IS MEXICO AN OPTION FOR YOU?
We fall in the category of People Who Think Some Badges Could Possibly Be Done at Their Place: Northern Mexico. Sierra Tarahumara. We have lived in Mexico since 2015, just not here in the mountains. We love living our dream her; itt is just harder because we are starting over AGAIN!
First, I have to confess, I have been stalking the SKIP pages for over two years. This is the first time I have ever posted. Second, I hope I am submitting this to the right place and that I am doing this the right. If, if not, I am open to discussion, reprimands, suggestions, ideas, etc.
We have two locations. We built a 16 x 22ft log cabin last year that we currently live in on a piece of land about 3 miles from the Labyrinth. This will eventually turn into the Herb Cabin or perhaps a cabin for visitors. We are currently building a warehouse on the Labyrinth land and will. move there and hopefully start on a log/adobe forever home. We expect to build some small adobe/cob/log buildings this year - depending on who wants to come and help what they want to learn and what we can afford to build.
We have lived on this land in Mexico for less than 10 months. (Cabin completed last May, Labyrinth land acquired last May) We have been doing homesteading in NM since 1990 and moved to Mexico in 2016. My husband is 75 and has been the human backhoe his entire life. Animal husbandry. Small organic farming. Some carpentry, construction, and plumbing (if allowed to curse and make up new languages.) I have been a midwife and herbalist all my life. Finished raising up many women in a nearby town as trained midwives in 2022. Those women have gone on to successfully change the maternal health of this region! These midwives changed an incredibly bad health system into a humanized birth community, raising the VBAC rate, raising the breastfeeding rate, lowering the CS rate, increasing the opportunity for out-of-hospital (OOH) births, and increasing the number OOH births from under 5 in 2015 to over 200 a year in 2023, This group has also created 5 successful birth centers in the area.
I have also been running an herb clinic adjacent to the birth clinic in the town. I still do herbs and herb clinic in town once a week. I no longer do births because I do not drive down the mountain at night and I am 68! I still teach online midwifery and herb courses several nights a week for money and joy.
We hire local neighbors and community for a lot of outsourcing - like digging holes and construction. We do a lot of bartering.
Now we are being asked to help make a difference in the Sierra. We have the start of a first aid clinic/herbal clinic for the community that is barely starting. Still collecting supplies and herbs. We have a good start and word of mouth has already started happening. We need help with that = lots of skills to learn.
Our Gardens. We live in the pines at 8000 feet. We have a 90 ft diameter 7-circuit labyrinth which serves as our garden beds (beds are 3 ft, walkways are 2 feet). I know it is weird, but it has been a dream since the late 90's. The focus is on perennial medicinal herbs because of my work, but we will be doing a variety of vegetables for our vegetable market planned for this summer. We are mostly doing experiments this year to figure out what will grow here. We have 8 varieties of tomatoes started and will be experimenting with many squash varieties this year as well. We have planted over 30 fruit trees this year (we won't see fruit for 3 years most likely). Watering is always a challenge. There is a lot of work. We do a lot of Chop Wood, Carry Water here. We haul water from a local river for the plants and from the town well for our drinking water. We water by hand and by gravity feed. It is what it is. We are working on a mulch project for summer and fall 2024 to lower water needs. We also will do some shading as needed. Yes, a lot of work. We are constantly moving mulch into the garden and onto the land.
We are starting a new adventure with the local community requesting our help with an agricultural teaching project. Yes. Permaculture. This project involves working with the local population teaching kitchen gardens, seed saving, weekly garden markets, possible CSA projects, possible worm/composting production farm, and more. For someone who speaks Spanish teaching Permaculture gardening at a school is a real possibility. (That would be a volunteer position). We speak English and are working hard on getting our Spanish better - ALWAYS. We do not know anyone in the Sierra who speaks English. Our day-to-day with each other is in English, with everyone else, in Spanish. If you speak Spanish, great. If you don't you must have a great desire to learn Spanish to be here. You will be working with local folks - you have to be willing to work at the language. There is not much opportunity to get work here. The whole point of the greenhouse is to teach some skills to keep folks in the Sierra and not moving to the city. I teach medicinal herb growing, plant production and propagation, and all herbal medicine-making skills. I can teach those to locals and you. I have over 30 years of herb experience to mine out of me (and you can attend any of my classes for free!). So there is that. (And if you are interested in midwifery, we should talk.
The weather is cold and windy at present. We have two tents we can keep you warm and dry. We are looking for single folks or couples and would welcome children, but this is not an easy place. No whiners! We have a nice 10 x 14 canvas tent and a larger bell tent (that honestly could use a bit of repair)
We cannot offer payment. We can offer tent shelter, safety (in numbers and we have a large lab/shepherd mix that everyone respects.), and several community meals a week. Access to bulk foods (rice and beans, oil, anything in gardens) and an outdoor stocked kitchen. The land is about a mile from a main road with a bus service where they stop to pick you up. We live close enough to the beautiful Copper Canyon to bike there (50 miles?) if you need a break. We are pretty flexible, and have always had folks live on our land in NM, it seems appropriate here too.
I am all over the place trying to give you an idea of what we are doing, hoping to give you enough information so you can decide if we should have a conversation. I recently looked over the skills list from SKIP. This is a great workshop/opportunity if you are interested. If you are interested send me a message at
katialemone@gmail.com and we can zoom and start talking. There is so much more to talk about. Please send a note if you are interested.
