Homesteading
The very foundation of life here at Ardea is our commitment to establishing a self-sustaining homestead which honors the integrity of the land that we and the wilder creatures depend on. For us, this means creating systems to grow, forage, and preserve the majority of the food we need while creating a regenerative landscape in the process. From this abundance, we provide an array of fruits and vegetables to our community at the local Foothills Farmer’s Market.
We are always working to better understand the integration of small animals into our homestead. We currently keep heritage breed poultry - Ameraucana chickens and Welsh Harlequin ducks - which provide eggs, fertilizer, and pest control. And at the end of their laying lives, they provide meat to sustain us through the winter months and beyond. We also enjoy the rich personalities of our guinea fowl, goats, Great Pyrenees companion dog, Spaz the mouser, and honeybees. Animals that may find a niche here in the future are heritage breed turkeys, the Ossabaw island hog, and a Dexter cow.
Additionally, we are applying the principles and ethics of Permaculture as we retrofit Stacey’s grandparents’ small, conventional farm into a homestead sanctuary. For us, this means a diverse and ecologically orchestrated landscape populated with perennial plants and trees, which provide fruits, nuts, medicines, fuelwood, timber, and more. We highly value the abundance of wild foods already present here, and forage seasonally, procuring nutritious foods such as acorns and persimmons.
Projects happening here now and in the near future include: restoring an existing pond for plant and fish habitat, developing a willow coppice row for basketry, a living willow fence to screen us from the noise and toxicity of the road, continued establishment of our forest edge permaculture design, slowly transforming an old farm field into a savanna, and (as always) planting lots of trees.
We are always working to better understand the integration of small animals into our homestead. We currently keep heritage breed poultry - Ameraucana chickens and Welsh Harlequin ducks - which provide eggs, fertilizer, and pest control. And at the end of their laying lives, they provide meat to sustain us through the winter months and beyond. We also enjoy the rich personalities of our guinea fowl, goats, Great Pyrenees companion dog, Spaz the mouser, and honeybees. Animals that may find a niche here in the future are heritage breed turkeys, the Ossabaw island hog, and a Dexter cow.
Additionally, we are applying the principles and ethics of Permaculture as we retrofit Stacey’s grandparents’ small, conventional farm into a homestead sanctuary. For us, this means a diverse and ecologically orchestrated landscape populated with perennial plants and trees, which provide fruits, nuts, medicines, fuelwood, timber, and more. We highly value the abundance of wild foods already present here, and forage seasonally, procuring nutritious foods such as acorns and persimmons.
Projects happening here now and in the near future include: restoring an existing pond for plant and fish habitat, developing a willow coppice row for basketry, a living willow fence to screen us from the noise and toxicity of the road, continued establishment of our forest edge permaculture design, slowly transforming an old farm field into a savanna, and (as always) planting lots of trees.