When we first heard the word "agrarian" it was in the great Wendell Barry's The Art of the Commonplace. It resonated with us immediately, calling up images of green gardens, happy animals, and healthy living. It had elements of farming, ranching, gardening, earth stewardship, and resource enrichment: basically, home production with an deep, intentional, and careful connection with nature and place. It is a way of life followed by many ancient people's and "evolved slowly in accordance with their knowledge of their land, of its needs, of their own relation of dependence and responsibility to it." These people "belonged by an intricate awareness to the earth they lived on and by, which meant that they respected it, which meant that they practiced strict economies in the use of it." (Wendell Barry, The Art of the Commonplace, p. 10-11)

 

Agrarian gave a name to the pattern we wanted to live by but wasn't fully captured by words like homesteading, farming, ranching or even self-reliance. It included earth healing gardening, pasture improving grazing, health enriching living. A grand and wonderful combination of all of the things we've been learning and are still learning and practicing: permaculture, holistically managed grazing, eating on the wild side, soil biology, herbalism, mycology, full cycle waste management, etc.

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To live the agrarian life is to be a perpetual student of nature which just sounds exciting; forever adapting and working in a tight and awesomely rewarding relationship with your place. The trick and challenge of working with nature as the teacher and guide is that it is a principle and observation based process: change is the only constant. It is a life of great lows and great highs; agonizing failures and sweet successes. Challenging, satisfying, intense, and totally worth it.

 

What we want to share with you is what we've learned already and what we will continue to learn as we live the agrarian life.