Roberto pokachinni wrote:HI Victoria.
If you tell us all a little about the general direction that you want your farm to take, then it might help others to make suggestions. What about Falk and Lawton do you like, or more specifically, what are you tending to consider for your space based on what you have learned from them? A little more information about your plans or about what inspires you will allow people to be more helpful towards your end goals.
SURE! :)
our neighbors in the catskills are permies/homesteaders/small farming and have totally inspired us. I love the idea of restoring the land and growing our own food. I hope have an orchard, some livestock (goats for milk/cheese, chickens and pigs) and a veg garden. I have already planted a fruit and nut orchard on the land we have now and the trees are growing very well... so hopefully I can do it again.
whenever our neighbors 'process' chickens, ducks, pigs I always participate so I am learning how to do that (and that I can do it).
I did have two permaculture consults on our current property and both were very frustrating... one consult the guy seemed to have done a course and gotten a certification but didn't know much more than I did. the second consult they basically pitched me for an hour asked for $500 for the sales pitch and the finished design would be an additional $8000 which seemed insane for our tiny current acreage. so I am a little burned on a consult.
that said I actually reached out to Ben Faulk and I may have someone from the WSRF come down to prevent me from making major costly mistakes.
we will build structures... a home, and a barn for overwintering goats. we will do chicken tractors and most likely mobile egg layers but maybe a coup for convenience.
the property has pasture about 1000 feet down a mountain from where we want to put the home. right now I am thinking of having the home/garden/orchard/barn all up the hill in the forest doing silvopasture with some tractoring/grazing in the pasture when appropriate.
I have read Farming the Woods, Silvopasture, Resilient Farm and Homestead, the guide to country living...
we eventually would love to have a greenhouse and try to produce as much of our own food as possible but will not go crazy about it.
we will be retiree farmers (in 4 years) ages 52/62 so we also need to have a long term design that accounts for what we can reasonably do over the next 20 years at which point we will be 72 and 82 and likely less spry.
how is this for a start?
thank you in advance!
