An invitation to live, grow, create, teach, and build something meaningful on an established regenerative farm in Ashland, Oregon.
Dear friends and fellow Permies,
We are reaching out to the extended permaculture community with an unusual opportunity.
At Mindful Earth Farm, just outside Ashland in beautiful Southern Oregon, we have spent years developing a small organic, regenerative and biodynamically inspired farm and community. We have fertile cultivated land, irrigation, established infrastructure, animals, workshops, tools, equipment—and more opportunities than we currently have people to bring them to life.
What we are looking for now are experienced, capable, entrepreneurial people who want more than a farm job.
We are looking for people who want to take responsibility for something, make it their own, create a livelihood, and ultimately share their knowledge with others while contributing to a regenerative land-based community.
We are especially interested in people who might be excited by one of these opportunities:
🌱 MARKET GARDEN
We have approximately 1½ acres available for annual market-garden production and rotation.
The land has already been cultivated and has rich soil, irrigation and access to a tractor, cultivators and the farming tools needed to operate a productive garden.
We would love to find an experienced regenerative / biodynamic farmer—or perhaps a farming couple—who wants to take primary responsibility for developing this into a thriving market garden.
We have excellent local markets in the Ashland/Medford area, including established farmers markets operating multiple days each week. The opportunity is here for someone who knows how to grow efficiently, loves the craft of farming and wants to turn good soil into a viable livelihood.
Over time, we would also like the market garden to become an outdoor classroom, where youth and adults can learn hands-on skills in organic and biodynamic growing, soil fertility, composting, crop planning, seed starting, irrigation, harvesting and small-scale market farming.
🌳 FOOD FOREST & PERMACULTURE NURSERY
We have approximately one acre of established food forest already in production, with fresh produce available from approximately May through January.
We are looking for someone who is interested in helping manage, develop and expand the food forest while exploring its full potential as a productive, educational and economically viable part of the farm.
This opportunity also includes helping enhance our existing nursery, which currently contains several hundred fruit and nut trees and bushes. We would like to expand the nursery into a thriving, Southern Oregon-focused permaculture nursery specializing in plants well suited to the region’s climate, soils and growing conditions.
The right person might help develop propagation systems, expand the plant inventory, improve nursery operations, identify promising regional varieties and build relationships with local gardeners, homesteaders, farmers and land stewards.
The food forest and nursery can also become a living classroom for perennial agriculture—teaching propagation, grafting, pruning, food-forest design, plant guilds, water conservation and the establishment of productive perennial ecosystems.
🐐 GOATS, DAIRY & ARTISAN CHEESE
We currently have a herd of approximately 12 goats, including six does with the potential to be milked, and there is room for the herd and dairy operation to grow.
We would love to find someone with genuine goat and dairy experience who is excited about developing a small-scale enterprise around the herd—potentially including artisan goat cheese and other value-added farm products for local markets, consistent with applicable licensing and food-safety requirements.
Rather than simply caring for someone else’s goats, we are looking for someone who gets excited by the possibility of building an enterprise around them.
This part of the farm can also become an educational center where people learn about animal husbandry, rotational grazing, milking, pasture management, herd health and the traditional skills involved in transforming milk into nourishing farm products.
🔨 MAKER STATION & FARM FABRICATION
We also have a developing maker station equipped for carpentry and welding, with ceramics planned as another component.
We are looking for an experienced craftsperson, builder or fabricator who could help manage this space while turning some of our existing farm designs into beautiful, useful products.
One project is a mobile version of our handcrafted wood-fired barrel sauna, designed so that the sauna itself can become a product people can purchase and bring to their homes or properties.
Other possibilities include thoughtfully designed chicken coops, farm infrastructure and regenerative-living products.
We are also developing an affordable desiccation-toilet conversion system. Commercial systems can be prohibitively expensive, and our goal is to create simple, practical packages that could allow people to convert appropriate composting-toilet setups to desiccation systems for under $500.
There is tremendous room here for the right maker to prototype, refine, fabricate and ultimately build a small business around products that support regenerative and Bio Resonant Living.
Beyond production, we envision the maker station becoming a place where people can learn practical skills in carpentry, welding, fabrication, appropriate technology and ecological building—giving people the confidence and skills to create and repair more of what they need themselves.
🌎 A SCHOOL OF BIO RESONANT LIVING
Education is at the heart of the larger vision.
Over the years, we have offered workshops, camps and other hands-on educational experiences. We now want to expand this work into a more ongoing School of Bio Resonant Living, centered around biodynamic and regenerative farming, practical ecological skills and ways of living that bring people into deeper relationship and resonance with the natural systems that sustain us.
The farm itself becomes the classroom.
As each resident farmer, grower, animal steward, craftsperson and maker becomes established in their area of expertise, we envision them also having opportunities to teach and mentor youth and adults.
In this way, the enterprises support the school, the school strengthens the enterprises, and both contribute to a culture of Bio Resonant Living—learning to live in greater relationship with soil, water, plants, animals, food, community and the living Earth.
🏡 A PLACE TO LIVE AS WELL AS WORK
For the right people, this is also an opportunity to live on the land and become part of the community.
We currently have four living spaces available, offering options for individuals, couples and potentially a small family:
A 2½-bedroom casita
A 20-foot geodesic dome with an earthen floor, hydronic heating and a woodstove
A loft in the barn
A master bedroom in the community house
We also have three established sites for tiny homes or aesthetically pleasing trailers, allowing people who already have their own small home to bring it onto the farm. These sites already have access to water and power.
At the heart of the shared living environment is a communal outdoor kitchen and outdoor shower, along with places to gather, eat, work and spend time together.
🔥 WELLNESS, MOVEMENT & PLAY
We have also put considerable energy into creating spaces that support physical health, restoration, connection and play.
The farm includes a custom wood-fired barrel sauna, along with a cold plunge and swim spa—creating a beautiful hot/cold bathing and recovery experience right on the land.
Our movement and workout facilities include weights, a punching bag and a climbing wall.
For recreation and family life, the farm also has a trampoline, slackline, children's climbing dome and play structure, providing plenty of opportunities for both kids and adults to move, play and enjoy being outside.
These aren't simply amenities added onto a working farm. They reflect an important part of the larger vision of Bio Resonant Living: creating a life where meaningful work, physical health, food, nature, community, learning, restoration and play are woven together rather than separated into different parts of our lives.
The intention isn't simply to provide a place to sleep near one's work. It is to create the conditions for people to live close to the land, their craft and one another, while still having enough independence and personal space to build their own lives.
THE BIGGER VISION
These are not isolated jobs.
We are creating a place where agriculture, appropriate technology, craftsmanship, ecological restoration, education, entrepreneurship, health, play and community reinforce one another.
We are particularly interested in people who have already developed real skills—farmers, gardeners, food-forest stewards, nursery professionals, animal people, craftspeople, builders, educators and ecological entrepreneurs—but who may not yet have access to land, equipment or the capital required to create something of their own.
Much of that foundation already exists here.
What we need are the people, energy, skill and entrepreneurial spirit to bring the next chapter to life.
Our hope is to develop relationships in which people aren't simply exchanging hours for housing or working someone else's vision. We want to explore arrangements where capable people can have genuine responsibility, creative freedom and the opportunity to develop enterprises that support themselves, the educational mission and the larger farm community.
If reading this sparks something in you—we would love to connect.
Please reach out and tell us a little about yourself: your farming, food-forest, nursery, animal, building, teaching or entrepreneurial experience; what kind of land-based work most excites you; and what you would dream of creating if you had access to good land, infrastructure, tools and a supportive community.
Mindful Earth Farm
Ashland, Oregon
Mindfulearthfarm@gmail.com
