washington

Located near Skykomish, Wash., the Iron Goat Trail occupies the upper and lower sections of an abandoned Great Northern Railway grade.  Hikers enjoy the trail today, thanks to the vision of Volunteers for Outdoor Washington and the Forest Service.

About 10,000 people a year walk the historic trail which wanders through nine miles of lovely forests of ferns, alders, and evergreens and is barrier-free for nearly two-thirds of its length.

Bald eagle counting season is in full swing for the U.S. Forest Service, specifically in California and Washington.

A Northwest nonprofit organization has been using Conservation Innovation Grants it was awarded in 2010 and 2011 by USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to expand efforts to improve the health of the local salmon population.

During the holiday season, food banks across America experience a spike in demand and this year is no different. Today that seasonal demand is also bolstered by a significant rise in client numbers because of the current U.S. economy.

One of those food distributors seeing an uptick in demand is the Capital Area Food Bank, a food hub with more than 700 partners that distribute commodities to locations in the District of Columbia, northern Virginia and parts of Maryland.

Students from Paul Public Charter School in Washington, D.C., found out the fastest way to find a forest within their urban community: walk outside.

For disabled military veterans who used to be sportsmen but thought they no longer had the same access to the great outdoors, the 2,000-acre Barker Ranch in West Richland, Wash. provides the opportunity to rekindle that experience.

It was a chilly but beautiful Friday when the Food Safety Discovery Zone joined vendors at the USDA Harvest Festival to celebrate the end of a successful growing season for the People’s Garden. Even among the jazz band, petting zoo, and the smell of kettle corn in the air, the giant yellow Food Safety Discovery Zone was impossible to miss. Designed to make food safety education fun for kids, the 40-foot long mobile exhibit attracted masses of visitors of all ages who wanted to know how to safely prepare the food they were buying at the festival or for the upcoming holidays.

When the 65-foot Californian white fir from the Stanislaus National Forest arrives at the Capitol at the start of the holiday season, it will arrive with several thousand of its friends from California.

The Californian friends will be ornaments, as many as 5,000, that will decorate the Capitol Christmas Tree. Each ornament, which will stand 9 to 12 inches tall and be built strongly enough to endure Washington D.C.’s winter, will be handmade by residents of the Golden State.

In business, location means everything. Not only do businesses need to understand where their customer base exists, but they also need to know where their competitors are.  The same applies to farmers markets: they must understand their customers and competition to determine the potential for profit. The location of a farmers market can influence a vendor or customer’s decision to support a particular market.

Let’s get together to enjoy the fruits of our labor! USDA's People’s Garden is sponsoring a Harvest Festival on Friday, October 28 from 10 am to 2 pm at USDA Farmers Market, on the northeast lawn of Jamie L. Whitten Building and along 12th Street in-between Jefferson Drive and Independence Avenue, SW. The festival marks the culmination of a very productive growing season for the People's Garden at USDA Headquarters.