Trefethen Family Farm Permaculture Homestead

A homestead farm located on San Juan Island
surrounded by wide-open views of the island’s interior, and natural woodlands.

Who We Are

We are made up by a family of five humans being with creation and the inhabitants of this land. Our homestead is comprised of roughly five acres of wooded grassland. The property is situated on a three percent slope with full southern exposure.

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Observation On Location

The first step in any permaculture system is knowing what lies before you. What is the flow of light across the landscape. Where do the prevailing winds blow from. What’s the soil quality like. What inputs are necessary to support life.

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Poly Functional

No single element should work in isolation. Every element should maximize it’s functions and relative forces upon other elements within the system. Situate elements to perform many functions.

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Redundancy

Be sure to set up a system of support that includes multiple approaches to the basic elements that hold together your system, including water, food and fire protection.

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Efficiency = Effectiveness

Zoning and placement with the aim of maximizing the pathways of the land and using the natural contours of the site to harness stored energy and gravitational pull.

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Biodynamic Resource Planning

Every input must be considered as a precious and vital piece of the biological puzzle that makes up the land. The inputs and outputs of livestock, rainfall and humans should all fit together to complete the resource matrix inhabiting the zero waste system.

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Assorted Systems

Maximize the diversity of the system. Polycultural networks will withstand the effects of time and support one another through their inherent outputs and divers requirements. Allow the functional connections to guide your plan.

Growing food and sustaining life should be this rewarding.

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New videos posted weekly.

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Beekeeping

Beekeeping playlist on Youtube.

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Design

Read about how I use Google Maps to design our permaculture system.

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Our Mission

To journey towards creating a self-reliant ecosystem that gives back to the land
in greater quantities than we take.

An ongoing list of new topics posted weekly

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Teach & Serve

With the intent to share and teach, we offer our lessons learned with the aim of sharing knowledge in order for our ideas to develop far greater capacity in your hands.

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