Permaculture Eco-Village in NE Washington has Openings: Two Apprentices - Potential Permanent Residency
We have openings for two people to come plug into our Eco-Village project beginning early 2024 (could be a couple or not, families or singles). We're going to spend the winter doing outreach and connect with folks all over the place. There must be people out there for whom this opportunity resonates with their own vision forward in permaculture. The land here is calling out for Earth stewards to come and be part of its ecosystem.
The Eco-Village is a sanctuary seeking devotees, not in any religious sense, although it is often a spiritual quest that drives someone to embrace permaculture. We are looking for people who are devoted to creating rural self-sufficiency for themselves through permaculture in community. We offer an environment free of rent or mortgage and ask only for active mindful participation.
We seek a farmer and a builder to each contribute about 20 hours a week. Please note: This is not an employment opportunity. It is a lifestyle choice.
We seek a farmer/herbalist/horticulturalist/propagator/permaculture practitioner, or a wannabe, who loves experiencing soil, plants and sharing the surplus and who can commit to put in the time and intention required. You would join the two farmers already here to collectively tend the gardens, pastures, food forest, livestock and seed bank and share equitably in the fruits of that labor in the form of food, money and the incalculable value that comes from living the life.
We seek a builder who's into permaculture whose primary role would be contributing to building and maintaining the Eco-Village and farm infrastructure including structures, machinery, equipment, irrigation and energy production facilities. You would work closely with Bezaleel Israel who terraformed the land over a thirty-year period and built the existing infrastructure largely by himself. BZ has 60 years experience being a Jack-of-all-trades. Mechanical work on almost everything (except modern computer cars). Converting Diesel engines to run on recycled vegetable oil, maintaining a fishing boat, tractors, logging equipment, aircraft, commercial refrigeration, metal fabrication, acetylene and arc welding, rural construction, concrete, using heavy equipment for land development, alternative energy, farming, gardening, seed saving and teaching permaculture. There's no compensation for the builder/infrastructure apprenticeship beyond a share of the food the farm produces, shop space, access to tools and equipment and no rent to pay (common expenses shared), so it makes most sense for someone who seeks permanent residency to apply for this apprenticeship so that the fruits of the work put in potentially become collectively your own in time with personal improvements individually-owned. Anyone with the kinds of skills listed here would be able to easily find part-time paid work locally, also join the farming collective or find other means for income on or off Village grounds.
After a successful 60-day trial period you would become an apprentice Village member until the end of the year, renewable, with permanent residency potential.
Farming and infrastructure activities would be done in accordance with permaculture ethics and principles and will contribute to the assembly and implementation of the Eco-Village permaculture design.
We most hope to find folks who arrive open to the idea of joining the Village permanently if the situation feels right.
We are part way through a long, complicated process of establishing the Eco-Village land resource as a permaculture trust and restore the land to more like a commons so the land will be collectively managed, permaculturally, in perpetuity. The Eco-Village is for demonstrating to our local community and the world what industrial/technological climb-down, human re-connection to the natural world and voluntary simplicity look like-- what permaculture looks like in practice.
This year we formally created the BZ Permaculture Farm Collective, a Washington Non-profit Mutual Corporation. It's independent from the Eco-Village but is permitted to steward the rich soils, waters and plant communities and practice regenerative production agriculture on the grounds as a non-profit collective micro-farm. Members of the BZ Farm Collective are all self-employed farmers. For the past two years we have demonstrated the economic viability of the farming operation here despite being severely limited by lack of extra help. We have a small on-line vegetable seed business, we sell at the farmers' market in the nearby city of Colville and we have a small CSA program to supply our fresh produce to folks in our area who don't have a grocery store close to home. We are nowhere near the productive potential of this land or satisfying the local market demand. We can make a living farming here-- living simply!
However, the farming might come to a screeching halt in 2024 because the infrastructure needs of the Eco-Village are so great. Farming might have to take a backseat to building if we can't fill these two openings this winter. That would be really sad since there is so much potential to keep the strong momentum going and reach more local folks with our "Permaculturally Grown" produce.
It's Halloween as this is being written. We are wrapping up the growing season. We got a good amount of the firewood in and stacked. We turned off and drained all the outdoor water lines. We picked the last of the peppers and apples. We were just in time since we are now having below normal low temperatures, several nights in a row down around 15 degrees F. A little like last year, only earlier. And like last year, it looks as if we're going to be planting the garlic through the snow again. But we will have time this winter to communicate with folks about what we're offering. Please contact us if any of this sounds attractive to you. Phone message and text: 914-246-0309 Email:
collective@bzfarm.org. Apply on-line:
https://permacultureconservationtrust.org/content/permaculture-apprenticeship-opportunity-pre-application
Interested? A couple of things: You would need to be debt-free and self-sufficient in terms of shelter. This could be an RV, tiny house, camper, tent, tipi, yurt, etc. If you stick around for winter, you'd have to build or otherwise provide yourself adequate, warm shelter. Various options present themselves. There is firewood available to harvest yourself or buy from the local market. Also, you would need to be financially self-sufficient starting out until you figure out how to obtain an income for yourself, either working with the farming collective, off-farm part-time work, on your own doing odd jobs for residents in the area, or an on-farm craft or cottage industry you dream up on your own.
Please also make sure you thoroughly look over our website. We've tried to include as much information as we can to describe our project:
https://bzfarm.org
