Homestead Share, Western Washington

I believe that people living and working together as a community is both more efficient and more moral than everyone having their own private place. While living abroad, my wife and I have experienced communal living and have enjoyed it, provided there was also some amount of private space. Back home we looked into joining a commune but could not find one in our area and ended up buying our own farmstead. Permitting and zoning make a commune difficult, but we could accommodate a few people or a family at our small homestead. We look forward to sharing our place, and could also use the help and efficiency of more persons (plus, a vacation is hard when you have dairy animals that need milking twice a day). For these reasons, we are looking for either a long term partner, or someone shorter term who wants to live rent free on a small farm while saving up for their own place.

Our property is in blackjack Valley, and totals about 3.5 acres. The place was pretty overgrown a few years back when we bought it, but is now a mix of pasture, young fruit trees, and some vegetable garden. We have a pond, and blackjack creek runs through our property. We currently have a couple of dairy goats, a Dexter cow, several breeding pigs, chickens and ducks, and a small greenhouse. A neighbor has a nice field which we graze our animals in at times, and could probably continue to graze or mow for free or for barter. Our local area is a good market for raw milk and produce. Seattle is about an hour away and represents a large, very lucrative market.  Our overall goal is to develop a small grain-free, raw milk diary as the heart of our operation.. Raw goat milk runs $8-20 a gallon around here. The manure is a great byproduct for enhancing the fertility of the land, and pigs and produce would be supplementary income streams.

We offer a place to live (temporarily in our home, then in your cabin/yurt/trailer/tiny home), as well as a garden area, in exchange for 12 hours help per week (families welcome). We can provide meat, milk, and eggs in exchange for splitting feeding and milking responsibilities.

For someone who wants to stay on longer term and start the dairy, we are very open to your plans and ideas and can give you a relatively free hand with the property. We have the place fenced, and have smaller paddocks fenced, as well as portable electric fencing. We also have a small goat barn which can accommodate the milking and housing of probably half a dozen milking goats. We will need to expand our facilities at some point; ownership arrangement of the dairy would depend on who provides capital for operating expenses and expansion, as well as whether we both supply labor.

We are looking for friendly, likeminded people. We have a 1 year old child, and for this reason won’t tolerate drugs or any violent behavior. Otherwise, we are open to most anything.

We look forward to hearing from you,

Doug

Hi. Would you be willing to welcome a young couple with a little greenhouse building and gardening experience? We are both in our mid 20's and able bodied. Myself being the female counterpart would also be willing to lend a hand in child care. I have worked as an assistant to a day care provider for many years. I also have many other skills like painting and welding.  Bruce, the male counterpart has IT skills and some carpentry skills. He has started and maintained many gardens. I hope we could be of some use to your family in our travels. Send me a PM and I will promptly get back to you. We are looking to stay up to 3 months or more.

What a wonderful opportunity you and your wife provide for the people who end up joining you. We would love for the two of you to consider us and have send you a PM. ~the Pipers.

Pming

I wanted to update everyone that we have had a wonderful couple join us. For the time being we are "at capacity", as we need to get to know each other and see how community works out on our farm before adding others. However, we will update this post in the next year or so if we collectively decide we are ready to add more partners or if we are considering the purchase of more land and expansion of the community.