Always, perpetually, forever figuring it out...

I hear you loud and clear.

I need to explain what we are doing here.

These posts have been jumping around from farming to rewilding to decluttering a home. I've been getting good feedback on all of it, but a question does naturally come up...

How does it all connect?

Does it all connect?

Yes, it does. Tonight, I am going to work my way through explaining it all.

I'm not going to try to create the perfect overview in this post, I'm just going to get it all out in one place for the first time.

My hope is that this post will initiate a process that leads to me being able to better communicate about what we are doing and why.

Let's start at the beginning.

In order to understand whats going on at the farm, you have to understand a little about me first.

You will hear me talk about many weird things and why I think they are better than the commonplace.

I'm going to be up front with you, I am biased.

The truth is, the root of all this is that I love this stuff.

Since I was little, I have loved a few things more than anything else. Creeks in the woods, animals, bouncy balls, logic puzzles, playing with kids in the 0-12 age range, and eating large quantities of good food.

If you take a look around me, I have surrounded myself with a way to turn all these passions into a living. The only thing that I'm still figuring out how to plug in to the rest is the bouncy balls.

Maybe the fact that our entire house is full of them is enough?

As far as the farm goes, many people don't know much more than "they moved to a farm." If you are closer to us, then you know that this journey we are on is about much more than farming.

This is an experiment in better living and what that might look like scaled out to a community-wide level.

We don't propose to know everything or know what's best for you. We're building something that works for us, and hopefully it helps other people live better lives as well.

When we moved to the farm, we were still figuring it out.

To be fair, life is a process. We are always, perpetually, forever figuring it out.

But when we threw our hat over the fence and moved to the farm, we knew we were signing up for an intense couple years of this "figuring it out" process.

We had a vague sense of where we wanted to go. We spent a lot of time thinking about what better living would look like and what systems would need to be in place to support an individual or family in their pursuit of better living.

In the beginning, we thought that we were pursuing full-blown self sufficiency.

We were building a homestead to support our family with an interesting life and good food. We wanted to engage with the physical world. We find tremendous spiritual worth in the action of communing with the world around us, and we wanted more direct contact with it.

We wanted to be in the woods. We were ready to pull the trigger on an off-grid, middle of nowhere journey into the wilderness.

There were some problems with that vision though. We also want community. We have a strong extended family that we want to maintain connection with. We want to help push land use in a positive direction. We want to solve important problems.

Our project evolved. The farm was born. A battle with the NRCS led me down the path to making trees and perennial design the centerpiece of everything that we are doing.

I can't wait to tell you all these stories.

If you've been disappointed by the lack of tree talk so far in these posts, don't worry. Tree talk is coming. I am personally planting at least a thousand trees this year.

We're covering this farm in a perennial landscape that will bring back biodiversity, raise large quantities of high quality food, improve water quality, improve air quality, build healthy soil, bring back the pollinators, sequester carbon, restore ecosystem function, make the place even more beautiful, and provide an amazing gathering space for the community that develops around it.

We're going to have fun, raise happy kids, grow a lot of good food, help others build better systems on their farms, help people access better food, and throw exciting events for the community.

I think we are getting somewhere. The pieces are coming into focus.

This is an experiment in living well, building a homestead for our family, rewilding landscapes, helping others design their own land to fit their context, raising kids well, and going on grand adventures.

Let's break out these parts we keep hitting on and what each one includes.

An experiment in living well. An experiment in designing a life that allows us to have fun every day while making the most of every moment we are fortunate to live. Zooming in to make this moment count, right here and right now. A recognition that life is good and that we want to make the most of it. A decision to not delay what we should do now for later. Beating Resistance.

The Homestead. How to support a large family with a good, simple life - good food to eat, a place for communion with friends and family, and access to the natural world to play and experiment in. A unit within a small community of close people.

The Farm. An experiment in how to take any land, regardless of the current state, and turn it into a perennial ecosystem that provides food, fuel, and medicines while generating a good return for the farmers and land owners. Networking with other farmers to learn and serve. Providing real value to the marketplace in the form of food and value added products. Producing enough surplus to sustain the financial needs of the homestead. Showing a path for other farmers to follow that allows them to earn a good living from their farm. A showcase for silvopasture.

Perennial Design. Take what we learn on the farm and help others apply the same design processes. Help farmers design successful perennial systems to run on their land. Help spread our vision of rewilded farms that provide a better life and living. Trees! Trees! Trees! A process to help any farmer identify the key elements for success in their own context.

Farm School. Gathering together to gain experiential capital. Getting kids of all ages together to do experiments and play. Some focus on home school families, but also events that are open to anyone who wants to participate. Playing with kids. Being in the moment. An excuse to expand our bouncy ball collection, maybe.

The Wilderness Adventures. Let's forge into the backcountry and soak it all in. Nature is amazing. Everyone welcome, including families and kids.

One of the confusing things about this is how intertwined it is. It seems like a lot when you list it out, but the reality is that its part of one whole and the day to day building of this flows naturally through me.

There's no denying that this is bigger than me though.

I am not capable of doing all of this myself. I am being the best engineer that I can be. I am doing as much work as I can. I believe in the importance of all of these pieces.

I need help. I need your help. If any of this sounds exciting to you, reach out.

Reading these posts is helping.

Engaging and giving me feedback is helping.

Sharing what we're doing with other people is helping.

Bringing kids out to the farm is helping.

Coming to parties is helping.

I have time available for consulting. I have worked as a consultant in what I call "operational effectiveness" for my entire career. I have made a living out of going around and helping people design and manage their systems for better outcomes.

I want to help others any way I can that is aligned with the things I mention above. If you know someone who can help me or who I can help, connecting us is helping.

Basically, we want to build a community.

We want to build a community organized around better daily living, raising happy kids, eating better food, living in harmony with nature, gathering for great events, and going on grand adventures to soak up all that this world has to offer.

If I'm being totally honest, one day I hope to bring all of this into one space with room for everyone who wants in to live. Tucker and I began designing this space over 20 years ago.

One day, I hope to build it. Perhaps even complete with the lazy river we decided would be the primary mode of summer transportation within the property. Definitely with the tower with a room on top full of pillows and books.

I think this has begun to answer the question of what we are doing here. We are at least on the right track.

From here, I will explain more about each of the key areas mentioned above and what we are doing in conjunction with each.

There are a lot of projects that we are working on that fall into more than one of the above categories. These categories overlap. To me, it's one thing.

It's me, going about my day and doing my best to live well.

Life is good.