LINDA JOY CORDTZ
Nature as Creative Partner

My guest is orchardist and poet Linda Joy Cordtz. In this episode, we’re talking about farming as meditation, poetry, and the transformational nature of living close to the earth. We’re also reading excerpts from her book entitled “Walking in the Orchard”. Linda says, “Your partner is nature. She will always show you the most unbelievable bounty, and then whisk everything away. And its equal. It just is.”

Our conversation happened during Samhain season of 2020.

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Linda Cordtz (she/her) was formed by the Wyoming landscape. Her parents owned and operated a small cafe in Cheyenne. She started life in a metal high chair in the middle of the cafe kitchen, listening to music of the 1950's. To this day her passion is still rooted in homegrown food prepared simply and music of all kinds.

Her family moved to Boise, Idaho in the late 50's. It was a small rural town then, great to grow up in, a desert landscape with its wide, windy vistas that smelled of sagebrush with the changing seasons. But like all young adults she couldn't wait to leave. Spending 5 years in California, she returned to live in McCall, Idaho for 25 years, where she married Robert. In that time she worked in over 20 different trades.

After being empty nesters, Linda and her partner Robert relocated and began farming in the Eagle Valley of Eastern Oregon. They have transformed a five acre conventional farm into a wildly rich organic orchard and are heading into their 16th harvest.

She says, “Farming has brought me to the realization that I am part of a vast living environment, that the web of life's bounty holds the key to our future. If you grow food, you grow life and in understanding this we find where we belong, nestled between trees, plants, insects and animals. Humble by the beauty, formed by the work, into a grateful human being.”

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