Hello fellow Wisconsinites!
So happy to have found you! We are in Mondovi, WI - about a half hour south of Eau Claire.
Learned about permaculture two years ago when I attended what I thought was another innocent grazing workshop that ended up touring Mark Shepards farm and heard presentations from University of Missouri - I had no idea what I had gotten myself into! Anyway, Mark was at our place a few weeks ago and we got some swale lines in, about 20 acres (of our total 150, hey he was there less than a day). Heavy equipment should be coming next week to help get the ponds in and finish the swales/berms. I started my elderberry "nursery" (plants from Paul Ottens place - Natura Farms in MN) and we hope to get the rest of our lines and ponds in yet this year. We have about 30 acres that are all woods (Oak, hazelnut, elderberry....classic WI - but it was logged a few years before we bought it and the cows were removed for about ten years, so old pastures are mostly poplars now and the understory is all black caps/raspberrys and buckthorn). We hope to start some clearing of the woods this year to take pressure off the big beatiful oaks that were once in open pasture and to continue our berms/swales - essentially get grass in the trees and tress in the grass. We bought the farm with 60 acres at the end of 2009 and before I could get my house redone the land next door came for up for quick sale so we added about 90 more acres (to our original 60 and now, forever, crappy little house).
Since then we've begun rebuilding the soil, converted everything to organic, started our beef, pork, sheep and poultry (intensively grazed). Last year we got our big perimeter fence up, and our walk in freezer. We now have on farm housing finished too! We've pretty much exhausted all of our financial resources (calling all investors!) but have a girl that's been doing farmers markets for us this year. It's way too much to have a day job, two little girls and do markets on the weekends!! So, she is truly a God-send. Anyway, that's the gist of what we are doing at our place.
We definitely are going to be looking for another God-send and so you may see a future post from me about that. But...I can't resist saying something now: We have an ad on WWOOF that goes into a lot more detail. But basically I'd like to find someone who wants to either take the permaculture bull by the horns and/or who wants to essentially use our place to start their own enterprise that we will help with - financially to an extent, but mostly in terms of using the land, current equipment, knowledge and markets. I also have potential opportunities for grant writers. This is wide open for discussion and I have some pretty great ideas. We are hoping that next year is the year my husband can quit his day job, but it may be the year after that (the weather has been about as un-cooperative as it could possibly be with this little dream of ours). But, I'd also like to work with other WI'ites (or nearby Minnesotans) to do workshops, demos, share cuttings and perhaps go together to purchase bulk orders of things (namely trees). Basically to work and act together like a community. (We, are, as the name implies....all in this together!)
Anyway, I saw the post about Wisconsinites so wanted to get something up here. Hi Everybody!
