I stumbled on this forum and my jaws are slathering!  Thankyou all posters for re-affirming my faith in humanity!  *laughing*  The content here is huge, so I started off by reading the mindless drivel. 

But seriously,  I am greatful to be able to post here.  Thanks moderators and maintainers. 

I have no money, I have no land, and no resources.  But I have a dream.  Live off the land.  Keep bees.  Grow mushrooms for the community and hemp for the hurd and barley for malting.  On this parcel I will have an inn.  There will be three things on the menu and micro brews, and wine aged in maple barrels I coopered myself after traveling to france and learning from some masters.  There will be cheese from the goats and cows. A bard every friday night.

On this parcel there will also be a thriving artisan collective.  Outdoor, covered workshops filled with craftsman, artisans and the like, learning and practicing their trades, like glass blowing, blacksmithing, basket weaving, glass making, clay making, baking, throwing, pounding, moulding.  There will be a vintners and brewers, and coopers.  Lace makers, weavers, wool spinners and dyers.  I'm slathering.

There will be limestone on the land and nearby we will have experimental archaeology - a castle building in medieval time.  Oh I dunno, maybe not a castle, but something of ashlar and rubble!  With stone masons and carvers teaching their trade...

I could go on... I want to go on...passive house, sashimono, hempcrete, clay, underground garden...steam hut...yoga meditation studio...adult jungle gym replete with climing wall and giant tire geodome. Absolutely out-of-this-world playground for the kids...tree houses...sigh.  I better stop.  Tomatoes, potatoes, and NOPE.  Im stopping.

I will look to this forum to fuel my fire.  Have a great day permies!

Howdy Jenn , Glad you found us! Yep there is a ton of info here so take you time, look around and see if you can find some other folks with a dream just like yours, you just might help each other make it come true.

In my region the local transfer station does not have glass recycling, so it goes in the trash bins.  When you wrote above about glass blowers it reminds me of a recent conversation in which a friend and I were talking of setting up an area for people to bring their glass, to pile it according to color, and eventually it would be large enough to be worth hauling to a glass recycling facility or... for a glass blowing collective!  At any rate, I also had the idea of making glass bricks with it, and selling the bricks.

Welcome to Permies, Jenn, good luck following your dreams, and if you are ever up near the Jasper, Mount Robson area drop by my place, and say Hi. 

Welcome! 

This sounds fantastic.  You would be surprised how much land is available for affordable or free, to buy or lease.  This is definitely a good place to start looking.

I have no money, I have no land, and no resources.  But I have a dream.  

Best starting place ever!

Money, land, and resources come later.  Start with a library card and building skills.  Hands on, practical skills have the highest trade value.  Most of which can be learned for free or very little cash if you don't mind spending a bit of time getting to know your local library.

For example, in our town, our local library runs a seed library with free gardening and seed saving work shops.  Knowing how to grow food and more importantly, breed them to thrive in your conditions (which is basically all seed saving is), then you've got a skill that 95% of the population lack.  An allotment garden, or maybe a friend's back yard takes very little effort to get going, so learning to improve the soil with what's on hand.  Practice growing grains on a small scale for beer making... the possibilities are endless.

Or if seeds aren't your thing.  Maybe another skill is where your passion lies?  Cob construction?  Any of the list you mention. 

Once you start gathering skills and get good at a few of them, people flock to you with offers of land and resources. 

Another source of skill training is the  Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA).  BC is in the SCA kingdom of An Tir.  These people love building things, cooking, bard events.  Everything on your list, they practice.  And they are so generous with their knowledge.  Not to mention they know how to have fun.  Home brew mead from their own home grown honey on a bard night.  Heaven. 


I would love to live in a community like you describe.  Not in a place of my life to do so at the moment, but I'm gathering the skills necessary to be an invaluable contributor.  Cooking, farming, livestock, and textiles are my skills.  I started with sourcing my materials free from local farmers and a small allotment in town.  As I got better at what I do, more possibilities opened up to me.  Now I steward 5 acres and grow a good chunk of my food and practice experimental farming.  I'm learning ways to grow food in our climate without outside inputs or irrigation - a lot of things are different than they say in books, so experimenting is a vital part to it.  Just about every success in growing things, I learned from this forum.  You're in the right place.