I am a West TN firefighter who is in nursing school. I am married with four kids (the youngest has Down Syndrome and chronic kidney disease), and we have four acres. We also just put a contract on 12 acres in Middle TN with hopes of retiring on it someday. We home school our kids, and they help out a great deal around the place, especially now, while I am in nursing school.
I actually visited the forums a number of years ago, but I never could get my wife on board. That, coupled with the birth of our youngest. his health struggles, and my decision to go back to school, kinda took me "out of play" for a while, so I haven't been on the forums in years. We aren't doing
permaculture right now in any real sense. We have a garden, a couple of fruit
trees, a couple of beehives, some
chickens, a couple of goats, and a cow that my wife milks every day, but we aren't "chemical free." I tried to talk my wife into it, but since I work and I am in school, she does most of the managing on our little place. She got very discouraged with the "chemical free" approach and gave up on it, largely, I think, because we just didn't know
enough to "make it work." She came away thinking that "it didn't work." Once I retire in a five years or so, I would like to give it another try, this time with enough understanding to get better results.
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