R Thompson

Wow! Such great ideas! Following for help in working through my pumpkins as well.

Thanks all. To clarify a little more, we would possibly be using a log home kit that comes with 8-inch dried southern yellow pine logs for exterior walls, and blueprints. So, we would have to do the foundation, roof, and interior dividing walls ourselves. This is where we are considering using cob for the dividing walls only (not cob on log outer walls). Our desire is to not need any kind of heating/air unit but make the home as temperature stable as possible.

The labor and time involved in building only with cob is a concern for us as we both work full time, and my husband works for the railroad, so he's only home a few days a year. So, our thought is to have someone build the foundation, log exterior walls, and roof, then we can pick up and start on the interior dividing walls at our own pace. We do have ample and quality cob budling materials on our land, and stone for fireplaces, it's the time/labor to construct, insulation, and cost balance we're trying to account for.

The home would be probably 2000 sf. We are hoping to move there permanently once built, but right now we live 3 hours away from the site.

My husband and I are planning on building on our land and considering different building options. One idea we had was round log exterior walls with cob interior walls. Our thought is the log exterior walls provide durability and insulation, and are less labor intensive to construct with, while cob interior brings the benefits of thermal mass and temperature, humidity, and air quality regulation. If we design with passive solar in mind, it seems like this could work. However I haven’t seen anyone else doing this so wondering if I’m missing something here.

This is so interesting- love this thread!

So, it seems to me that this is probably a good long-term maintenance approach best suited for someone onsite managing their own small herd, able to move them around as needed, etc. and clear the remaining stuff once they've grazed as they go. Sort of a patient, little bit over time kind of thing.

For a more aggressive clearing project, it sounds like a larger herd for a kind of fixed time on a certain area may be good, and likely best if can rent a herd or work with other local goat people to get a decent size herd to really get in there and do their business, then move on while you go back in and clean up the rest of what is left.

So, it seems that if your intent is to clear land to, say, build a house, and you need it done quickly, this may not be best. However, if you're just needing some areas cleared and maintained, like underbrush areas or meadows, etc., this could work really well long term.  

The hard part becomes finding a herd to do the work as needed... I found, by googling, a couple of goat rental directories, but the listings are far and few between in most areas. I would suspect that, if there is a local goat person in your area who doesn't currently do this, they may be open to it if they have the ability to transport to your location and have fencing to keep them protected- and it's basically worth their time and effort. Maybe asking around would even inspire someone to open a new revenue stream they hadn't thought of before.    

Lots of food for thought!

I'm curious about this as well. We just purchased a 10 acre lot, and we're interested in the use of goats to clear the northern section (outlined in white in the picture). It's a little over an acre, partly treed. There is a large clump of mostly elm and blackberry in the center, with grassy walkways around it. There are A LOT of blackberries. We also noted poison ivy in the eastern part of the area in the trees, and a lot of vines that are weighing everything down.

We've considered maybe a goat rental service since we don't live onsite (it's about 3 hours away from us). We like the idea of using goats v other options as it's less disruptive to the land, and more beneficial, but we're unsure of the actual logistics of doing it this way, and how much "clearing" to expect.  

Hello,
Not sure if you ever found property or not, but I can give some input from our recent experience purchasing land in OK.

We live in the Yukon area, but I moved here from Norman when I got married. My husband and I wanted to get land, but really had no experience with how to go about that. My dad lives in Kentucky, and my mom lives in Colorado, so we also considered both of these locations. Natural resources were a main focus for us, and we did not want to move anywhere in a growing zone we were unfamiliar with, had water concerns (either lack of or overabundance causing flooding concerns), put us even farther away from family (we also have a lot of family in the OKC metro), or had state or local restrictions that would make it difficult for us to establish our way of life the way we intended. We did not intend to move to the land immediately, so this was a big factor in what we were looking for as it didn't have to sustain us right away.

We started on realtor.com and Zillow just looking in all areas to see what was available, what kinds of listings were there, and just monitored the market over a period of about 6 months. We also started looking on Landandfarm.com and Landwatch.com as they are more land focused. Through that time, we started to refine down the essential things we were looking for on the property, and set a budget for how much we were willing to spend, and the minimum acreage we wanted. We determined we wanted at least 10 acres, and a creek and/or pond on property was important. We also were provided a website by our realtor that showed wells depths that was really useful for us in determining expected cost of digging a well. We learned that it is easier to do a cash purchase, which we preferred anyway so as not to incur debt. This set our max budget, and we just continued to save money as we looked. We did start to really focus in on what we were looking for, and what were our most important features. The closer to a metro area you get, the higher the price per acre, but the farther you get, the higher the cost and difficulty to install things like internet, etc.  

Earlier this year, we took a trip to the areas of the state that we had not really explored much, primarily the eastern half of OK. We identified a few properties that seemed good and made a route to go to the sites and see what it was actually like there. This was an amazing learning experience for us, and we found that things are very different in pictures than they are in real life! We fell in love with the Moyers area just north of Antlers, but as pretty as it was, it is very raw land, with poor road access in general. The Tahlequah area was also beautiful, but it was odd how the land we found there felt even more disconnected and harder to get to than that in the Moyers area. As we drove, we jotted down realtors from signs we saw along the way, and started going to their websites to look at the listings. This turned out to be a good move, and opened up more specific listings that we hadn't seen on other general listing sites. This also introduced us to our realtor who was very helpful in our search (https://www.century21.com/real-estate-agent/profile/travis-pack-P414049860).  

Ultimately, we found our land, and it was perfect. 10 acres in budget, creek, pond, 80% treed, grass meadow, paved road access, and we get super good cell coverage (I was able to use my hotspot to connect to the internet with decent speeds)... We just visited last week to start an inventory of the land, and I am blown away by the natural abundance. Many of the pants and trees you listed are already present and thriving with no intervention on our land.

I think our biggest take-aways were:
1. Research. Research. Research.
2. Patience is the key. Know what you want and be willing to pass on things. Don't get desperate.
3. Be open to areas you hadn't considered. They may surprise you!
4. Work with a realtor that works with you and knows the area. We spoke to a few realtors from listing we found, and none of them seemed very engaged with us except the one we ultimately settled on. He not only spent time with us to answer general questions, but he owned land in many of the places we were looking, so could give really good input on what it was actually like there, pros and cons, etc., and even contractors etc. to help with developing the land once we purchased.
5. Any land can be shaped by permaculture into a thriving paradise, some just take more time and effort than others.

Good luck in your search!

I am in Oklahoma and also interested in paw paws. I recently came across the below podcast that may help. My curiosity is how much they spread once planted. Still doing research but seems like a really good addition to an Oklahoma food forest. Since it's been a while since this was posted, I'm curious if you ever started growing them. I'd love to know how it worked out if so!

https://sustainableworldradio.com/?s=paw+paw&submit=Go

I'm your northern neighbor in Central Oklahoma. it's Zone 7, but pretty dry in my "city" location.   Probably similar humidity and heat to the Austin area, but drier overall.  

These are some of the ground cover plants I have found today as I research options.

Front lawn
1. Corsican Mint
2. Creeping juniper
3. Snow-in-summer ground cover
4. Creeping thyme
5. Blue start creeper
6. Barren Strawberry
7. Moss rose
8. Brass buttons
9. Wild violets

I agree that a uniform, crisp edge look is desired for my initial purpose. I did join the HOA as secretary last week as step 1 in transforming how we view lawns.

I have a thought...
If you take the basic principles of permaculture and apply that to the economic side of things, isn't relying only on one system for income akin to creating a monoculture for one type of crop?

For example, using a fruit tree guild as an illustrative, if the straight up farm product business is the apple tree at the center, maybe your nitrogen fixer is a class you teach at the local community center, and your under-layer is an e-book about homesteading that you wrote and sell. Your pollinators are your Youtube videos, and the soil builder is the community building you do on permies. One thing might fail, or might evolve over time, but it's all part of the overall system.

On the other hand, if you have one income source, that's like having just a field of corn. If that one crop fails, you're out of luck. You also have to spend a lot more time and energy working against nature to get that one crop to succeed, which costs more time, labor, and money.  

Having multiple systems working together creates more opportunity for success, and less risk overall. Finding simple ways to bring in small incomes to support the "fruit tree" with little cost and residual income potential is kind of the exact same thing as creating a food forest, if you think about it. Maybe your berries (ie, YouTube channel) really take off this year, but your Apple tree (ie farm products) didn't grow well. The soil building produces a little yield as you get a new opportunity to teach a one-time online class, while your e-book has had a pretty consistent harvest.

Maybe this is why you see that so much as you look around. Maybe not, but it's something to consider.  

Thanks Casie!
I forgot I could post pictures
Here are my front and back lawn areas. The back area is the one where the HOA mows, the front is where we are responsible for "maintaining" it according to HOA bi-laws.