POLYFACE OREGON EVOLUTION

A state of many faces: Polyface Oregon

(Inspired by Joel Salatin and Polyface Farms in Virginia)

1. Change your point of view.

Is Oregon all about timber, fishing, and farming? Or a high tech mecca on the leading edge of Asian commerce?

On one hand it’s a thriving environment for Airbnb, Uber, and OfferUp, start ups valued in the billions of dollars.

That’s one face you can’t ignore.

On the other hand it’s handcrafted, locally sourced, renewable, reusable, and incredibly abundant. Find it, fix it, and float the idea for the next big thing.

If hops, hemp, and wine grape horticulture are your thing, you’ve found the right place. You can still fish, farm, and chop wood if it’s not.

What’s your Oregon face?

2. Move your fences.

Expanding your boundaries isn’t about no boundaries. We have doors that open and close when we open and close them, not when someone else decides to open or close them.

Fences work the same way, just don’t get stuck with the idea of permanence.

Moving your fence creates new space, more space, sometimes less.

What’s getting you down? Your job, your house, your town? None of those are permanent.

If you stick around too long in one place you become invisible.

No matter what you wish for, you’ll never be invisible, but not everyone agrees on what they see.

Make Oregon the place you dream of and you won’t be alone.

3. Strategic disturbance is the key.

Nature carves Oregon up every year, though you may not see the evidence.

What is clear is the beaches change season to season, the mountains grow white then not so white.

With an urban growth boundary changing to make room for new residents, farm land gives way to housing tracts.

Instead of crops you’ll see yards and flower gardens thriving in the soil, kids in playgrounds and parks.

Less land for food means shipping in the eats from somewhere else. Boiling, or microwaving, vegetables in plastic bags isn’t everyone’s first choice.

Plan accordingly.

4. See a bigger picture.

Polyface Oregon is on the edge of the North American continent.

That doesn’t mean it’s about to fall into the ocean, but the Big Quake might make BoomerPdx wrong.

The Pacific Northwest is the regional name, but Northwest works for anyone who’s looked at a map. They know it’s not the Atlantic Northwest right away.

Idaho is the only state left out when someone describes the American West Coast? Makes sense if there’s no coastline.

But the truth is Washington and Oregon also get left out. Why? Cold beaches.

California is the only state in mind when the words west coast come into a conversation, unless you live in Oregon or Washington.

Polyface Oregon beaches might be cold, but you don’t need to carry a gas can in your trunk to wash beach tar off your feet after a visit.

Oregon may not be the center of the known universe unless you listen to SE Portland raves. Then it is.

5. Directed shame, constructive bullying.

The Oregon of the future is Polyface Oregon. It’s also Polyface America, the nation of many faces.

You can see change emerge when you open your door and do something different.

Recycle more, throw away less, reuse and re-imagine the ordinary.

The person who saw eternity in a grain of sand took time to look hard at that grain of sand.

When you see others screwing things up, be helpful at first. No matter what you do or say, they won’t see you as helpful.

By your example they might see a new approach. When that happens, give them a push.

Push too much and you’ll need to make new friends. Too much helpful shaming and bullying without the mean spirit of bullying won’t work for Old Oregon.

Polyface Oregon may not take to it either, but that’s the beauty of a state with many faces.

Use your tact.