Useful Homesteading and Permaculture Links
Airbnb: If you have a cabin on your property or your homestead is not your permanent residence, Airbnb can help you support your homestead habit! Use this link to sign up to host and you’ll get a bonus, plus the satisfaction of supporting us and our work at Brambleberry Farm! I’ve found Airbnb to be super user friendly, and they also provide insurance.
The Stockman Grass Farmer: My favorite publication hands-down. This monthly periodical focused on pastured livestock production is a delight to read. Excellent editing and writing help me to devour this within a few days of receiving it every month.
Kentucky State U Pawpaw Program: This is the most comprehensive site to learn more details about the wonderful pawpaw fruit. KSU has the largest germplasm collection of pawpaw in the world, and a working pawpaw orchard to evaluate this as a new crop for farmers.
Silvopasture forum: A social media/forum site focused on practicing silvopasture.
Permaculture Activist: Learn more about what permaculture is, find permaculture design courses, subscribe to the Permaculture Activist periodical, and more!
Blue Rooster Farm: Friends of ours who are doing an amazing job of raising pasture-based meats in central PA.
EatWild: Great directory of pastured meat producers and general info of pastured meat’s health benefits
Midwest Permaculture: A social media forum site focused on practicing permaculture in the Midwest region.
Fedco Seeds: A co-op, they provide seeds for market gardeners as well as home gardens from sustainable sources and smaller producers, as well as supplies, trees and shrubs and tubers.
Lehman’s Non-Electric Catalogue: Everything from hand operated water pumps, to low-tech tools for home & garden, to solar power appropriate appliances. Not cheap, but a good place to figure out what solutions are out there to meet your homesteading challenges.
Local Resources for Homesteaders
Mose Yoder is an Amish man in Orangeville, IN, a few miles NW of Paoli, who custom mills hardwood flooring and molding from locally harvested lumber. (The link is for directions to his farm.) You can also snail-mail orders/requests for info to 3420 W CR 550 N, Orleans, IN 47452
There are Amish sawmills on just about every corner. We recommend stopping at the nearest Amish farm to your house and asking them where the closest sawmill is. We’ve done business with several and have ones we’d recommend over others in terms of quality of work, so call us for suggestions. We generally recommend looking for a sawmill using a band saw instead of a circular saw, since the band saw is much more efficient since the blade is thinner and takes a smaller kerf out of the log – you end up with more boards and less sawdust from a given size of log. There are at least two band saw mills in the Orangeville area.
The Amish in our area are a wealth of resources for many different homesteading needs, including blacksmithing, raw milk (for pet food only), leather work, custom woodworking, and there are small stores that mostly just serve the Amish community and are usually unadvertised for everything from basic sewing supplies to grocery dry-goods, to off-grid living supplies like kerosene lanterns and chimneys. Again, just stop at your nearest Amish farm and ask. Prices are almost always very reasonable or even too cheap.
Sander Processing is the closest Indiana inspected processor that will custom butcher livestock (45 min from Paoli in Celestine, IN). They have natural sausage mixes available, and natural cures for bacon and ham (you have to request these). The Orange County locker plant is just North of Paoli, if you want really local, but they’re not inspected for resale of the meat if you want to sell at farmers market. Some Amish families are also willing to process small numbers of poultry or rabbits for your own freezer. Sander’s does turkeys, but I don’t know of any processor less than 4 hours away that will do any other poultry or rabbits.
Bread & Roses are friends of ours near Bloomington, IN. They do permaculture-based landscape installation and carry many varieties of herbs and other edible landscape plants that we don’t offer. They are a great source for a wide variety of pollinator, nitrogen fixer and ground-cover plants.
Lost River Market & Deli in Paoli, IN is a small member owned co-op that is unique in it’s focus on supporting local vendors and bringing healthy local food to a very rural area. You can find some of our products and wooden utensils here in season.
Orange County Homegrown operates farmers markets in Orleans, Paoli, and French Lick.
Dinky’s Auction Center is a cultural experience. Auctions can be hit-or-miss, but if you have time to frequent them, you can get some amazing deals. Dinky’s is the largest we know of. It’s usually a good place to sell, often a good place to buy, depending on what you’re looking for.
Tomato Products Company and Black Vulture Studio in Paoli, IN offer occasional workshops and inspiration.