I got to bed late the other day. Around 3PM, rather than my usual 9-10AM. Didnt lose any sleep, just adjusted it a a few hours. It's all for good cause though.

My friend (the one I've been talking and developing and progressing with for five years) moved to a new place on two and a half acres, and he's nearly settled enough to start thinking about his garden. So when he said that at the end of our work day, I said something to the tune of "cool, I'm coming over, let's do this." We spent the morning getting his raised beds situated, then we talked about the property and his plans for it.

For background, he is familiar with permaculture, with pasturing meat animals, and with some other relevant topics. While I've focused on reading on plants, orchards, and soil, he's focused on husbandry, economics, and pasture management. A fair balance I'd say, and this project was perfect to put our fundamental knowledge to real world use. While I like to use the disheveled forest garden approach, he likes the functionality, aesthetic, and control of the raised bed or market garden management style. I can't say I blame him, and helping with his garden will help me to make an opinion of my own preferences. There's something to be said for a setup like we made for him yesterday morning:

I'm counting this as my first permaculture consultation, to be a bit tongue in cheek. I'm not certified in permaculture, so I can't legally market anything I do as permaculture. But in the spirit of permaculture, this was a community event, using the third ethic of "return of surplus" to build relationships and abundance through working with nature to increase quality of life for people.

How is this permaculture? Well, look at the spacing of the beds. They're perfectly spaced for each neighboring bed to be used as a bench to rest on. How much more likely are you to harvest, weed, spread compost, and otherwise interact with your garden if the space is comfortable for you to access? I think it was Toby Hemenway, author of Gaia's Garden, that said "the more time you spend on a place, the more productive it will be." Also, the smaller a place, the more time you can spend on it. Jack Spirko joins those two and explains that per square foot, you can attain higher production on a small patch than on a large one. These beds being close together and more comfortable to access means that my friend and his family can spend more time with the smaller space, stacking those two principles. I'm excited to see how they use it all. To further the implementation of the third ethic, the concrete pavers in the rows were used from a small landscaping feature the previous inhabitants of the property had installed. There were exactly enough of the stones to put in the rows between the beds, which will keep grass down, making the space easier to maintain. The name of this game is comfort and ease. Remember garden rule number one: Nate doesn't work hard. Now my friends don't have to work so hard in their garden either.

After we did that, we walked the property's fenced back acre where my friend wants to pasture some pigs and the open front acre where he wants to plant pecans and peaches and harvest hay for his rabbitry. I'm excited to see what he does with his property here, and all the more excited to be able to help him.

Then there's some exciting news for my own place. Melissa wants to get pigs! First, she wants a cedar privacy fence in front where we have a chain link fence, which I think will look really great and be a good improvement to our property. There'll be pics when it's done, but let's get back to the pigs!

After seeing some pigs at a local farm where the farmer (a badass voluntarist that's local to me) raises his pigs on pasture and raises 100% of his carnivore diet on his farm, I have to have pigs. Melissa is on board because pork chops are her favorite food. This was an easy sell. So my plan is to raise a pair of feeders to market weight in a similar setup to Justin Rhodes. Justin used a small carport and a big pile of wood chips to raise out some feeders, and it's pretty inspiring. The addition of fresh wood chips makes the system complete and non-stinky; an important factor for someone raising pigs in town. It also creates oodles of excellent compost.

MOAR POOPS

So, I've got a corner of the yard that's a bit bigger than Justin's setup, and I want to try this out. There's never been a better time to grow your own food, and Melissa is down. Have I mentioned that Melissa is on board with this? Even though my space is bigger than the Rhodes', I'm not doing a proportionally bigger number of animals. Two pigs is fine for me. I'm accepting that I'm no farmer and I'm not ready to be a farmer; a homesteader is just fine to be. Small scale is just fine.

Updates to come, exciting times on our little homestead!

Love from Texas,

Nate 💚