Living in community and life changes

[mammamoon]

My husband and I ( and our two year old son) have recently started developing an intentional community/ecovillage in south louisiana. We have bought the land with 5 other people, and are creating our bylaws at this time. SOME OF US ARE LOOKING TO build out there in the fall. I am pretty apprehensive about the whole thing. I have always read about the Farm in tennesee and Earth Haven in N.C.with such enthusiasm and even inspiration, Yet now when it is manifesting in my own life I am sceptical of my faith in Community. I am worried that this will tie me down so much that I won't be able to pursue my personal aspirations. Also I am not really used to roughing it, being that we live in the city where we have the luxuries of air conditioners, running water, healthfood stores around the corner. I can't imagine what it is going to be like creating a village from nothing. We have very little finacially. And we live so comfortably now, will my son thrive in such a new and different enviorment? We plan on living in yurts and domes until we can build our houses, and we already have rain catchment systems in order, and solar sytems are already purchased, so we have something, it may not be much but I guess that is the point of the whole endever, to live simply with greater awareness of what is. Any advice will be taken to heart with gratitude.
Thankyou

[RidentMama]

DH and I went from a studio apt. in the middle of a pretty good-sized city to living in a home in the same city and jumped into the country from there where I at first felt in over my head. We went "whole-hog" and bought the chickens, the sheep, the goats, the &*(&* llama (long story), the HUGE dog, turkeys, etc. while maintaining a sizeable garden, fruit trees, etc. and turning our lives around from the chemical-laden ones that we once had to as natural/organic as possible. It was one of those situations where neither of us had much of a clue when we started as to what was going to happen (we had no idea of the amount of work that would go into just keeping the lawn maintained!), but found that our lives had become so much more fulfilled in the process of it all. Thanks to our initial naive-ness, we have found ourselves closer in marriage, more inclined to look toward the future in terms of personal fulfillment rather than how much $$ we can accumulate, focused on our growing family and just all-around happy (even if a bit exhausted).

So even though you might feel a bit overwhelmed, that's part of the process of making such a life-altering decision. And even though you will probably experience some initial stress over your decision, in a few years, you will hopefully be able to look back and declare that it was one of the best decisions/moves of your life and for the life of your family.

Please keep us posted on how it's going!

[macytoedt]

i have to respond to this....

you are so blessed to be at the begining of this process....this is a dream for many people that will never have to resources to start but maybe join you after you are established....but you should be very comfortable with the other investors, you didn't say if they were friend or not but you should know that consensus works, it means that everyone is satisfied with a decision, if even one person dissagrees then measures are made to accomadate everyone....some people do consensus -1 for extreme cases but this is all from my reading and being part of co-ops.....

you should visit other comminuties and takes notes from them on what works or not...some communities are totally separated and make everything they need from scratch down to toothpaste....some communities are based on selling a product (Twin Oaks tofu) and are ok with going out into the local town to get what they need....some plan weekly trip to educational/cultural events.....

there is a intentional communities directory

http://www.ic.org/

so you can see how other communities are doing it....i definately think your children will flurish in this environment of cooperation and "roughing it" will bring a greater appreaction of where things come from, not just the store etc.

communities work because everyone realizes, "Why struggle alone when we can work together and do better for everyone?"....you just need to understand each others needs and set those boundries early, like private houses and common eating places so people have a privacy but are communal in all other ways.....i think homeschooling works best in these situations because all adults can help take responsibility, like me, i have a biology backgrond and i want to teach a science day for homeschoolers etc.....

i could go on about this forever (maybe it's the coffee) but i wanted to give you positive vibes, this is a every exciting time, relish it and do the right thing (try to anyway).....

i live near earth haven and from what i gather it works for some people just not everybody.....and i can't remember if you have to give all your money to the community or not....some communities do it that way....

i think living in yurts is smart....we built one 30ft on platform with water, elec and with raw wood....you can build one for under $5000 maybe less, for that big anyway, (i think my figure is right)....alas we never lived in it we left it for the farmer whose land it was on for him to house farm interns.....dh wanted to experience doing it.....you might try to check out sustaniable building materials, rammed earth, staw bale it's all very do-able and definately cheaper than building a house.....

sorry to ramble this is one of our dreams and remember more than 2 adults is considered a community and i've seen it happening in the same house in a town and working beautifuly, so the fact you have land.....gosh, go for it!

peace
macy

[kavamamakava]

I don't have thoughts on an intentional community, but I've lived off the grid with solar and rainwater catchment quite a bit. We read a lot of books. Kids seem to go to bed easier. When it got dark, we all went to sleep. This was when I was a teenager, not a mom, so I didn't have mommy concerns. But I used to babysit my nieces and nephews a lot. We played with rocks, made gardens, went swimming (we lived by the ocean), did a lot of artwork, made jewelry...
We went through batteries like nobody's business for our boomboxes. We had a generator that we fired up once a week or so to watch movies. But solar power and rainwater catchment took care of our daily needs like electricity and county water do. We had propane lamps installed on the wall in our house for light and a solar light too. Sometimes there wasn't enough electricity for the lights and the water pump to flush the toilet so we just used the lamps. The thing about solar for us was batteries. We only had two panels, but when we bought another battery, that's all we needed. It's not about collecting the energy, but storing it.
My sister does gravity fed catchment at her place and that makes less demands on solar power. She also has the shower water in a huge black tank to absorb heat and uses solar energy as a back up to heat the water. So super hot showers aren't a given, but they happen often enough. She lives in a gypsy type tent (think huge with more than one room) and has a kitchen with a sink and propane stove, a bathroom with a sink with running water and a shower. She also has a fire pit to cook on. This is all with just one solar panel that feeds one battery and a propane tank. The flashlights she uses to light her space are solar.
I don't know why, but we always had dirty feet.

[mammamoon]

Thank you all for your encouragment. I feel better, espessially now that we just accepted three new members. One is a couple who are expecting thier first baby, and their roomate who is a women, we had a conection right away. This excites me because before this thier were a total of 2 women including me, I was the only one with a young child. So now I feel like I can open up more being that there are other women, But all the men who are involved are all very soft natured so there is definatly not an overwhelming amount of testosterone. Every one shares common va;lues and are all very gentle commpasionate beings. We had not all knwn eachother very well before this endevor, but knew each other from mutual friends. We are quicly developing strong connections. Thankyou for the responses. I'm grateful for all the community support in my life in all it's many forms.

[Sativarain1]

I think this will be such a good experience for you and your family. Goodluck with everything!~
P.S. Have you ever visited an intentional community? To get a better idea of what their like in person? I've always wanted to....

Valerie