Hello!
We are new to Permies.com and have started learning about permaculture.
My husband and I and our 2 year old have purchased almost 30 acres. We are currently renting out for extra income until we can create our vision. It will be paid off in Dec 2015 when we will be able to get more involved financially in our building efforts but in the meantime we have done a few things and are working on more.
We would like to invite others out to our land in exchange for a piece of land to build a house / or park your house, a place to grow your own food, do your own thing... I imagine other spaces where others could do their own thing and somehow we would all come together and share and trade and help each other out... I would like it to all be off the grid and others can have either tiny homes / campers / rvs or wofati, etc (hard to find type houses) - The land is perfect for wofati as it is hilly - I do not want to have to pull permits for building anything. The area is surrounded by mostly farms or recreational land, population is about 50 households in the town. You are allowed to build farm type shelters without permits and anything associated with farm business. The Shenandoah / Blue Ridge mountains can be seen from the land.
So far we have made an outhouse and started a second one. We cleared a path down to the creeks and have started to burn the left over wood that was cleared in our wood stove. After the land was cut over, it was planted with 40k pine trees. There are several creeks with little fish swimming around. Lots of wildlife around, deer, turkey, TONS of rabbits...
Before we bought the land, we had a house on 10 acres where we had chickens, quail, turkeys, guineas, goats, a cow, and dogs. We grew a huge garden that we were able to sell / trade for other items we didn't have. In our dealings we also were given a week old baby calf for free that we nursed and grew to a full adult. We learned a lot about what to do and what not to do. We wanted more land and did not like how our house was built and really wanted to build our own WITHOUT a septic tank, I am so over those! My husband is a carpenter / all around handy man and can pretty much make any kind of structure and drive any vehicle. We updated the house and were able to sell the house a few years later for more money and the profits from that we were able to put down on some land and finance the rest.
Here is a link to the craigslist ad that has some pics:
http://richmond.craigslist.org/wan/4921632701.html
The amish live down the road they have their own schoolhouse, horses, and have about 500 acres. You can see them travel down the road in their horse/buggy. Somehow they have found a way to make things work together, I picture something like that as well on a smaller level. Somewhere that my child can grow up and have others around him that have children as well and a place he can get his own eggs for breakfast, or fish in a pond that he helped build. Plant veggies and trees, etc... A place he can be homeschooled / unschooled with other children and other adults that have knowledge to share.
I didn't really think out what i was going to write as i am hoping that if people write they can help create that vision with me...
I've heard Paul's audios about intentional communities and how 90% fail when too many people have too much say. The communities tend to work better when the community has some type of leadership with structure vs disorganized chaos. I have a vision, a plan and hope I can lead others to this vision and in the end everyone can be happy
Call me crazy but, I think something like this could work if everyone really wants it and is willing to work hard to create it. If you build it, they will come....
