Land/Intentional Community Opportunitiy in Cascadia Bioregion

Hello permies!
In a nutshell, us permaculturing anarchists, with land, are seeking like-minded individuals, in hopes of furthering our small but rocking intentional community, & this site seems like a good spot to post about it!

We live in the coast range, 30 miles from the ocean and 70 miles outside of Portland Oregon. Our parcel is 13 acres, SE facing, gently sloped and borders the Nehalem river.

Land for your movable dwelling, (or come build one!) is being offered for light (20 hrs mo?) work trade, or $200 rent monthly. Our eventual hope is to sell about half, 6 acres, as a buildable, SE facing riverfront parcel, to a pack or person as committed to permacuture and decolonizing as we are... - but only for what we paid ourselves, many years ago. This offer isn't here for us to "make money." It's to pass forward our excess abundance to kindred working class people like us, already alive in an authentic way, while expanding the community food-forest here, one that's already in progress.

On a river, in the woods, 35 minutes by auto to the closest store, on a lightly used dirt road... Secluded! Mostly retired and relatively young, (in our 40's) our day-to-day lives out here include decolonizing, unschooling our 3 kids, permaculture, hunting, foraging, lots of play & off grid homesteading, all while immersed in nature. There's  lots of opportunity here to advance a multitude of projects - pond making, tiny house construction, preserving foods & meats, expanding the garden,  various other permacuture-related opportunities. If all this sounds good so far, - and this kind of a life is something you want to create, right now... reply! "Someday?" - need not apply.*  Some older kids, 7 to 17, are  a plus, but not mandatory... (7-17: That's ages, not number of, btw. - ha-ha.)

What IS mandatory is YOU MUST ALREADY BE... living a rewilding life, AND be seeking a drama-free, very solitary feeling spot, for a season or more. That's it!

Anyone feral enough for us to be habitable with, short or long term, or to be far enough down this road to already know this type of offer is a good fit for them, is almost by definition, too interested in life already, to be rich now. Thus, this offer, this place, this invitation... is beyond capitalism. Our annual property taxes here? Less then $200. As the bill comes in late August , we usually forage enough Chantrelles in a weekend, by our house on adjacent BLM land, to pay it in Sptember. (From our street, uninterrupted for 20 miles north to the Columbia river, is one, giant, state managed tree farm.. lovely, huh?)

Also, no newbies please. This is a very damp place to spend a winter, perhaps too much so, for people not doing it already and thus familiar with what's involved. If you are though, - we'd love to hear from you! What can you bring to this land and community? Holding space for some/an equals.

Is that you?

(Indigenous & poc applicants will be considered first, btw. Direct reparations for the stolen land we now enjoy would make us very happy).

The kids here now? Cooperative, sweet, gentle, critical thinkers, self empowered & happy. Non-adversarial & given as much autonomy as they can handle. All 10 and older.

Teasing, belittlement as play, fast food as life staple, consumerism, tv/movie character indoctrination... ie: colonizer mindset already in place? Pass. You'd hate it here anyway. Internet hardly even works!

Again, we can't make it too clear... this is a poor spot to "commute" to Portland for daily work, or to try to "find" work from. Thus, nature needy people only, looking to get away from Babylon life, need apply..

Working toward genuine sustainability, while living super cheaply in the woods, vanquishing colonizer culture as best we can, ain't for everyone... --- but it sure is for us.

While radicals-in-a-non-colonized-way, kids & pets are welcome, hard drugs, drama & disrespectful people are not. We have a quiet, peaceful life out here. Peace reigns! Thus, your generator?... is definitely not in our future. But perhaps your knotweed recipe is!

If you've have ideas, dreams (or better yet - visions) of this kind of thing happening, as you've patiently been doing the internal work necessary to even desire this kind of existence, - respond! Tell us about your decolonization journey, skill set/s, intentional community experiences,  woofing/permaculture interests & motivations, favorite roadkill recipes, etc... Let it rip. Or, pass this ad to your most feral anarchist friend/pack...

Our kids are determined to make some community here, we'd like to see the food forest that's happening already expanded, and eventually manifest gaining awesome neighbors & allies on this most amazing land.

So there you have it, permies! Much thanks for your time, and much love to you all for bucking the way it is, to advance a healthier way instead, at great personal inconvenience, always. Hard work yes, but inspiring to be a part of it with you all. Ever onward!

Best wishes on your journey, from all of us loving ours, in Cascadia & on the Nehalem river...


* "Someday" is the story we tell ourselves to placate the natural angst one feels for the missing drive right now. Pass. When someday becomes now, the only time there is or ever will be... - look us up, then. On that now moment. "Someday.." lol.)

Hi Arlo Stone,

Looks like your first post here on permies.com, welcome.  
 You can check out what kind of work I've done towards building shelters which heat, cool, catch their water, create methane gas and have rocket stoves on my blog: twobirdstone.blogspot.com

Weather, growing season & dampness:
I know what life is like near hwy 101 and what the water/salt water does to buildings, is the land as wet as the land over the mountain by the sea?  
What is your altitude there?  Since you border the river, one side is fairly low but the other side could be really high.
In the food forest, have any paw paw or honey locust trees been planted?

Onsite Materials:
Do you have sand, clay, and stone?
While I see trees in your pics, it doesn't mean you want any of them chopped down for building: do you have onsite trees for building purposes?

Solar Radiance:
I built a tiny house which the sun really didn't touch until 8 to 8:30am in the winter, what time does your building get sunlight in the morning now?
Does any of your property get sunlight at 5pm/4pm?
For me a shelter must be aligned with solar south.


Uncertain ground:
While I understand unschooling, you've used the word decolonizing which may have a very different meaning to me than it does to you. I have a fair sense of what happened to the world from about 1300 till the current date, so the idea of colonization isn't new to me, but I find even this has very  different meanings from one person to the next. Have you read "1491" and "1493"?  or "Guns Germs and Steel"?

A person in my position would need to find income to bring in things like a metal single seam roofing or, if I do  a wofati, the under soil tarps to shed rain. Making cisterns large enough to last through drought years would also cost me in machine time and/or in materials to seal them. Pipes, glass and metal tanks are also needed.  Perhaps a person could work 3 or 4 days per week in the Portland area to obtain these?  

While generators are not your thing (not mine either), you might be also adverse to Tamera's stirling engine and their veggie oil thermal storage method: are you adverse to such technology?

No prior post makes me ask: How did you find out about permies.com?    ...and why extend your invitation here?  

If you have the time to answer all these questions, I'd love to see your answers. Do you have any questions for me?

Thanks for the reply Orin, and the permies welcome! Had a smile, reading your questions... such a refreshing change to answer someone else who is actually doing this rather then speculating about it!
I was able to visit your blog and briefly view some of what you've created, and all of that would be relevant here, perhaps none more so then a methane capture/burn system. Our spot is a few miles outside of Mist, Oregon. Mist sits atop a small, natural gas repository. In the off-peak summer months, natural gas is pumped some 30 miles, through a pipeline from freighters in the nearby Columbia River, and in the peak winter months, it's tapped as needed to meet local/regional demand. The resulting effect, is that every well attempted or drilled near us, (all by neighbors) deep or shallow, has produced "salt water" only - (water filled with natural gas..) thus, for some time now, we've had our eye on creating/developing an on property well/methane capture system that could replace our current propane tank reliances (freezer, cook stove/s), but the task hasn't yet become "the next thing" for us.
Airborne salt mist from the ocean is not an issue for us, as we are on the east side of the Coast range, however, metal skinned habitats are not feasible at our location. Even vented and layered with the special "no condensation " paint, they pour water into any metal lined interior dwelling, all winter. Airstreams, converted buses, cab-over campers, anything metal.. Breath vapor, and/or heating it, is a sure fire winter disaster here, in our perpetually cool & foggy winter nights...
Our altitude is around 600ft above sea level I believe. As to our land, imagine 13 acres in the shape of a legal envelope. The 2 long sides are the hills north & the river south, the short sides are the east-west flanks. Our cabin & location is in the northeast corner, about where the stamp would be. The parcel we're selling would be the "half envelope" on the west side, as if cut vertically from top to bottom right down the middle... Located just below the keyline, the whole parcel is very gently sloped from northeast to southwest, with 4 culverts catching the hill's winter run-off and pouring it all along the length of the high (north) side of the property. Thus, winter water flow is tremendous for us, which has us trying to move forward with several ponds in order to better capture the this seasonally abundant water we're afforded, in hopes of eventually dispersing it out, passively, via gravity's magic pump, as needed for growing in the very dry summers around here.
No paw paws or honey locusts yet, as we are still evolving our observations regarding the south or north being the more beneficial facing, long term, & which of our different property "micro-climates" are best suited for which guilds. Our idea currently, is to eventually move forward in two different directions simultaneously - guilds that will produce should it get hotter here, and some that will thrive should it get colder instead. Monkey puzzle trees are in play here as well, which we've had ideas about for a while. So, not yet on the pawpaws or honey locust plantings, but definitely on the expansive to do list!
Sand here is available, maybe 10 months a year, near the riverbeds from the receding water, and clay is everywhere here beneath the topsoil. No on-site rock, but we have a terrific, virtually unlimited gravel source and access/awareness to larger rock locations as needed.
The entire property is 25 yr old mixed timber; fir, alder, cherry, cascara & big leaf maple mostly, and we are definitely looking to cut much of it, especially along the south border, for buildings, winter heating & pond making. Additionally, by the end of summer in 2020, our long awaited bandsaw mill should finally be fully operational, at which time we will be constructing an Ag/shop/processing building for us all to share as needed.
The tiny house foundation in the pics you see is south facing, on the southern side of the property, the very convenient, low, valley side. (Potential) south winter sun hits us early, by 7am, while the mountains north have the somewhat limited sight lines. Every sunny day in winter, the sun slides across the southern sky, exposing the long, south-running edge of the property to that low winter sun perfectly. (Running along the river too- all day sun at our private beach!) Those last few trees you see in the picture, are the only ones in the way of all day direct sun at the tiny house spot, weather permitting. A pond will fit perfectly too, also south of the tiny house right where those trees are now, thus, hopefully one day, reflecting even more southern winter light into the dwelling.
Hey, a Charles Mann reference, alright! "1491" is a mind blower for sure. His conclusions, that the Amazon is basically a human assisted food forest sitring on top of a giant clay pot midden is both wild and seemingly plausible! Haven't run into his "1493" offering yet, but it's definitely on our voluminous, running "grab it if you find it cheap" list! And Jared Diamond's "Guns Germs & Steel", along with "Collapse" & "The World 'Till Yesterday" are all fantastic eye openers, and on our shelves. The two authors you mentioned brought to mind some other offerings on decolonizing... "They Came Before Columbus" (Sertima) and "Ancient Pathways, Ancestral Knowlege" (Turner) along with "The Continuum Concept" (Liedloff) and "Braiding Sweetgrass" (Kimmerer) Have you had an opportunity to read any of those?
Decolonizing is a pretty far ranging topic for sure, and I imagine it looks very different from each person's vantage point. For me, as a white-passing male, it looks a lot like unraveling the embedded entitlements white male privelege operating within the United States entails, and then, once uncovered, attempting to discard perpetuating it further, in both belief and action. Mixed bag so far, this long-running attempted escape of mine, from both Babylons- The one on the ground, AND the one in my mind.. Chucked my tv for good in 2000, after the "West Palm Beach Hanging Chad, thus, Bush As President Via Judicial Fiat" attempted legitimization via the "news",  dumped my Facebook in 2012, (way before it was cool, amirite?) and have lived in the woods, and outside, since Occupy.
For my kids, "decolonization" has looked like being home-birthed & unvaxed, with animal & plant taxonomy as an educational foundation & non-colonial explanations provided for the world as it is. They wanted to come along, with the adults, to live at Standing Rock temporarily too- , so they did! Now that they're all over 10, and who they are and are becoming is taking shape, the difference between them all, and most kids raised mainstream, has become pretty obvious, to everyone who encounters them. (In a good way, which has been quite a relief for me, having takien such consistently alternative chances with how they've been raised- yikes! A scary plunge into the deep end of the natural parenting pool, for sure!)
As it relates to permacuture, decolonizing has given me ever greater awareness of what the land wants to do, to really hear what the actual landbase and its inhabitants are saying and asking for. Additionally, decolonizing has me imposing my ideas upon any situation less and less, and has stretched my capacity to find ever deeper layering/stacking permaculture fuctions. It's really been amazing so far, and it's promise for further internal discoveries and freedoms remains super-exciting to me!
Permacuture and decolonizing both have become opportunities to expand awareness in tangible, life applicable ways, both of them with high (unlimited?) ceilings to boot!
With regards to it being a spot to regularly commute, to Portland for $$$.. - it's challenging, but doable. In the summer, I'll sometimes work in town for 4 days, - but it'll be aided by 2 "wrap-arounds" - I'll commute Monday am, sleep in my vehicle that night, near the jobsite,  (truck bed w/canopy, or van w/ back seats removed) and then commute home after work on Tuesday evening. Wednesday or Thurdsay, repeat, for another 2 days of work with the sleepover and thus, again, just the 1 commute for another two days of work.
Daily driving to a full-time Portland gig, with the $20-$30 tank fill & 3 hr commute each day, is both a financial hemmorage and an 11 hr daily albatross, that gets brutal, pretty quickly.
On our one day in town each week nowadays, we try to make it all happen. People & animal foods/medicine, propane tank fill if needed, library, whatever do-dads on the "running needs but not at full retail price" list that can be aquired via the "craigslist free" listings or at a second hand locale that day, any chiro/naturopath appts, the laundry in winter, etc.. Everything needed for us to live comfortably in the woods for the the coming week. It makes for a busy day, but the resulting 6 days at home, every week, still feels like some kind of secret, crazy, filthy life-rich universe hack, one that hardly anyone else knows about. It's been nice!
As far as the alternative generator ideas - not at all adverse to anybody else's technology- provided it's unobtrusive. Key word, "unobtrusive" "Generator" in my post,  is a stand-in actually, for "regular loud engine noise." A super-quiet boughie generator would be no problem! - It's the noise that's objectionable. Loud and frequently on, is a horrible local fit here, because it's super-duper quiet all around. Distant "jake-brake" noises, occasionly from the highway a few miles away, and infrequent chainsaw chatter in the distance somewhere are about it. A past attempt with one, from someone staying here, taught us not even dampening boxes and ad hoc exhaust pipes made for it, lessened it's auditory impact.
Ok, whew, almost there... Why permies? Why now? Because for some time, a version of this ad has been in the Portland Craigslist "land" section, with little success finding folks with a real awareness of what living in a low-impact way really entails. Conversely, this site seems filled with people living out the change they wish to see in the world rather then just fantasizing about it, and thus, perhaps the mutually beneficial situation we are seeking with others feels more possible then the "shot-in-the-dark" mainstream-minded Craigslist route. (yes, even in Portland. Maybe ESPECIALLY in Portland! Never seen so many comfortable, unbothered, well-off liberal gentrifiers gathered in one place!)
And finally, questions for you... A million of course - you've been busy doing this too, but I'll pose just one here, my favorite question to anyone doing life against the grain...
What caused you to even try to walk away from mainstream life? A sudden awakening? Cumulative proverbial straws breaking the camel's back? I'm always fascinated by everyone's... "...and then, I just had to get out" tale. Cheers to us all!!!
Ok, again thanks for your post Orin, really appreciate the thoughtful,  relevant questions you posed, and am glad to have possibly added some clarity regarding our attempt to create intentional community.
Ever onward!
- Arlo

Arlo Stone wrote:
"They Came Before Columbus" (Sertima) and "Ancient Pathways, Ancestral Knowlege" (Turner) along with "The Continuum Concept" (Liedloff) and "Braiding Sweetgrass" (Kimmerer)

I haven't read these works but I'm not dead yet.

Arlo Stone wrote:
What caused you to even try to walk away from mainstream life? A sudden awakening? Cumulative proverbial straws breaking the camel's back? I'm always fascinated by everyone's... "...and then, I just had to get out" tale

Hmmmm....dunno how to answer. My parents did things like composting, soil creation, gasoline to propane conversions, we ate from our own two large gardens/animals, and subscribed to the first 100 issues of MotherEarth news.

But propaganda still works and inertia inside humans is quite large so

here's a few things which seem unrelated but aren't:
-I learned what the line "...I owe my soul to the company store meant.." in '16 tons' by reading what was done to the rural land owners in West Virgina, Kentucky, Virginia, and other coal seam states;
-I read a fictional book  Sten by Chris Bunch and Allan Cole;
-was friends with a very bright mathematician who came up with statistical software for the city of gresham which could predict crime within a 30 to 45 minute window;
-was studying things like fluid dynamics and thermodynamics when I asked a roommate getting his masters in economics if I could see his textbooks;
-went through his texts books and did not find, I repeat, did not find a single equation which could define any economic behavior in the USA system (plenty of equations to describe discrete specific events in history but no underlying equations from one historical event to another and NONE which would actually predict real time economics);
-knowing that even chaotic systems have mathematical models which physicists depend upon, I knew then something was very wrong when a masters level textbooks could not explain with equations something very much in the real world and in the human realm which even criminals cannot escape;
-hell, even quantum mechanics where in an single item in multiple places at the same time has predictive equations (was I really supposed to  think economics is more complex than this???);
-then, a like an physicist is trained to do when faced with a new problem with no solution, I began to collect data and ask questions;
- once a larger picture began to emerge, I began to look for solutions.

I paid attention to self sufficiency attempts including the Biodome; I saw many failed attempts spread across the badlands of New Mexico and Arizona.  I kept track of ideas that worked and reasons why failure occured. I read Bill Mollison's Permaculture Design Manual. I saw what Michael Reynolds did with people and buildings.

...so no last straw moment, it was more like Friday's education in Hienliner's "Friday" except not so neat and tidy.

I'd like to meet you and if possible walk the land while we chat. Winter and the holidays are here so maybe sometime after the 1st of January would work for me.  As of right now, my Saturdays, Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays are filled up....so let me know what Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday works for you in January!

O.