It's October. Time to make the annual trip to Whidbey Island to load up on pumpkins to carve and squash to bake. Time to visit Sherman's Pioneer Farm one last time.
Owned by Dale and Liz Sherman, the historic farm sits in the middle of Ebey's Prairie, between the town of Coupeville ("The Heart of Ebey's Landing National Historic Reserve"), and Ebey's Landing Beach. Dale's collection of vintage farm equipment marks the entrance to the farm. Surrounded by red barns, an old water tower, and gnarly apple trees, visitors can choose that perfect pumpkin from the hundreds displayed on hay bales, or hop aboard the vintage trolley, pulled by "Tonka", Dale's bright yellow tractor, and take a ride across the prairie to the pumpkin patch.
For many families, a trip to Dale and Liz Sherman's Pioneer Farm is a Halloween tradition. It's a ferry ride to an island, a step back in time. Year-after-year, families return to Pioneer Farm's pumpkin patch. What makes this farm a favorite, an autumn "must do" trip? Like most Northwest pumpkin farms, Pioneer Farm has a maze, lots of pumpkins and squash, and a produce stand. Could it be the popularity of Shannon's "Fireball Whiskey" pumpkin pie?
The answer is easy. Pioneer Farm is much more than pumpkins and squash. It's a working farm and home. It is family, community, tradition, history. It's the warmth and friendliness of its owners, their love of the land, and commitment to provide an authentic farm experience, while farming hundreds of acres, planting barley, squash, and pumpkins, and raising cows, children, and grandchildren.
At first sight, Dale may look gruff, but behind that beard is a man devoted to working the land and preserving the family farm, in a time when big conglomerates are pushing the small farmer out of the communities where they farm. Both Liz and Dale are eager to make your pumpkin outing a memory-making experience and to provide a first-hand look at a working, family farm.
Amidst the displays of pumpkins-orange, white, huge, and tiny- there are boxes and crates filled with a variety of squash-buttercup, butternut, and Danish. But the best of all is the giant Sugar Hubbard- the signature product of Pioneer Farm for over 70 years!
Dale's father, Edwin Sherman, bought Pioneer Farm in the 1950's, from Bill and Eddie Tufts, renaming it Sherman's Pioneer Farm. Like most of the farmers on the island, he raised turkeys (as many as 200,000 a year), wheat and Blue Hubbard squash. Storing the squash was a problem. It didn't "keep" well. Working with an agriculture scientist at WSU, Edwin received the seeds of a new strain of squash, a cross between the Blue Hubbard and the Sweetmeat, named the Sugar Hubbard. Storage problem solved, he planted and harvested over one-hundred acres of squash for years; however, much of the crop was not viable for commercial sale because the buyers wanted a blemish-free product- difficult to supply when the island deer love the taste of squash.
Unlike his father, Dale, who returned to the farm in 1980, plants only twenty acres of Sugar Hubbard seed, harvests and stores 150 tons and processes 90 tons for commercial sales. While Dale focuses on the planting and harvest of the squash, Liz works tirelessly to develop a market for their product. In 2000, Safeway was their main buyer, eager to purchase whole squash. By 2006, they refused to handle uncut squash, wanting "wedges" instead. Easy to understand, considering the size of the squash. That didn't last long. Eventually, they stopped buying the farm's product and Liz began researching alternate ways to package the squash. Dale built a cutting room, purchased special cutting machines and now sells the squash in one-inch cubes, sealed in a plastic container. The cutting room is a busy place. With four employees cutting squash, they process one hundred pounds an hour and make deliveries twice a week.
Except for the month of October, it is a rare day when you won't see Dale's blue, Ford tractor in one of the fields. Several years ago, Dale added a special tractor to the farm. Come pumpkin time, Dale parks his blue tractor, climbs aboard his bright yellow "Tonka", hooks up the vintage trolley, and begins making hundreds of trips back and forth from the pumpkin patch to the farm. While Dale maneuvers the trolley across the prairie, you'll find Liz, along with family members, running the produce stand, sharing squash recipes, explaining the difference between Sweetmeat and Sugar Hubbard squash, selling cookies and pies, and helping kids pull red wagons heavy with pumpkins. A long-time teacher in the Coupeville school district, Liz's creativity, and love of teaching is evident in most aspects of the farm. Dale, content to be on his tractor, leaves much of the business part of farming up to Liz. It's Liz who launched the farm in its new direction, researching markets and encouraging Dale to leave the business end of farming up to her.
Dale's world is one seen and heard from the seat of a tractor. The raucous cry of gulls in search of worms in the freshly plowed, rich brown prairie soil. The view of the Olympic mountains, snow-covered in winter, their craggy peaks rising above the Salish Sea. The roar of the waves crashing on Ebey's Landing beach during a storm. A prairie patchwork of green and gold...alfalfa, barley, beets, squash and pumpkins. Dale's life is best described as a life spent on a tractor 24/7, his love of farming exceeded only by time spent in his recliner, his favorite cat curled up on his lap.
All of this is about to end. After years of plowing, planting and harvesting, Liz says it's time to retire. Those who know both Dale and Lizzie well, can't help but wonder what Dale will do when he's not sitting on the seat of a tractor, and Liz isn't planning the next new approach to marketing. Is there a life after farming or is farming just that... a complete way of life? The way to mark the change of seasons?
How will the two of them spend their time? What does their future look like? What will they miss when no longer farming? Liz loves to travel and given a choice would live out of a suitcase for weeks at a time. There's hardly any place she wouldn't go. Dale? He's comfortable at home on the farm. Asked what he'll miss the most when he retires, Dale's answer came without hesitation. He'll miss "haying", and the time spent alone on the tractor cutting acres of grass ready to bale for winter feed, his only company the eagles hunting rodents rousted from their grassy hiding place. What won't he miss? "Working in the squash fields. It's dusty and dirty work."
For the opportunity to personally ask Dale and Liz about their plans for the future and pay tribute to the many contributions they've made to the Coupeville community, come to the celebration at the Coupeville Town Park Pavilion, November 6, 2021, at 2:00 PM, Join your friends and neighbors for cake, music and the opportunity to wish them well in the their new venture, whatever it may be.
Many of us will miss seeing the blue tractor out on the Prairie and stopping by the farm's produce stand to pick up a Hubbard squash. But life goes on, and Dale and Liz still have a lot of living to do. After years spent striving to continue the legacy of farming on the prairie and to preserve the small, family farm life-style, they both agree, "We've done our part". Thank you Dale and Liz Sherman.
