Teal Van Vlymen

Thank you for your reply Lou, I have sent you an email. I have not found any roommates or partners for this exotic fruit farm yet.

Hello Matt,
I went through the same thing with my own extensive large Republican Christian family who outcast me as a child and has never cared whatsoever whether I'm sleeping in a gutter while they all live in mansions. It doesn't pay to be a defender of liberties and the sacred plant, but like you I have always walked an honorable path and sought Harmony peace and a strong work ethic with all those I meet on my path.
I've been building an exotic fruit farm for the last 7 years, the last two years alone, in the Pacific Ocean on us land where we don't have any taxes to speak of and we don't have any winter, the beach is a couple miles away, life is Serene and tranquil on this fruit farm surrounded by jungle a mile outside of a small town. The island is only 14 miles long and is owned by the United States so there are no visas required for us citizens. I can offer you a master bedroom for $300 a month with $50 a month in bills. All you need is to fly here to Saipan island, if you have a passport and can fly to Tokyo and then here it would be much cheaper, around $650 one way. The island has very little crime and everybody is very relaxed and happy.
I hope you find what you're looking for, but if you can't, get a hold of me and get yourself a ticket to paradise. The building I live in is large and empty and I'm the only one here. It sure would be nice to have a friend that understood what it's like to be an outcast from society and family..
Blessings

Hi there.
I've been building a tropical fruit farm on Saipan island in the CNMI. I have put around 100+ fruit bushes and trees in the ground, converting loose jungle to wandering farm for fruits and herbs.
I am seeking a partnership with a single artist or couple, from the US. I have rented a 2 bedroom apartment in a large empty building surrounded by jungle, and have spent six years on this project. The rent is only 400$ a month, with electric,water and cell Internet coming in under 100$ a month. I have 30+ free range Americana chickens, providing ample eggs.
The rest of the building is empty and rentable. The pristine beaches are two miles away. Grocery store at 350 yards. And 1 mile away.
I need a partner to cover the rent and bills to earn partnership. A vehicle is needed to be purchased when arriving, all three of my SUV are down atm, thus confining me to this property.  I really need a break from this solitude and life long mission to grow and eat the world's rarest and most delicious fruits. I need some beach time, some BBQ. Some good music and good friends.
If you want to get out of the mainland USA and go to a no winter, practically no taxes, legal herbs island to relax, retire, see the orient next door. This is the perfect place, farm and opportunity to use regular living expenses to acquire ownership in what I have built. Serious commitment only please. Although there is very little to no real work needed here to continue this project, 1 hour a day of bushcutting, watering. Or feeding chickens ( literally 2 minutes a day opening coconuts. Picking papaya for chickens to eat) is really all that's needed. Perfect life for a set of brothers, sisters, or a stable and kind, easy going couple.
84f year round. No cold weather ever. Laid back lifestyle. Lots of empty beaches to camp or enjoy however you want to. No visas, US LAND.
 hope to find amazing happy people to build a tribe with.
Thanks for reading, leave contact email here in reply if interested, so we can get to know each other.

Honey, oranges and peaches. Sounds like heaven. If you haven't found your soldier yet, please contact me at teal.vanvlymen@gmail.com to begin discussions. I can do everything and then some, with a smile on my face. Chickens are easy. Repairs are fun. Tending fruit trees is my passion. I am currently tending around 150 fruit trees that I grew from seed in the tropical Pacific. 25 kinds of fruits and 35 Americana chickens. Expert in home made fertilizer. Innovation is a core ability to success. Let's chat!

Always funny how some people can so easily root in water and some can't at all.
A couple of things that always help me:
One: after you cut the branches with a clean razor, take off all of the leaves on the branch except the growing tip on the end. Put the branches in a shady place for a day to let them skin over, and then put in water.
Two: never let the water sit in the sunlight, it should always be in shade. Sunlight causes bacteria to grow in the water and will end up rotting and killing your cuttings.
Three: try to change out the water at least every week, rainwater is preferred over tap water because chloramine in tap water does not evaporate so it ends up damaging the leaves when taken up into the stem. I use hydrogen peroxide every two or three days in the water to keep everything bacteria free. This seems to help a whole lot with rooting.
Four: although a lot of people have success with products that are gel, the one product that I have found that works the most is Vita grow or Vita root. This is a fast 3 second dip in an alcohol-based rooting solution, which sterilizes the stem from bacteria and get the rooting hormone into the stem or cutting very quickly with a water-based solution and not a gel. Dip and grow is another one that is almost the same formula and works very well. I used clonex for a long time as a gel and it just got worse and worse results over time. Especially with water-based rooting and not rapid rooter type plugs.
Five: I met an old farmer who uses a 5 gallon bucket in the corner of the garage and cuts branches off his fruit trees and shoves them into loose dirt that is barely moist at all. If the branch lives the first 24 hours he gets excellent rooting results in about 2 to 4 weeks. The key is not to stress the plant with sunlight but provide enough secondary light that it can still live. He said he can root just about anything that way.
Six: if you can't get anything to work after repeated attempts using these tricks, either build a hydroponic rooter or buy one for a few hundred dollars. The softer the stem of the cutting the harder it is to root. Hydroponic rooters use sprays to keep the stem moist, but they need to be kept sterile every few days with hydrogen peroxide or a rooting sterilizer like sm90, which is far as I know is no longer available but was an excellent product for not only causing roots to grow but stimulating them once they were growing into massive balls of root. I'm sure there are several other products like sm90 on the market now. It is best to either build or invest in two machines, same with standard hydroponics, that way one machine is sitting dry and sterile for a week while the other machine is in use. This helps a lot in keeping bacteria down because the bacteria can't live on plastic that is dry.
I just finished rooting a dozen Vine branches of giant granadilla, passiflora quadrangularis. Vines route much easier than stemmed branches do. But I still lost five or six out of two dozen cuttings. The key to my success is sterile water and taking way more branches than you need. That way if half of them die you still get the other half to survive the rooting process and thrive.

Good luck, once you figure out how to do it right, just replicate it for the rest of your life.

Just wanted to add an update here!  We had one wonderful roommate from Permies for about 3 months, and would like to express our gratitude for her time with us!  We are happy to have used Permies.com to have a great connection experience!  At the moment we are still interested in chatting with interested people, but are not going to be using Permies.com much for this due to the inability to edit our original post.  This is making it a little too complicated to keep things up to date.  Also, due to the restrictions from the COVID situation, entering our island is much more difficult to accomplish at the moment, and we don't yet know when this is going to change.  Please feel free to check out our page "Dragon Garden Saipan" at WWOOF independents and soon to be at Workaway!  Thank you all! :)

(This is Sile, just logged into our other account, oops) I live on the island of Saipan, so my chickens are probably similar to yours.  I have 2 small black hens that look the most wild, and then 2 reddish larger hens and one medium sized peachy hen that are probably mixed with some egg laying breeds, but definitely some kind of random island chicken mix.  The people here have told me the nests tend to be hard to find, but if you're able to follow them sometimes you can find it.  So far the chickens have outsmarted me on this as they can sneak into dense jungle I cannot follow haha.  I have considered confining them, but it would have to be a large pen and covered, because they can fly right out of anything I've tried to keep them in thus far and really hate being confined.  They will kick up a fuss and try their best to escape (and have so far succeeded, which is why they're free-range now).  I like your idea of having an enclosure that you put the food and treats in twice a day, perhaps if I did that and got them used to it, I could confine them during the time its most likely for them to lay eggs (when is that, morning??) and hopefully get them using nesting boxes, but let them out to forage for the rest of the day.  I really want to get some baby chicks and raise them to be comfortable with humans, which would make this process much easier I think.  Thank you for your insight!

Our Moringa trees are over 8 foot high at this point, providing us with way too much to use ourselves. The local market has a few Filipeno gardeners who supply the island with large bunches of moringa leaf for 1$ each. The plants also grow wild all over the island, where they are basically ignored by the local population. We have so much available that we have considered offering it for sale to the mainland, but at an extreme discount.

Dale Hodgins wrote:I have also chosen island life. We are only searching the Eastern visayas region of the Philippines, where my wife is from. I'm saying goodbye to winter, and getting into the production of dried leaf and spices for the export market.

The major challenge will be to fit into a society where I have far more wealth than the average person. We will offer free educational opportunities to those around us, and help others sell export products, but I won't be running a charity. Nobody will be given money.

I've been following your story with great interest!  I learned a lot about the Philippines from what you've wrote.  Very interested to hear how things work out for you there.  We are right next door but haven't visited yet; it look like an amazingly beautiful place.  Saying goodbye to winter is always a relief, especially when you're originally from the frozen North haha!
I saw you mentioned growing Moringa/Malungay leaf for sale.  Those trees also grow like crazy here as well, but we weren't sure how much of a market there was for the dried leaves or if we'd be able to compete with lower cost of living places producing them like the Philippines.  We have been using them ourselves by adding to soups and smoothies.

Megan Carlisle wrote:Hi there,
Intrigued by your post, I am a permaculture teacher and my husband is a master multimedia artist, we are currently in Ecuador working on writing permaculture curriculum for Bio-remediation. we are looking to expatriate from the chaos of the United states but are struggling to get residency as we don't make a living in a legible by governments manor.    It is my understanding that at a US citizen I don't need any paper to live in work in the US commonwealth.  Is that true?
Ultimately i would love to know more about how you decided on saipan and if you are happy about your decision to move there...

Yes you are correct, US citizens do not need any papers or visas to live in the Northern Marianas!  I learned about Saipan back in the 2000's when the Military was talking about using Pagan island (one of the Northern islands in the chain, about 200 miles north of Saipan, beautiful and mostly uninhabited except for 2 permanent residents and visitors) for bombing practice.  The local residents here are very opposed to it and so far it has not gone through.  Saipan has its ups and downs, but overall we are happy living here.  No winter is a huge bonus!!