Gibbins farm teaches youth about life

MOSES LAKE - The moment one spots the little creek burbling by the front of the Gibbons family farm, it's clear they've stumbled upon a slice of serenity.

Keeping the farm serene is hard work, though. Behind the farm house, Colleen Gibbins nods her head toward Jesse-Lee Stangland as she sits on her knees pulling weeds.

"Jesse is my unofficial granddaughter," she says. "I'm smitten in love with this child and she's just wonderful."

Jesse is one of many children Gibbins has taken under her wing at the farm, teaching them everything from farming, to cooking, to selling. They earn money at the Ephrata Farmer's Market to save for college and learn skills to serve them as they grow older.

"I've raised kids all my life and so they just kind of found me," Gibbins says.

Raspberries, asparagus, blackberries, garlic and apricots are just some of the produce grown at the farm. Gibbins teaches the kids how to plant, grow and harvest the crops.

They also learn the business side of farming by selling goods at the farmer's market, including artisan bread, scones and jams under the "Cocoa C Confections" label. They also offer seven flavors of gluten-free granola bars.

"In the summer there's going to just be everything," Gibbins says. "We don't grow corn out here at all, it just takes up too much room, it's too time consuming. But we grow pumpkins, squash, carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, peppers."

Gibbins teaches the kids to use a commercial kitchen at the Masonic temple in Ephrata. They learn to make a variety of vegetable breads: sweet potato bread, beet cake, applesauce spice cake and kale cake.

Gibbins keeps her distance at the farmer's market, letting her pupils work with customers. They earn money from the sales they can save for college, she said. Stangland, who currently works seasonally for National Foods, plans to attend Big Bend Community College in the fall to study agriculture, she said.

"I have not too much to do with it," Gibbins says of the farmer's market. "They bake, they sell, they save their money ...They've learned how to do customer service."

Stangland recalls a woman that bought some of Cocoa C's signature jalapeno jam.

"When you make jalapeno jam you have to put vinegar in it, but she didn't read the ingredients on the top of the label and so when she ate it, it didn't taste exactly how she thought it would," she says.

She solved the problem by allowing the woman to take a more traditional flavor instead, like blackberry or strawberry.

Gibbins' grandson, Skyler Kimball, who lives in Seattle, first set foot on the farm as a child when he visited with his mom. They visited every summer.

He enjoys the slower pace country life affords and has aspirations of taking over the farm somebody, he says. He has a business degree from Concordia University in Portland and thinks he could mass-market a product made on the farm, such as garlic powder.

He also envisions bringing animals onto the farm and making it the setting of special events like graduation parties or weddings.

For information on purchasing food from Cocoa C Confections, call Gibbins at 509-754-4232.