Share our rural life and help with our permaculture project in Central France

  • Favourited 366 times
  • Last activity: 14 Feb 2024

Availability

  2024 

 Min stay requested: No minimum

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Details

  • Description

    Description

    June 2018 update

    Salut les amis !

    Good day everybody ! Hope you are doing very well!

    The new thing is this year, I want to renovate the house, and I do very few gardening.
    In july there would be a lot lot of all kind of delicious berries ; the vegetables would come mainly from the outside or from the wild.

    this place could be very surprising as it is roots, very natural, simple, still away from common modern standards. Very alive, though ! It is kind of remote, with natural surroundings. If that is what you’re looking for, then it’s good !

    ACTIVITIES
    1 / It would be quite helpful to host you for the field, grass, blackberries managment ; to design sneaky alleys and zen spaces … I will show you the SCYTHE !
    I'm interested by someone who could take care of the land, which is mainly cutting the grass, blackberries, and mulching the young trees; with the scythe, and with the machine for the blackberries spreading over the hences ;
    designing alleys and zen spaces in between the hig grasses

    2 / Help me with renovation work
    it would include different tasks depending on what is going on, including carrying stuffs that need to move ! “useful little things a little bit everywhere”
    As I have a lot to plan on my own, finding materials, I'm looking for people that could be relatively independent

    FUN! We/you could go swimming in lakes, bike in the green quiet surroundings, music jamming, , project movies, theatre, etc… bring your own creativity, instruments, whatever you like… :)
    Of course, we can go out sometimes to share nice local events going on.

    PRECISION:
    I wrote my profile below 4 years ago when I started this amazing adventure of hosting people volunteering by workaway; so by now I’m 7 years and half _in permaculture here, with a lot of good friends yeah, international thumbs up:) Though things have evolved here since, the spirit remains similar. attracts the kinds of positive people who could feet within this so particular place, natural, roots, rustical; going well along with people who could adapt easily to a different lifestyle and flexible frame, with their own creativity, easy going attitude and good smile… !

    PLEASE CONSIDER: Reliability matters, please ! cause we are real people (not internet avatars :)
    I host only few people, 2-3 max at the same time. Your stay is very important to me and affects my life and yours ! I attract your attention on this point because the annoying fact is a lack of reliability of too many internet-people from workaway who virtually disappear without replying back (when a simple ‘no thanks, I’ve changed my plans’ would have been just good enough for me). Common sense matters! [Please consider this form of ‘you’ in an interpersonal general sense, not dedicated to someone in particular _ but to everyone] Be aware if you decide to write a request that your potential arrival does really matters to me and to the other people as well, who are coming or who potentially could come. So it’s like a bus with some available seats, this BUS TO a Green-land ZION! with only 2-3 sits.

    DATES
    June is booked, looking for few good people in the summer (excepted 17-26 august when I’ll be gone)

    With sunny vibes,
    please write to me if you dig it and feel it!
    Martin

    Text from the early days, still describing the life here, maybe :

    My name is Martin, I am 3 years and half, I live in the countryside, alone, it’s good times going on!, I live in an ancient farm with an open field, in a remote quiet place called Trantranges, which I feel is so nice and full of vibrations…possibilities...horses, wild horses in my mind…It just happened so : now my home is in Trantranges !, not exactly in the Mississippi (though it might be possible to play music like you never did before), but more precisely in CENTRAL France, south of the BERRY – north of CREUSE. This area is called “La Marche” because located on the first step of the Massif Central Mountains, but here we are only 4000 meters high, oh 400m sorry.

    On the first years, I enjoyed to be “the lonely seeder”: I started to settle the old place on my own way, planting a lot of new trees, creating lively gardens, & mostly walking around with a cup of tea watching the wild life that is buzzing all around…

    Just a little bit about my approach… ?

    Since I met permaculture, I love gardening, planting & taking care of trees, I do everything a little bit in my own way, with a lot of experiments (as Jeffrey Lewis sings […] ‘you don’t have to be a scientist to do experiments, …with your own heart’ […] ), sometimes it works pretty good, or it fails beyond all expectancies, or it goes somewhere in between,: whatever comes, this is learning, I’m nearly 4, how old are you? I guess we’re all learning!

    The gardens may already surprise like a mini- weird jungle, I’m surprised every day : is there a gardener here, or what? Not easy to walk? Please become a wilder cat! In my gardens, I like the plants to live their full cycle, so then potentially re-seed by themselves, so part of my ‘work’ would be suggesting my wished orientations, then it happens to turn different, so the story goes on…, playing with nature, who is the best gardener I’ve ever met… this order may seem such messy, but this is the only order I love. Well, I’m just trying to juggle with 1001 seed balls, to begin with :).

    Oh I’m planting a fruit forest ! All over the land ! This tree nursery is very young, its beginning reality is slowly & surely growing, taking deep roots, we have to take care of it, year after year, as a gift for the future…Already prodigal by now, legged by “Les Anciens”, there are many big big fruit trees : sympathy for strawberries (this is not a tree, isn’t it?), cherries, pears, pears, pears, peaches, peaches, prunes, prunes, prunes, walnuts, grapes, big hedges…, & this year is a particularly good year ! Please come !

  • Types of help and learning opportunities

    Types of help and learning opportunities

    Gardening
    DIY and building projects
    General Maintenance
    Creating/ Cooking family meals
    Farmstay help
    Help with Eco Projects
    Help around the house
    Art Projects
    Teaching
  • UN sustainability goals this host is trying to achieve

    UN sustainability goals this host is trying to achieve

    UN goals
    No poverty
    Zero hunger
    Good health and well-being
    Quality education
    Gender equality
    Clean water and sanitation
    Affordable and clean energy
    Decent work and economic growth
    Industries, innovation and infrastructure
    Reduce inequality
    Sustainable cities and communities
    Responsible consumption and production
    Climate action
    Life below water
    Life on land
    Peace, justice and strong institutions
    Partnerships for the goals
  • Cultural exchange and learning opportunities

    Cultural exchange and learning opportunities

    It's generally a nice, different and special experience of sharing a rural life. Hope you appreciate and learn from it, we will see... :)

  • Help

    Help

    What would you / we do ?

    There are so many many projects & things to contribute here ! It depends on your taste, on what you feel like to do today, and it’s mainly leaded by the agenda of nature and the sun and the moon…If you feel like a heavy physical activity: yes no problem! Or you feel like a delicate one, using your magic hands: yes it’s possible!

    Since spring, I’ve been working to grow gardens a little bigger than I did before only for me & few friends occasionally, try to grow more vegetables for the people of this Indian summer, and so at this period, all this is a little bit too much work & food for a single me, it’s funny how I’m overwhelmed, so to keep on smiling all the time, I’d be very happy to receive new people!

    At this moment, I’d say the needs are general care and maintenance : “useful little things a little bit everywhere”, like :
    Gardening, mulching, weeding, cutting, picking fruits on the trees and eat them or do jams, heal plants with plants, collect & cut wood, taking care / fixing old stuffs, harvesting, cooking, fully living! etc…
    To give a practical example: it is needed to renew the spines circles protecting the baby trees from roe deers & wild rabbits appetite. Some kind of land art made of spines (cuts of blackberries brambles, wild prunes branches…)…

    Then, a little bit latter, when possible, I’d like to enter in an eco-building & renovating cycle, with for instance : to transform small buildings with stone-walls into greenhouses, one of them as a bathroom with 2 D.I.Y solar panels, create wall-coatings with the clay extracted from the pond, create a floor for the future music room & international library oh yeah! Etc...This is permaculture guys!

    You could come directly and we see together what’s going on here & now, or If you’d like to know before what could be on, please contact me.

    On the evenings, maybe we could improvise music jams around the fireplace; watch a movie outdoor, and…your ideas?

  • Languages

    Languages spoken
    English: Fluent
    Spanish: Fluent
    French: Fluent

    This host offers a language exchange
    This host has indicated that they are interested in sharing their own language or learning a new language.
    You can contact them directly for more information.

  • Accommodation

    Accommodation

    Accommodation ?

    The accommodation I can offer is simple and rustic: there are 2, 3 rooms with good beds - but the rooms need to be renovated still, so it's basic. There is a large common space in the main room. Or, if you prefer to have your own private space, then that would be in your own tent.

    I think about receiving between 1 - 3 helpers maximum at the same time: enough people to generate a gentle dynamic; not too many people at the same time so everyone could really meet each one. The agenda would be very fluctuant of course, as it depends on who like to come/stay/leave. So, in the case you finally decide to go somewhere else (no worries), would you please have the kindness to let me know: this would help to organize well for everyone, thanks!

    Dry compost toilets

    Wifi

    Washing machine (called Lee Ronaldo)

    The solar bathroom is a current project, undone yet. Here has not a lot of conventional things, like a regular shower, but warm buckets of water in old grandma bath behind a big window facing the sun
    I would answer any questions, if needed :) Please use biodegradable products only!

  • What else ...

    What else ...

    How to go ?

    El Grande Trantranges International Airport (daily flights from Koala Lumpur and Addis Abeba) is not even in project!

    By Train : Chateauroux (O) or Montluçon (E) or Gueret (S) train stations (the 3 big cities around), then local buses stop at PERASSAY (the nearest stop) or Chateaumeillant (N) or Boussac (S) (small cities around). It is necessary to call for booking at least the day before to make sure the bus will run for you! (the buses run “on demand” as it’s not crowdy at all!). Please contact me for details.

    By car-sharing (blablacar, covoituragelibre.fr), hitchhike (very few cars drive after the main roads!).
    If you manage to go as close as you can get, then I could pick you up from where you are.
    If you need my help, please contact me.


    We try to be more & more eco-friendly in every way, please be patient as we are growing up, we are all learning, teaching, self & together organizing…
    Try to live on the present tense!
    Martin

  • A little more information

    A little more information

    • Internet access

    • Limited internet access

      Limited internet access

    • We have pets

    • We are smokers

    • Can host families

  • How many Workawayers can stay?

    How many Workawayers can stay?

    More than two

  • ...

    Hours expected

    4-5 h I need active enthousiastic people, then as each day is different, let's be flexible !

Host ref number: 622318373132

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