Portugal
Favourited 930 times
We are welcoming volunteers for the time frame of 2 weeks in June: 6th-20th.
Join us to be part of creating an abundant place with healthy food and positive mindset! We are a Polish-German couple, who met each other while traveling and soon later decided to live in Portugal, running a sustainable farm.
Our main focus on the farm are:
Food Forest Garden
Maintaining and developing 4 ha of land
Hosting events, workshops, courses
Natural Buildings.
Over the last 2 years we run or hosted couple of courses, such as:
Forest Gardener Course
Weekends with Permaculture
Permaculture Design Course
Workshops on several topics: Composting, Medicinal Herbs, Fermentation, Geodome building, Soap making, Food forest, Soil and Composting etc.
We built up facilities, like showers, toilets, classroom, hang out space, kitchen, yurt and wooden cabin as accommodations. We also have a small cob house as our bedroom. Currently we are working on building up a natural swimming pool. As always we spend a lot of time in the garden cultivating all sort of vegetables and taking care of the young food forest. This year we are hoping to start bigger construction project, our future dream house.
We will be a good match if you:
> Have a passion for farming and natural building
> Are not afraid of physical work
> Like to work in group, but can also be independent.
> Like cooking and are not afraid of contributing your time in the kitchen.
> Are tidy and responsible person, that cares for the facilities and tools as they were yours.
> Can manage to start up the fire in the wood burner, since we cook and heat our rooms entirely on wood.
What we usually struggle with:
> If you are vegan, we will often ask you to cook for yourself, because we use dairy products on a daily basis.
> If it's your first experience living on such farm/"off grid" place.
> If you are looking for a community place, love to chill all day and party in the evening, our place is maybe not the best choice for you.
>If you don't like to be alone and need to have company all the time. We are busy in the day and we like to have privacy in the evening, therefore not always keen on hanging out.
Art Projects
Language practice
Help with Eco Projects
Teaching
Gardening
DIY and building projects
Animal Care
Farmstay help
Creating/ Cooking family meals
Help around the house
General Maintenance
We can teach about permaculture principals, strategies and techniques.
It is a perfect place for those, who wish to reconnect with nature and with themselves. Who wish for peace and are hungry of knowledge.
We can share our traveling stories and experiences since both of us made long journeys before getting established here.
We have a passion for good food, so you'll enjoy good meals every day.
We have basic knowledge about natural medicine and medicinal plants.
Kasia is studying Process Oriented Psychology and can share some knowledge about that.
What work may we expect from you:
GARDENING (weeding, planting, mulching, harvesting, watering)
PLANTS PROPAGATION (sowing the seeds, repotting plants)
COMPOSTING (collecting material for the compost, turning compost, applying on the garden beds)
LAND CLEARING (chopping down shrubs we don't need, taking away brumble bushes)
FOREST WORK (we will not ask you for using heavy machines unless you had experience with them and you feel comfortable with that, but you might help with loading wood on the trailer, pruning the trees, or taking away dry ferns)
HELP WITH MAKING FIREWOOD (assisting us while we are cutting the wood, storing it, bringing to the kitchen)
COOKING (If you enjoy cooking, you are more than welcome to make dinner or bake. We always cook on the firewood, so energy is for free and you can bake as much as you want ; )
HELPING WITH UPCOMING NATURAL BUILDINGS
Type of help always depend on the seasons, on what do we have to do at certain time and also on your personal skills and prefers.
We would consider 5 hours of easy going help for 5 days a week as a fair deal for tasty food and accommodation through all the days of your stay. Usually we let volunteers prepare what do they like for breakfast and lunch and then we have a shared dinner together. Most of the time we cook, but if you are happy with cooking, we might also ask you for that as a part of your helping hours.
Languages spoken
German: Fluent
English: Fluent
Polish: Fluent
Portuguese: Intermediate
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.
For our guests and helpers we just have built cosy wooden cabin. It has a lovely view on the land and wood burner to stay warm in the frosty nights during the winter.
In case if the wooden cabin is occupied we have nice old style canvas tents. You are able to see them on our pictures. If you have certain preferences about type of accommodation, tell us in the private message.
Also there is a lot of space to park a van, pitch your own tent or set up your hammock. If you bring your own accommodation, we don't need to save space for you and you are generally welcome any time you wish!
What do we recommend you to take:
OCTOBER - MAY
good rainproof jacket and shoes
warm clothes for chill evenings
torch
environmental friendly soap/shampoo
JUNE - SEPTEMBER
hat or anything that protects you from the sun
your own sleeping bag in case if you will be sleeping in the tent
torch
environmental friendly soap/shampoo
SPECIAL WARNING TO SMOKERS
Since we are situated in the area with very high risk of fire, we want to make sure, that you are very conscious about that. We will ask you to always take care that you put your cigarette leftovers to the jar that is closed afterwards. Remember, that your one mistake could costs us loosing our land and creating a big danger to our neighbours.
We provide food for all the days of the volunteers stay.
For your free time:
we have a lovely river close by to swim in the summer time or you can also hop in the water tank to cool off ; ) There is also a good possibility for hiking, mushroom picking, biking, fishing and getting to know the portuguese village life and local festas. We are 10 minutes drive from Tabua as well as Olivera do Hospital and about an hour drive from Viseu or Coimbra or the Serra de Estrela. The farm itself is nicely remote to be private but lays in 10 min walking distance to the village. There you can find a café, some bars and a little shop for the most necessary things. Close by we have two different yoga teachers and taekwondo. We are surrounded by plenty of similar projects/communities and farms like us. This creates a beautiful feeling of building a better future among friends and neighbors, who take great care of the nature and want to live a healthy, responsible and happy life. There are few local flea markets and other nice social event happening from time to time.
Internet access
Limited internet access
We have pets
We are smokers
Can host families
There is plenty of space to park a van, but the entrance is a bit limited. Big trucks will not pass through, but there is still option to park near by in a distance of few minutes to the farm.
dogs, cats, donkeys, gorillas, giraffes, elephants. Monkeys maybe not.
More than two
Maximum 4-5 hours a day, 5 days a week
These are extra optional ratings when members leave feedback. The average rating left for each option is displayed.
Accuracy of profile:
(5.0)
Cultural exchange:
(5.0)
Communication:
(5.0)
