A Soil's Tale

A wall of water one hundred meters tall, moving at one hundred miles an hour - One of the biggest natural events in the history of the North American continent, the Missoula Floods, is where the soil in this area originated, fifteen thousand years ago!  When an ice-dam on the Clark Fork River broke it released a torrent of water which scoured the plains of Washington and made a lake out of the Willamette Valley.  This lake eventually drained and left the Willamette River and all of the well-sorted, fertile soil stolen from Washinton.  The well-known river has not always been where it is now, however.  It is continually shifting and traveling west, leaving soil in it's wake that is ideal for agriculture, the most fertile in Oregon.  The Organic Farm's Chehalis Silty Clay Loam, located just a few hundred yards east of the Willamette River is one such soil.  The river having moved on, it has been given time to sit, to age, to sort itself into horizons, and most importantly to become a habitat for soil organisms that make it possible to do agriculture there.