Bramble

We are a family-friendly, off-grid collective focused on creativity, self sufficiency, and simpler living. Children are people and people are children. We are all learning and growing in a vibrant, integrated world. We work together, we play together.
We live on a piece of Monacan land – 44 acres of woods and wetlands. Most of the place is mature hardwoods, with some pine groves, some younger forest and two spring-fed creeks. Our spot is about 45 minutes to Richmond, Charlottesville, and Fredericksburg, and about two hours to DC, the mountains, and the ocean. There are several established small communities in the area, creating an unusual social scene for such a rural area.
We moved onto raw land in 2023 and have developed some infrastructure including onsite water, common kitchen, solar power, and clearings for growing food. Things are very rustic. We work toward meeting collective and individual lifestyle needs, but also value simplicity and plan to keep things pretty rustic.
How do we do things here? We value personal autonomy and mutual support. We are scrappy and adaptable, noticing and following vigor instead of plodding forward. We communicate with each other. We support each other. We expect to meet each other where we are – we each have vulnerabilities, capacity swings, needs, and feelings. We embrace our neurodivergences and the diversity of our mental illness. We are artists, musicians, and makers who foster a culture around creative expression.
We share a deep connection to nature and a commitment to live more sustainable lifestyles. The members of collective broke out of the cage of normal living by adapting alternative dwellings, living off-grid, and/or living in intentional communities. Now we are coming together to create a collective homestead that nourishes our minds and bodies.
The majority of our civilization is running on perpetual growth and choking our planet in countless ways. Our intention is to live a more ecologically responsible lifestyle and to ultimately make more out of less. We plant trees, grow vegetables, and raise chickens and ducks. We mill our own lumber and build our own common structures. We live in tiny houses and question consumption.
Since people are learning and growing as long as they live, we encourage self-care and engage in mental health support from within our collective as well as from outside sources. We will keep open minds and adaptable systems so that the community breathes and changes as its residents change and grow. We share an understanding that in the pursuit of increased sustainability and the back-to-the-land dream there are trade offs between money, time, and quality. We will compromise and flex to get where we are going. We are all adventuresome people who like to travel. We welcome friends come visit.
We would love to connect with people who share our interests as well as people with different and complementary skill sets. If you want to connect, please reach out via the contact form.