Friendly Haven Rise

Joseph and Jaqueline have been here almost ten years, slowly establishing gardens (they have almost enough to live on, now), raising chickens (about forty, now), and now turkeys (12), and, soon, a milk cow. They also have bees. Much of the cultivation at Friendly Haven is to provide flowers for the bees.

Joseph also does horse body work, helping those high-strung suburban equines to adjust to the stresses of the life-style. Battle Ground, the nearest urban center at a little over sixteen thousand souls, is a rapidly growing suburb of Portland, Oregon, about forty miles (easy commuting distance) away. Folks are looking to get away from the "city," to find the "country" life style, where they can have their horses, and their shopping malls too. And in Battle Ground there is still some room. But horses get stressed too, and unfortunately they can't get away.

In addition to caring for the farm's animals, Jaqueline does some trading on eBay. It is the wave of the future, the integration of toil and technology, of dirt and the digital, of organics and the information age, all taking place at the interface of the urban and the rural...does that make it the "subural"?