OUR BEGINNINGS

We imagine goats and sheep and draft teams of working animals all being shepherded by teams of veterans. The work is regenerative forest management, giving the forest a fighting chance against these destructive fires that keep burning the west coast every year. Doing ladder fuel treatments and removing excess fuel from the forest floor to protect the forest canopies from destructive crown fires. Turning the hazard wildfire fuel into soil amendments like biochar and mushroom compost.

This work is not only regenerative to the forests and the soil, but it's regenerative to the souls of the people doing the work, and we all know people who would thrive doing hard work like this. We imagine this happening in all state and national forests.

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Article from The Chronicle, click image to read the article with the interview of Brian and Jake.

Jake flew over the Eagle Creek Fire outside of PDX, it was caused by a kid lighting off Fireworks. Since this day in 2017 he's been convinced that we need a military level response to these forest fires being made worse because of Climate Change. So we have Rake Force.

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Mike DeSa had Jake Dailey on the Vets In Ag Podcast. Check it out!

Jake Dailey had the pleasure of being interviewed by Baruch Zeichner for his podcast Paradigms a couple of years ago.  Check it out!

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THE RAKERS

Jake

Jake Founder/CEO Jake Dailey is an Iraq War Veteran , he has been learning and practicing regenerative agroforestry for over 5 years. Jake, and his wife Valerie and their son Wilder live in Olympia Washington where they are killing their lawn and, planting a food forest and native plants, with a focus on pollinators. They raise chickens, goats, livestock guardian dogs, and pigs. Jake is also on the board of a local Veterans non- profit called the Veterans Ecological Trades Collective(VETC), who owns 120 acres of industrial agriculture wasteland in Rochester, Washington. 

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Jake was born at Pearl Harbor on the 4th of July, and he grew up camping, hunting and fishing in Idaho, where his love for regenerative work was instilled in him from a young age without even knowing it. He joined the Army in 2007 and deployed to Iraq in 2009-10 as a Combat Medic, returning and he came back  home from the war with PTSD. After seeing the truth about what we were in Iraq for, and being under the command of leadership that drove a friend to suicide. Jake battled with his demons for years before moving to Toledo, Washington in 2017 meeting Brian Dennis and learning about and doing Regenerative Agroforestry at Camp Singing Wind. Jake found regenerative healing benefits for himself in the forest while doing this regenerative work. 

Brian

As co-owner of Rake Force, Brian works in lead generation and labor operations, business development strategy and networking, comms and education. 
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Brian is the Commander of Goat Squadron and will take lead on herd management and growth, additional goat herder training, and in coordination of large scale goat grazing operations.

Brian will help in the direction of creating and maintaining educational/training material for all developing Rake Force departments to utilize with their employees.

Brian sees Rake Force as a way to utilize the mental health and economic needs of people by employing them in drastically needed forest and farm remediation projects funded by municipalities, non-profit environmental groups, gov’t agencies, and private land owners.

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Brian has been learning and practicing regenerative agroforestry for over 10 years. He and his family live at Camp Singing Wind in Toledo, WA; a 184 acre forested property that was once a camp for children’s outdoor education. Since moving to camp, Brian has designed and built large hugelkultur beds on various landscapes. With goats, hand tools, volunteer work parties, the occasional use of machinery, and Rake Force deployments, he has created and maintained over 2 miles of trails, stewarded the health of the soil and improved water retention, and has begun thinning the forest where it is most dense. Brian is actively involved in local community development programs, including the Toledo Neighbors Program, is the president and volunteer coordinator for Common Ground; Toledo’s local gardening group, serves on the executive board of the Toledo Lions Club, and is Vice Chair of the city of Toledo’s Planning Commission. 

Since moving to Toledo, Brian’s family has hosted a variety of events to develop and strengthen community support and resiliency, such as; holiday gatherings, parties, community get togethers and potlucks, free educational workshops led by farmers and homesteaders, and many tours to exhibit the forestry and farm work that has been accomplished. 

Prior to COVID-19 shutting down large gatherings and in-person events, Brian and his family also used the camp property to rent out to AirBnB customers as well as a venue operation for event producers. Camp Singing Wind has hosted such events as the 2018 Northwest Permaculture Convergence, two yoga and music festivals, a 3 day live-action Role Playing event, two weddings, and Women of the Woods.

From 2018 until March of 2020, Camp Singing Wind was the location for Wood Sorrel Forest School, an outdoor education program that was accredited by the local school district and had enrolled 60 students, ages ranging from 4 to 15 years old. Brian served as a teacher and coordinator, and also served as pro-tem director of operations during the second year.

We're a social purpose corporation dedicated to providing our veteran and civilian employees a “comfortable-wage” for regenerative work on the land.
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We earn money from forest service projects to hire more people to do more regenerative work that heals the land and the person.