Jonathan Overlin

Hey Tegan! We are neighbors. We live in Colfax (the other side of Des Moines) and are on a similar path. Feel free to reach out to us at https://www.facebook.com/groups/ICCIA/

Colfax, Iowa (20 minutes east of Des Moines)

Farm Assistant & Entrepreneur

Templewood Farm

Position-
We are searching for a person or couple to move here in the spring of 2016 to help us raise pasture raised pigs, do orchard and land maintenance, take care of chickens, train our farm dog, build tiny houses, plant & harvest a vegetable garden, etc. We would be very happy to have someone with farm experience but are willing to consider people new to farming. We really are looking for someone with an entrepreneurial spirit who would like to start, run and maintain an on farm enterprise. There are many possibilities, from mushroom inoculation, to wild foraging for saleable goods, to selling herbs or hydrosols, starting a CSA, etc. We want your imagination and desire to create to inform some of the projects here.

Housing Available-
We currently have a heated and air conditioned older RV for housing. We intend to build tiny houses or cabins as places for farm workers/communitarians to live. The main community house is 2,300 square feet with two bathrooms designed to share with a small grouping of as yet unbuilt tiny houses. The kitchen, dining and large living room are designed for many. We live in two rooms upstairs in the main house.

Compensation-
We are offering a thirty hour work week of on farm labor in exchange for room and board. If you would like to work an additional 10 hours a week we will offer a monthly stipend. If you would rather start an enterprise, we can support the beginning of a project and perhaps purchase some supplies needed for a project.

We, Jonathan and Tizzy, are beginning farmers who are blessed to have 78 acres of beautiful land in central Iowa. We have 16 acres of hay field, 2 natural streams, hills, deep gullies and two different ages of large, wild forests. We have been working for 8 years on our dream of building a home and creating a permaculture farm. The house is *mostly* done, and we moved to the farm March 31, 2015. Since then we have planted a 200 tree organic fruit orchard, built a wood workshop and a chicken tractor. We have also raised a small herd of pasture raised, organically fed pigs. We have plans to create a cooperative intentional community of farmers, artists and entrepreneurs on our land.

Please email us a resume and a letter about yourself to templewoodfarm@gmail.com . Please include your phone number.

We look forward to hearing from you!

https://www.facebook.com/groups/ICCIA/

We are in Iowa, if you may be interested.

Ben, we may have what your looking for. Twenty minutes east of Des Moines Iowa. 78 acres, 60-ish in woods, newly planted orchard, small swine herd, finishing up the chicken tractor. Married couple that are; a pagan priestess, and a philosophically cantankerous artist. Open to creative possibilities. You can see some of what we have going on at the facebook page- https://www.facebook.com/groups/ICCIA/ We also PM'ed you our contact information.

Jonathan & Tizzy

google xeni winter earth lodge. the third picture looks like it could match your ideas

R Scott- Those are my inclinations also- earthworks for water and fruit and nut orchards. They seem like good long term investments

S Haze- The "unfair advantage" perspective is not one I've looked through before, I like the idea of framing my goals through that lens. And Fences also seem like a good long term investment.

My 'unfair advantages' are land that is mortgage free and that has not been chemically farmed in several decades. And cash to invest in a farm enterprise.

My question still is- what would you choose as the most reliably profitable farm enterprise? Besides the polyculture fruit and nut orchard- I am leaning towards pastured animals (pigs, chickens, maybe goats or mini cattle too). But there are other options...Aquaculture, forest farming (mushrooms, ginseng), market gardening, flowers and herbs....I am interested in which people might pick from a profitability stand point.

20 minutes from a 500,000 metro area, in America's heartland

Hello,

Here is the scenario-

Your house and land are paid for
you have 78 acres of mostly wooded land
you have a loafing shed, some paddocks and an old tractor

you also have 100k to invest in enterprises

What would you do?

We have some land out in Iowa. We are looking for a helper/ worker to help us get this place off the ground. We have the capital and the ideas, we just need some more strong backs. We can provide room board and a stipend. We have room for your livestock and can talk about some business arrangement for grazing / raising animals.

We just started a Facebook group here-

www.facebook.com/groups/ICCIA/

Or you can reach out to me via Permies and we can see if our goals align.

In Peace,
Jonathan

I just had a three hour conversation with my NRCS area manager over here in Central Iowa. I just got the exact opposite answers. EQIP was about 'fixing problems' not starting you off on the right foot. How did you do it?