Anyone Homesteading In Washington State?

Looking to make connections with folks who want live in farmstead help or are looking to build community.


Who We Are:
Personality wise, my husband David (who will be 43 this year) is a gentle soul and he has been working with and around people who don't care about other people for far too long and it's starting to really take its toll; he wants out. He would love nothing more than to get back to nature and help out in any way he can for people who actually care about other people.

Our best friend Rook (who will be 46 this year) is a bit of an odd duck that thinks rather differently and has a tendency to get mental tunnel vision on occasion. This tends to make most people think that he's a little on the slow side mentally, but he's not. He's just different. He is the type of person who takes great pleasure in helping others and would give the shirt off of his back to keep someone warm if he thought they needed it more than he did. He's a tireless worker with an amazing work ethic.

I'm the outgoing one of the three of us, (I will be 44 in a couple of weeks). I have an open, curious, and playful nature. I love the outdoors and most animals, and am absolutely at home on my knees with my hands in the dirt. I have a strong interest in organic gardening, aquaponics, cob building, edible food forests, and home brewing.

What We Are Seeking:
All three of us want to get out of apartment living and move to a more healthy and sustainable lifestyle where people actually care about others and the environment. Sadly we can not afford to purchase property ourselves so we hope to find a small start up farmstead or community of like minded people that would be interested in live in help or who would be open to a work exchange for a small bit of property.

We have an interest in cob and other alternative forms of building, aquaponics, goat farming / cheese making, and brewing. Please contact me if we seem like a good fit for your farm or community and we can begin talking. Thanks much for your consideration.

Our Skill Sets:
My husband David is currently working as an apartment maintenance man. He has 15+ years of experience under his belt and can pretty much fix near anything to do with a building that does not involve the roof and the foundation including some plumbing and basic wiring. He has had some light construction experience as well that he has learned on the job.

Rook went to job corps some years ago and graduated with a certificate in landscape horticulture and design. His skills might be a bit rusty as he hasn't worked in that field for some time, but he is always eager to learn or relearn as the case may be. He currently works for Target for too long hours and too little wages and no benefits. He would also like to get out of that kind of life and get back to the land.

I myself also took the same course in job corp and graduated with the same certificate a few months before Rook did. My skills are also a bit rusty, but I am also always eager to learn or relearn as the case may be. I am currently self employed and make jewelry and eclectic items which I sell on Etsy @Spirit Panther Creations.
All three of us have many more eclectic skills, none of us smoke, and we are spiritual not religious. Also, we would like very much to stay in Washington State.

Hi...

If your still looking I know I sure am...

I'm on my way to the Northwest coast from Valley City, North Dakota for an exploratory adventure looking for farms sustainable lifestyles & hopefully help on or with starting up a community of my own...

Due to medical reasons (Meningitis/brain damage) I've decided on Washington until the fools on capital hill change the Marijuana laws for good...

I grew up in a TINY (less than 25 house) village called Fingal here in ND & from a big family farm that's had all kinds of different animals & garden crops along with the wheat & other crops...

I've had my share of experience you could say...

Say hello if you think we could maybe create something beautiful together...

If we did all the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astonish ourselves.
- Edison, Thomas A.

Hello, I wonder if I can help you guys and anyone interested. I came here to this forum yesterday seeking people who might be interested in my total sustainability land use concept that I just posted on indiegogo. I made the mistake of jumping the gun and posting it before I had a large community... mostly because without the profile itself it was hard to describe it all to friends and family and coworkers. But I need people now to look at it and tell me if they're interested or not. I'm looking for 3-4 constant live in adults with or without kids, but preferably with because I have 2 toddler boys by myself and I want to have community. We'd be putting up yurts at first, then installing solar and gardens, though it would be on-grid. After keeping ourselves warm for the winter with our wood-heated yurts we would have a massive cobb project in the spring to make the main house / meeting hub, then the yurts would become night shelter and planning / meeting / storage places. I can't go into too much detail or I'd go on forever. The project, you'll see, is sprawling, but I tried to condense it as much as possible. Please take a look and let me know if you might be interested, of course I'd have to talk to you and make connection with you to decide if you'd be a fit as well.

YES aquaponics, passive irrigation, bio water treatment, aquaculture. We will also have geodesic biodomes for growing and/or living.

http://igg.me/at/sustainablelifenow/x/4441808
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Making-Sustainability-Real/311234528893416?notif_t=page_new_likes

*Edit and PS: Please if you're serious let me know ASAP because it's a bonus for me if I can get people to make a IGG profile and commit, it improves the chances of getting funded. Of course sharing it widely helps too.

Hello Brendan.

You have an interesting project ahead of you. It looks wonderful, though it is not what my mate, best friend, and I are looking for. It's just a bit too big. All three of us suffer from social anxiety disorder to one degree or another. What you have outlined on Indegogo seems like it's aimed at a huge community, which we think is awesome and we hope that you achieve your goal. I will share the link to my facebook page and try to help promote it as best I can. Good luck to you.


Hi Dustin.

What kind of situation are you looking for? Have you done much planning or are you still in the looking phase. Send me a private PM and we can talk. Take care, both of you.

Kat

That's fine; I understand because I'm what a lot of people call a 'hermit', but I have come to realize much of my fear of people stemmed from the cross section of people I was around. Around like minded people I thrive, especially if I'm in my element. But I understand what you're saying; truth be told I might just have my eyes too big for my stomach and I might not want to live with that many people constantly, who does? But I do want it to be a community and education center sometimes so it wouldn't be comfortable for people who don't like large groups. Believe me I typically don't like large gatherings either but I imagine a hoard of ecokids mashing cobb is less intimidating than a sea of your typical overworked dark-sunglassed slightly-buzzed weekend festival goers.

Thanks for your kind words about my project, I'll keep on going with it.

Hi! My wife and I have a few acres near Spokane, WA. Let me know if we can be of any help. Here's a link to my blog...

http://thishappyhomestead.com/

BEAUTIFUL landscape you have...

What sort of projects do you have in the works...?

We're buying more livestock. We have a couple pigs now with a 3rd planned.

We have grape trellises and plan on a lot more in spring.

I also want a building for aquaponics next year.

Not sure we'll get it done in the next year, but a milk cow would be nice.

Jeremey Weeks wrote:Hi! My wife and I have a few acres near Spokane, WA. Let me know if we can be of any help. Here's a link to my blog...

http://thishappyhomestead.com/

Hi Jeremey! My name is Ally and I am new to the forum. I am doing research on off grid living in Washington and saw your blog. If you have a moment I'd love to speak with you. My email is: AlexandraNsiegel@gmail.com. Thanks and I look forward to hearing from you.

Hi, Ally!

You should have an email from me. Feel free to tap me if you didn't receive.


--JS

Hey guys
iv been looking for land in wa for a year .im ex AirForce and i am a single mom.
the home loan i was promised i would get i have found i cant use to by land unless i build a giant 250,000 dollar home on it .
i just want land to live off the grid .and ideas or help???
thanks,keira

Bumping this old post as it's still relevant for us, though some of the info in the original post has changed, (we've gotten a few years older, and we are now willing to relocate almost anywhere in the Pacific Northwest.) We would also be open to a property caretaker job where the owner of the property is looking to make permaculture related improvements.

Hi Katrin,

Just saying hi! I don't know if anyone who is offering what you are looking for but I am homesteading in WA I'm off grid up about 90 minutes north of Spokane. Live in a half finished house, and will finally be able to get to work on the property itself a bit this summer. This particular area (near Colville) is perfect for permaculture - not nearly as dry and brown as most of Eastern WA, but not all rainy and wet like the west side.

Bethany Dutch wrote:Hi Katrin,

Just saying hi! I don't know if anyone who is offering what you are looking for but I am homesteading in WA I'm off grid up about 90 minutes north of Spokane. Live in a half finished house, and will finally be able to get to work on the property itself a bit this summer. This particular area (near Colville) is perfect for permaculture - not nearly as dry and brown as most of Eastern WA, but not all rainy and wet like the west side.

Hi Bethany. Yeah, it sounds like you have the kind of setup that we wish we had. Sadly we don't qualify for any assistance or loans to buy property, so we are stuck for the time being just trying to find someone who needs or wants live in help. What kinds of things are you planning for your property if you don't mind my asking? I like hearing what others are doing so that if (and hopefully when) we get the opportunity we will have lots of ideas to work with. Thanks much,

Kat

Katrin Kerns wrote:

Bethany Dutch wrote:Hi Katrin,

Just saying hi! I don't know if anyone who is offering what you are looking for but I am homesteading in WA I'm off grid up about 90 minutes north of Spokane. Live in a half finished house, and will finally be able to get to work on the property itself a bit this summer. This particular area (near Colville) is perfect for permaculture - not nearly as dry and brown as most of Eastern WA, but not all rainy and wet like the west side.

Hi Bethany. Yeah, it sounds like you have the kind of setup that we wish we had. Sadly we don't qualify for any assistance or loans to buy property, so we are stuck for the time being just trying to find someone who needs or wants live in help. What kinds of things are you planning for your property if you don't mind my asking? I like hearing what others are doing so that if (and hopefully when) we get the opportunity we will have lots of ideas to work with. Thanks much,

Kat

Well we have a small 720 sq ft stickbuilt cabin shell that I will be finishing in the next year or so with a fachwerk exterior and interior (a European style of stucco with dark wood beams). we dug down pretty deep into the hillside with the intention of doing a sorta Oehler style house with a greenhouse behind the home built into the hillside, and I will also integrate a root cellar with a door that goes directly into it from my kitchen. Right now I don't have the water fully set up or power, and the interior is completely unfinished, but by the end of the summer I will have the plumbing done, propane piped in from outside, the interior walls finished, and HOPEFULLY connected to grid power.

Eventually I'll add on to the home and may do more of a Wofati or traditional fachwerk home but it depends it will be earth sheltered for sure in some way, but also have a very European tudor/chalet look even if I have to just make it look like that on the outside

I'm a single mother of three, so going will be kind of slow, but this year I'm going to be putting in my veg garden. I'll be doing each raised bed as a mini-swale, on contour with the land. I've got 9 fir trees in that area at the moment, and two weeks from now I will be cutting them off about 4 feet high and inoculating the stumps with Phoenix oyster mushrooms - if my idea is right, I'll get food out of it and the fungi/mycelium benefits will also help improve the soil. It's either that or bulldoze, and I don't want to give up the benefit of all that rotting wood under the ground.

I'll also be fencing in the future orchard area and putting some goats in there this year to help clear out shrubs and also because I want to test the water with goats. The orchard will be more of a food forest with a focus on fruit/nut trees, hazelnut shrubs, and fruit production, including berry bushes and then I'll have another area set aside for cane fruits, grapes and hardy kiwi. Beyond that, I don't have a whole lot of plans. I do have some potential pasture to clear out in front of my house where I may raise beef and run a Dexter milk cow, but that kind of depends on if I like goat's milk or not.

Beyond that, I'm not sure! I figure the above is about 5-10 years worth, and then I can kinda go from there I'm also hoping to try out beekeeping at some point, but that may be in the next couple years. I'm also contemplating putting in an acre or so of sugar maples, if I can figure out a consistent way to passively irrigate them... then I can make maple syrup with my grandkids that I'll have in 20 years Also may closely plant some walnut trees to harvest for veneer to sell in 40 years when I retire.

Wow Bethany,

It sounds like you have it all planed out, and you are doing it all by yourself; you are amazing. Do you know if you have any birch trees on your property? If so, you can tap those just like you can maple trees and make birch syrup. I just found that out this month. Yeah, it's always best to start small with goats from what I hear, though from what folks say, once you start raising goats you never want to not raise them. I haven't drunk goats milk since I was a child, but I love goats milk cheese and that's what we will be getting goats for once we have some property, meat, milk, and cheese. My mate and I aren't really cow people so if we have any at all it will most likely be only one dairy cow and maybe a meat steer periodically. Goats take up less room, are easier to feed, and the milk is easier for the human body to digest. So goats are an all around must have for us someday.

Your mushroom plan sounds really cool! What a great way to deal with the wood and get a productive food source out of it as well as improving your lands soil fertility; awesome! Sounds like you are into and doing the same sort of thing we want to do, I'm really wishing we were neighbors right about now. I hope that you can get some more like minded people in around you, it's always best to have a strong community if possible, that way if anything goes wrong or you need some help you have folks you can turn to. I'm so wishing that I had the space and place to work on a garden, I have to admit that I've really been missing it since we got displaced from our old apartment due to a fire across the hall. I used to have a southward facing balcony that I was trying to turn into a micro food forest for us, but I lost a lot of plants when we had to move into a smaller apartment with a northward facing balcony. Though my dwarf fruit tree saplings and my blueberry shrubs made it through okay and are starting to bud out in preparation for the spring so at least I have that.

Keep on sharing your progress, I like being able to live vicariously through other folks if I can't have what I want right now on my own. Post some photos some time if you can and keep up the awesome work! Take care,

Kat

EDIT: Oh, you can check out what I was doing with my balcony before and up to the fire if you like, I was doing a gardening channel on YouTube called On The Balcony With Kat that was chronicling my attempts to make my micro food forest. You can check it out here: On The Balcony With Kat

My boyfriend and I feel we need to get away from the city before things get really bad. I have just purchased a van and we live in it, its shelter, for now. But we'd really love to build our own little place, and grow our own food. Hes on social security, I broke my neck a few years ago, and am unable to work like I use to, and have been denied social security disability benefits.  I cook very well, and hes quite handy. My name is Stacie, he is Kahleb. We have a working phone, 509 992 0669

Hello,

I’m very much interested in a farm that is up for sale in Maple Valley. It used to be a Berry picking farm, and I’m assuming that Covid probably ruined their business. This property has almost 9 acres, and would be an ideal place for multiple people to live on the property. I’m interested in farming Alpacas and using the wool for making yarn, additionally, breeding them could be lucrative as well.

Currently, I live in a house in Federal Way, and have a subleaser who lives downstairs. I have 3 children, and need to relocate to this specific area, or Snoqualmie.

I’m very much into growing plants, and would like to have a large size greenhouse, so that I can also grow herbs for possibly making essential oils. I’m a “free-spirited “ type person, who is unique in various skills. I currently work full time at a hospital, and am a very caring, empathetic person. I grew up on a farm, and desire for my children to be a part of this life like me. I also feel drained by the hustle and caiotic lifestyle of living in a city.

I am very adventurous, and am a believer that a person can learn and become whatever they decide to, and have many talents/abilities myself. I can offer the idea of an opportunity to group up with people, who are safe and can provide credit and support to financing this farm idea. Please reach out if this is something you are still interested in doing! kimdreed@gmail.com