Introduction: How True Home Began

That's me, happy as can be, sitting beside our pond.

Hi! My name is Asenath Avinash, and my boyfriend, Neil Gandy, and I live on a permaculture farm near Lockhart, TX. Well, by the time you read this we will: we just moved out here! Follow our progress and connect with us!

I discovered permaculture in 2001, when I was 26 years old. I was living on 3.5 acres in east Austin along the banks of the Colorado river. The property was owned by my friend, Artie Osborn. I lived in an upstairs garage apartment. My friend Homer Henderson, and later my friend, Hank Cathey, lived in the downstairs apartment below me. There was a big old farm house on the property in which my friends, David Fruchter and Marty Blevins resided. There were several other structures on the property as well: converted buses, trailers, a tipi, and you guessed it, I had friends living in all of them.

We were a little community, but not an intentional one, in the sense that we did not belong to any particular set of beliefs or shared vision about the land where we lived. We simply had the opportunity to live close to one another, and we enjoyed doing so. We called our land The Dawg Ranch, due to the large number of companion dogs that lived there with us.

Neil removed a lot of cross fencing our first month at the farm.

I don't remember how I first came across permaculture, but I did all of my initial learning on the subject by reading books. I was very inspired and began to design gardens, composting systems and chicken coops according to permaculture principles. I kept a notebook with my designs and important information that I was learning. I remember at one point holding a meeting of the Dawg Ranchers. During this meeting, I went over some permaculture principles and plans with the other residents. This stands out to me, because we had almost no meetings of this nature, so I must have thought permaculture was important enough to share with my friends and work together on.

There was even a fence in the pond!

The result of this was the most beautiful garden! I had made several gardens before, but the permaculture design principles had resulted in a garden that was far more beautiful and productive than any I had ever been involved with. The joy and happiness and pride I felt over that garden has always stayed with me.

Eventually, I would meet a man who I would marry, move to Alpine, TX with, then to India, then back to Austin and have a son with. During this time, I was not practicing permaculture or any gardening. Our son, Augustus, was born in Austin in 2008. In 2009 we moved to Wisconsin for my husband's work, but we divorced shortly after that move, and I came back to Austin to raise our son. His father relocated to Alabama and then to Chicago, following jobs in a niche field as a Sanskrit professor. He now resides in Chicago with his wife, Alina and their daughter, Frannie, and teaches at NorthWestern University. He and our son have maintained a very close relationship, despite being long-distance, and they talk on the phone several times a week and visit one another frequently.

Came across this sweet baby our first month here.

After the divorce, I was back in Austin, struggling to make ends meet as a massage therapist, raising a 1 year old by myself. I started a business, WorkWell Austin, while I was still living paycheck to paycheck working for a local Massage Envy. With a lot of hard work and dedication and the help of some great life coaching and business coaching, I managed to build WorkWell Austin into a full-time job for myself, and at this point, 6 years later, we employ 10 massage therapists in a very cute studio in an old house in a booming part of town.

During those years, I was consumed with building the business and raising my son, and there wasn't time for much else. But we did live out in the country on 15 rented acres with a horse and 5 donkeys. Part of the reason we lived out there was because we could not afford rent in Austin! But it was also because we loved being close to nature, to animals and being able to come home to wildflowers and a sky full of stars. It replenished our spirits after long days of work.

This greenhouse was here already. Just needs a little love.

Still, I did no gardening (other than a small herb garden) or permaculture during these years. I have always enjoyed writing and playing music, so what time I did have for hobbies went to those. In addition, I became much more involved in practicing meditation and attending Buddhist retreats during those years.

When my son was due to start kindergarten, I began touring schools for him. Though we struggled financially, I was used to paying day-care costs and was willing to convert that into paying for private school if there was a school that really spoke to me. When I toured the campus of The Whole Life Learning Center in Austin, my heart felt immediately at home. The campus was a working permaculture farm, but what most appealed to me were the beautiful spirits and wise philosophies of the school director and the teachers.

My son, Gus, at home in the dirt.

Augustus started kindergarten at the Whole Life Learning Center in 2013, and we gradually became part of the community there. Eventually, their staff would receive monthly massages from my business as part of their health benefits package. During our first 3 years at the school, I learned that the director's wife, Caroline, taught permacutlure at Austin Community College and was a central figure in the local permaculture community. I was somewhat immersed in permaculture again, but it was still on the fringes of my consciousness. I was still too busy with the running of my business and single-parenting to do much else. But I started to remember how much I had loved it all those years before, how much joy it had brought me, how good my mind, body and spirit had felt designing and implementing those wonderful gardens. A part of me wished I were doing that sort of thing again, but there just wasn't time.

Our stuff waiting for the shop to be built so it can have a home.

When my son was 7 and about to start his 3rd year at The Whole Life Learning Center, I met Neil. He was going through a divorce and had 3 young children, Eliza, who was 3, and twins, Benjamin and Sadie, who were 1. It was very clear to both Neil and myself that we fit together like hand and glove. We had the same hobbies, hopes and dreams. We both loved to play music, we loved living out in the country and doing big homesteading projects. We wanted to spend our lives and raise our children along those lines. Neil was living in Austin at the time, but wanting to move out in the country, and I was still on our 15 acres outside of town.

We love our fancy septic system!

I had grown up in a small town in very rural west Texas. Neil had grown up in rural Alabama, helping his father raise horses, mend fences, etc., and he is a very talented carpenter and can fix just about any type of machine or vehicle. He is happiest when he is outside working, and he is a very hard worker. He and I are both people who naturally and constantly envision big projects for ourselves and then go out and do them. It was clear right away that we could greatly enjoy working toward these goals together, and that we could also achieve a lot together. There was a sort of magical alchemy in that regard, and we knew it was something we wanted to pursue.

1940 Ford 9N runs like a charm!

I had been single for many years and was in a sweet groove as a single mom, having a very close and harmonious relationship with my son. Our little family of two had run smoothly. Suddenly, we were moving in the direction of becoming a much bigger family, with small children and all the extra work that entails. There were many individual relationships to form and roles to work out. Meanwhile, Neil was in the midst of a divorce, which I knew from my own experience a lot of time for healing.

We both understood that it would take time for us to be ready to have a serious relationship together, and at the same time, we knew that we had a real gift in each other, so we continued to take things one step at a time. A year later, we were ready to move in together and really start building our farm.

This gray-water drips to an elm. We will extend the system soon .

Neil sold his house in Austin, and purchased 20 acres near Lockhart, TX, Augustus and I moved out of our home in the country, and for the first time, we were all living under one roof. In preparation for this, we had done lots of hunting, looking at various pieces of land. We almost bought one 60-acre place that had beautiful trees, a huge pond, a creek, but no house, no water or electricity. We planned to live in a trailer or a yurt and build gradually. We looked at lots of places that were just plain ugly. Totally cleared of trees or overgrown with a monoculture of mesquite trees. Ultimately, we found the perfect place for us. It has a small 1/4 acre pond, a seasonal creek along the back property, a house that is small, but just enough space for all of us to live comfortably, a huge greenhouse, a state-of-the art septic system that treats and recycles its water, as well as city water and electricity. It is only 5 minutes from Lockhart, which has turned out to be a great blessing. Being able to run into town for groceries or anything we might want was a luxury I hadn't had in years.

Our cat, Woody. His sister, Alex, is here, too.

Knowing we were looking for land and about to move in together, I had decided to enroll in a 12 week permaculture design certification course offered through the Austin Permaculture Guild. I wanted to get inspiration for the new land, and boy did I ever. The course was taught by Kirby Fry, Caroline Carberry and Taelor Monroe, and it was chock full of information. It was like drinking from a fire hose, so much information was coming at me. I was in heaven.

This gully feeds into our pond when it rains.

In addition to all that learning, I met amazing people and became involved in the local Permaculture community. I learned about and began attending monthly Permablitzes, where between 40 and 100 people show up on one piece of property for an entire weekend and complete massive amounts of work. Neil and I began designing and putting in place our dream homestead. From the first moment we all moved in, all the questions I had about whether this would really be what we had hoped for began to fade away. I felt totally at home in our new place and with our newly combined family.

One of the run-ins for our soon-to-be-here horses.

Neil and I jumped right in with projects. He bought a wonderful antique tractor. We hauled my antique bus out there to renovate. We started mapping the existing trees, planning where to build his shop and the outdoor kitchen, where to put the food forest, the aquaculture system, the compost. We started learning the history of the area, something it turns out we are both fascinated by. We started mapping the contours and flows of our land.

1940's bus with lots of great history. She will be a beauty when we finish renovation.

So, that is how we got to here. Our goals are to provide physically, mentally and spiritually healthy lives for ourselves and our children while building up the soil and reversing erosion through regenerative homesteading. We want to make this land a paradise for wildlife and people for many generations to come. If you are interested in our work, I hope that you will reach out and contact us, so that we can connect with like-minded people and share our inspirations, successes and failures as we do our best to take care of one another and our beautiful Mother Earth!