Jenna Ferchoff

Hi all ,

Lots has happened since I was more active in the permaculture community. I'll be 30 next year, living with my partner who is in late 20s. We both became interested in self-sufficiency many years ago. We loved growing our own food organically and I got to work a few summers on 5-10 acre permaculture plots. We travelled across Canada together intending to work our away across many intentional communities and self-sufficient farms. Then COVID hit and all our plans halted. Travelling across Canada doing workaway hit a dead end with lack of opportunity and lockdowns. Both of us had major setbacks in stable employment due to lockdowns as well.

We had a lot of time on our hands we found ourselves spending lots of time building a new like-minded community. All that was wonderful despite the setbacks. However, now that life is sort of up and running again, we find ourselves knee deep in developing our careers. I'm going back to school for massage therapy and my partner is trying their hand at university lecturing. There is a gratitude in having opportunity to move forward in our career lives again but now finding myself in a 9am-8pm schedule most weekdays I am really feeling the discomfort creeping in. Some of the days when life was still slow there was a real magic to spending time out on rural properties connecting deeply with others, learning about ourselves spiritually, and being in nature.

I feel like I am now in the phase of "haven't made it yet" to self-sufficiency and life goals. I want a career so I can afford a lifestyle that's more connected to the land, people, and doing good enjoyable things with my time outside of work. The ideal goal is to live somewhere in a smaller town, closer to nature doing a lot of self-sufficient practices. It feels hard in Canada because you need a lot of capital to start out and that requires a decent career (or so I think). We have about 130,000 in combined $$ and that does not feel like enough to invest in a homestead anywhere an 1-2 hours outside a city without solid careers yet. It feels like I am sliding backwards towards a life that is less sufficient than ever now that I am back in school. I have very little time to hike in nature, forage, learn self-sufficiency skills, or do much outside of studying. I'll also be spending a huge chunk of my savings in order to re-educate. I am doubling-down buying into the current system in the hopes that I can get out of it more in the future.

Its very tough spiritually and emotionally to be so disconnected from my desire to be in nature and live more simply with others. I hope this is one of those cases where the means justify the ends but days like this I just wonder if these feelings aren't signaling something deeper missing, like I should be pursuing a career where I work mainly outdoors (tough to find decent pay opportunities with winters here).

Anyone have an experience with a phase like this in life? How can I get through this period with more understanding and acceptance of it all? Any and all words of wisdom or relatable stories appreciated.

Hi Catie! Yes I have thought about it a lot. I was thinking of living in BC but the cost of living there really turned me off. I suppose if you go rural its not so bad. I travelled around there for two months but could never seem to say ok this is going to work here. Then my partner and I stayed in the East Coast for two months and we couldn't get settled in their either. It seemed a lot more family oriented there and also found it was getting expensive. We were hoping to buy a place there but it seems like there was a huge real estate boom there so all the property got bought up. After travelling coast to coast for four months it made us realize all the things we love about home in Manitoba. There really is something special and unique about the people here. I find them more down to earth here. You have to stay pretty grounded given our extreme weather!

Hey Steve, yes I would love to do that. I think thats sort of the working plan this summer once my job ends for the year to travel around and camp a lot in various parks. We did do a four month stint of van life this year from Sept-Jan so we already learned how to find free wilderness camping and how to live out the back of a tiny mini van. We also were thinking about joining a local bushcraft group. Our summer season is just so short. Its a pity we can't enjoy the nature here more often without freezing to death. We have camped in about -5 at the most and still don't have the hang of doing colder temperatures yet.

Thanks for a great reply Amy. I'm so happy you got to experience Japan in such a way. I really resonate with this idea of moving to Japan someday. I actually took a two month solo trip around Japan a couple summers ago and was in love with the place. I have always felt a little bit at home with Japanese culture. I grew up watching Miyazaki and Ghibli movies and picked up bits and pieces of the language. When I visited Japan, I definitely fell in love with the country side. Something about Japan feels so magical and incredible to me. My partner and I have talked about doing a working holiday or teaching English through JET to get a better sense of the culture. While I loved to travel to Japan I do have a few long term concerns about fitting into the culture there. Mainly, I do hear that they can take a long time, if ever, to warm up to foreigners. I've always felt the Japanese are extremely kind and friendly despite that. The work culture there is just insane to me. I wouldn't fit in at all with it. I already hate that everyone in Canada thinks working 40-50 hours is normal. Also, I found when I visited there that people were kind of stifled in the sense that they are so polite and proper, that there isn't a lot of room to be different or eccentric there. They seem to support a homogenous society there. These are just my initial feelings about the place. I would love to hear in more detail about your experience in having a permaculture homestead there and how you have managed to integrate (or not) there. Also, would you ever be open to hosting people come stay and work on your land? That is something my partner and I talked about doing some workstays like that in Japan to get a feel for the permaculture community. I feel like if anything it is a great climate to grow food in!

In regards to this need of community that you mentioned, after I had posted this I had gone on thinking for a few days about why I was feeling so upset about other people not wanting to settle down and then I realized its because I was projecting my own feelings of frustrations about giving up certain freedoms. I too am hesitating to settle down because community and friendship is something I feel I would become isolated from. I realized that I would be spending most of my time caring for a homestead and that I wouldn't have much time to connect with new people like you say. Because of this realization, I'm not going to rush into this lifestyle this summer. I think its important for me to travel, explore, go to other communities, and hopefully meet a bunch of young people with similar mindsets over the next couple years, so that I can feel confident and secure that I explored my options when I finally do make the jump to homestead life. I think I feel a real sense of fear and urgency to go more off-grid because of all the covid restrictions. Frankly, although many would disagree, I find the recent government policies to be incredibly similar to those of Fascist regimes and I feel that they are not going to let a good crises go to waste. I feel that economic collapse is imminent. However, I thought more about it though and realized making a huge life decision based out of fear is probably not good for me. Running towards something and not away is usually what leads to greater happiness.

Thanks for the reply Michael. I wonder what it is for people like us? Do we have trouble compromising our values too much to share life with others? Are we just incredibly unique and are just one permutation away from fitting in to most cultures? I could definitely see why one would not want to leave the land once you started. One thing I might suggest if you want to try meeting others with similar mindsets is workaway.org. My partner and I did this and helped people out on their farms and homesteads and we have met some very good people and made friends, even though most of our hosts are older than us. If you have the space to host this can be a very interesting and unique way to meet new folks and exchange ideas. That is really sad to hear how trapped people are in living in that dominant mode. I don't want to feel like its too late for me. I hope that no matter how trapped I am in this system, I can still follow my values and strive to spend time with healthy and happy people. I do hope you find your people someday. May I ask where you have set up your homestead and what the community is like around there?

Thank you Mick! I agree with a lot of what you are sharing with me. Grass is always greener, hey? Life is really a game of patience and persistence. I think I do expect a lot out of life immediately and I become impatient but more and more I am willing to sacrifice comforts for a more real and connected lifestyle. We already eat lots of dried good like grains and beans and always cook at home.

I am so very glad you found meaning in family life. That's another part we are struggling with as a couple who does not want to raise children right now or in the foreseeable future. We both had pretty toxic families growing up and we don't have a nice idea of what family can mean and we certainly don't want to pass our trauma's onto our children. So we don't really see a future where we are passing anything on to or raising another generation. I think where we will find meaning is just going to be so different from most people on this planet. I don't want to pretend that I'm ok with just fitting myself into a cookie cutter life when I am not. But there is still much for me to learn about myself and I what I want and need out of life and I may change my opinion on raising a family in many years to come. I am open to multi-generational living or even adopting children once I am mature enough for the task.

Thanks for the link Steve. Its always great to learn about eco villages in Canada. Sounds like a good model. Northern Ontario seems like a great place to go off-grid but we just don't know anyone up there so we are hesitant to make the jump. Our whole life and identity and remaining friend groups are based in Winnipeg so we worry about loneliness being up in a place in the north. Manitoulin Island sure sounds interesting. I've been curious about visiting there.

Hi all,

What a wonderful forum I stumbled upon last month. This will be a bit of a longer one but I think its important to get it out there and I'd love to deeply connect with individuals who might feel the same. I'm a 27 year old woman and I have lived in Manitoba most of my life. I grew up in a fairly regular family. My mom worked in a good career and supported us. Unfortunately, my dad had no career due to mental illness but he did a great job caring for us at home. My brother and I both did very well in University, he went on to have a very successful career for awhile. The way I was raised by my family did not prepare me for life outside of a career and schooling. My mother's greatest support was in my educational successes, but there was rarely any encouragement or confidence instilled in me to develop skills outside of academics. We took very few camping trips and did not grow up with access to our own cabin or a farm. I have always felt two very distinct feelings that have never left me:
1. I feel, think, and see things very differently from my family and most people I meet in daily life. I feel like an outsider always. I like to think about and discuss big concepts like consciousness, life purpose, nature, the universe, etc. often. I don't bother with sports, celebrities, and trends for the most part.
2. I have always felt I needed to do something important with my time and my life force. I feel deeply called to help others, to do meaningful work, and to enjoy my time on this earth bringing happiness and joy to others. Its been extremely difficult to understand how to do this and have confidence in myself to do meaningful work when it isn't supported or encouraged by the current economic and ideological underpinnings of this modern society. This then leads to a further feeling of outsiderness.

These feelings have of course led me to explore a permaculture oriented life. I am slowly but surely gaining knowledge and experience on organic gardening, foraging, herbalism, crafting, natural building, alternative energy and waste management systems, and so much more. I've done work experiences on farms, visited eco-communities, and have started to meet very wonderful people through doing activities that align with my values. I'm very lucky that I have a partner that relates to me so well on many of these areas and feels called to live a homestead life with me. We are very similar in our views.

We are actually at the point where we probably have enough funds to buy a small property and bare essentials home and start a homestead oriented lifestyle that is less dependent on paid labour. There is just one major problem we keep running into and its finding community that we really feel comfortable with. I have noticed a number of things in trying to seek out others to go on this life adventure with. A lot of the established eco-communities or permaculture farms are wonderful, well-developed, and contain very interesting and lovely people. The thing that makes me feel kind of disappointed these days is that most people I have met in person who are established or ready to actually do a more off-grid life are older, often from a different generation with quite different experiences. One lovely couple I met were in their 60s and 70s and had a beautiful property but they had worked high-paying careers and inherited the land. Another couple I met with an awesome organic farm were in their 40s and 50s but they too were in the right place in time in that he was a carpenter who end up building their own house and then they sold it and were able to afford a beautiful 10 acre farm homestead in a great spot in BC. We met another couple in their 30s in BC but again they were busy raising a family, working a standard career as a nurse, and I just felt a lot of our values didn't align in terms of the way we consumed food even though they had a great off-grid property.

The point I'm trying to get at is it feels like most people doing this are people who got into the game 20 or 30 years ago when real estate was more in line with wages and the lifestyle and attitudes of people were totally different. There was no social media, no online trends, people had different attitudes towards work, lifestyle, and travel. I honestly feel that in some ways people had much much more freedom between the 70s and 90s. This isn't to say I don't think there wasn't major challenges in those times. I think in some ways life could be harder then. Nevertheless, growing up as adult in the 2000s, I feel like my partner and I have a unique set of challenges that differ from the older generations in all realms of financial, spiritual, and emotional health. We really want a hybrid homestead life where we grow food, be as self-sufficient as possible, but we also wouldn't mind travelling, working in other places, adventuring, having festivals or dance parties, meditation circles, having psychedelic ceremonies etc. Being in our 20s we really feel like we want to have get togethers, parties, explore our world, and do exciting things and also be more connected to nature, growing food, and conscious living. It seems very difficult for us to meet people in the later years of life who are as excited to get out into the world and meet new people and have large interesting gatherings. They often already have established friendships, families with children, engaging careers, or whatever it might be. How can we as young people connect with a generation that shares our values but has no understanding of our needs as younger people?

Then on the other hand, trying to meet young people our age who are actually serious about living this lifestyle is frustrating and disappointing. I have many, many friends who say they would love to live off the land in a homestead and garden but they never put forth any serious plan or effort. I'm sure money these days is a huge issue but I am aware of the fact that if we pooled our monetary resources I am confident that we could make something happen in Manitoba or even other parts of Canada. I feel I have so many younger friends that share my values, who don't want to eat animals, who want to learn to heal themselves, who want to work with their hands, but they just don't actually seriously try to come up with a plan of how to do it with others. What is it with people in my generation? Are they too downtrodden by money woes? Are they unmotivated and distracted by the internet and fancy clothes, makeup, and hair? Do they truly believe it is not possible? Where is the lust for life in my generation as those back-to-the-landers had in the 60s and 70s? I would love to just meet other young people who are open to creating a community that is both functioning and festive.

It is the hardest thing to feel like I am an outsider even among societies biggest outsiders. I don't know what the next step forward is. My partner and I have talked of just starting on our own homestead and attracting similar people from there but it is way harder to do things with only two hands. We could also join an eco-community in Canada but for a lot of the reasons listed above, and in addition we are vegans, we don't drink, we like pot and the occasional psychedelics, and we don't want to have kids, it seems like even then we will be quite different from a lot of established eco-community members so we really don't want to end up in a scenario where we don't feel we can 100% be ourselves and live freely. Maybe we are just too picky with who we want to spend our time with and we are too immature to realize that living in community with others means living with very different people from yourselves and still being comfortable. I want it to be this simple but I have honestly had moments where I have felt stifled or felt clashing values in my living experiences in off-grid or permaculture sites. Maybe we just haven't had enough time in life to meet the right people? Maybe we just always going to be different from almost everyone and we are set up for a life of solitude?

These questions haunt me at night and I feel a lot of sorrow that I don't feel that I will be able to achieve my dreams and still fit in with other people. I love community and I love being around others, even if they are different from me. But I also value having freedom and space to do what I need to in life and live in a way that is vibrant, exciting, and meaningful.

To any young permies feeling this way I would love to chat with you. And to you older permies, words of wisdom and life experience would be greatly appreciated on this matter. Thanks for listening.