Matt Dutch

Hi Susan,

I just found your post and even though we don't exactly fit your description I feel it couldn't hurt to send you a message
We just landed on this forum and I wrote an introduction post about our situation over here:  
https://permies.com/t/149840/Young-couple-small-kids-small

We are quit open minded and like you we have no defined exact plan. We can imagine a situation where we can help you guys out in several ways and it might give us an opportunity to learn and develop. If possibilities do arise then maybe we can grow together in work/friendly kind of way.

If your positive about discussing further details we'll be happy to be in touch!

Kinds, Matt

Hi Margie,

I realize I'm replying to a many years old post but you never know what comes up. The whole discussion here is of interest for us but because we ware happy to see a Dutchie out here I directed this post to you

We are this 'young family' you are talking about, mid 30's 2 young kids and looking for a life outside the city. I wrote some more about us in this post:
https://permies.com/t/149840/Young-couple-small-kids-small

We would love to be in touch with like minded people from which we can learn and all responses or tips are welcome!

Kinds, Matt

Margie Nieuwkerk wrote:Oh gosh!  I just found this thread!  

I'm in Bulgaria too, since 2006 in the Sliven Region.  Born in Holland and lived in the States and in the UK.  This is home now, I will never live anywhere else.

Helena, I'm pleased too that you know some younger people that are interested in moving to the village.

My understanding from the people I know is that most of the younger generation want to move abroad where they will earn more money.  They don't want to do "farming" the way their grandparents did.  Which is basically quite hard work and very repetitive.  Every year tomatoes, cukes, grapes, kill the pig at christmas, etc.

I think if there were some permaculture programs on TV here, maybe a series, it might generate more interest. I think young people here DO want to protect their environment, and when they go abroad, they HATE the food and miss the fresh produce from home.  

My neighbors (in their 70's) feel that no young people will come to live in the village, but I think they may be wrong.  As economies struggle people here will naturally fall into producing their own again.   I've not seen much in a way of large agriculture here and I think it's because most of the land is broken up into small plots.  It would be really difficult to get 100's of acres of land for a particular crop here.

I've started going towards permaculture last year, and did ok, this year will be even better.  I mean my 1.7 dekare plot even with 1/7th production provides way more than I can eat!

More foreigners should come here to do this.  They have no idea what they're missing.  The last years have been the absolute best in my whole life and I'm in my 60's.

An English friend in Sliven has a little shop with crafts things that she makes.  Recently a journalist came and took some pics and did an article for the "local paper" but it went national as well.  She's had a lot of people come as a result.

I'm thinking that if we all took pictures of our progress, and maybe had a joint blog/site, it might get picked up.  Particularly if we looked at it from the point of view of attracting younger people.  Make it picture heavy with just short little blurbs underneath.  Similar to the lady who has the Bealtaine Cottage site, just a bit more organized (http://bealtainecottage.com/).  You just get sucked in by the pics! and what she did is brilliant.  

Hi Everybody,

I just stumbled upon this forum today and signed up, hopefully meeting some like-minded people and getting closer to finding a spot for us to live in a natural way with less technology and distractions.

My background is in retail, I owned a Health/Fitness store for several years and got interested in permaculture about 5 years ago. My wife is an architect and great in designing with different types of software and currently working for a big office in The Netherlands. I have some gardening skills and can be of good use building stuff though complicated stuff would aquire supervision. We are both fast learners and into all kinds of land-related practices.

I've quit my business 2 years ago to have more time for the kids and we figured life should be more about living and nature and less about work and materialism. We envision an easy going lifestyle in touch with nature and would love to have more animals (currently one cat and 3 chickens) to accompany us and benefit the land and our needs.

We are looking for ways to make use of permaculture to grow our food and build our house. We are very interested in integrating circulair functions in the house like saving rainwater, reusing showerwater, smart ventilation and heating systems which require a minimum of inputs. We did quite some reading about creating a foodforest and made some plans of our own as well, except for growing some vegetables and fruit trees we did not get to practice it in real life.

Ideally we hope to get in touch with other young couples who have the same goals in mind and did already start there journey. It would be great to get in touch, and if possible come over and experience your way of living, and if everything feels good, move over and join the community.

We feel a community should be voluntary with no obligations to start with, helping each other out and combining skills and resources should form a good relationship where privacy can be maintained as well. We love music, having a good conversation and our boys (9 months and almost 3 year old) would love to have some friends to run around with. They will also need (home)schooling so this is a practice we need to consider as well.

We will surely be hanging out here more often to go through the posts, if somebody reads this and feels we should be in touch we are happy to hear from you!

Kind regards, Matt