Sunset over a green field with dark clouds and orange flowers in the foreground.

Mooncat

  • Communities

About the Communities

  • Disbanded
  • Ecological
  • Rural

Founding year

  • 2010

What we do

Update 6/15/2023: I am looking to sell/rent/lend the farm to someone that loves sustainability and community and wants to try their hands at gardening, building, or whatever you’re into!
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UPDATE 6/22/21 – Disbanded. No longer accepting members, but guests or visitors may be accommodated depending on weather, schedules, current residents, etc. Please contact for more information!
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This is a re-forming community based on sustainable housing and permaculture with a specific interest in education, sustainability, resilience, larger community involvement and showing the world that it can be done better, more efficiently and more happily a different way. Independent people, working together.
Please contact us for any information, to get interested/involved or to provide valuable insight into something you’ve already tried!
June 2011: Bought the land! 14+ Acres near Fulton, IL. 60 Year old berm house, dilapidated out buildings, 2 huge greenhouses and 3 cats. Moved in and started planting trees.
2012: Started up the greenhouses and hosted a dozen WWOOFers to support a small CSA. Started retro-fit of existing house to an Earthship home. Chickens adopted. Fruit trees, bramble and bush berries, figs, kiwis and grapes planted.
2015: Addition of fruit and nut crops. Added 8 acres of partially wooded habitat and hammock spots.
2016: Asian pears, peaches, apricots and plums.
2018: Three retired goats for brush removal and to teach us and the new farm dog.
2020: Seasonal focus on gardens and perennial food production. 5 adults and 1 child in semi-permanent residence with 3 other adults, many guests and WWOOFers living and visiting. Geese and chickens and cats. Big gardens but no more greenhouses.

Our Mission

Sustainable permaculture. Independent people working together in an alternative family that will grow to community.

  • Purpose
  • Ecological
  • Community type
  • Cohousing
  • Coliving
  • Ecovillage
  • Sustainability practices
  • Permaculture design
  • Natural / low-impact building
  • Activities
  • Farming
  • Education
  • Experiences
  • Services Business
  • Others

Commemorative dates

  • January 1, 2010
  • Started planning
  • January 1, 2011
  • Started living together

Gallery

  • 1 Total member
  • Not open to new members
  • Open to visitors
Total
1

How to join

Contact us if interested! Visit, then stay for a while and see if you want to get in on the ground floor of permaculture possibility!

Basic expectations or agreements for members

Email, text or call. We can also set up a time to talk via phone or web chat.

Primary decision-making authority

  • Single Leader or Founding Couple

One person or partnership has ultimate authority.

Decision-making process

  • Modified Consensus

Generally seek agreement, but have backup methods when consensus isn’t reached.

Governance structure

  • Collaborative/Horizontal

Power and responsibility are shared relatively equally among members.

Conflict resolution approach

Decision making is a modified consensus with overall governance and ultimate authority by an individual property owner due to the transitional state of other residents and representative investments. Gross flexibility and autonomy is provided generally. Guidelines for house and land use are created and approved by all residents.

Economic model

  • Independent Finances

Members maintain separate personal finances with minimal sharing.

Economic scenarios for this community

  • There is a one-time fee, investment, or share purchase to join the community separate from accessing housing
  • Members need to pay fees, dues, or similar to live there on a per month or per year basis
  • There is a labor obligation
  • Members typically need to have their own job or other personal source of income to cover their expenses while living in the community?

Additional economic information

Join fee: $50
Regular fees: $200
Labor: Yes (20 hrs/week)
Want to buy your own acre? Rent to own? We’re open to ideas! Barter! Explore the Gift Economy and shared resources. Help with work is appreciated. We’re looking to sell land at cost to future members, but co-housing is also possible.

Shared resources and amenities that are accessible to everyone in the community

Common House, Garden(s), Vehicle Share, Library, Workshop, Outbuilding(s), Outdoor Kitchen, Tractor & Farm Equipment, Fire pit, Swingsets & play areas, Recreational vehicles, Waterfront access, Internet

Frequency of communal meals

  • 2-5 times per week

Significant food acquisition practices

  • Locally sourced

Community activities and engagement

  • Transition Town (post-petroleum and off-grid communities.)
  • School, Educational Institute or Experience
  • Volunteer, Internship, or Apprenticeship, or WWOOF’ing
  • Ethical Business, Investment Group, or Alternative Currency
  • WWOOF'ing, Guest Farming
  • Festivals, Conferences, Events

Substance use culture

  • Substance use is frequent and public in the community
  • Substance use appears in public spaces but no pressure
  • Religions
  • Christian
  • Buddhist
  • Wiccan, Paganism, or Earth Religions
  • Unitarian Universalist

Gender composition

  • Roughly balanced (no group over 60%)

Age demographics

  • Mixed adults (few or no children)

Property status

  • Privately owned

Property owner

  • By a single individual, couple, or Family Trust

Setting

  • Rural

Countryside locations with significant distance from urban centers.

Community type

  • Cohousing

    Private homes with shared common facilities, designed for neighborly
    interaction while maintaining independence.

  • Coliving

    Shared living spaces with private bedrooms/bathrooms and communal
    kitchens, dining, and social areas.

  • Ecovillage

    Integrated communities designed around ecological principles with sustainable living practices.

Community type

  • Partially built or remodeled with recycled or environmentally friendly materials, and/or using natural building methods

Sustainability approach

  • Permaculture design
  • Natural / low-impact building

Land practices in our community

  • The community practices permaculture

Community type

  • Partially built or remodeled with recycled or environmentally friendly materials, and/or using natural building methods

Some or all of the buildings are...

  • Partially built or remodeled with recycled or environmentally friendly materials, and/or using natural building methods

Self-produced energy

  • Up to 33%

Energy sources used

  • Photovoltaic Solar
  • Biomass (from wood or other organic materials)

Self-produced food

  • Up to 33%

Local, organic, or fair trade food

  • 33 - 66%

Food systems

  • Community garden
  • Food forest
  • Greenhouse / aquaponics
  • Livestock / poultry
  • Land area size
    14.5 acres

Guest Book

Written reviews are available for plus members. Click here to upgrade.

Location

  • Illinois, United States

Mooncat

Needs and Offers

Connecting people and communities through an intentional online marketplace

  • Promoted
  • Events
3 weeks ago

Healing Love Healing Money: Trust As The Foundation For A New Culture

Money, love and power are among the hardest things any community works with, and many of us carry the same fears into both: not having enough, losing what we have, and the sense that if someone else gets money or love, we won’t. Healing Love, Healing Money: Trust as the Foundation for a New Culture is taught by two intentional communities. Karen McAllister and Duncan Cryle are from Clear Sky Meditation and Retreat Center, a Buddhist-lineage community in the BC Rockies. Monika Alleweldt and Benjamin von Mendelssohn from Tamera Healing Biotope, a community of about 160 people in southern Portugal that has spent decades studying love, trust and relationship. Clear Sky has spent years working on its relationship with money, and our two communities found surprising parallels in the fears beneath both. Over four sessions we explore the roots of fear around money and belonging, love, possession and power, trust as infrastructure (community as a container for healing), and ethical livelihood. We use short meditations, body-based practices, reflection and small-group conversation. You do not need to be in a romantic relationship or live in community. When: October 27, Nov 3, 10, 17. All four sessions: 12–2pm Vancouver, 1–3pm Alberta, 7–9pm UK and Portugal, 8–10pm Central Europe. Note: US and some Canadian provinces change clocks on November 1, so the US west coast is 12–2pm on October 27, then 11am–1pm for the remaining sessions, and Eastern is 3–5pm on October 27, then 2–4pm for the rest. Cost: sliding scale Details and registration: https://www.clearskycenter.org/event/healing-love-healing-money-online/  
October 27, 2026 13:00 – November 17, 2026 15:00
  • Promoted
Offer
Need
  • Promoted
Offer
  • Events
6 days ago

Womens Tiny Mud House Workshop

I’m Na, a regenerative designer, earthen builder and educator with the Global Ecovillage Network. I’m passionate about helping people step into action, however big or small. A women’s build I joined back in 2015 was a much needed transformational experience that set me on this path. Offering this workshop is a way of coming full circle and passing that same spark on. Sat 16 to Fri 22 January 2027 This is a hands-on workshop where you’ll learn earthen building techniques and build a tiny house from the earth up, with your own hands. Why tiny? A tiny house requires careful, creative design and asks – what space do we actually need to live? It uses far less material and takes less time to build, so it’s practical and economical. This also allows us to experience all stages of a house build, from design and brick-making to building and finishing. You’ll get your hands into every part of the build. We’ll work with mud brick (adobe), cob and bamboo, then earth plasters and finishes. This workshop is open to women of all ages and abilities are welcome. Come if you’re new and curious, if you want more practice on specific parts of a build, or simply to play in the mud with wonderful people. It’s genuinely good fun. We’ll be in my little forest, a small house on the edge of a village and national park, 20 km south of Chiang Mai, Thailand. You can stay on site in simple earthen dorms or tents, and we’ll share home-cooked Thai food in the cool, bright days of Thai winter. Read more and register here 
January 16, 2027 00:00 – January 22, 2027 23:59

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