Simple living and contact with nature in Telemark, Norway

Details

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  Description

  We are a family of 3 working towards living in an eco-community. Now we landed in Hørte, a small town in the county of Telemark. At the moment we live in an old house we recently bought. We want our home to be renovated to be as self sufficient and off the grid as possible. We hope to inspire others to take these types of choices as well.
  
  We make decisions following sociocratic processes. So that everyone in the group will share some power and decide.
  
  We also have a cat by the way!
  
  We do own and electric car. Our house is 4km from the train stasjon of Bø i Telemark. There is a road to Bø mostly on bike lines if you want to borrow our bikes to travel.
  
  We are used to and super interested in cultural exchange, especially we love to learn from cultures who still have a deeper connection to nature.
  
  We speak Norwegian, English and Italian.

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  Types of help and learning opportunities

  Art Projects

  Gardening

  DIY and building projects

  Animal Care

  Babysitting and creative play

  Creating/ Cooking family meals

  Help around the house

  General Maintenance
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  Interests

  

  Hiking

  

  Fitness

  

  Camping

  

  Cycling

  

  Yoga / Wellness

  

  Music

  

  DIY & crafts

  

  Culture

  

  Events & social

  

  Farming

  

  Self development

  

  Politics / Social justice

  

  Technology

  

  Vegetarian or vegan

  

  Sustainability

  

  Pets

  

  LGBTQ

  

  Charity work

  

  Languages

  

  Gardening

  

  Cooking & food

  

  Books

  

  Animals

  

  Dancing

  

  Nature
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  Cultural exchange and learning opportunities

  Hørte has a public space which is an art gallery
  Not too far away there's a food garden which up to last year was also a communal place. Maybe it could return to that?
  We are involved in making an old school becoming a wood carving communal space.
  Bø i Telemark has an university campus
  There are plenty of possible tours in nearby nature. And we could drive you where it's harder to get by public transportation
  There is a swimming pool
  Multiple gyms
  Library
  The train station will bring you in 2,5 hours to Oslo. This line goes all the way to Stavanger via Christiansand
  There are a couple of thrift shops
  
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  We are used to and super interested in cultural exchange, especially we love to learn from cultures who still have a deeper connection to nature.
  
  We speak Norwegian, English and Italian.
  
  We would love to learn a Sami language one day.
  
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  We are training to become sociocratic facilitator and trainers. This is a useful skill you would pick up by having meetings with us.
  
  We do organize work to do around on a Kanban.

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  Projects involving children

  This project could involve children. For more information see our guidelines and tips here.

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  Help

  In this first year there would be quite some work for planning the next year, making systems that work for us living under the same roof.
  
  Examples of projects to be done:
  - sun ventilation on walls
  - design og permaculture gården
  - fixing 5 old bikes on the property
  - painting walls with lin oil paint
  - making the chicken house in stand for our 7 chickens (they live at a family member's place at the moment).
  - eventually feeding and cleaning the chicken coop
  - making food especially from organic food
  - finding and training in conflict resolution processes
  - make a lathe pole to carving bowls
  - carving bowls
  - wood carving
  - write bylaws for a cooperative
  - getting to know our new neighbors
  - chopping wood
  
  We make decisions following sociocratic processes. So that everyone in the group will share power and decide together.
  
  I would like to mostly be doing tasks together, or in proximity, if everyone is comfortable with that.
  
  We also have a 17 months old at home with us, so there would be more or less constant interaction with our toddler. We don't look after someone else than us parent to take care of the kids, but of course having a small one around requires for everyone in the household to pay extra attention (e.g. don't live warm tea or sharp knives around!) :)

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  Languages

  Languages spoken
  English: Fluent
  Italian: Fluent
  Norwegian bokmål: Fluent
  Spanish: Beginner
  Portuguese: Beginner
  Sami: Beginner

  This host offers a language exchange
  We are a bilingual family. My partner knows very basic Italian. Our child is growing to be bilingual. We do speak English very fluently. And my level of Norwegian is also high. I do have a lot of resources for Norwegian learning. We would love to have more Sami language around us. We have dreamed about teaching us and move.
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  Accommodation

  You would have your own room with a door.
  We would fix in the room the fornitures you need.
  The other space are common. We have a living room on both floors.
  
  At the time of writing we still have to start work to build a bathroom inside. Maybe done by September this year (2025). So there is only cold water available inside at the moment.
  
  The toilet is in the garage at the moment. We shower in an house that we used to rent. For august and september I got a pre paid card to go shower in nearby Camping.
  
  The house is not yet well isolated (we hope to change the roof during winter) and isolating one of the walls. We do have 3 wood oven we can use (also in the coldest day of summer), to warm up the house.
  
  We would like to change one of these ovens to have a wood stove in the kitchen - and learning to cook on that instead! But we also still have kitchen machines: mixer, deythraror, moka, istanti pot, induction plates, bread machine.
  
  There is also a workshop in the garage and other rooms upstairs from the garage who can be used. They aren't very well isolated though, so I'm not sure how they are during winter.
  
  We do eat primarily plant based. We can provide Glutenfree alternatives (we have a couple of friends with celiac disease and we can make our kitchen glutenfree if needed). If you want some diaries and meats, I would want to buy them from directly from local markets. I like prepping food for multiple days in a row.
  
  We eat 3 main meals per day.
  
  - breakfast eaten before 9:30
  
  - lunch eaten before 13:30
  
  - dinner eaten before 19:30
  
  Sometimes we also have an extra meal by 22.
  
  We like to start our day early, but sometimes our child sleeps in. Then the breakfast happens later. We try to have bread newly baked every day to be eaten for the first two meals with different "pålegg" (ingredients to have on slices). The dinner is usually our main warm meal of the day.
  
  There is variation in what we eat, and we will find a routine that works for everyone.

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  What else ...

  We value self-care in this household. Take breaks, go and do a sit spot in nature, be active with you body, take care of your needs, give feedback.

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  A little more information

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    Internet access

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    Limited internet access

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    We have pets

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    We are smokers

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    Can host families

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  Can host digital nomads

  We have fiber.

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  Space for parking camper vans

  We don't have limitations on size of the vehicles parked.

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  How many Workawayers can stay?

  One

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  My animals / pets

  

  Kin (9 years)

  Forest cat. Kin (for kinship) likes to be on his own. He also loves to get good bites. He gives clear warnings if he doesn't like something you do. Just follow his cues and you won't get any scratches.

  East, Miselin, Ndege, Jua, Fuzho, Moti, Maisha, Mvula (3 years)

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