Meet the Rainshadow Team
We wanted to take the time to introduce you to the faces you’re seeing every week and the ones you don’t. Most of the work happens behind the scenes and we are so excited to highlight the amazing people growing your food. From our entire farm team, thank you for being a member!
Heres what we asked our team:
- Whats your favorite vegetable?
- What do you love about Rainshadow?
- How do you recharge?
- If you weren’t a farmer what would you be?
Mel – Events Coordinator
Mel is from the Central Coast in California. She moved to Rainshadow Organics in 2015 to learn about organic agriculture practices and localized food systems. She fell in love with the land and the community and made Sisters her home. At Rainshadow, Mel creates space to hold gatherings centered around culinary creativity and tells the story of Rainshadow to those who visit us. She finds passion in elevating the undervalued (think chicken feet, sunburned vegetables, and other funky foods and byproducts), crafting tasty morsels, and inducting people into the Farmily. Off the farm you can find Mel by the season climbing, skiing, rafting, and reading.
1. What’s your favorite vegetable? It changes with the seasons, but right now—it’s cucumbers. Juicy, crisp, and refreshing.
2. What do you love about Rainshadow? The sense of rhythm and purpose. Every day feels deeply connected to the land, the seasons, and the people we feed. There’s something grounding—and really beautiful—about that.
3. How do you recharge? Sitting down in the shade with a good book and something cold and bubbly to drink after a long.
4. If you weren’t an event coordinator what would you do? I’d be a peony farmer.
Nat – Farm Manager
Nat – Farm Manager
Natalie, originally from Alabama, said to hell with her education and career and drove across the country at the end of 2019. She found herself in Central Oregon, and more importantly, at Rainshadow Organics. Rainshadow very quickly became Nat’s home away from home, and she found her second family in the people, plants, and animals of this place. Farming to Natalie is like butter on a biscuit, it just feels right. At any given time you can find her roaming around the farm, looking for snacks, providing football statistics, and probably washing 1 of 400 bunches of carrots.
What’s your favorite vegetable? Gosh that’s a hard one. I guess I’m going to go with the tomato. Since I try to adhere to the seasonality of this place, tomatoes are probably the thing I miss most when out of season, and the food I celebrate most upon its return. Plus, have you ever tended to a tomato plant? So fun and smells amazing!
What do you love about Rainshadow? I could type an entire novel about all the things I love about this place, but right in this moment, I am wholeheartedly in love with the fact that this place brings so many amazing humans and animals together, often around the fruits of our labors, to soak in each other’s company and laughter. I love that this place has given me a chosen family that is big and beautiful and nurturing.
How do you recharge? Lately, my favorite way to recharge is to eat a big meal full of all the new items we’ve harvested that week, concoct a spritzer with some experimental maceration or simple syrup I’m trialing, and then lay around on the couch reading a book. Am I becoming my dog?
If you weren’t a farmer, what would you do? I think I’m one of those rare breeds that has found a career that is also my passion. I love farming. It’s in my bones. To me, there is no other option I’d rather be doing. How lucky I am…
Rae – Propagation Manager
Well, Hello, my name is Rachel Hansen and I am the Propagation Manager on the farm. Which basically means I am in charge of growing 90% of all the veggies from seed, then keeping them alive to teenage hood. Where in they are transplanted somewhere on the farm and out of my care (kind of). I live a life of many titles, Rae of Sunshine, Salad Seeder, 2 Acre biotch, the girl in the white truck, Dirty Knuckles, but most of all Farmer.
I moved to the farm from Jackson, Wyoming where I brewed beer and did silly things in the mountains. I think that’s one of the reasons why I love the farm, its remoteness, its beauty, its mountain views from any 2nd story farm window.
What’s my favorite vegetable.. strange question. Here’s my strange answer. Sunflower. haha that’s not a vegetable, that’s a flower that has seeds you eat.. So, its pretty much a veggie.
What do you love about Rainshadow? Woah, the list is long for my love of this place. Mountain views aside, we are lead by true geniuses, Sarahlee and the Maria Thun Biodynamic Almanac. But mostly Sarahlee, she’s one bad biddie. It’s easy to love what I do when you watch your boss crush farming with a big ol’ grin on her face and creates a space for my big ol’ grin, too.
How do you recharge? When I’m not farming, I’m sleeping. I mean, like normal hours of sleep. So, when I’m done farming for the day, I eat and then I go to bed. Is that how normal people recharge?
I do enjoy remote camping, unlike remote working, I don’t have Elon’s Wi-Fi or a cool van that is air conditioned. What I do have is a 95 Nissan pickup truck with a roof top tent that has seen some SHIT!!! More shit than any air conditioned van, that’s for sure.
I also do things in cold water, use your imagination, I’m sure I’ve done it.
If I wasn’t a farmer what would I do? hmmm I think I would be a creative. Art stuff runs deep in the Hansen veins. OR maybe a cowgirl.
From your friendly farmer girl,
Rae
Maggie – Animal Manager
Hi, my name is Maggie. I grew up in Portland, Oregon. I found Rainshadow through my friends who moved to Sisters and became full-diet members. I have the honor of being the animal manager at Rainshadow and find joy in caring for the creatures here. We have so many wonderful farm animals but my favorite ones are the women who make me laugh so hard I cry.
When I’m not farming I’m doing Jiu Jitsu, reading or making meals with friends. My favorite vegetable is cabbage.
I love so many things about Rainshadow- it’s pretty amazing how encouraging the whole crew is towards personal growth and education. We all want to see each other thrive.
I recharge by spending time by myself.
If I weren’t farming I’d probably be working in health/fitness.
Isa – Markets Manager
Isabel came to the farm in 2024 fresh out of college, ready to grow food, build community, and find big ways to make Central Oregon a more sustainable place. She started as a farmer and now works as the farm’s Markets Manager, cultivating the vibes in the farm store and at farmers markets. If you see her on the farm, she’s almost always got a camera in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. Isabel’s favorite parts of Rainshadow are harvesting strawberries, the flower garden in full bloom, and farm lunches! When she’s not on the farm you can find her sewing something, riding her bike, or jumping in the river!
My favorite vegetable is a green onion, just so versatile!
My favorite part of Rainshadow is its ability to get all of the best people in one place. I feel such a deep sense of belonging here that I feel so grateful for everyday.
I recharge by being with people! There is nothing that fills me up more than being with my friends and getting into a big river!
If I weren’t a farmer I hope I would be making it big in the movie industry behind a camera!
Tristan – Chef in Residence
Hi my name is Tristan Gentry. I am The Resident Chef at the Farm. I love kayaking and rafting and being riverside in my free time. I started working at Rainshadow in 2023 as an apprentice
farmer and then worked my way up through the positions in the kitchen.
My favorite vegetable is Yod Fah because the entire plant is usable and tasty in any dish!
I love the community at Rainshadow and the drive everyone has to expand both their knowledge and the farm itself.
I recharge by socializing with my friends. I really feel fulfilled when gathering with friends and hanging out together.
If I wasn’t a Chef at Rainshadow I would be a traveling magician.
Allie – Apprentice
Hi I’m Allie 🙂 I found out about rainshadow on instagram and when I found myself in a major life change moment i decided to shoot my shot with the apprenticeship program. Thank god they hired me because geez I’m happy! Everyone here at Rainshadow works so hard and is so fun and easy to be around. I love working outside, learning how to grow food, having my hands in the dirt and being surrounded by such good people. What more could you want? 😉
My favorite vegetable is an artichoke!
What do I love about Rainshadow? What do I not love about rainshadow. 🙂 how many people actually get to work a job where everyone around them loves what they do, feels passionately about the way they do it, and has a good time with it all? Not many. So I feel very lucky to get to witness and be a part of everything going on here. It’s a special place!
I recharge by picking herbs, laying in my hammock, or fermenting something.
If I wasn’t a farmer…I’d be growing medicinal herbs and raising sheep…so basically I’m really happy being a farmer right now. 🙂
Ella – Apprentice
Hello im Ella! I’m just a girl who loves being outside, eating good food, and being surrounded by people I love. I found Rainshadow while scrolling on Craigslist and am stilll shocked, and so grateful, to have found something so cool and real.
My favorite veggie is probably garlic. It’s so wacky and whimsical, and necessary in every dish.
What I love about Rainshadow is the people and the passion they hold for this work and land and community. Everyone here has so much care!!!!! I cry. Being a part of the team has given me hope for the future, a glimpse of the world I want to live in and what it takes to create it.
I recharge with either a nice tromp outside, or by settling in to watch a lil tv.
I really don’t know where I’d be if I wasn’t farming- definetly somewhere with my hands in the dirt. I would love to work with kids though, and hope to do some farm to school work in the future! For now, I’m so excited to have my hands in the dirt at Rainshadow 😉
Marina – Apprentice
I’m Marina Figueroa-Rowen, originally from Southern California. Currently a grad student studying landscape architecture at the University of Washington. This is my third farm job, having worked at Camp Joy Gardens in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and Mountain Bounty Farm in Nevada City, CA. I’m so excited to be here! I’m interested in land management and the creation and maintenance of beautiful, functional species. So glad to be part of the women-owned and operated farm, and to learn more about its closed-loopness.
Spinach! It is so versatile and soo nutritious. I love that I can add it to so many different kinds of dishes.
The diversity of the farm, and how all of the different operations feed into and support each other.
I recharge by jumping in the farm’s pond! So luxurious!
If I wasn’t farming I would probably be working landscaping or in restaurant (have worked in soo many restaurants which I love!)
Amanda – Farm Crew
This is my third summer at Rainshadow and it just keeps on getting better! I was in nursing school this past winter and, let me just say, I am absolutely delighted to be out of school and back in the field for awhile.
My favorite vegetable is probably kohlrabi because its the only one in the field that looks like it would feel right at home on an alien planet.
One of the main things I love Rainshadow is that it’s a full diet farm. You can easily get 100% of your food from here. Even in the winter!
Some evenings after work I like to recharge by hanging out with the farm animals. I have a few favorites. Sunny the baby dairy cow is the sweetest and the turkeys are the best at conversation, but Bitty the mini donkey holds a special place in my heart.
If I wasn’t a farmer and wasn’t a nurse, I’d make a killing selling harvest knives to farmers like me who lose theirs every 20 seconds give or take.
