About Us

Collectively, the Fortners are 134 years old. We met in Texas in 1971 as young health care professionals serving in the Army, and moved back to Bob’s home state of Washington in 1989.
We phased out healthcare jobs and opened a used bookstore called Fortner Books in 1992, and moved it to a home-based business in 1999 after our last child left for college. Fortner Books had serious collections in the subjects of Northwest History, gardening and cooking.

The business called Sweetlife Farm started as hobbies; once it became a cottage business the need for more space became quickly apparent, and we closed our book business in 2008, after struggling with competing space and time issues for several years.

Food: eating, growing and cooking it, has been a consistent focus in our lives, throughout changes in scenery, living accommodations, professions, gardens, children and friends. Our love of books led us to read about Helen and Scott Nearing in the mid 70’s, and we aspired to live close to the land after their example. Unlike them, our interest in food as fuel and independence expanded to include a keen interest in cooking, and we soon understood its influence in our lives as a way to nurture and communicate our caring for people.

Our home, gardens and activities at Sweetlife Farm reflect some other things about us. We do pretty much everything ourselves (which can be a virtue or a downfall!), from planning and finishing our house to landscaping the surrounding gardens and making all the products we sell. After we moved our used bookstore to a home based business in late 1999 and had time to delve into hobbies, we found ourselves expanding our gardens to grow more edibles, which evolved into growing as much of our own food as possible. Let’s just say we are two perfectionists engaged in a continual effort to get and keep balance in our lives; one way we do that is to spend our time following our passions and try to let the rest go.

The name Sweetlife Farm reflects how we feel about our little piece of paradise. Over the twelve years since our home was completed, we have added a log gazebo that houses a wood-fired oven, a greenhouse, a chicken coop, and most recently a smokehouse.  We keep chickens for meat and eggs, bake our own bread, start seeds in the greenhouse and smoke pretty much everything in sight.

Growing older may have made us wiser, but age has not slowed us down much. Our gardens produce enough to enable us to make products to offer to others; the old bookshop has been converted into a commercial kitchen and studio, which is used to make natural soaps and skincare, jams and jellies, and lots of other things that we enjoy dreaming up.  Part of the fun of growing old at Sweetlife Farm is that there is always more to do and paths to explore where our creative spirits take us! Needless to say, we eat well, and enjoy breaking bread with friends. We're living a sweet life.