Website/Social Media Link:

https://wildcooperative.wordpress.com/as-a-homesteader/​

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Property Description: :

"We are looking for a person, a couple, or a family to live year-round on-site to maintain many aspects of a community-owned off-grid regenerative homestead and education center. This is an opportunity to put down roots on a secured land in exchange for work. Ideally, this opportunity is for a person who resonates with our mission and vision statements and is interested in joining the community but is unable to meet the financial obligations.

You must be flexible with work schedule. Regular work hours are approximately 25 hours per week per adult caretaker in exchange for land to live.

The responsibilities will include natural building, carpentry, plumbing, electrical, basic manual labor, farming/gardening etc. Caretakers must be able to safely operate a farm truck and other equipment including power and hand tools. This role will be most suited for an experienced off-gridder.

This opportunity does not provide housing or food. The living structures, supporting gardens/small farms and business plans will need to be created by the homesteader on the land on their own time to create the most self sufficient model possible as well as an extensive greater community network. These creations needs to be aligned with our mission and vision for the land.

We are looking for somebody that’s reliable, skilled, passionate, hard working and with good communication and leadership skills. The need is for very motivated people that are willing and able to complete many tasks and work with little direct supervision. It requires one to be physically able to work outdoors in all types of weather. There are variety of projects and classes we will be focusing on so there are many exciting possibilities to learn and hone in your skills. 

Depending on your existing skills and knowledge there are possibilities to teach workshops and lead interns in projects.

 

We are a community that cultivates cooperative and facilitating relationship with nature and each other and that shares the knowledge of our regenerative and responsible living experiences. We are focusing on changing our life’s perspective from human-centric to bio-centric where all life is part of our family and relatives.

We are creating a natural and regenerative ecosystem that energizes all life, allows for individual growth, and shares and returns the surplus of energy and knowledge. This healthy village with resilient social, cultural, economic, educational, and ecological guilds is a building block of a biotic culture.

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Our fertile 16-acre land is situated on a gently sloped, south facing side of a lush valley and the Smith Fork Creek watershed, outside of Crawford, Western Slope, Colorado at 7,000 feet elevation.

It gets about 19 inches of rain and about 48 inches of snow on average per year. We have mild weather with an average summer high temperature at about 89°F and an average winter low temperature at about 13°F. The USDA hardiness zone is 5a with about 124 frost free days (with an average first frost date on Sep 21, and last frost date on May 21). The rich bottom-of-the-valley soil is alkaline but easy to tend to.

Prevailing plant species are gamble oaks, cottonwoods, junipers, willows, elders, alders, choke and service berry bushes, and hawthorn bushes but there are many unique microclimates throughout the land. We are also fortunate to share the land with many kinds of animals, including deer, bobcats, owls, skunks, weasels, frogs, snakes, many songbirds and birds of prey, ravens and crows, hummingbirds, turkeys, and the occasional bear or mountain lion.

We experience a year round sun exposure ideal for annual and perennial gardening, as well as passive solar houses, such as earthship, cordwood, cob, strawbale, and other sustainable affordable structures built with local and natural materials. There are still no building codes in our county!

There is a year-round creek, a seasonal creek, good gravity-fed irrigation and domestic water, as well as rain water catchment and hydroelectric rights.

The land is located nearly at the end of a county-maintained dirt road surrounded by pristine West Elk Wilderness, BLM, National Forest land, and about 15 miles from the eastern entrance to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park." 

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What is being asked in exchange for sharing this property::

Caring For The Property, Work-trade 

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