Late July was vacation time for Wild Wisdom Wool as we headed out to Prairie City to check out the Prairie City Fiber Fest. I know there is an old adage that you should build a life that you don’t need a vacation from, but we built a life around chores and honestly, taking a break from cleaning stalls is refreshing. Our vacations as of late have involved all but one member of the family so someone is always home keeping the sheep and princess goats happy.

We thorough enjoyed our stay at the Prairie Hotel and eating the Oxbow Dinner House and Pizza Company. The Prairie City Fiber Fest was great fun, but we heard a persistent rumor that it was the last year for the small fiber fest. This made me melancholy and sad in inexplicable ways. But the rest of the vacation was quite lovely with off-grid camping in Granite. That is, except the time we got lost in the Umatilla National Forest on a random spur road trying to find Greenhorn using a motorcycle map. As it turns out, the map was wrong, and we somehow failed to bring the USFS map. Personally, I love exploring in areas Google maps don’t work in but I strongly suggest having a good paper map if you choose to do so.

picture oxbow dinner house old fashioned living — Stepping back in time at the Oxbow Dinner House and Pizza Company in Prairie City. Highly recommended.

The two years(ish) break from this blog was not only a time of great changes on the farm leading to a name change, but also deep thoughts about algorithms, Instagram, and more recently AI. As I mentioned in Field Notes from a Small Sheep Farm: Mid-July, summer is often a time when the existential part of my brain begins to wonder. On our vacation we went past Prairie City to some of the more remote areas of Oregon to true ghost towns. Granite, Oregon had a population of 448 during the heyday of the gold rush and has dipped as low as 3 although the population is currently listed as 38. Granite forces you to be off grid as there is no chance of cell service (or any other services for that matter). I love this part of Oregon because it gives you space to think and just to be. Off-grid camping at the best.

ghost town granite oregon off grid camping

Although I have a personal Instagram account, I have never felt at home there. Ig is too big, too flashy, and too fake. I have never been a fan of Facebook so that’s a hard pass. The algorithms and AI are making it very hard to be seen as a small farm blog that doesn’t use bells, whistles, or quick moving videos. And then I saw a note on Substack talking about how you aren’t building a brand, but you are building a refuge instead and that hit home, especially after an off-grid week. If you are that Substack author, please let me know because I didn’t write down your name. AI isn’t wild. AI isn’t human and the importance of human created content is increasing by the day.

Wild Wisdom Wool and the Tails from the Farm blog are, and always will be, 100% human created content. I am no longer going to write to grow my blog or grow my business. I will be writing words because I have words in me to write and sharing pictures because showing wild, unedited, non AI pictures is important. Wild Wisdom is indeed at the heart of Wild Wisdom Wool. Nature connected humans are still out there if you know where to look and Wild Wisdom Wool is here to celebrate and document it all, just in our own quiet corner of the internet way. So if you find refuge in these words and pictures, welcome.

This current week is being spent preparing for the Polk County Fair next week, so I am sure to have some good farm field notes next time.