Who am I and who are you?

Who Am I?

Hello, my name is Josh. I have been happily married for 14 years and 17 years total of being together. We have 5 children, 8,6,4,2, 1. I am 41. Our family full time traveled in an RV after some life circumstances made it possible around May of ’21. We recently purchased a 6 acre property, potential to buy 30 adjoining eventually. The property has utilities and a large monitor style barn. About 2000 sqft under roof. We have our bumper pull toy hauler parked under the barn currently. No debt. Louisville, MS.

So far we have built a 24’x24’ coop/run fully enclosed, compost, woodshed. We have some garden areas we are developing and planting. We have 19 laying hens and are soon to get some meat rabbits in trade for some laying hens. Our purpose of being here is to equip our children with an alternative lifestyle and participate as little as possible in the consumer economy.

The experience we have gained so far is all we have. This is all new to us. We are pressed for time so sometimes I use treated wood because have ridiculous termites and I have not prioritized learning how evil using treated wood is. I had about 5 mins to decide on it and we used treated wood. However, we feed the chickens the plants we grow and organic feed while they are housed with fencing that has treated wood posts. I use this example to show we do the best with the time and info we have. I AM a hypocrite. Some choices we have made may be changing later as we become more educated.

I want to be clear that we are considering a few different possibilities for living here and what that looks like. This is a testing the waters post not a ready to commitment to this idea post. We have lived in a community lifestyle previously when we cohabited in a home with three couples and fourteen children. It had its issues (of course), and we learned a lot from it. We are feeling out the potential for someone or some people to come here and wok this property with us.

I have enough remote work to support another family, however, a self-supporting situation would be nice too. We are open to either. Obviously, if you are supported by us, we would have a say in how some of your time is spent. We are Christians, conservative but not in a political way. We do not require that anyone else be Christians, however. We would like others to have an open mind to live together while holding different views on different subjects.

We have a shell for the structure and are trying to think of ways to build it out to accommodate more people here. We use a compost toilet, greywater recycling and would need whoever would also be here to be okay with that. We do have septic, but I just can’t let all that great future compost go to waste.

Who are you?

So, the proposition is this; who are you, and why might this situation be something that you would entertain? Again, we may not be ready for anyone yet, as we still live in our RV but we are seriously considering having other folks here.

Those of you who have tried this, what has your experience shown you? For example, our experience showed us that no kitchen (or refrigerator) is big enough for 2 women. That also reveals quite a bit about us as well….

Sending blessings as you look at various options and prayerfully consider what comes next on the property.  The fact that you've lived communally in the past means you are prepared for some of the more intense experiences you may come across.

Perhaps the other family would have their own house and you'd all work the land together, perhaps you'll eventually decide you want 2 families to share space with, perhaps you'll decide you want a couple who is preparing to start a family rather than someone who already is at the same life phase y'all are at.  There's so many options.  Perhaps you'll build some sort of duplex, or triplex so there are common spaces, perhaps you'll want more space between, perhaps perhaps perhaps.

I'm glad you've had the variety of experiences you've had, I think the kids will look back and be glad they got to do some unique things growing up, like RV life, communal living, rural life, etc.

Riona, thank you for the input.

A little background for us on previous experiences would be 2 different situations. The first was when we travelled full time in an RV starting with 3 kids and having 2 on the road to total 5. Another family of 6 traveled with us and we had our own rv's but shared the dinner meal during the week and all meals on weekends and also shared the planning. During that stretch of 3 years, we spend about 6 months living in a house with 2 other families and parked our RV. The homeowners had 2 children and the other family had 3 children. Both different from the RV family we traveled with.

We learned quite a bit in both situations. The main things we learned were:

1- Communication, communication, communication. Early and often.

2- We require some planning of shared meals and shared time together. Having the young kids does not allow us to wake up and then figure out what to make for breakfast or if there is anything in the fridge. That is our preference and not everyone's.

3- Separate kitchens and food storage (refrigerators, pantry, etc.). Again, our preference.

4- Kids that are older or younger than our kids, but not the same age is preferable. We are somewhat flexible here. It is just very difficult to be with folks who's parenting style is different than ours. We know parents who allow their children to hit each other and when they hit our children, our kids are very confused because we don't allow that.

Thanks again for the input and it is helpful to hear that other people think it is a positive experience for children. It helps build a lot of resiliency in them.