Permaculture-Based Homestead
We are stewards of an already established natural permaculture system in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.
Our homestead includes chickens, ducks, goats, and peafowl.
The land is home to old-growth oaks, shagbark hickory, and black walnut trees, as well as a sugar bush consisting of a few acres of predominantly sugar maple.
Fresh spring water flows directly out of the hillside, providing both drinking water for the family and animals.
Wildlife includes bullfrogs, spring peepers, leopard frogs, and American toads.
Goats are used to manage the invasive privet, which grows abundantly in our valley.
We transformed a muddy hillside—where tractors would frequently get stuck—by implementing earthworks. What was once a constantly wet slope is now a functional swale that captures spring water and channels it into a single man-made pond, rather than saturating the entire hillside. Ducks swim in the upper ponds, and their manure naturally fertilizes rice grown in the lower pond.
Chickens help keep insect populations under control.
We have successfully grown corn, sunflowers, and amaranth with minimal effort, irrigating from higher-elevation creeks when needed.
We also harvest trees on-site to create shiitake logs, cutting them to size for inoculation events.