At a Rural Farm in the Ozarks (Northwestern Arkansas)

This week I find myself staying at a small farm in Arkansas, which has been a really nice learning experience with lots of hard work but also plenty of peace and quiet far away from city life and civilization. Dakota, my border collie pictured above, also seems to be fitting right in and loving her time here.

Since last fall, I’ve been doing this thing called WWOOFING on and off, just volunteering at farms and homesteads and what not around the country and getting room and board in exchange for work around the property, which is a pretty cool way to travel for cheap and also gain gardening, farming and homesteading skills while helping out people in need of the help. I’ve stayed at several places doing this kinda thing now over the past several months, and most have been really great experiences, but this is definitely the coolest farm experience for me so far, with a variety of animals and crops and a very remote country feeling to it.

I love animals, so it was exciting to see so many, and cool to have free ranging chickens around after leaving my chickens behind in Montana almost two years ago now, and there were even some baby chicks that had hatched a couple months ago.

Then there’s the ducks, that often intermingle with the chickens, and I was happy to find that Dakota was also good about not chasing the ducks, as she was raised around chickens but not ducks.

That’s the greenhouse behind the ducks in the picture above, which has a really cool setup on the inside as you’ll see below, but there’s also rabbits, which are pretty tame and fun to feed.

And some young turkeys, that really like to eat food, a lot, they go crazy when it’s feeding time!

The property is in the Ozarks and really scenic with lots of trees, 60 acres so plenty of space, and there’s even a pond, which as I’ve learned is actually quite common in Arkansas due to the high amount of water around.

I’ve only been here three days now, but I’ve stayed plenty busy, and already learned some new things, like how to plant sweet potatoes (not quite the same as normal potatoes), which is what we did my first day here - plant a big bed of sweet potatoes.

Day two we had to plant everything left in the greenhouse because it was getting way too hot for almost everything in there with the summer heat, so I transplanted a bunch of tomatoes into the garden, a long line of tomatoes interspersed with beans and sweet peas, along with some squash...

Meanwhile the owner planted some green beans and a half a bed full of okra, a southern staple and plant I had never been acquainted with until now. Apparently they will get quite huge during the summer.

Then today we planted some potatoes, something I’m really familiar with, but I learned that in the south you plant the potatoes whole rather than cutting them into pieces as is the normal practice in the northwest, to lessen the chances of rotting. It was definitely the most potatoes I had planted at one time, though, a row of close to what should be 40 potato plants!

There was a whole three more long rows of potatoes planted in March that had already developed into pretty big plants that needed weeding, and potato beetles that needed to be picked off lest the crop be destroyed, so we started on that to finish the day out. One thing I’m learning about Arkansas is that there are a lot of bugs that can destroy crops pretty fast, so despite warm temperatures, relatively long grow seasons and plenty of moisture, one must be extremely vigilant to reap the abundance of crops that such a climate can provide.

It has been hard work, but of all work that can be done, growing food is surely one of the most important ones out there! Dakota, on the other hand, was having a leisurely time chewing on a cow hoof she found laying around...

There’s also a couple of fruit tree orchards and lots of blueberry bushes among the other things growing around here, including a massive wonderful looking grapevine that apparently never produces grapes for some reason. This isn’t a commercial operation, either, just food being grown for personal use by a family working towards self sustainability, and I find it pretty amazing how much can be grown by so few people. Only a tiny fraction of the 60 acre property is being used, the rest being dense forest, just going to show how relatively small acreages, in comparison to big commercial farms anyway, have the ability to sustain not just one family but an entire small community if done right. The key is to work in harmony with nature, a concept most commercial farms still fail to grasp.

Creativity is also helpful, and one of the coolest and most unique things here that I had never seen before was the greenhouse heating setup for winter time, using a rocket stove to heat the greenhouse and the chicken house as the same time. In the greenhouse, the wood stove pipe ran along the back wall and was covered by clay which formed a heated shelf for plants.

Meanwhile the chicken house shared this wall with the greenhouse, and the laying boxes for the hens were built into the heated wall, with a glass bottle set in each box to help transfer even more heat from the greenhouse, a genius idea I thought! Plus it’s just cool to have adobe nesting boxes for your hens to lay their eggs in, and a pretty creative way to maximize the use from a greenhouse wood stove in the cold winter months.

The downside to Arkansas is lots of ticks in the summer, and excruciatingly hot summer temperatures in July and August, with the high humidity, as well as tons and tons of bugs that love to make war on your garden, especially fruit trees I’m told. The orange tree in the greenhouse sure is doing alright, though...

Although I’m not sure I could handle the Arkansas humid heat in the summer months and pretty sure I’d prefer dealing with cold snowy winters than ticks all summer long, seeing farms like this gives me hope that one day I will be able to realize my own dream of developing a self sustainable homestead / off grid community someday. I don’t know where that might be, or how I would ever be able to afford enough property with room to create community and to really be able to be close to self sufficient in doing so, but in the meantime I will continue to do my best to travel around and learn all I can about various sustainable gardening techniques, off grid life, homesteading, and community living.

There’s a lot of people out there all across the country, and no doubt around the whole world, who are actively working towards self sufficiency, creating a truly sustainable lifestyle, and production of their own organic food sources and shelter. It’s pretty cool that networks exist to connect farmers, homesteaders and communities working towards these ends with volunteers looking to learn and willing to work part time in exchange for food and housing.

Next up when I finish up my stay here in Arkansas, I think I’ll be heading back west to spend a couple weeks at a newly launched off grid community in northern Arizona, which should be another great learning opportunity and life experience. I’m sure I’ll have much to share about that experience if I get up there as planned. In the meantime, there’s plenty of work to keep me busy right where I’m at, and beautiful nature to relax in when I’m not working.