Hey friends!
I saw others doing this here, and thought this would be a great way to start my
PEP journey.
I'd like to introduce myself!
My name is Nutmeg Knox, y'all can call me Meg here. I'm a longtime reader, recent poster. I subscribed to the Permies Daily-ish newsletters somewhere between 9-12 years ago? and started lurking the forums a bit, as I felt I'd found my people! But I'm not too good at socialising, and it seemed my dreamed lifestyle was very far from my reality. Around the time I found Permies, I built a bunch of huge
raised garden beds in my parents' backyard, and then suddenly and unexpectedly moved out. I'd planned to go back to keep tending to my garden, but got quite sick that summer, and pretty much only came back for a thanksgiving-time harvest of what was left. (Biggest daikons you've ever seen, and more catnip than one would know what to do with!)
Since then I've been living the
city life! I'd always dreamt of having a
permaculture farmstead, but felt I'd never have the chance to do so. (Grew up quite poor, and in the city, so there just never seemed an opportunity and I have no generational wealth to speak of, so it's all on me. And it's not easy to save up anything substantial living downtown, let me tell you.) I also dated a lot and only ever found partners who seemed to hate going outside. (The natural pitfalls of online dating... tend to be people who don't get out much! lol!)
Fortunately, I found a man I jived with, and after spending our early relationship hiking and camping and dreaming of a remote forest home, we got married, and started at what we could. I taught him
permaculture gardening techniques I'd learned, and we reclaimed the raised garden beds in my parent's
yard to spend a couple years just learning. We studied natural building techniques, dreamed of what we might do.
Now we have a small plot of
land on the east coast, and we're ready to start building more skills, and putting those we have to the test!
A bit after I told my mother I'd be moving out there, she said "Somebody asked if I was worried, and I said 'honestly? not really. She knows how to sew, and knit, and darn, and cook. She knows how to grow food, and cook it. She'll be fine out there!'" Which is as ringing an endorsement as I could hope for! lol!
I'm excited to show off my skills (17 years of knitting!), and to build some new ones.
I'll keep track of it all here, and hopefully others would like to follow along. Feel free to reach out to chat! I'll gladly talk your ear off about all my little plans lol!