April 2014 – After much search, we found our place…
Since I graduated college in 2007, my mother and I have had a dialog about moving somewhere where we could live near each other and try to form a more simple and sustainable lifestyle where we were living closer to nature’s rhythms. As I have honed my friend group, this same line of dialog was also very popular among my peers, however one question remained: Where will it be, and how will we identify and purchase the land.
This is the aerial view of the property that we sought immediately after seeing the land from the ground.
In April 2014 after much searching, around the world and specifically in Idaho, Hawaii, and Washington, we moved our search to Oregon. On the very first day of the Oregon part of our adventure, we found ourselves guided (by a very obscure Craigslist ad) to the middle of the woods in the Coastal Cascade region.
As we pulled down the steep driveway, I knew that we were about to see something truly unusual. This is what I had been seeking; something with quirk, personality and spirit coupled with strong bones and a practical layout. The native plant diversity in the woods surrounding our house is spectacular. Most of the plants are edible or medicinal. We found ourselves greeted guided about the land by its steward of the past 20 plus years; a man to whom I am sure an entire tome could be dedicated, and a being who was very in synch with the land which he inhabited.
As he showed us about the property and introduced us to the plants, animals and spirits of the land, I was completely enchanted.
Palmetto and Green tea bushes, only a bit worse off after a record cold winter, outside the solarium bedroom.
As those who have visited this region of the Pacific Northwest will know, the lushness of the plant life here and the clean moist air, imbue the land with a vitality enriching beauty. At the time of our first visit, the area of the property that had been maintained in its natural state was in full springtime abundance of medicinal and edible plants.
Not only was the natural beauty of this property amazing, it had already been inhabited and cultivated for over two decades by a man who was truly part of the original “Back to the Land” movement. He had tended the land in integrity and built systems and structures that showed ingenuity and great skill.
This house truck, which frequented many communes in the 60s and 70s, was listed as a Victorian cedar shingle guest house in the Craigslist ad. His methods were unusual and inventive and he had added plants and structures to the property that not only gave it its quirky personality, but added great value to it as a place to root a homestead. Small green tea bushes (2 years old) and a cold-frame greenhouse constructed of old windows.
This is exactly what I had been looking for; a secluded place with great beauty and natural resources, an interesting and structurally sound house with personality, and already established plants, trees, systems and resources to increase the creative diversity and sustainability in my lifestyle.
The solarium bedroom in which we slept when we visited the property. There is a papaya tree and amazing bathtub in here also! Upon my first experience on this property, I knew that there would be no better land to fit our family’s desire to explore the practice of homesteading.