SEQUIM, Wash. – “Naked oats” helped Joe and Lisa Bridge dream up a new farming expression.

The Bridges planted the naked grain – so named because the seeds wear no hulls – last spring.

The Bridges’ dream of local organic oats came true thanks to volunteers and vintage equipment from all over the Dungeness Valley.

It all began in Massachusetts, when Lisa, a farm manager, met Joe, a musician. They married and moved to his hometown of Sequim. They dived into two ventures: purchasing the Rainbow Farm on Towne Road, where they grow organic berries, and planting oats and flax at the Lamb Farm, a lavender operation southwest of Sequim.

Bryon and Colleen Lamb-Gunnerson, the farm’s owners, hired the Bridges because wanted to see organic grain growing in this valley.

The Bridges recently harvested 1,100 pounds of oats, and are packaging it to sell directly from the farm and via www.Sequim.LocallyGrown.net.

The Bridges talked to friends and acquaintances about their need to rent some used equipment.

John Dickinson and Dave Bekkevar volunteered their 60-year-old binder and thresher.

Norris Johnson and Dana Davis, experts in vintage farm machinery, helped get the thresher running.

And Nash Huber of Nash’s Organic Produce provided the oat-cleaning machine.

Neither Huber nor the other farm-implement owners charged the Bridges anything.

Joe had heard stories about the Sequim of 50 or so years ago, when dairies and crop fields blanketed the valley. He did not expect to live a new chapter.

As for the oats they just harvested and bagged inside the Gunnersons’ living room the pair is awaiting their one piece of new equipment, a $350 mill and roller.

As soon as it arrives, they’ll roll the oats and add them to the menu on the Web site.

The Bridges want to expand their organic operation in the coming years, but not too much. They’re here to farm on a small scale, and hope to form a local equipment cooperative, a group of people with farming machinery and repair know-how.