SEQUIM – The sweetest sensation, said Brookann Howat, is at hand.
“You run your fingers over the bunch, and your bucket fills up,” murmured the 19-year-old blueberry farmer, standing in her family’s field at their farm at the end of McComb Road near Sequim.
Brookann was 10 when her parents, Dave and Terilee, decided to plant 1.25 acres of blueberries.
These days, she and her sister Janel, 13, gambol among the bushes like deer, nibbling on what they call “God’s candy.”
Teri and Dave moved to Sequim 14 years ago from Olympia, having decided they wanted to raise their family away from the rat race along the Interstate 5 corridor.
This summer marks a milestone for the Howats.
After nine years of growing blueberries without synthetic chemicals, their Dungeness Meadow Farm was certified organic by the state Department of Agriculture on July 13.
The farm is the most recent in the North Olympic Peninsula to be state-certified organic for blueberries.
Nothing about acquiring the certification has been easy – except maybe the planting of the idea in Dave’s head about a decade ago.
