed project in collaboration with Nymph and Woodsman Wellness and The Understory Initiative, and the wildlands surrounding us teem with edible and medicinal plants. Our farm field is flanked by a permaculture-style “food forest” full of plum, elderberry, serviceberry, gooseberry, and other food-bearing trees. The land also offers several apple, pear, walnut, and tart cherry trees.
As residents of a fire-prone region, we steward the land with the intention of fostering habitat for creatures of all kinds while minimizing the potential of fire damage to the wildlands and our living spaces. This includes thinning trees and brush, working with prescriptive burns, and doing a whole lot of weed-whacking and raking.
The Human Landscape
Most of us here identify as gregarious introverts. We love our alone time and appreciate our private living spaces, and we also enjoy coming together for our weekly meetings, shared meals, work-together days, and impromptu game nights and other events.
We are politically and socially progressive; devoted to personal and collective transformation; range in age, experience, and background; and we welcome diversity in race, gender, and relationship styles.
As Full Bloom members and residents, we are not only in community with one another and the land, but are active participants in the broader Little Applegate Community and beyond.
This watershed is filled with creative, progressive, and innovative humans who work as organic farmers, artists, teachers, ranchers, nurses, builders, therapists, bakers, vintners, students, and small business owners who are cultivating thriving, resilient communities. We all work hard, and we are serious about having fun together, too.
Every year our wider community comes together for a cabaret, a play written and directed by community members, a playful “Battle of the Bands”, and periodic informal gatherings and concerts, including shows by Quale, the band Jo and Rosie created with local friends. We even have a fully functioning stage and sound system at Full Bloom! And almost every summer Sunday, a group of folks gather by the river for volleyball, swimming, connecting, and relaxing.