permaculture

[Elijah Smith <elijahs@earthlink.net>]

Ok, so I'm just starting to work my land - 14 acres, crazy fertile. 
Things are VERY rough there right now; I'm just setting up catchment and 
have been living out of a shipping container.  Lots of making rock piles 
and cutting down 14' grass.  At this point, I can barely get by myself 
there and have no ability to invite interns or the like.

To my absolute delight I was referred a great guy who is looking for 
land to work - he's done a pc course in Australia, is really interested 
in experimenting with rotational grazing, etc etc.  However, He's a 
little gunshy about investing time, energy, money in someone else's land 
without a guarentee of some sort.  Why?  He recently built himself and 
his sweetie a home on another piece of land, only to have the situation 
"change" from autonomy to work-trade.  He wants autonomy, and I want him 
to have it too; I won't and can't manage him...

However, I'm a little loathe to just sign his name to the land title.  I 
 don't know him *that* well, though we seem to be on the same page so 
far.  I can't really see wanting to kick him off the land unless 
something really egregious occurs and I want him to feel secure there... 
so how do we come up with a mutually agreeable arrangement?  What have 
YOU done in this situation?  Saying "let's try a year and see how it 
goes" won't fly, because to even move onto the land is going to require 
a lot of investment on his part.  And long term, I intend to cultivate a 
community on the land, perhaps even to the point of my stepping away 
from it...

Any feedback or references to what others have done is greatly appreciated.

 Thanks!
   Elijah



--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 266.4.0 - Release Date: 2/22/2005