Community
Last edit: 7/8/24
This vision is about homesteading as a “community”.
The project is going to take a lot of energy and effort to bring to fruition. Hopefully very much a labor of love. I have some concern of getting this project to a place of a working homestead just in time for me to age out of being able to do physical labor. And then what? Turn it over to someone who takes it all apart to use the land for something else? The idea here is to do the project as more of a community and for others to phase into maintaining the homestead and not push out the preceeding work force. The community as sort of a symbiotic living organism and we're here to take care of it, and it is here to take care of us.
This "community" is more of a planned "neighborhood" of like minded people who are interested in the concepts I've outlined in these pages - maybe more of a "village". This is not intended to be an "intentional community". There is considerable reservation about intentional community involving a lot of time in meetings making decisions by full consensus. As an extreme example there could be weeks involved in deciding where to put the garbage cans (and it never really get resolved - keeps getting brought up in meetings). The intention of this homesteading community is not about an ongoing organization of meetings. Its about neighborly support of a healthy lifestyle, and shared resources that facilitate that. Group consensus is not part of the plan. Individuals as well as the group still need to influence decisions - it needs to be maintained as an appealing place for the community members to want to be here - the governing body (individual) needs to make decisions that maintain the appeal of the community.
We've all experienced "neighbors" who we'd prefer did not exist. And what kid would not like to choose a group of friends who they fit in with rather than being forced to interact with the only kids that they are thrown in with by the neighborhood that their parents purchased into? (As in most neighborhoods, schools, work places, care facilities, sports...) So the idea here is to attract neighbors based on shared values. This is not to say that different individuals are not going to have quirks. On some level community also means accepting the members of the community for who they are, and what they have to offer - and caring for them like family... This would mean actually getting to know them.
The vision is to include agriculture with the intention of producing quality, healthy food. (Organic practices.) Often in "community garden" projects, there are a few people who do all the work for everyone else to benefit from. The intention here is to have a farmer / farm manager running a farm on the land. This means a goal of running the farm to make enough of a profit to support the farm staff. It would be nice to have enough of a staff that no single person feels trapped and cannot go away on a vacation if they want to, or the farm does not fall apart if they leave all together. So, enough scale to have enough workers to be able to accommodate the work to be done but not so big that it requires a lot of "middle management" positions of people getting paid to tell other people what to do. Hopefully it can also include some wisdom to be contributed by the older, wiser residents as has been the case in community based societies throughout history? There could be some sort of a built in CSA for the residents of the community. There could be individual gardening plots aside from the main farm. There could be real farmer guidance available for the community members (with less gardening experience). There could be volunteer times for the community members to participate in the farming. Again acknowledging that its more of a community involvement opportunity than a major contribution to agricultural output - like the volunteering I've done in community gardens - I get to get my hands in the dirt, contribute, belong, and not need to oversee the whole project).
Potentially, at some point this community could have an element teaching/ demonstration community and hopefully inspire others to do similar things: Healthy homes, food and lifestyle. “Just enough” size. An alternative to the debt model. Living outdoors. An alternative ownership model... We could serve a broader community by teaching other how to do the same if they would like. Maybe at least some of such "education" can be made available at no charge? Living Web Farm is a nearby educational organization that gives free access to their extensive video library. (They have a major benefactor who supports the whole project.) Again, income from vacation rentals seems like an important part of the financial success of the project - potentially serving as our benefactor?