We've been farming organically and building community since 1974 on 135 acres in rural, northeast Missouri. We grow the great majority of our food and share income, meals, vehicles and other resources. Our membership consists of 5 adults and a thirteen year old child. In June, we will be joined by a young family with a 2 year old.

We have a simple and healthy lifestyle; creativity, ecological sustainability, nonviolence, personal freedom, honest communication, consensus decision-making and emotional support are core values.

Our land includes large vegetable/herb gardens, orchards, woods, hayfields, bee yards, cropland and pasture. We raise chickens for eggs, meat and manure. We also raise turkeys. We hunt deer from our land. We produce and sell sorghum syrup, honey, garlic, mustard, horseradish and various seasonal condiments . We also sell at the Farmers' Market located 12 miles away at our county seat. Our population swells during the growing and harvest seasons with interns, visitors and guests. Our fall sorghum harvest has become a Sandhill tradition. Not only is sorghum syrup our biggest agricultural income source, it's also one of our main social events of the year. New friends and old from all over the country and other intentional communities come to help bring in the crop and join in the fun.

We enjoy meeting people who appreciate the rural and alternative lifestyle, who wish to live and interact with children and who connect well with the land and its seasons. Because we place a high value on integrating new members into our community, we limit how many people we accept in a given year. For 2010, our upper limit is four adults. Given that we have already accepted a couple with a child and we have two other strong candidates already in the pipeline, there may not be openings for others to join this year.

That said, we may not have reached our final size even if we add four adult members this year and thus we remain open to exploring membership with folks attracted to our visiton and reality-- even if those conversations don't bloom into full membership sooner than next year or beyond.

Our current membership spans a wide range of ages and we're open to new people of any age. Personal qualities which work well here are self-motivation , conscientious and willingness to engage in group process work. We encourage prospective members to begin a dialogue with us at any time by writing and visiting.