Story Photos
 From acreas of fragrant green mint plants inthe Clatskanie area, Mike Seely and his family turn out gallons of clear, top quality mint oil. Bill Wagner / The Daily News
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Clatskanie family works together harvesting 450 acres of mint
Monday, September 8, 2008 11:25 AM PDT
By Brenda Blevins McCorkle
Printable version
E-mail this articlePast the minefield-esque pitted roads and fields swarming with hundreds of goats, the Seeley Mint Farm in Clatskanie is easy to find.
All it takes is a good nose and the willingness to suck in a big whiff of the Columbia River air.
During the summertime, the Seeley family — including parents Mike and Candy and children Caryn, Warren, Robyn and Alayna — busily cut, chop and process their 450 acres of mint into 25,000 pounds of pure peppermint oil and thousands of tiny bags of tea leaf to soothe the shattered nerves and tummies of community members.
During the harvest, the air fills with the mellow, slightly grainy odor of mint as it is steamed in yellow vats the size of camp trailers.
Distilled drops of oil bubble to the surface, like crystal-clear cream rising to the top of large milk cans. Steam wafts through the air, clearing the sinuses.
Like its end product, the process is decidedly invigorating.
The Seeleys are third-generation mint farmers, hailing from the Battle Ground area. Mike graduated from Washington State University and Candy from Portland State. Both are electrical engineers who, at the beginning of their days together, worked in high-tech industries that had little to do with tilling the soil.
"She (Candy) worked for Intel and also for PGE, as well as the PUD here," Mike said. "I worked for Boeing and PGE part of the time."
Gradually, they decided the money was nice, but they didn’t like how they lived.
"It came a point where we said, ‘Hey, you have to decide on money or lifestyle,’" Mike said, then added, chuckling. "We chose the lifestyle over money, because farming isn’t even close to being engineering dollars."
As the price of both diesel and the fertilizer shoots through the roof, the cost of doing business for the small family farm rises every year.
"Things have to change, where’s it all going to end?" he said. "That’s the million dollar question."
When he gazes out over their acres of mint and listens to the screech of the bald and golden eagles overhead, Mike said he and his wife made the right decision when they chose to return to their roots.
All they need to do is look at their children, toiling side-by-side.
"The nice thing about what we’re doing is that we’re all working together for the common goal," Candy said. "We have to work together to make it successful. We have a lot of fun, all of us."
Family business personified
On this farm, there are no lazy days of summer. Each child has a job to perform, many of which require mastering a particular piece of heavy machinery.
"Each of our kids is responsible for the equipment they are running," Mike said. "They have to maintain the oil levels, oil the chains, grease them, service them. They know if there is something going wrong. They are very responsible."
Warren, who is nearly 16, is basically in charge out in the fields. He’s the go-to guy who can troubleshoot each piece of equipment, while his sisters either run the heavy machinery or performs other tasks, such as digging drainage ditches.
When the mint as at its full growth, the teens use a swather to cut it to the ground.
On a recent harvest day, Alayna, 12, was in charge of the massive cutting machine, which runs by GPS to conserve expensive fuel.
Although she enjoys running the machine that comes equipped with air conditioning, Alayna said the best part of working in the fields doesn’t involve mint at all.
"It gets me away from my sisters," she said, not even cracking a smile.
"She’s our best swather driver, actually," Mike chimed in.
On the other side of the fields, the eldest daughter, Caryn, 17, performed her favorite job — running the chopper.
Craning her neck backward while running the machine forward, she watched as the mowed mint sucked up into the blades. From there, the chopped greens were conveyed up a chute and into a big vat.
"Typically we want to be two or three days ahead with the mowing. We want it to be dry," Mike said.
Not too dry, though, so as the mint is chopped, a fine spray coats it to make sure that the delicate leaves don’t shatter.
The metal bins filled up fast, and Warren made a constant route between the field and the distiller area of the farm.
Driving a semi-truck, he dropped off empty vats, picked up full ones, deposited them at the distillery and emptied them of their well-cooked contents before starting the process all over again.
Mike and Candy are no slouches in the chain of progress either. With massive amounts of pressure running through the boiler that runs the distiller, their eyes are on making sure that nothing causes any accidents.
Each time Warren dropped off a vat, steam lines hooked up to it rush in, pouring out 350-degree vapor into the bottoms of the mint tubs.
As the mint cooks, the oil also turns into steam and is carried off through gooseneck pipes into a tall metal container akin to a grain silo.
"There we have cooling water that we pump around that, and we condense that into a mixture of oil and water," Mike said.
That combination runs into receiving cans that look like giant coffee cans with narrow tops.
The oil flows to the top, leaving behind its watery counterpart. The Seeleys skim it off and siphon it into 55 gallon drums.
Because the oil is pure, it goes a long way, Mike noted.
"A pint of oil is a pound the world over, and a pint of it flavors 45,000 sticks of chewing gum," he said.
This year, the family expects to distill roughly 25,000 pounds of mint oil from their harvest, much of which will be sold to companies such as Colgate, for use in toothpaste and other products.
Even the remains of the cooked mint have a purpose, Mike said. They dump the leftovers into piles and later use the remnants as fertilizer for the fields.
"It’s high in phosphorous, pot ash and nitrogen. We put it back on the field, and that cuts our fertilizer costs down," Mike said. "Plus it’s nice because it’s a sterilized product. We don’t have to worry about weeds. We reuse 100 percent of it."
Branching out
Even though the Seeleys said they’re the last of their kind in this area, at one time mint was a huge source of income for the local community.
"In the 20s, 30s and 40s, this whole area, including Longview, was the largest mint area in the world," Mike said.
Even up until the mid-80s, he said, there were still some mint farms in the area.
"Now, they’re all gone. We’re the last of them here," he said.
As the pressure to sell their crops for cheaper prices to compete with India and China bears down on the Seeleys, they have diversified their products.
They have created their own lines of items such as tea, canine flea control liquid and petite bottles of pure mint oil.
Local businesses carry their tea, marketed under the Seeley Family Farm and Sweet Oregon Mint labels, and The Dog Zone and local farm supply stores offer the flea liquid.
The science of the flea control, Candy said, is based on their own experience with their collies. A chemical in the mint disrupts the flea’s neurotransmitters, "so the flea’s brain doesn’t talk to the rest of the flea, and it dies," Candy said.
The oil can be used in baking, Candy said. Unlike an extract, the pure oil requires only a drop or two in a recipe. It is usually measured with a toothpick.
"It’s great with hot chocolate or in ice cream," Mike said.
Plus it helps to open clogged sinuses, Mike said.
"When I was a kid, and my three brothers and one sister would get a cold, we would use peppermint oil and put a little bit in a pot of boiling water beside the bed, and that would clear our sinuses up," he said.
Some people who buy the oil use it for stomach troubles, rub it on bruises or on their temples to help control headaches.
The oil has also found its way into milkshakes at Mace’s Drive-In in Cathlamet and tickles the tongue in Moonstruck Chocolate and Missionary Chocolates.
Mint forever?
This year, three of the four Seeley children are being schooled in Clatskanie rather than their usual homeschooling routine. Only Warren will still be homeschooled, and plans to attend Lower Columbia College as well.
Caryn and Alayna share the dream of becoming veterinarians, Warren plans to study engineering and return to the farm, and Robyn, 14, would like to become a lawyer.
All of these professions can help the family farm one way or another, Mike said.
For now, though, the family concentrates on simply staying vital in the changing economy and marketplace.
New technologies developed by their children will streamline the farm and make it leaner and meaner, Mike said.
"Warren wants to build a drone plane with a camera on it so we can use infrared technology," Mike said. The camera would measure light to tell where the field needs water, where the weeds and other pests are located and other trouble areas, Warren said.
"They are also going to build a new sprayer using infrared technology that will only spray where the weeds are," Mike said. "
These projects bond the four children.
"They all work together despite their differences," Mike said. "It’s really geared toward them down the road. It’s the four of them, if they so choose, to come back to the farm and carry it on for another generation."
Perhaps the future will bring with it even more amazing things for the farm, Mike said.
"They’re got enthusiasm and new directions they would like to carry it," he said. "They have to pursue it within their own dreams."
GET SOME MINT
Seeley Family Farms tea and pure mint oil are sold in Longview at Guse’s, in Clatskanie at Flowers and Fluff, Humps restaurant and Picket Fences, in Westport, Ore., at The Berry Path restaurant, in Sauvie Island, Ore., at Kruger’s Farm Stand, in St. Helens, Ore., at The Lofted Lair, and in Battle Ground, Wash., at Four C’s Produce.
Flea control oil is also sold at The Dog Zone in Longview, Johnson’s Feed in Clatskanie and Wilco Farm Stores in Battle Ground.
greenbean wrote on Sep 7, 2008 10:01 PM:
julietorell wrote on Sep 8, 2008 1:01 PM:
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