Hello All, I am new as a poster but have been lurking in the shadows osmosing all the knowledge in the various forums for use whenever I was able.
Now the time has come. As of 2 days ago I left my $50,000/yr job and jumped off the deep end to go after my dream of starting an ecovillage/intentional community.
First let me give you the ground work. My wife and I went to an all organic, 100% chemical free and natural lifestyle about 5 years ago. Since then we've been discussing our ultimate goal. For a while we batted the tiny house idea around because it seemed to be the most likely candidate to fit into our budget. Late in November my mother passed away and left me a decent inheritance. Since the capital came in, though it came with tragedy in tow, we have decided to start the community we've always wanted to find to honor my mothers memory and leave a lasting legacy for our future generations.
The plan is now to find more folks (yep you guys) who are interested on going on this journey with us as well as glean any knowledge we can from the fine folks here at this forum.
Our vision for what we have deemed, The Wanderlust Cooperative, is to be a harmonious ecovillage with a group of like minded organic people who can earn their daily living from the community selling wares, crafts, skills, etc. Though we have not yet purchased land we will be looking to do so in the next few months somewhere in middle Tennessee and with the help and participation from some others, we may be able to purchase a sizable plat of land. I plan to purchase a minimum of 50+ acres if I have to finance it myself, but if some others show interest that can be revisited. We plan to construct a main building, centrally located for community meetings, entertainment, and other activities. From there we will erect different work zones (wood shop, glass house, green house, forge, etc). Each residence or member home will be built in a manner that fits our ideals but can be chosen by each family or individual along with the necessary upgrades for whatever power they intend to consume. We intend to selectively harvest trees on property for construction materials, and intend to reuse as much of our waste as possible (compost, saving scrap metal to melt down for raw materials in the forge, saving glass for the glass blowing house, etc) We want to have the least amount of negative effect on the land as we can but still be able to sustain the community. We plan to raise a limited selection of livestock and will have a large aeroponic greenhouse to utilize full year growing. Future plans include a venue for concerts and festivals, as well as a small eco-resort that will not be a part of the main community but will be used as a tourist venue and visitor housing. (think - You want to live in a tiny house/earthship/earthbag/cobb/etc house, then come here and try it, sort of thing).
We will start to offer workshops soon after acquiring the land and we will use those workshops to get the bulk of our central building completed. We plan to continue to be an educational center for all aspects of homesteading, organic gardening and food production, organic livestock farming and so much more. We feel that the knowledge we have worked so hard to obtain should be made available to everyone so that they can be inspired to do the same and continue spreading the message.
There are already a few families that we are close with who intend to become a part of this and we will be open to anyone from anywhere with any belief system. We love people, ALL people, every race, creed, sexual orientation, etc that you can think of and we want to have a diverse community of intellectual people who want to change the world.
Understand that this community is literally at its infancy but it is not by any means a pipe dream. I have the capital to invest if I have to do the land purchase on my own initially. I also have more drive and motivation to make this a success than any that have come before me. So if you have any opinions, horror stories, questions, advice or suggestions, please respond and expound until you burst. I will soak in any and all knowledge offered. If you've read my entire diatribe and think that you'd be interested in joining in on this crazy adventure we'd love to talk to you but there is only one thing that you have to remember - WE ARE THE ONES WHO HAVE TO CHANGE THE WORLD! By showing people what is possible, we can make this dream a reality for ourselves and many more folks.
Thanks for reading as I ramble on ad nauseum but I truly am looking for your thoughts. I can't wait to see what you all think and to see what kinds of help I know you'll have.
