Moonbear said:
That is so cool! I hope I can find a community with neighbors that share like that when I buy my next house.
Good luck, MB!
We have three of them, all in a row. The first neighbor and his wive gave us the perennials, and also contributed summer squash when ours failed miserably, and gave us dill flowers for our pickles. We gave them some zucchini, various greens, Bell peppers, radishes, etc. The next guy down the road has started us growing garlic with a generous supply of his seed-stock, and I have been trying to keep him happy with hot-chili relishes and salsas. He has given us tons of peaches this year and gave us extra "utility" Russian garlic so we can use that all summer and fall and save our best bulbs for the winter planting. Yesterday, he showed up, and took home a nice big bag of Bell peppers and Hungarian wax chilies to use in stir-fries. He gave me some old iron boat-racks that were kind of bent-up last year, and the next neighbor down the road helped me cut them up, fit them to my truck body, and re-weld them. I gave that neighbor bags of carrots from our garden, and bought him a nice set of metal-cutting blades for his Sawzall. I helped him and the organic-garlic neighbor saw lots of logs last summer on a home saw-mill that the garlic-guy has, and stack the lumber for drying.
The bumper on my old Nissan PU has rusted out pretty bad, so the guy with the mechanic shop/cutting torches, welders, etc, and I are keeping an eye out for a nice piece of channel-iron or maybe heavy-walled steel pipe to make me a new bumper. I've already scavenged enough heavy angle-iron to make the braces - just need a nice long piece of material for the bumper. I helped him and his sons install a rebuilt motor in his old Bronco (plow rig) a few weeks ago and have helped him with some projects that required knowledge of electronics and appropriate tools.
The guy with the garlic and the fruit trees has his daughter and two granddaughters living with him and his wife. My wife took them down a basket of fresh herbs this afternoon, and the little girls (3-1/2 and 5 years) had to pick some plums for her to give to me. Last fall, I used my spading fork to loosen up some beets and carrots one day when they were visiting with their grandmother, so they could pick root vegetables for supper, and they have never forgotten that, nor the apples that I sent home with them. Their grandfather (the guy who owns the band-saw mill) has a nice collection of pro-quality woodworking tools in his shop and he leaves the shop unlocked, saying that I can use his equipment any time. Eventually, we will want to re-model the kitchen, and it will certainly be nice to be able to do my own mill-work and finishing for custom cabinets.
I feel pretty good about lucking into this group of people. There are other families around within a mile or so, and we are on good terms, but this little cluster of 4 families (including us) is really heavy into sharing, and that's pretty special. It's not barter, because when you have extra of something, it's just good practice to make sure to spread it around, and we ask for nothing in return. Within this group, though, you WILL get something in return - it's just a matter of friendship, cohesiveness, etc. My first real encounter with the organic-gardener guy with all the fruit trees, garlic, etc, was one day during our first summer here. I heard someone yelling really loud, and knowing that he usually had a tractor parked next to his saw-mill, I feared that he had gotten hurt, pinned under a log, or something, and I ran down there as quick as I could. When I saw him outside, I asked if he was the one hollering, because I thought someone might be hurt. It turns out that he was hollering for his dog Max and he's a very loud fellow, even .2 miles away. Later that day, he showed up at the house with a big bag of Russian and German garlic as a "thank you" for me, and I started taking him jars of hot stuff that I made with my chilies and his garlic. It's kinda snowballed.
I really lucked out, falling in with this group. I have neighbors that are physically closer than most of these people, but this little group (strung out along the south side of this rural back-road) seems to have taken mutual aid and cooperation to heart. It's nice to have such neighbors. You never know when someone is going to show up with flowers, fruit, vegetables, etc, "just because".
Hey, can you feel it in the air? Soon the frost will be on the pumpkin and the hay up in the barn.. (sounds like some good lyrics to put to a song).. 
The ghosts of my ancestors would certainly exact retribution of some sort.
