Saturn’s Return is a place to gather in abundance and return to our selves. We believe agriculture and community, philosophy and hard work, economy and ecology, pleasure and purpose are all best intertwined.
Eating with the fullest pleasure—pleasure, that is, that does not depend on ignorance—is perhaps the profoundest enactment of our connection with the world. In this pleasure we experience and celebrate our dependence and our gratitude, for we are living from mystery, from creatures we did not make and powers we cannot comprehend.
"The Pleasures of Eating" — Wendell Berry
Emma & Wiley first fell in love with great ingredients and the farmers who grow it. During the pandemic, we left the city, changed career trajectories, travelled the country, visited and studied with countless farmers, and committed to the San Juan Islands before founding Saturn's Return.
We believe others will step into a richer relationship with life and into work that supports a sustainable economy through similar doorways we did: through the first, astounding bite of a novel fruit; a child plucking her first strawberry; a breathtaking bouquet of flowers.
Over the coming decade, we’ll plant over two thousand berries, fruit trees, nut trees, perennial flowers and herbs. Between the trees, our focus will be grazing sheep. Plus, vegetable gardens, laying hens, and honey bees to supply our busy kitchen. Lots of drying, canning, fermenting, and preserving of peak-season flavor.
But right now, 2026 will be our fourth year in business, and we feel like we're just beginning. Our current guests will see a small orchard, flower field, vegetable fields, and lots of open grassy pasture and enjoy the fruits (well, mostly the flowers, eggs, and vegetables) of a small farm and the ambitious inklings of a larger one.
2022-2032 Planting Plans:
Saturn completes its cycle around the Sun every 29.5 years, returning to the same position it was at your birth. Many wisdom traditions say that in the year preceding your Saturn return, your soul gets antsy and yearns to reconcile any misalignment between your current path and your essence. It can be a time of great turbulence but also of great discovery, healing, and action. We committed to this land and project during our own Saturn returns and hope to play host to countless others as they return to their source.
We can't wait to meet you!
— Emma & Wiley
All photos by Chase Anderson and Kathryn Wheeler. And the photo below is from the International Space Station:
