young married couple looking to start/join IC, farm, healing coop

Hi everyone,

I'll try to keep this short and sweet, and we can discuss the endless amounts of details that exist in a personal exchange.

My wife and I are trying to join or form the following:
an intentional community
a worker-owned farm
a healing cooperative

We are open to location in the lower 48, we are young, we have capital, and we have skills. Me: extensive IT skills, some handyman skills, some permaculture knowledge, some farm experience. My wife (Mags): licensed physical therapist, pilates instructor, dance, plants/herbs, some farm experience.

We want to get started by January. Anyone interested in starting a discussion about possibly joining us, or do you have a spot in your existing community that you think we might be a fit in? We are also looking extensively on forums like this and elsewhere for existing communities, but if something doesn't exist to suit our needs we are willing to pioneer a new community from the ground up. It would be preferable to be able to do that with other enthusiastic people.

More about us at http://www.stuandmags.net/

Looking forward to hearing from you.

- Stu and Mags Matthews
magsandstu@stuandmags.net

Hi!

I would suggest visiting some ICs to get a sense of what you really want in a community, if you haven't done that already. I'm not living in community at the moment, though I have in the past, and when I traveled cross-country I made a point of visiting the communities on my path. Most are happy to host you in exchange for some work hours.

I've found such a wonderful array of intentional living arrangements, some of which I could see myself being a part of, and some not so much. To hone your thoughts on the subject, make lots of lists: what are you looking for? What regions/climates are you drawn to? What kinds of living arrangements make you the most comfortable? Then look to see what fits your dreams, and make a visit! Building community from the ground up, though a romantic notion for a lot of us, is way way harder than finding one that is already established...

I wish you lots of luck!!

Jessica

We live and work in northern lower Michigan. Upland forests, lots of lakes and steams. We call it "Fruitland" because of the density of wild, food giving plants as well as the sheer volume of mixed fruit production on these hills overlooking the big lakes.

We have found this unique microclimate and local culture to be very conducive to research and development in permaculture applications. We currently shepard an 80 acre spread surrounded by forested lands where "tree crops", forest gardens, and perennial polycultures have been started and tested.

We also have improved plantations of sheet composting evergreen systems providing not only an endless supply of mulch/compost, but also vast amounts of building materials.

We are looking for the next generation of stewards to look over this work and neighborhood (we are 64 and have been at this more or less for most of our lives since or mid-30's).

Can we help you? We have many ideas for how healthy and enlightened humans could live gracefully with the products of their own earthcare. Permaculture ethic number one: EARTH CARE

If interested, please introduce your ideas to ... vinekeeper@forestfarm.org

All best wishes for your greatest success.

The opportunity here is to take up a 2.5 acre homestead site and build home/camp/gardens from the materials on site. There are many models of this kind of work and they should be of fairly common knowledge to folks here. We built a 44 foot diameter "earthlodge" in a manner fairly similar to the Mandan/Hidatsa style earthlodge ... or perhaps the Celtic roundhouse ... ALL from materials (pine, sand, stone) gathered from within a 100 meter radius of the lodge.

In addition to the 2.5 acre reserve, there is large additional space for agroforestry activities. Surrounding acreage is also open to four season foraging, and provide a corridor to a vast public forest acreage and inland waterways.

Managed tree plantations provide mega-tons of easily harvested compost and mulch, making new garden and food plot development both easy and a certain success.

Build and grow, and help a few other good neighbors do the same. A neighborhood of permaculturists? Why not?

PM for quality response.

Hi Stu and Mags,

My husband Joe and I are also starting a new chapter in our lives. We are transitioning, having recently woken up to the fact that we want more out of our lives than cookie cutter IT jobs and all of the stuff that goes along with that. We stopped watching television, started meditating, started reading more and exploring our interests - Sepp Holzer is amazing! LOL! It is still cloudy at this point, but we have generally decided that we'd like to buy some land or find a community somewhere. Our goal is to design a homestead/farm with permaculture, sustainable energy technologies, etc... but we have a heck of a lot to learn. We also don't know anyone with these goals personally, so we feel isolated. We've been on multiple cross-country road trips, and we think we like the Shenandoah Valley in western Virginia. We are renting in Staunton, VA and looking at real estate.

If you'd like to chat to see if our goals overlap, shoot me an email: rebekah.hill@gmail.com

Best!
-Rebekah

mom and me are looking for a partner to join us here and eventually sell this place to buy a bigger one (if we all go together) as i love it here and moving would have to be really so much better for me and mom would be deceased by that time preferably unless we move close to here. My siblings wouldn't want me to take her too far..

http://directory.ic.org/22661/Central_Pa_Mountain_farm___for_Hip_open_minded_people