Hi, Brian
Here are some links:
http://dfwnetmall.com/ecovillage or
http://cyberparent.com/dfw I'm sorry about not sending links, but I have an old, refurbished p.c. and sometimes it's picky about what it will or will not do. Since we'd like to make an initial purchase of land as a group so we can get the price per acre lowered, the more, the merrier. There is no shared income, so we're not forming a commune, but there will be shared activities like any good group of neighbors.
I'm improving my credit score so I can pre-qualify for a USDA homesteading loan. I'd like to build an earth-sheltered home (that's what Ananda used to construct their greenhouse; they had practically no utility costs.) and I found an equity group that will finance your home once you've purchased the blueprints for the house u want to build. The blueprints cost around $6,000, but once that's out of the way, it's smooth sailing.
Here's some H20 conservation tips: 1.) Start taking a navy shower; if u haven't heard of a navy shower before, it's the kind where u wet yourself down, turn off the shower, soap and scrub yourself, and then rinse off. It's a bit unpleasant in the winter, but the faster u shower, the more water u save! 2.) Stand in a tub or bucket when u shower. That's what people in Australia had to do when it got so extremely dry there. 3.) Drink only beer, wine, or tequila. I adapted that one from the time I went to Cancun. The pilot of the airline told us over the intercom as we filed out, "Remember: conserve water! Drink tequila!!"
If people will adopt one or more these, when we have to do these things, then it won't be as stressful, since we'll already be doing some or all of them. I just added the tub in the shower thing; I'm using a foot bath tub and it's not really much of a hassle.
