A Different Kind of Marketplace
Back Forty isn't about buying more stuff. It's about discovering what's already in your community - the equipment, knowledge, livestock, and skills sitting unused just down the road. It's about neighbors helping neighbors. Sharing resources instead of everyone buying their own. Building the kind of communities where people actually know and help each other.
What is Back Forty Marketplace?
Back Forty Marketplace is a web-based local homestead exchange where members can buy, sell, trade, rent, and borrow equipment, supplies, livestock, food, and services, with distance-aware discovery using a ZIP code and radius and in-app messaging between members. New areas are added in waves as local activity grows; the northeast Colorado Springs region (including Black Forest and nearby communities) is an early focus market.
In the Black Forest and northeast Colorado Springs region, people use Back Forty as a local homestead exchange to buy, sell, and trade livestock and poultry; list farm equipment, tools, and trailers; source seeds, plants, and garden starts; find produce, eggs, dairy, and meat from small producers; and pick up homestead supplies and skills—all with neighbors using ZIP code and radius search across nearby communities like Falcon, Monument, Peyton, and Eastonville.
The Problem We're Solving
Whether you've got 100 acres or a backyard chicken coop, you've felt it: the gap between the self-sufficient life you're working toward and the reality of doing it alone.
You can find anything on the internet, but you can't easily find the neighbor five miles away who has exactly what you need.
You can watch YouTube tutorials, but you can't connect with the experienced person down the road willing to teach you in person.
You can buy new equipment from distant corporations, but you can't discover who nearby might rent, lend, or share theirs.
What Back Forty Does
We help anyone working toward a more self-sufficient, community-connected life find each other and the resources already around them.
Discover what's local
Find equipment, livestock, supplies, and skills within your actual community.
Share, don't just buy
Rent expensive equipment for the weekend. Borrow what you need for a project. Trade your surplus for what you're short on.
Build real connections
Every transaction connects you with someone on a similar journey.
Learn from neighbors
Find people a few steps ahead who can teach you. Eventually, you'll be that person for someone else.
What We Believe
We're all somewhere on the journey - whether you're planting your first tomatoes or you've been at this for decades. There's no finish line, just progress.
Community makes us stronger.
Small steps matter.
Everyone has something to offer.
Surplus eggs, a pickup truck, welding skills, or just eagerness to learn and help - you don't need massive acreage to join. You just need to be working toward doing more for yourself and sharing more with your neighbors.
Welcome to Back Forty.
Your community is closer than you think.