Permie Bloggers

I know a lot of you blog and document your process. I've blogged for years (about other things) and love how sharing is increasing the commonwealth, fueling movements, and redefining history.

I was wondering if we could ask permies to add their blog url's with a brief description of their location, population, lot size, climate, years in operation, horticulture, livestock, degreee of self sufficiency, permaculture and personal goals? It's nice to experience journeys with people, getting to know them, and getting a more nuanced version of the human factor.

Thanks!

permie wannabe

ADDED - I guess this should have gone into community instead, but don't know how to delete this post. doh!

My blog is The Primal Prepper. It's about my journey on the dual path of living a primal and prepping lifestyle in suburbia. I have about 1/4 acre in the 'burbs that I am slowly transitioning to a more permaculture-like environment. I'll never be self-sufficient on my small amount of land, but I want to develop as much resiliency as possible.

Currently my livestock consists of fish in an unfinished aquaponic system, red wriggler worms, and young muscovy ducks.

Yayy! Perfect! Will check it out...

Hope your neighbors get the bug and hope other bloggers will list here - thanks!

this could be an interesting thread to subscribe to, i dont currently inhabit the blog-o-sphere but i do have a thread on here documenting my progress, the link is in my sig...

On our blog, Rural Living Today (http://rurallivingtoday.com/blog), we encourage readers to use sustainable practices in gardening, raising livestock, use of native plants, and living lightly on the land.

Our farm in the Pacific Northwest is a work in progress that was raw land five years ago. We're constantly tweaking everything as we "grow" the farm and learn how to live and work in a symbiotic way. With three generations of more than 20 family members, we have a broad range of ideas, niche interests, skill sets, training, and experience.

We have about four acres in production right now with more room to grow. Our goal is to raise most of our own food. We freeze, can, dehydrate, and love cooking from scratch. For starters we have laying hens, meat chickens, pigs, an orchard, and a vegetable garden. Beef cattle and a small dairy cow are next on the list. We're gradually finding ways to feed our livestock off the land and from local feed sources as well. We're involved in our local agriculture community, learning from others (like you all!) and sharing what we know.

Also part of our Rural Living Today "family" are a good cookin' blog, The Homesteader Kitchen (http://homesteaderkitchen.com), and a tutorial archive site, The Homesteader School (http://homesteaderschool.com). Stop by for a visit!

--Marie

It's not exactly a blog, but my you tube site in my sig is a mixture of permaculture and cars.

Hey there-
Great thread. I have a blog about my life on 3 acres in Southeast MO. Started from scratch... with raw land and living in a tent and my blog was my way of journaling (after I got internet!)
My blog documents the building of several houses and animal houses, grafting, bartering for livestock, as well as things I've learned along the way.
I have lots of fruit trees; I grafted/propagated almost all of my own plants and trees. I also have goats, ducks, guineas, geese, and dog. My goal is a Fukuoka/Holzer type permaculture paradise I seek to make my 3 acres as productive as it can be in a holistic way.
My trees are young and animals are the same, but I'm only a year and a half into this. I do grow veggies and eat many duck and guinea eggs
www.bricolagefarm.wordpress.com

i agree, this is a great thread! thanks for opening it up!

my blog: http://maukamakai.tumblr.com
my website: http://www.meredithbuck.com

neither of these are specifically permaculture geared, but i end up posting relevant stuff (when i do post).
and i don't own any land. yet!
right now i'm living in san francisco, with "one foot out the door," so to speak, as i gather all the knowledge and skills i'll need to make my dreams come true. said dreams include homesteading, community living, working with animals in addition to plant foods, and all related skills! being a jill of all trades, i want to put all my skills to good use (and share them)!
i currently work at an urban farm called hayes valley farm. i'm a volunteer coordinator there. it's a 2.2 acre lot in the middle of sf, so plenty of space to grow in.
being only 19 and a relatively recent cross-country transplant - and relatively new to permaculture itself - i'd say i'm headed in the right direction.

anyway feel free to check out my blogs, which range in topic from knitting to painting to food to farming!
thanks for reading and i look forward to seeing others' blogs

So awesome...
You've all been added to my feedly reader. Keep it coming!

Hi, I am the publicist for the Weston A. Price Foundation. Any permie blogger that would like to be on our press list, please email me your contact info! We send out press releases for Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund as well, so tell me if you'd like to be on that list, also.

Thanks.

Kimberly Hartke
Email: press [at] westonaprice.org

Hi all, this is my first post I hope I did it OK. I just recently started a blog Her Way at Crabtree Gardens, I’m not good at the process yet, but I’m working on it. Our website Crabtree Gardens has more information about our business.

We have 5 acres in northeastern PA (Drums- pop. 9000). It was used as farmland for many years. We bought it 5 years ago and are continually working to add trees, shrubs and perennials. We got into permaculture about a year ago. When we bought it there weren’t any birds, but now it’s a sanctuary. We also bought the property next to us and opened a guest house. It’s a lot of work for two people but we manage for now.

We kept about half as meadow and the other half is used as our display gardens and teaching area. Sheet mulching is the platform for all of our gardens, as we rely heavily on it to start all of our beds. We use cardboard (sorry Paul-a vice!). All our wood mulch is organic; our friend has a tree service. The most important thing is that we use no chemicals (on either property).

Our main focus is educating people about nature and how to let it take its course without the use of chemicals. We allow weeds into our display beds (gasp!) and we have neatly cut edges on some (sorry Paul another vice) visitors can relate to neatly cut edges. We plant for pollinators and are slowly moving into some vegetables and fruit this year.

We installed a Hugelkultur berm and a keyhole bed for vegs and herbs and are planning an orchard this fall. We also do not have any heavy equipment other that a lawn tractor (at this time). Our backs do hope that will change, as we are planning to win a backhoe/loader online:) (LOL).

We plan to propel the permaculture movement thorough out our area. We would like to become a farm to table location and serve our own grown food in our gardens or maybe even a restaurant could be in our future one day who knows.

Our biggest hurdle is getting people to understand the interconnectedness of people, plants and wildlife.

Oh, I almost forgot- we love and grow bamboo too and are the talk of the garden clubs because of it, but not in a good way!

I'll throw my hat in the ring too...

My blog is at Green-Change.com. We live just outside Jamberoo, NSW (population 935) - about 120km south of Sydney. Jamberoo is famous as the birthplace of co-operative dairy production in Australia, and the origin of the Illawarra Shorthorn dairy cow. There's still a lot of dairy in the area, although in recent years many farmers have moved over to raising grass-fed beef.

We're a family of 5, living on 1 acre. We've been on this property for about 3 years, but have lived in the area for a long time (my wife grew up here). We have a beautiful climate, with plenty of rainfall and no frost. Our house water is supplied by rainwater tanks - fairly common in rural Australia, but I gather not so common in the US?

I'm currently finishing up my Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) by correspondence, and am working on the first draft of a permaculture plan for our property. I'm also working on a permaculture plan for our primary school's garden.

At the moment we've got Pekin, Indian Runner and Muscovy ducks, as well as Australorp chooks (meat and eggs), and a pet Kelpie (Australian breed of working dog). We raised one batch of 3 pigs last year, and will do so again in the future. Meat rabbits are also in our near future.

Our eldest daughter (10 yo) has Down syndrome. I'd be very interested to hear from any other permies with disabled children, and the ways they involve their children in the garden.

Oh - and I'm a computer engineer by day; a Java programmer just like Paul .

Sometime reader, All the time listener, 1st time poster, and hooked for life.
We have a small with few followers blog we talk about what we are doing to turn our suburban home into a homestead until we can get out to the open farm area. We talk about homesteading in the burbs while still chained to our cubical lifestyles. Prepping and other things we do. We have never blogged before if that isn’t totally obvious, and new to permaculture. We are hooked though. We try to spread to anyone we meet. Some get hooked, some say we are crazy.

http://beachfamilyhomestead.blogspot.com/

We have a 10 x 12 greenhouse where we build a pond for fish and made an aquaponics system. This was our first attempt at aquaponics. Looking back maybe should have started smaller, but go big or go home we guess. After learning from the bigger system we tried making a smaller one indoors. The aquaponics system grows much faster than other plantings we have. And do NOT believe that you ONLY have to grow leafy plants. I have grown cantaloupe, watermelon, tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers thus far. I keep experimenting and trying different things. Some things grow for me, some things don’t. Never know until you try.

We have egg laying chickens, who roam in our back yard, vegetable gardens, greenhouse, can, fruit trees, and working on making edible landscaping, medicinal herb garden. FYI hugelkultur works in containers. We don’t have the land to make big beds (.22 acres) so we tried making them in 30 gal buckets. We have to water less by like a factor of 10 and the plants seem to be growing faster and better and stuff in the ground.

We just started Jan 2012 so totally new at this. We are in zone 5/6.

We hope to open an aquaponics business in 2013 and have an educational center where we would like to educate others about permaculture and better living. Maybe we can get Paul to stop by and talk to some folks! HA We have ordered some of Geoff Lawton’s DVD’s and watched several times. No “official” training yet only books, podcasts, your tube, DVD, vids online ~ 800+ hours. Learning by doing and experimenting as well.

Family of 6. And the older kids listen with us to podcast. They laugh at Paul when he goes on rant.

Rick from Indiana

PS Interested if anyone else is here in Indiana and specifically Indianapolis or surrounding area. Would love to see what others are doing, or have others see what we are doing.

I"m not on here much, but here is our blog:

http://slatehill.blogspot.com/

We have 30 acres and are building two underground homes. One was finished (mostly) earlier this year and my MIL moved in. The footers will be poured for our house this week. We grow using permaculture methods and this year I've not used any organic sprays at all except for a garlic/ pepper spray I made using produce we grew. I've been following 11 specific plants this year and last and have a blog post forming in my head and scrap notes about them. They attract beneficial insects, the "bad" bugs love them, they are drought resistant and like all good weeds require no care. I've noted their height and bugs they like to munch on them instead of the "good" plants. So hopefully that post will get typed out soon. There just is so little time for fun stuff like blogging right now.

We live off grid and capture rain water. We are focusing on perennials, though many of the babies died this year. So we'll just keep trying and trying till we get it right. Working on food forests and have several no-till and huglekultur beds. We don't till or weed in a traditional manner.

I certainly appreciate this forum.

Chaya and I blog over at our website http://pantryparatus.com/blog

Today's blog just so happens to be Part I of a podcast interview with the mighty, the amazing, the glorious Paul Wheaton! http://pantryparatus.com/blog/podcast_paul_wheaton/

Our blog covers a wide spectrum of food topics (food safety, nutrition, agriculture, gardening, homesteading, nutrition, etc.) all with a nod to Permaculture.

Post a comment, let us know what you think of our time with Paul, Lord of the Jungle.

Wilson & Chaya

Pantry Paratus

Indygo.info is the name of our blog. http://www.indygo.info It begins with a bus conversion done on the way cheap, and quickly brings you up to date on the development of our homestead here in Hamilton, Alabama. My husband, Jeremy, and I live in a bus in the woods with our two young ones, on an undeveloped pine plantation. We have only been here five months. The pines have turned the collective 40 acres of family land (2.5 of which is "ours") into one large heap of pine straw and any hardwood tree that attempted to grow among the pines is tall, bare, thin and weak. This is what we are working with. So far, we have cleaned up a great deal of land after a logging (thinning) operation, and hand-dug the foundation of what is to become a large-ish cob bath house. We are creating natural irrigation routes for collecting rain water at the top of a hill, and channeling it down through gardens and around hugelculture mounds. We hope to begin with the actual cob construction within the month of September, if not before. We were inspired to go this route by a Russian woman named Anastasia (no last name) and a series of books written about her life and teachings, The Ringing Cedars Series. The information that Paul has collected on his forum is truly valuable to us, to say the least. -Lori

Here's my husband's photoblog of our place: http://www.porchlizard.tumblr.com/

Our land's primary purpose is wildlife management.

I've been putting bits and pieces at my personal site http://www.sasez.com but I've fallen a bit behind. We have about 7 acres west of tucson arizona. Off grid, lots of bare dirt. Mainly working on water harvesting projects the last two years. We got the land in march 2010 so we're only a couple of years in.

Love all these blogs!

Wilson Foedus, keep getting a problem loading your page...
Jamie Jackson for some reason I can't subscribe with feedly to your blog...bummer as it looks really useful!

Kathy Burns-Millyard wrote:We have about 7 acres west of tucson arizona.

I'm going to keep an eye on your blog!

Ha ha I better get my tail in gear then huh? We don't run ac or swamp cooling so summer months generally mean little online work gets done. The heat is too hard on the electronics. I'll start updating more once we drop under 100. Your permie projects thread has inspired me

my blog is HighlyUncivilized

we live in silicon valley and garden, build stuff, ferment, and are learning to live in more basic, wholesome and gratifying ways. we're also doing more covert front yard gardening, and i rummage through our neighbors trash to reuse things. most of them just smile and nod, but now there are several of us in close proximity, raising chickens, trading veggies, reusing stuff, and being friendly. this started several years ago from a 'health crisis' and a general need to live better, without paying $5 for every tomato from the local Organic Store. we're just recently split between that home, and a small house in Colorado where we hope to relocate permanently. this is a 102 year old house and a fairly run down piece of land that we intend to green.

although I drool with envy when i read about some of your homesteads, not everyone can move into that kind of lifestyle and environment. we're trying to learn how to do as much as possible where we're at, and would like to partner, barter with, and support others who are living sustainably from their land and practices.

My blog is a work in progress, because I don't yet have land... so the blog is more of a place for me to document ideas that I have so I can remember them later once I actually have land. I'm also trying to use it as a vehicle to spread permaculture to my friends and family, and anyone who'll listen. Recently I've been working on a series on the Prime Directive and the Ethics... they're pretty good if I do say so myself. Read them on my site and leave a comment if you would please!

The Permie Homestead Blog

This is cool - lets keep the blog roll going. I could read for hours just on this one thread!

This is not my blog but I write for it once a month: http://www.therenegadefarmer.com/

Great thread! I really enjoy and learn a lot from real people with blogs.


My wife and I purchased our first home in 2009 on 1 acre in SE Wisconsin. I recently started a blog to document our progress in homestead development and eventually to promote the sale and exchange of heirloom seed. We are lifelong gardeners but relatively new to permaculture.

http://www.wholeviewfarm.blogspot.com

Edited due to a lot of alot.

Jamie,
Looking forward to your blog post about the pest repellent and plants. I've been looking into the underground homes for a while, sounds like you have a nice setup.

Katya,
I really enjoy your blog! It looks like you are making some awesome progress on your land and home.

-Ryan

Based in St. Louis, but I have about 4 acres in Saint James Missouri that I'm developing into a food forest and permaculture demo site. Spring of 2013 I'll start doing a lot of digging, and likely have a pond reshaped and set to flow into some swales. So... The following is how I've gotten to this place.

In the spring of 2012 I planted an orchard of about 23 trees of mostly different fruit trees (apple, pear, cherry, persimmon, pawpaw, etc). Well yeah, this was pre-permaculture, I might have 2 trees of the 23 that are still alive.

That's where I found permaculture. So... I immediately found a great group of instructors and took a Permaculture design course (PDC) at Midwestpermaculture Some wisdom they imparted to me: "Fail spectacularly" and "The problem is the solution".

Both are true, Failed spectacularly and helped me find out about permaculture.

Attempting to do regular posts to http://slowdownfarm.com and meetups with the Saint Louis Permaculture guild.

Here is a description of my blog :

Le chant des cerises (Cherries' song) is a blog in french (great translation by google) about our design since last year, of our 3 acres of land in SW of France (zone 7/8 ). Great adventure !