Rachel Lohof Larsen leads and manages EOV work with UVE in eastern Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Montana and South Dakota. She also supports the EOV crew in western Washington, Oregon, Nevada and across California. She keeps a steady pace, and is a model of patience, integrity and consistency. Her EOV season is no small feat, given the vast country she serves. At the close of the EOV season this year, she took the time to share with the UVE crew some facts, highlights and reflections from the season. We found it so moving that we wanted to share it with our broader community. 

It was hard to admit that I didn’t know what to do. It was hard to acknowledge what was happening at UVE. This wasn’t supposed to happen to us. We had a shared Holistic Context, a mission and vision that we loved as a group of women in business together. If anyone could figure this out, it was us. 

And yet. Here we were walking on eggshells around each other, in meetings with tension and uncomfortable silences, emotional eruptions, empty seats, and indecision. How did we get here? How did this happen to us? All of us wanted out of “the yuck,” but we didn’t know how or what to do.

When I asked Cameron King if I could write this piece for UVE’s website and newsletter, I explained to him that it is not an in-depth profile piece, but rather a snapshot of where he and his family are in their Holistic Management journey.

Bogdan is also the director of Ukraine’s first ecostation Hlyboky Balyky, 60 miles south from Kyiv near Rzishiv. which is a pilot and flagship of the Ukrainian Ecostation Network. He is a traveling blacksmith, pacifist, permaculturist, university-trained ecologist , boundary walker, and most recently a holistic manager.

Dora Cohen is a maker. She thrives on creating tangible things that can be joyfully consumed, gifted, and shared. Five days after meeting Dora during UVE’s in-person Holistic Land and Financial Planning course, I had the opportunity to taste the literal fruits of her making for the first time. She popped the cork on her plum wine for a few of us who were up far too late, chatting about life on the eve of the last night of the course.

As we ventured through the last leg of our autumn road trip a few years back, we made our way to the heart of Nevada. Amidst the rugged landscapes and sun-kissed plains, we met Joe Frey, one of UVE's land stewards using Ecological Outcome Verification (EOV), to, as he said, "get off the drugs of industrial agriculture." His place in Fallon, Nevada, was on our way home, and we thought it would be fun to meet someone in person, on their land, instead of Zoom, which we’d been on for what felt like an eternity. This is Joe’s story of stopping the use of industrial agriculture inputs while increasing profits.