Hi, Jesse, if you are still looking for a place for your community, I have 30 acres of south and west facing property in SW Virginia in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains that I bought in Nov 2019. I moved here from frigid Maine in Dec 2019. There are at least 6 building sites for family homes. I intended to do what you are planning to do, but at 74 I'm finding it more difficult than I thought it would be. The land is currently in my name, but I planned to deed it over to a land trust (tentatively Liberty Farmland Trust). I have one family of 4 currently living with me in a 3BR/2ba mobile home that I rehabbed last year. Still some improvements needed but it is livable and well insulated.
Once Billy and his family moved in with all their stuff in May 2020, rehab pretty much stopped because there was no room to turn around, let alone work. We gradually consolidated and moved our unneeded stuff up to the barn, but it is still crowded. Billy and his family plan to start building their small home this year once they get their tax refund. I have picked out a spot for my passive
solar underground home with south-facing solarium and will start excavating as soon as I finish the road. Thereafter the trailer will become the community center with 2 bedrooms and a bunk room for visitors, Woofers, or the next family for temporary housing while they are building.
Billy is big time into
solar and brought about $10K of solar panels, controller, inverter, and lithium batteries with him from Massachusetts. It is producing
enough power for a couple of houses, but currently it is only powering the
water pump, and a window AC via extension cords until we figure out how to hook it up to a grid-tied electric panel with auto-switching.
It was a horse farm at one time and has a 30 by 60 barn with 7 box stalls, a double box stall that I'm using as a woodworking shop, and a tack room. Like most Appalachian farms, the barn had never been painted so the outer
wood is weathered and warped. The inside, however, is in great shape with concrete floors under the stalls and dirt floor in the breezeway between. I would like to pour concrete there and reside with steel panels, but probably not this year unless I
sell more shares. I repaired one corner of the roof that had been torn off with new steel panels and clear polycarbonate for natural lighting in the workshop area. There is an old log barn that has caved in. We've been using the tin roof panels from it to build animal
shelters and repair shed roofs, and we plan to salvage the logs for raised beds, terrace retaining walls, or a pole barn for equipment. I have a
tractor, loader, backhoe, bush hog, box grader, tiller, riding mower and other stuff I'd like to get under cover soon.
About 10 acres are cleared and the rest is mixed forest, mostly hardwoods and cedar, including black walnut and hickory. Lots of wild herbs and berries. We've built 4 raised beds and have room in the garden area for 16 more. Plus the vining field where we grow pumpkins, squash, melons, and gourds. Temperate climate, low taxes, zoned agricultural, sufficient rainfall year round that we seldom have to water the garden. Natural spring water that flows into a cistern and then is pumped up to the house, a stock tank, and one (so far) frost proof outdoor hydrant. We also have installed gutters and downspouts on two porches for rain catchment and are about to do the same off barn roof as soon as I find some cheap IBC totes to store the water.
I have completed my
PDC from Tom Kendall and
Permaculture Masterclass from
Geoff Lawton. The final assignment in the
PDC was to lay out a design for swales and terraces, food forest and
greenhouse, fish and duck
pond, and other projects I've planned for the farm, but I was so busy in 2020 just clearing junk, rehabbing the trailer and barn, tilling, bush hogging, and excavating roads, that I haven't started on implementing the design plan yet. Well, the roads count, as "Access" is one of the prime attributes of
Permaculture. Ran out of money for building more infrastructure, but have managed to build
chicken coop and brooder in the barn, movable Chickshaw (a la
Justin Rhodes) and pig shelter. Both pigs and
chickens were moved around the pastures with Premier 1 solar electric fencing until just before Christmas when the temp was forecast to plummet. So they were all moved up to the barn for the winter, including 3 piglets born Dec 1, and electric pens have been set up so they can get out on sunny days. We plan to add
dairy goats this spring.
If this sounds like it would work for your plans, drop me a PM with contact info and we can discuss it. I'm open to selling the land to your trust and Billy and I leasing back our shares from you, or selling shares or leaseholds in my trust. Compared to CA prices, this area is super inexpensive, neighbors are friendly and helpful, the town 4.5 miles north has Walmart and Farmers Co-op, building supply, livestock auction, etc.