Prior experience includes a permaculture design course taken in the spring of 2013 with Michael Pilarski of the Inland Northwestern Permaculture Guild, after which we started our first home flock of 6 chickens and personal garden. Later that summer we joined up with another local producer, E2 Food, for a consumer supported agriculture endeavour. Growing in the Frenchtown area our personal input focused on multiple varieties of colored potatoes and heirloom winter squash. Our produce was combined with our partner Erin’s vegetable selection and marketed at the Saturday farmers market in downtown Missoula. Highlights included solar powered flood irrigation, and homegrown OG farming practices.
In 2014 both my wife and I moved to Whitefish Montana and interned on an organic farm from March till November. We gained valuable ranching experience working with sheep, goats, cows, llamas, and pigs in a rotational and segmented pasture system. Worked closely with an heirloom flock of 200 Langshan chickens, mixed bantam hens, and guinea fowl for egg production. The ranch delivered produce weekly to CSA customers. Further experiences, including but not limited to, planting several raised garden beds with both seed and vegetable starts, installing double dug row gardens on pasture cleared by pigs, managed tomato and pepper crops in hoop houses, using aged manures to amend beds, expanding a raspberry patch by transferring rooted cuttings, giving oversight to chicken butchering, and planting rows of cereal grains to test the feasibility of growing onsite chicken feed.
Currently residents of Rock Springs Wyoming since March 2015, we’ve spent this past year working for familial clients on 2.25 acres, our first professional engagement. Improvements include an array of raised beds and double dug gardens fertilized with aged horse manure installed just outside the kitchen. This year's planting included swiss chard, spinach, lettuce, kale, mustard greens, tomatoes, squash, onions, carrots, and potatoes. A poultry coop was integrated into the side of a garage, complete with interior feeding tubes and nesting boxes. Swales and a retention dam were put in place to control runoff water flowing from a nearby horse pasture. Our flock of 38 laying hens consists of Buckeyes, Australorps, Marans, Ameraucanas, and a lone Partridge Rock free ranging on ⅛ of an acre and complete with a seasonal kale patch for fresh green feed. Laying between 20-30 eggs a day, we sell cage free ungraded eggs to local families and through a retail feed store. The average dozen contains several shades of brown and green. The flock reached self sufficiency this year, covering all overhead costs in January, and is primed to bring eggs to the Missoula farmers market.
We consider ourselves to be very passionate animal behaviorists with a DIY mentality wanting to live a self sufficient lifestyle with minimal footprint. Missoula was a great home several years ago and we’re looking forward to returning to western Montana. Hoping to find a likeminded community that would like to expand their current gardening environment towards true self sufficiency. We are looking to lease a minimum of ½ acre with homesteading, gardening, and poultry purposes in mind. Willing to provide our labor and expertise to install landscaping features and gardening improvements as requested, and abide by a farm sharing agreement to provide seasonally available fresh vegetables and eggs. Running water would be a necessity. We can provide much of our own electrical needs with a small solar system. Would be willing to rent an existing structure, or stake a wall tent. Long term arrangements possible given the right circumstances and community structure. Please contact us if interested. Thank you in advance.
.png)
