Young couple (30's) and 2 small kids looking for small developing communities to engage with

Hi Everybody,

I just stumbled upon this forum today and signed up, hopefully meeting some like-minded people and getting closer to finding a spot for us to live in a natural way with less technology and distractions.

My background is in retail, I owned a Health/Fitness store for several years and got interested in permaculture about 5 years ago. My wife is an architect and great in designing with different types of software and currently working for a big office in The Netherlands. I have some gardening skills and can be of good use building stuff though complicated stuff would aquire supervision. We are both fast learners and into all kinds of land-related practices.

I've quit my business 2 years ago to have more time for the kids and we figured life should be more about living and nature and less about work and materialism. We envision an easy going lifestyle in touch with nature and would love to have more animals (currently one cat and 3 chickens) to accompany us and benefit the land and our needs.

We are looking for ways to make use of permaculture to grow our food and build our house. We are very interested in integrating circulair functions in the house like saving rainwater, reusing showerwater, smart ventilation and heating systems which require a minimum of inputs. We did quite some reading about creating a foodforest and made some plans of our own as well, except for growing some vegetables and fruit trees we did not get to practice it in real life.

Ideally we hope to get in touch with other young couples who have the same goals in mind and did already start there journey. It would be great to get in touch, and if possible come over and experience your way of living, and if everything feels good, move over and join the community.

We feel a community should be voluntary with no obligations to start with, helping each other out and combining skills and resources should form a good relationship where privacy can be maintained as well. We love music, having a good conversation and our boys (9 months and almost 3 year old) would love to have some friends to run around with. They will also need (home)schooling so this is a practice we need to consider as well.

We will surely be hanging out here more often to go through the posts, if somebody reads this and feels we should be in touch we are happy to hear from you!

Kind regards, Matt

Matt,
Where are you currently located, and are you willing to relocate?

My wife and I own 70 acres of wooded, fertile, and raw land in northern Arizona (Apache County). We've been planning our off-grid homestead - as well as our business ventures for it - going on a decade now. We're in our 30's and also have two young children; our son just turned 1 and our daughter will be 4 in April. A close friend of mine also purchased land in our valley nearby, and will be bringing his wife and son with him as well. We all have backgrounds in agriculture, permaculture and animal/livestock care.
We're entering the final planning stages, and beginning the permitting stage of developing the off-grid infrastructure. We're fielding quotes for waste systems, well drilling, as well as full solar grid.
If you (or anyone reading this) may be interested in joining forces to create a community of homesteads, or just want to know more about our plans, email us at thirdpigfarms@gmail.com

Keep an eye out for our coming post seeking collaborators in this endeavor - it will contain some more details.

Best Regards,
-Nick and Tina