The one stop shop

Homesteading on Whidbey

Published in Whidbey Weekly August 17, 2018

Imagine providing most of your household necessities yourself, from soap to meat. You

are probably conjuring up images of a huge farm back in the 1800’s. Elizabeth of Māyā Farm,

however, has turned her 2.5 acres in Oak Harbor into a one stop shop where she produces honey,

textiles, meat, vegetables, and more.

Despite her youthful appearance and energy, she is no novice when it comes to providing

for her family. Not only has she been a beekeeper for the past fifteen years, but she has also

spent the better part of a decade learning and experimenting with ways to become more self

sufficient. Some of her endeavors include soap making, creating her own animal feed, and

raising a wide range of animals including pigs and geese.

This year she moved to a new location in Oak Harbor where she is putting all her

experience and knowledge to work so that her homesteading system works flawlessly. It was a

long bumpy road filled with mishaps on her “test property” that lead her to developing her

current system that is beyond impressive. She considers all of her past mistakes on the “test

property” to be learning experiences that prepared her for homesteading on a larger scale.

While touring Māyā Farm, I was blown away with the intricacies of her homestead

system and how she prevents waste. For example, her meat rabbits were hopping around in a

tractor (a huge mobile cage) leaving behind their droppings. She moves this tractor around so

that the rabbits have fresh grass to eat while they fertilize her soil. These droppings are then

used to nourish crops that she will be planting or to fertilize already growing plants. Elizabeth

explained to me that rabbit droppings are unique when it comes to manure as they are mild

enough to use immediately and do not need to be aged. Fresh chicken or horse manure will burn

your plants if you attempt to fertilize with it, so it needs to be aged for months before it can be

applied.

Besides her meat rabbits, she also has a beautiful Angora bunny. The Angora is prized

for it’s soft fur that can be spun into high quality, delicate strands of yarn. Elizabeth plucks the

fur from her bunny when it sheds, much like brushing out the fur from a shedding dog. This act

causes no harm to the bunny as the fur is already pushing out of its coat. Afterwards, she

collects the natural fibers and uses her wheel to spin it into thin strands of yarn. In the fall she

uses this yarn to knit warm, silky smooth items for her friends and family. Because Elizabeth is

a master of the lost arts, she also collects plants with which she hand dyes the yarn so she can

knit in different colors.

When she is not busy with her rabbits and making her own clothing, you can find her

working with her bees. She sells her fresh honey and award winning honey baklava from her

yellow booth at the Oak Harbor and Coupeville Farmer’s Markets as well through 3 Sisters

Market. If you visit her booth you can purchase different varieties of honey while she tells you

all about bees. This season she sent honey samples into the Texas A&M research laboratory for

analysis to determine exactly which plants her bees where getting their pollen from. Although

she is pretty skilled when it comes to deciphering the pollen from a taste test, she enjoys the

accuracy that the analysis provides.

Since she does not like wastes, honey is not the only bee bi-product that she uses. Her

bees serve multiple purposes, providing pollination and honey are top of the list but we cannot

leave out their amazing honey combs. She makes candles and lip balm from them but warns that

one batch of homemade lip balm can leave you with a year’s supply. If you want more

information or to stay up to date on future events you with Māyā Farm, you can follow them on

Facebook @homesteadmaya or search for Māyā Farm to find their page. Stay tuned for my next

article to see which local homesteader will be featured!

Photo Credits to Helina Bailey