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It’s always a scramble to get out of the city on a clement June weekend. It’s even rarer to find accommodations that include the family dog. We were lucky enough [or so we thought] to find such a place at a moment’s notice on Orcas Island, WA.

“Once in a Blue Moon Farm” website featured many pictures of charming pastoral scenes: children with horses; a vividly painted old farmhouse afloat a sea of casual flowers; tempting invitations to ‘come sit in your own flower garden with a glass of wine or read a book by the many ponds across the 35 acre farm’. We were enchanted. My husband had never been to Orcas or seen the view from the top of Mt. Constitution which rivaled that of Bellagio overlooking Lake Como in northern Italy where we had honeymooned.

Living in downtown Seattle is a world away from where I grew up in the lush green Tolt River Valley. Outside my window a cruise ship casts a long plume of diesel smoke into air and empties raw sewage into Puget Sound. A Burlington Northern freight train chugs through the recently installed Sculpture Park spewing more diesel and sullying the air. Directly overhead jets dump their fuel reserves on us they head for Boeing Field. Every part of Belltown seems sticky, dirty, sooty, polluted, and an invitation to carcinoma. Orcas seemed like a perfect smog-free getaway. We poured over the Washington State ferry schedule and gaged the distance from Seattle to Anacortes and arrived at a travel time of 2.5 hours.

An emergency call from the owner of Once in a Blue Moon farm interrupted our calculations. Shana had a favor to ask. The farm tractor had broken down and they were up a creek without tractor oil. Would we mind picking some up on our way? There was a John Deere tractor outlet in Marysville…it would only take 10 minutes of our time. She seemed desperate and how much oil could a tractor need? A tractor is smaller than a car, which uses quarts. We agreed and left with plenty of time.

We encountered our first of many slow downs traveling I-5 north near Everett. Car accident…road construction…speed trap [Bellingham]…ferry traffic…the usual I-5 Friday afternoon experience. At Marysville we realized we were cutting it awfully close to catch the 3:30 Anacortes-Orcas ferry. I sprinted into John Deere waving a piece of paper with owner of Blue Moon Farm’s name on it. 3:01 pm.

Four large men looked up at me from the counter of the John Deere Parts Department as if I had just crashed their habitual afternoon tea party. An obliging smile later and 2 enormous(!) drums of tractor oil were loaded, barely fitting into the generous trunk of my VW sedan. It was only then after a tenuous moment over the receipt that I discovered that oil had been pre-paid. Loaded up like the Exxon Valdez Oil we rushed to the ferry. 3:08 pm.

“Where are you going?” said the State Ferry booth employee. I hestitated for a half second thrown by this ontological query. “Orcas,” I spat out, “we bought the tickets online but never received the link the print them out. Here’s the receipt.” “Mmm’kay, that’ll be $56. And here’s a claim form for a refund. Are you going to come back later?” I looked at my watch. 3:37 pm. Eh? Apparently the 3:30 ferry we were viewing obligingly at the dock had been sold out for hours. Despondent, we pulled into the lane for the 5:10 ferry which graced us with its presence at 5:47 pm.

Aboard the ferry we propped our dog next to a side deck window where we were parked to catch scent of the ocean air which was heavily laced with diesel fuel. His head drooped and he seemed to wonder why he was here, not at home in his comfortable bed. To him the air smelled just as diesel-laden. Dogs aren’t allowed on the upper ferry decks so we took turns at coffee runs, stretching our legs amidst crying babies, distracted mothers, catatonic fathers, and abused vending machines. Remember the days when you could get hot food or a cup of chowder aboard a State Ferry? Alas, no more. To experience such fine fare you’ll have to alter longitude and cross the border to the tonier Canadian ferry system.

6 hours of traveling had led us to a gravel road 2 miles from the ferry landing. We searched in vain for a Blue Moon Farm sign. The road abruptly turned 90 degrees uphill outside a fenced pasture. A group of women stood talking behind the pasture gates. There was a tiny handprinted sign attached to the first gate. It simply said “Guests call ahead.” We were perplexed. Apparently this was Once in a Blue Moon Farm.

One of the women in the group broke away and undulated down to the first gate. She sported colorful dyed hair, tattoos and an over exposed décolletage…the owner had mentioned “interns”. We had arrived at the wrong gate. Guest quarters and farm quarters did not directly communicate. The guest ‘parking lot’ we were directed to was a sloped pile of gravel below a tool shed. As I began to creep slowly into the pile of gravel the owner of the farm directed us to the tool shed. The tool shed was known to the owner as the “Patio Level Home“. This is what we had rented. Nearby in consective muddy lanes two large trailer homes huddled together.

After some awkward introductions and the reassurance that we had the tractor oil, the owner sheepishly said something about having the residential trailers towed but hadn’t had time. Noting the pair of worn shoes near the trailer door and other clues of long-time residence (a cat curled up underneath) I wondered at the owners sincerity.

Shana continued to explain tenderly that the nearest trailer belonged to her farm manager, a perhaps Australian named Henri (or was that just a hippie affectation?) who was helping her manage the farm/guest operation. During her nattering on all I wanted to say was “Oh my god, please stop talking, you’re killing me,” and crawl into a hot bath. She continued to fawn a bit over our grumpy and exhausted dog and promising a tour of the flower gardens (really torture at this point) before finally leading us under the deck into the lower portion of the shed, or “Patio Level Home“. Overheated and exhausted we kept our exchange brief. We hauled our stocked Coleman cooler inside and sat down to take in our surroundings.

The “Patio Level Home” was the bottom portion of the “View Deck Home“. This Patio Level was filled with 2nd, 3rd and 4th hand knick-knacks. Posters and unloveable paintings crowded the walls. Printed calico quilts and matching pillows swarmed over the furniture. Bookcases filled chipped plates and worn tupperware lined the walls. A dusty heap of plastic toys lay next to a sooty wood burning stove. An antique television set rested in the coffin of a vacated projection screen tv. The refrigerator was the temperature of an attic on a hot summer’s day. The contents of a desk revealed a broken pencil and an incomplete deck of child’s cards. A stack of mismatched worn towels sat out on a side table with a hand printed note: “1 per guest“.

Everywhere on the walls, taped onto appliances there were signs directing guests. “No long showers.” “Hot and cold reversed.” “No leaving anything in the garbage.” “Don’t even think about putting food down the sink.” “Feed food scraps to the chickens.” “Empty coffee grounds on the compost pile.” We began to suss out the true nature of our relationship with the owner of Blue Moon Farm.

As the sun sank over the empty pasture beyond our front door mosquito biting picked up. There appeared to be no other guests at the farm despite their website showing bookings so we ventured out onto the rickety deck of the “View Level Home” [first floor] above us. We could see out over the pasture where the owner had been weeding a flower bed for the last hour. The valley beyond opened up and we saw the distant hills of Orcas tinged with pink, a bit of ocean beyond. Below our 14 inch tall dog disappeared into the pasture grasses as he snacked on tender leaves. Sunset in the country.

As remote as the farm was, a truck or car traveled down the gravel road every half hour. We retired early, repelled by the florescent orange bulbs that inhabited every light bulb socket. In the nightmarish and industrial glow I pulled back the covers of the double bed to check for spiders (one was resting above us on the ceiling as we watched tv). My husband awoke in the morning to find welts on his legs where he had been bitten during the night.

Having been promised a breakfast cooked by the owner in exchange for the tractor oil we sat begging the clock to move faster if only to hasten our departure. Finally at 8 am we made our way over to the main farmhouse. We wandered about finding no one. The horses, chickens and llamas were adverse to our presence though we walked silently.

We heard stirrings in the detached garage and one of the young hippie girl interns abruptly appeared. She directed us to one of two metal tables near the house among the flowers. As the girls giggled and cooked up our breakfast in the detached garage, we sat speculating at the owner running a B&B, breakfast not included. She had seemingly found a way to keep her farm running by emptying the pockets of those desperate for clean air and green fields beyond the Seattle plume of sprawl and particulate matter.

Our suspicions were soon confirmed by the affable interns who brought us a breakfast of beans and duck eggs studded with odd garden flowers. After setting down the plate (1 plate for both of us) one of the girls stepped back and drew a camera out her pocket. She shyly asked if they could take our picture. It was the first breakfast they’d ever served to guests. We looked into the camera and smiled like a pair city slickers being fleeced.

Once in a Blue Moon Farm is aptly named because this is how often you will want to come here. We never saw more than 100 feet of this 35 acre farm. There were plenty of signs directing guest what NOT to do, but not a single one directing guests to any of the enjoyable aspects of this retreat touted by the owner and the website. If there was welcome mat anywhere on this farm it had been apprenticed as a bath towel long ago…

This entry was posted Friday, June 8th, 2007 at 2:43 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.