Cloudview has been many things to many people over the last, almost 20 years. It started on a hillside above the farm fields in the Royal slope area of central WA. I always liked to visit this one hillside because I always felt closer to the clouds passing by overhead. It’s hard to imagine here in central WA where we live on a relatively flat basin for landscape, but truly, for me, this was a place where I felt closer to the Clouds and closer to realms of possibilities for what my life could be, and the life for others.
A small group of people, Tyler, Aldonna, and Joe Graves, came to me looking for a place to ‘market garden’ and learn more about caring for the Land and I was able to offer that opportunity. It started as just a small group of people but many more followed over the subsequent years. Cloudview Royal, as I called it, was somewhere between an ‘experiential’ learning farm and an ‘incubator’ farm for young people desiring to learn about farming, gardening, and experience it together in community. Over the years probably hundreds of people worked, interned, and visited Cloudview Royal. Cloudview sold produce to the farmers’ markets of Ellensburg, Wenatchee, Moses Lake, and Ephrata along with starting probably the areas first CSA (community supported agriculture) delivery box service in these areas. As the farm and its outreach grew my son, Jamie Baird, would also market our produce in the greater Seattle area and became involved in the farms and orchards. We reached out to school districts and began delivering produce to schools in the area, primarily the Wenatchee school district.
As the years went by I had an opportunity to start a second Cloudview farm just outside of Ephrata, on Frey Rd. where it is located now. I was born and raised here in Ephrata, and I began wanting to develop and share my love of farming, gardening, plants and trees more locally. A young couple, Josh and Carli Ewart, came to me, with somewhat of the same desire as that original couple that helped initiate Cloudview Royal and we began to develop the farm we now call CLOUDVIEW.
Cloudview has morphed and evolved over the years with the newest iteration more of an education center for children and adults, an event space, and with fields for growing healthy produce and experimenting with agriculture cover crops.
Cloudview has always been about a healthier View of growing plants and growing people with connections to the land that sustains us all. Cloudview remains a ‘work in progress’ with a desire to serve the community through farm – based education and outreach events. I personally am so grateful for all the people who have been part of Cloudview’s history and all of those who have attended our programs, and those of you in our community who have supported this effort. Regardless of where the future of agriculture goes, I will always think it’s important to know about where and how food is grown on whatever scale, and it’s important our children are exposed to farms, fields and food, as well…. The Cloudview farm will always be dedicated to that mission.
