Small regenerative farm/homestead WA state

Hi All! I’m not new to Permie’s, or Permacultue, but somewhat new to “ownership” of land. This is my first post. We’re in need of some help! Who isn’t 😂😂. We’re looking for some advice/perspective from other small farmers that may have had similar experiences. We want to offer a spot on our land for a couple/small family that wants to help us on our farm, and ultimately sharecrop. After 3yrs of beating back scotchbroom and blackberries, we’ve begun working with our local conservation district to conserve, rehabilitate and farm a portion of our land under their guidelines, mostly perennial. We need extra hands to join us on more of a long term adventure in saving the world through regenerative agriculture.😍🥳 We’ve looked into WWOF, but we’re not yet at the point where we can fully support young potential r. farmer-world savers. But we’re getting there! We have a partial hook-up site for a couple/small family next to our house. We’re just under 8ac. 25min. from town with everything needed, 15-25min. from two farmers markets, in a nice community with farming/homesteading neighbors, 45min-2hr. From 4 major cities in the south Puget Sound area of WA state. This post is getting long… here’s us and our goals: we’re a small family-mom, dad, young daughter, BIL, 2dogs, 2cats, sheep, chickens and ducks. We own a local farm equipment repair business and our brother is a handyman. I’d like to further my education in soil science, right now I have education in EVS with an emphasis in entomology, IPM, and Agroecology. My experience (off/on) in Permacultue is 25yrs. and I once met Bill Mollison when I was too young and dumb to understand the world I had just jumped into head-heart first! We have foundation. We have goals. We have lots of work done. We have close friends with their own homesteads (we all help each other) We have tools! We have solutions. We have space. We just don’t have enough hands on a consistent basis. Soooo…do I continue to pour my heart out here? Or some other forum? We have photos, videos, personal contact info.Please help us with your advice, thoughts, perspective, good vibes! We’re open! Thank you! Much love💜💜💜

Ack! I can’t believe I didn’t mention that we’re a US Veteran family. We’re up for veteran owned/operated grants with our local conservation district as well. So, veterans welcome!! 💜

I like your idea of sharing your land, offering someone a chance to live and work on your place. I've thought about doing something like that on our place, which is probably too big for us to manage from fence to fence. I cannot offer you any help except interest and encouragement! And, I love bugs too. www.aphidtrek.org.

I would want more info about what you would provide and expect: pay available? hours of work needed per day/week/month? what is "partial hookup"? Seems like you really need to offer water, sewer and electricity to have folks putting anything but a very specially built mobile/trailer there. Minimum commitment?
How close are you to higher ed places? Might be a good gig for a student if schools are close enough: free "rent" plus (?) for a reasonable amount of work. The job market is better than it has been for a long time, but the housing market is scary bad, so someone might be able to "afford" to work for a place to live since you are close (reasonably, it seems) to other work/school.

Hi, Aimz,

That’s a lot of great information!  And I like the idea of a work exchange renter.  Here are some other thoughts:

Get a specific idea about what you want in the next few months, or this coming growing season.  And then get an idea what help you could use and describe that.

I had a small farm, and registered as a host farm on WWOOF.  I hosted woofers for  a couple years.  It’s a very mixed bag, and I posted on our volunteers who make you go hm

https://permies.com/t/63795/Volunteers-Hmm

It’s a great thread, with a lot of humor and wisdom and experience with volunteers in their many stripes and styles.  Told by diverse people with diverse perspectives.

I seemed to get the full spectrum of humanity in my volunteers, from worst of humanity to best.

I had such diverse needs, I was quite general in who I would accept, which is why I suggest being more specific about what you want to accomplish first, and what kind of help you will need.

Have you found the regional resources place on permies yet?  That might also be a place to find helpers and work exchange people.

Here’s a wild idea:  find someone who wants a market garden, who knows gardening!  Trade with them, you provide the ground and they do the garden.  You get household produce, they sell the rest.  You are freed up to dedicate your time and attention elsewhere.  This is a successful business model working for many partnerships.  

Best of luck!  I hope you will post again soon, and let us be a sounding board as you go further in your process, whatever you decide to try next.

Here’s the regional resource forum For cascadia

https://permies.com/f/21/cascadia