About Us - Mountain Jewel

Mountain Jewel is born of inspiration and a deep love for the Earth.

Founded on the ethics and principles of Permaculture, we seek to embody and evolve a perennial agriculture for future generations. Drawn to the Ozarks for the incredible biodiversity, wild waterways, abundance of springs and mild climate, we are grounding the vision for a better world on our 18 acre homestead.

_mountainjewel_

Oȥαɾƙ Pҽɾɱαƈυʅƚυɾҽ Hσɱҽʂƚҽαԃ
:: 𝒸𝑒𝓃𝓉𝑒𝓇 𝒻𝑜𝓇 𝑒𝒶𝓇𝓉𝒽 𝒸𝑜𝓃𝓃𝑒𝒸𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃 ::

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2 more deer hides grain off, membrane off, ready to soften. Will never tire of this beautiful creek and hides rinsing in it. ✨✨✨

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Sauna creature 👹
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It strikes me in thinking about interconnection how so much of our culture is no longer place based. You could get off the highway in locales around the country and see the exact same strip. I used to think that this bothered me only for lack of “character”, that quality of unique offering that can’t be mass produced, but now I see the dis ease goes deeper- we are lacking place. Without connection to place we do not know what surrounds us. Without knowing what surrounds us we can’t have relationship with it. Without these relationships we lack our true awareness of “our place in the grand scheme of things.” Without this awareness we see “the backdrop”, our earth, as something to use or take from. Instead, we as earthlings have an opportunity to relate with respect to all of our fellow earthlings in lieu of viewing ourselves at the top of some made up pyramid of importance. We must necessarily center our lives to live well, but without honoring our interconnections we have very little and will continue to live in disharmony. Forging relationship with place, no matter how small the starting point, is the antidote to this malady. 🔺
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Sauna reflections 💚

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🌟 Muddy hand 🌟

We’ve been trying to figure out what to put above the stove in the sauna room. Fire board? Would wood do- or would it get too hot?
Today we settled on one of the oldest building techniques, found in so many cultures distant from and indigenous to North America: wattle & daub.

As we enjoyed our first sweat the other day, I realized how hot the nicho was getting (a wattle and daub nook above the stove covered with earthen plaster layers). I thought of Nadir Khalili’s (also Cal Earth & superadobe) vision of the “ceramic house” which he was inspired to create after seeing that adobe kilns (themselves necessarily heated to firing temps) were the most long-standing structures in the region. His ceramic houses are adobe buildings heated to thousands of degrees- they undergo a chemical change that makes them practical longevous living art.
Not that our sauna fires are getting kiln hot, but there are many experiments where clay walls (even over plastic bottle bricks) withstand incredible temps.

So we use this ancient technology from our local river cane (native bamboo to the Ozarks) and grapevines. Our plaster is 2 parts sand, 1 part clay, 1.5 parts chopped straw and 2 parts cow manure to make a thick and sticky daub. I love the contrast to the lime plaster, that all of the materials are gathered locally and that it provides some of the best fire resistance of any material.
On another hand, we also needed to cut down some grape vines in the food forest so we’re stacking functions.

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Let the hide work continue! It’s the first sunny day in a while and I feel motivated to get back at it. I think I have around 15 deer hides (3 I already finished and 2 more dry with grain off) from our hunts and the community this season. Thanks everyone! Here I’m taking the grain off (layer beneath the hair) and it’s a lot easier now that I have the proper tool (bought a proper fleshing knife from @traditional_tanners )! Excited to dip into @buckskin_revolution ‘s book on making clothing with buckskin. She shares a lot of valuable hard earned knowledge.
Everyone always asks what I’m going to do with it. I think I’ll start with a pair of shorts! I also want to make a drum to start.
Lots of hard work, but then the clothing lasts for such a long time and carries the rich connection with place, deer kin and ancestral ways... it’s worth it!

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We caught our first honeybee swarms in these boxes 2 years ago and we were happy to bring home some feral colonies. Now as we get ready for another season we are diligently preparing swarm boxes for seeking honeybee swarms- installing foundation strips, filling lemongrass vials and setting boxes up to hang in trees.
The approach of offering up a home to feral bees is a place-based act, in lieu of buying bred and shipped colonies from afar. The swarms that exist here are adept at surviving local conditions and don’t require human inputs. The dance of how much to interject as beekeeper in the magic of keeping bees is what inspires us.
How do we relate to these small yet mighty creatures? How do we respectfully harvest the abundance? What do the bees need in this time of great crises?
Along with planting herbs and flowers, part of our food forests are dedicated to pollinator species (whether cover crops like clover and buckwheat, shrubs, medicinal plants or trees) that honeybees love. Many of these serve a wide variety of functions for us and the landscape, too.

Allying with honeybees and other pollinators by creating non toxic, diverse pollen rich safe havens for them feels like a step in the right direction. 🤞🏼 we catch some swarms this year and that they thrive!

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🌟take a deep breath, the air is thick with freshly milled cedar. The first bench is in. Leaning back on the lime plaster as the room heats up. It is dark, womb like. Heart speeds up, but nervous system relaxes. We are ready for our first sweat in the sauna!!!

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Appreciation post for the 🌞 & these solar panels and the energy they afford us. For the first 2 and a half years on the land we lived completely off grid, charging batteries at friends’ houses and libraries. I wouldn’t trade those years- in fact I think it’s good for modern humans to know what it’s like, both good and bad, to live without electricity. Life necessarily slows down with the use of hand tools and without an electrical hum it’s easier to listen to nature. The hoos of owl and yips of coyote mark the landscape with extra emphasis. On the other hand, it meant doing many things the hard way. The early years were rough in that way. Most of the foundations are in play now and we don’t have to use large amounts of energy scrambling around getting basic needs met. Phew! So thankful for the sun’s power converted which runs a freezer that we can store meat and summer produce in, charge things, mix plaster, run fans & tools & lights & crockpot, have a small laundry machine and spinner... to bridge this gap between primitive and off grid living.
However, coming into our 5th year, we still live in a tiny log cabin in the woods that doesn’t have electricity (save for a 12 v battery attached to led light strips) and it’s ultra cozy during these long winter nights.
For those following along on the straw bale house build, we’ll resume that after we complete the slip straw sauna! First things first, we must have a place to sweat it all out!

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Fresh out of a multi day water fast and I am amazed, as always, at the power of fasting. For me the process is a magical key unlocking insight, health and direction, one that can be picked up at any time.

It feels good to have hit the Reset button on a deep level and to feel more clarity and lightness, even in the midst of winter when diets become heavier and movement slows. I feel renewed in my commitment to vibrant health and for that I’m grateful.
As Rumi says, “When you fast, good habits gather like friends who want to help.” As a guide for my fasts for many years I’ve used Steven Buhner’s The Transforational Power of Fasting and highly recommend it.

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Working with landscapes is an honor. Wild, feral and domestic mix in a dance of life. Soils, plants, fungi and souls commingle in abundant diversity. It is in this milieu that I find meaning. I plant trees because I need to. It is in my bones.
An unusually warm early winter has extended the fall planting season. We love to plant bareroot trees and shrubs after leaf drop to reduce transplant shock and give the plants a chance to settle in before resuming growth in the spring. We are planting out the results of this year’s nursery and are slowly seeing the landscape fill out with our plantings. Amongst the wild one are asian pears, apples, honey locusts, amorpha fruiticosa, blueberries, pawpaws, mulberries, raspberries, aronia, elder, serviceberries, persimmons, English lime, yaupon, Ozark chinquapin, blackberries and more.
Over the years we have cut, burned, ran goats and grubbed out much of this sloped old field. Slow and steady we go. Human scale is our way. As our ancestors before us did, we relate to the bioregion with feet on the ground and hands in the earth. We have started seeing vigorous coppice regrowth on hickory, oak & persimmons and a wide range of herbs have shown up. Birds alight on young growth and we are witnessing the slow shift from a neglected shrubby hillside to an abundant forest garden. We are willing and active participants in ecological succession.
With every tree that gets cut, we add to the soil food web. Every species we introduce adds complexity. We are weaving ourselves into the tapestry of such a beautiful bioregion and co-evolving with the land. We are Deeply grateful and honored to be able to plant trees and engage our ancestral instincts of stewarding land. This is what it means to me to be human.

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✨sauna✨ making a warm space is truly empowering. doing it with mostly earthen materials feels really good; connecting to our place and relationships. partition wall in process, nicho formed with one layer of earthen plaster. coming together and so thankful. with the beautiful temps this week we’ll be doing some plastering in the sauna room if you feel inspired to come lend a hand 🖐

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Today going out to squirrel hunt, immediately a huge hawk flies past with something in its talons. A big something. At first I thought it was a snake. But looking closer, I see it is a squirrel! As suddenly as I notice that, the hawk drops the squirrel from 40 ft. I rush toward the scene as the hawk screeches repeatedly circling overhead.
I came out today wanting to get a squirrel I can case skin for a little pouch. Last night I was reading how tough squirrel hides are and looking at inspiring photos of coats, hats, tunics, and bags made of them.

I canvas the area with no luck and conclude that the squirrel wriggled free and then ran to safety once it hit the ground. It’s a cold and drizzly, foggy day and most squirrels are cozied in their nests.

As I’m leaving I check the area again and just as I’m about to give up, a characteristic tail of a grey squirrel catches my eye hidden beneath the leaves. As I uncover it, surprised that I found it, I am amazed that the hawk had already torn the chest cavity open, eaten the heart and the right arm down to the shoulder.
Remembering the hawk’s cries as it circled and flew away, I am aware that as a hunting human I am stepping into this ecosystem with a very different relationship than I have in the past. It’s not hard for me to get food at the local grocery - or even to grow it for that matter, but orienting with the intention to take squirrels that are also the hawk’s fare brings another layer to it. It adds something to my relationship with the forest, an element of respect and conscious interaction.

The squirrel is already in my belly and the skin, a hole torn from the neck down to below the sternum is flesh free, brain rubbed and ready for softening. I get my case pouch and it will always serve to remind me of the powerful choice to enter the ecosystem as human as hunter.

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more than anything I love being a human of the earth. recently I read caliban & the witch and it hit home for me that our power comes from our relationship with the land and oppressors always take this away first. if we can grow our own food, strengthen through community, learn to subsist and take care of our own needs, we cannot be owned, bought, sold or told to want things. consumption is a chain. softening goat hide reflections.

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Tapping into the past and looking into the future, we seek to highlight this special Ozark bioregion while furthering the culture of sustainable food, edible forestry and local medicine.

Ini rambling in the summer harvesting wild foods

Our vision is to build on the unique array of species present and promote the cultivation of improved varieties of locally adapted plant stock.

As we establish food forests and experiment on our own land, we are building up experience and nursery stock to share with others. We are currently establishing a bioregional nursery to provide the genetics to impassion and equip many others to produce food, medicine and forest products in a honorable and sustainable manner. Check out our shop for our unique homestead products!

Wren with the perennial root, Skirret

We are Wren and Ini, a couple who met at an intentional community and saw a deeply shared vision in each other. We are committed to a lifestyle that fuses our ancestral past within a modern context while seeking to hold space for and encourage deep Earth connection.

As much as possible we let nature guide our actions, and as such we are in a constant state of learning. It’s our passion to educate, inspire and collaborate with likeminded people!