everyday folkways | August 2026

The Latest: Make Some Music • EF Podcast 03: Wendy Clark on Meat Chickens • Community Highlights

Thanks for being here! Everyday Folkways is a local resource in support of everyday folks turning to skills and activities to meet their everyday needs. Every month, we host a project circle and publish this newsletter, connecting the community with skills, resources, and events.

What’s been going on:

First, we’ve got a new podcast out this month! Keep reading and find it below.

Last month, I announced our new website! It’s all very exciting and fancy, and now it has that sweet, sweet “.org” address. Check it out: everydayfolkways.org
When you do, scroll down to the bottom of that webpage and find out that you can now email me at hello@everydayfolkways.org. What will I think of next?

This “subscribe” window in the middle of a paragraph is what I will think of next.

Eventually I will stop emailing folks directly by hand, so do sign up unless you want to be allowed to just quietly fall off the wagon.

The site is all buttoned up and running and working well. A couple features will get fleshed out in the coming months, but it’s entirely ready for traffic — so please share it around! I’m most excited to receive ideas from the community about local events and resources. There’s a form for those ideas on just about every page on the site including the home page, so you can’t miss it. If you or someone you love knows about something local that supports folks in learning about skills and activities that can help meet everyday needs, I should probably hear from you.

One kind of activity we have in abundance around here are spaces for making music with others. And if you’ve ever been curious, these next two weeks are the time to dip your toes in! These first couple weeks of August in Lewis County are chock full of traditional music festivals. If you’re so inclined, go check them out:

WAMA Pickersfest: NOW July 31st – August 2nd
Mount St. Helens Bluegrass Festival: August 7th – 9th
Centralia Campout: August 8th – 16th

If you’re new to jumping into traditional jam spaces, here’s a really good resource for knowing how to enter those spaces gracefully.

If you’re new to it all, you can absolutely just go to hear the music! If that does make you want to pick up an instrument, there are some year-around spaces to develop your chops. One of my very favorite opportunities is the WAMA slow jam. (That’s the video above!) There aren’t a lot of spaces to make music with others that are as approachable or as welcoming. They’re currently on a summer hiatus, but will start back up in October. If you can’t wait, they have a summer barbecue coming up in August! Check that out and more at their website. But that’s just one of a bunch of things happening locally:

Juice Box Old Time Jam Second Sundays 1-4PM @ The Juice Box, Centralia
WAMA Slow Jam (Oct – May) 2nd Saturdays 1-4PM @ Hope Grange, Winlock
WAMA Jam (Oct – April) 3rd Fridays 6-9PM @ Oakview Grange, Centralia
WOTFA Jam (Oct – June) 1st Fridays 11-1PM @ Steamboat Landing in Toledo
Olympia Old Time Jam 2nd and 4th Thursdays, 7-9PM @ The Bus Stop, Oly

As with everything, if I’m missing a jam space you think I should know about, email me or drop me a line at the website!

OK, that’s been most of this month for me! We of course had our project circle last Saturday, and we had a good ol’ time. As always, you’re welcome to join us on the last Saturday of the month (August 29th) at 10:30 at Nature Nurture Farmacy.

EF Podcast 03 | Wendy Clark on Meat Birds

This time around, we meet Wendy Clark! She’s a chicken farmer, a shepherd, a spinner, a gardener, and a dyer. You can find her at Ewe and I Yarns in downtown Chehalis, teaching classes and hosting workshops, but she spends most of her time working the three acres she lives on with her family in Rochester.

Early in July, I got to join in on her farm’s first “Chicken Holiday” of the season: the day a flock of chickens becomes a freezer full of meat for the year. A couple weeks later, I visited her again with a microphone, and got to meet her second batch of chickens. We talk about what inspired her to go from a suburban kid to a passionate front-yard gardener to a full-on farmer. She walks us through what it takes to get started with chickens and process an entire flock — but has ideas, too, on what to do with that whole chicken you’ve brought home from the store.

Follow-Up Info…

Resources from Wendy!

In Season Farms: the Canadian feed source that Wendy recommended. Set up a feed drop with friends if you want a bunch of affordable, good feed!
We discussed using electronet: it’s a very useful, flexible fencing. Check it out here or here
Flash-Tape is a bright, shimmery ribbon that acts essentially as a scarecrow. Found some on Ebay here, charmingly called “Bird-B-Gone”
A couple of Ball canning books, as discussed: The New Ball Book of Canning and Preserving, and The Ball Blue Book
Learn about Dr. Vandana Shiva — the “Indian scholar, environmental activist, food sovereignty advocate, ecofeminist and anti-globalization author” that Wendy mentioned — at her website: https://www.vandanashiva.com/
Here’s the Community Farmland Trust we talked about, who puts out a regional farm guide. A virtual copy is of the guide available here