Help with renovation projects for our 18th century home in the National Park of the Cevennes, France

Infos

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  Description

  There are two of us, Bill and Anette with Lila and Rosie our two yellow Labradors. We have a wide range of life experiences and we're good teachers. The report from the nieces and nephews is "they are fun!"

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  Types d'aide et opportunités d'apprendre

  Jardinage

  Bricolage et construction

  Entretien général
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  Echange culturel et opportunités d'apprendre

  Bill is retired now, but his career was in energy-efficient building in San Francisco. He mentored many young people in the construction trades. This project offers a combination of modern building (the plumbing, heating, and electricity conform to current French normes or building standards) with traditional French building techniques in stone and wood. There is also a large workshop available for your personal projects.
  
  Anette works as a consultant for large corporations. She conducts seminars to integrate corporate cultures after a merger, and does personal coaching.
  We are an hour away from pre-historic Celtic monuments, Roman ruins, the Mediterranean, cathedrals, and medieval villages.
  
  The chateau is embedded in farm country, with typical country things; crops, tractors, firewood, horses, and dogs. The main crops are apples and onions. The farm manager has been here 35 years and knows a great deal about commercial farming. We raise our own vegetables. Anette is a great cook, and there is an opportunity to learn and to cook with fresh local produce. We don't really have processed food.
  
  We both have strong science inclinations, so we can't have workawayers with fundamentalist views, and as the world seems to be polarizing, we are definitely of the humanitarian, progressive persuasion. On the other hand, we're very interested in your life experience, and love hearing stories of faraway places.
  
  It takes at least a week to get oriented, so please plan on four weeks.
  
  We speak English (American), German, Portuguese, and French, and our library has books in all four languages.
  We have internet, but no TV.

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  Projets impliquant des enfants

  Ce projet peut impliquer des enfants. Pour en savoir plus, consultez nos directives et conseils ici.

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  Aide

  We are remodeling a large 18th century chateau. It incorporates a number of energy-efficient features. We recycle almost everything that comes out of the chateau, and we install used or up-cycled material wherever we can; it's a great opportunity to explore a combination of high-tech and low-tech. There is a continual need to clean tile, mix concrete, paint, dig, etc. The finished work is of very high quality.
  We also have large vegetable and flower gardens, and there is constant work starting, planting, weeding, and harvesting. It's a mixed menu of things to do, and the work changes depending on the time of year and where we are in the project. We work every day. You will help us 4 to 5 hours, 5 days a week, and you'll probably be happily tired by the end of the day! We want this to be a fun experience for all of us.

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  Langues parlées

  Allemand: Courant
  Anglais: Courant
  Français: Courant
  Portugais: Courant

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  Hébergement

  We have a guest rooms with their own bathroom and shower on the top floor for Workawayers. The accomodations are quite simple, but they work really well... and they're charming. The house is quiet, except for the church bell, the owl, other birds and the frogs in the spring.
  We eat meals together in the dining room or on the terrace, depending on the weather. We love food, we’re in France after all. We spend a great deal of effort making delicious food. If you're a unadventurous eater, it's not going to work very well. We're not rigid about the hours, but helping with preparing meals and cleaning up afterwards is expected but is not really part of the 4-5 hours of work.

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  Autres infos...

  Le Vigan (pop. 4,000 +/-) is five minutes away by car and forty minutes walking on trails. There’s the Musee Cevenol and a great market Saturday mornings. We are in the Cevennes National Park with amazing hiking and biking opportunities.
  At the chateau there is a large bassin to swim in, and the Coudoulous river is just across the road with wonderful swimming holes and barriers to jump off. Note that swimming is a summer activity, in the winter you can admire how fierce the rivers become.
  A 2 euro bus ride takes you to Nimes - a Roman city, or to Montpellier. It's easy to go there and back on a weekend day.
  To get here, take the train to Nîmes or Montpellier. Then take the bus from Nîmes or Montpellier to Le Vigan and we'll pick you up.

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  Informations complémentaires

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    Accès Internet

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    Accès Internet limité

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    Nous avons des animaux

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    Nous sommes fumeurs

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    Familles bienvenues

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  Possibilité d’accueillir les digital nomads

  Yes, afternoons are a good time to work online. We have fiber-optic high-speed internet. It's much faster in some rooms than others (70 cm thick stone walls!)

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  Espace pour garer des vans

  The main gate is quite narrow, 2.4 meters. There are level places to park a camping car.

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  Possibilité d'accueillir les animaux

  Cet hôte a dit qu’il acceptait les personnes voyageant avec un animal.

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  Combien de volontaires pouvez-vous accueillir ?

  Plus de 2

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  Nombre d'heures attendues

  Maximum 4-5 hours a day, 5 days a week

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