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Host rating
100 %
Last replied
20 Apr 2024
Reply rate
100.0 %
Usually responds within 17 days
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Details
Description
NOTICE FOR SPRING 2024: I AM LOOKING FOR A COMPETENT RELIABLE FARM HELPER/SITTER For a couple of weeks to two months to free up some time so I can leave the farm off and on. The farm helper would be taking care of spring seedlings in the house and in the barn 3 goats and a few chickens, two turkeys and a guinea including feeding and milking in the morning and feeding in the evening and making cheese every few days. If you are interested please email me asap and then let's talk on the phone. Ideally the farmsit would begin in mid to late Jan and go until early to mid April. You could come here and settle in and I would do chores with you for a few days while you learn them, then I would leave off and on for a few days at a time to visit nearby family, and then if we were both comfortable and confident, I would go to Virginia to take care of some things for a longer stretch and come back in April. During part of that time Sachika, an elderly Japanese artist, my friend and former husband, would be here and would need the safety of having another person here. And sometimes I would leave my dear dog.
NOTICE RE MY IMMEDIATE NEED FOR A FARMSITTER: IT WOULD BE TO TAKE CARE OF THE 4 GOATS IN THE GOAT FAMILY (1 milking doe, one young pregnant doe due to kid in June, and two wethers), a small flock of chickens and guineas, two dogs and one cat, and in my absence of two weeks in early spring, to plant the early indoor garden seeds and care for tender seedlings and feed the fire in the woodstove I am here most of the time all winter but need to work elsewhere for a week to two weeks this spring. I am open to continuing with a different arrangement during the 6-7 month garden season internship program described in the profile. Thanks and please let me know if you are interested in either the farmsit or the internship program.
Our regular internship program begins in mid-late April/early May and you would be welcome to participate.
From mid-April through October we offer the following program.
Our program is designed for those who seek to create for themselves a wholesome lifestyle, a powerful and necessary base of survival and identity, into which can be integrated other things a person can do for love and money, and who might share the goal of simple and sustainable agriculture as a philosophy and a way of life.
We are a 43 acre educational homestead in the beautiful Northeast Kingdom of Vermont on a back country road, 4 miles from Lake Willoughby. We are educational, not commercial. Our program teaches participants to grow and wildcraft their own food and medicine while encouraging personal growth and creativity through weekly councils, a vision quest, time to work on one’s own projects, and creating and hosting a seasonal performing arts celebration for Halloween.
Our mini-farm consists of woods, meadow, pastures, spring-fed pond for swimming, brook with waterfalls, berry patches, funky rattlin' barn, shop, garden shed, greenhouse (not functional at the moment), wood-heated farmhouse, and organic, biodynamic gardens with vegetables, culinary & medicinal herbs, fruits, flowers, and grain crops. We compost extensively and save our own seeds. We raise chickens, guineas, goats, beef cattle and sometimes pigs or a horse, and harvest much of our own fodder using hand tools such as scythes and rakes.
We seek 4-6 apprentices for the full season (early May or April through October) and welcome willing helpers for shorter stays (2 weeks minimum to add spice throughout the season and your own short term visitors who pitch in are welcome.
Types of help and learning opportunities
Art Projects
Help with Eco Projects
Gardening
DIY and building projects
Animal Care
Farmstay help
Creating/ Cooking family meals
Help around the house
General Maintenance
Help with Computers/ Internet
UN sustainability goals this host is trying to achieve
Cultural exchange and learning opportunities
We schedule a morning concentration meeting, weekly classes and council, herbwalks, projects, fieldtrips, a vision quest opportunity for longterm apprentices, workshops, lectures, seasonal celebrations, potlatches, and dances for the community. We encourage our participants to offer classes and skill-shares. We offer a unique opportunity combining organic gardening & low impact subsistence farming for sustainability with education, creative arts, community living and personal growth. Our community is marvelously inclusive and stretches over four generations. Potlucks are usual events.
We generally attract creative, self-motivated, life-long learners who share our commitment to HOME (Helping Our Mother Earth) which, of course, includes each other. We hope for more of the same.
Help
Our duties are shared and include daily chores and about 5 hours a day of project help - building and caring for the soil: composting, cover-cropping, green manuring, fertilizing, cultivating; preparing garden beds: double-digging; planting, transplanting seedlings, mulching, weeding, watering the greenhouse; harvesting and wildcrafting for food and medicine; preserving food: drying, freezing, canning, pickling, making cider, kim chi, mustard, horseradish, jams and jellies; making medicines: solar and lunar infusions, oils, salves, tinctures and teas; seed-saving (wet and dry procecesses) of open pollinated varieties of vegetables, flowers, herbs and grains; animal husbandry: grazing, cutting fodder, haying, watering, milking, cheese-making, fencing, grooming, cleaning stalls and pens, and in the fall slaughtering and butchering (optional); building new and repairing old outbuildings: demo, carpentry, painting; helping with the woodpile; artwork: creating flyers, labels for seed packages and products. Weekends free except for your daily chore and an hour of cleaning.
Languages spoken
English: Fluent
French: Intermediate
Spanish: Beginner
Accommodation
Accommodations include shared areas of old Vermont farmhouse with dormitory, kitchen, sunporch, library of books and videos, 30′ x 30′ studio/classroom, Airstream trailer, outdoor kitchen, dome, tipi and tent space. Help yourself to your own breakfast and lunch and take turns cooking the shared evening meal with homegrown organic fare including fresh or frozen veggies, milk, yogurt, cheese, eggs, meat, homemade breads, jams, kimchi, pickles, herb teas and store-bought staples.
What else ...
Our farm is only four miles from a deep glacial lake, one of the most beautiful in an area full of lakes and mountains with many lovely hiking trails, and is half an hour from Burke Mountain, one of the mountain biking centers of the northeast. There are weekly ultimate frisbee and baseball games in the neighborhood, lots of music and dance, libraries in most towns, and art galleries with shows featuring local artists. Organizing around social and environmental issues and cross party politics are common in Vermont, the state known as the conscience of the nation. We are half an hour east of Newport, an hour north of St. Johnsbury, an hour and a half from Montpelier, the state capital, which has bus and train service, and two hours north of White River Jct., VT which has train and bus service from Boston's Logan International airport and other places as well. The closest larger cities also with airports etc. are Burlington, VT on the shore of Lake Champlain and Montreal in the province of Quebec, Canada, each about two and a half hours away and Manchester, NH about three and a half hours away.
Your host, Penelope, is a gardener, seed-saver, certified herbalist (Rosemary Gladstar), dancer (Afro-Caribbean), educator, and in 1992 was appointed a World Peace Elder at Wolf Song II in West Point, TX for her work with communities. For over 20 years she has been a host farmer/educator directing WARRIORS OF THE RAINBOW, an informal, six month apprenticeship program in growing and wildcrafting your own food and medicine (gardening, wildcrafting, herbalism), personal growth, and the arts for adolescents and young adults and was the founder and director of ALL MY RELATIONS, an integrated arts and deep ecology program for children and THE NEW AMERICAN FOLKLORIC GROUP producing integrated art events celebrating seasonal themes. She lives and works at Greensleeves HOME Gardens, formerly The Egg Farm, and loves stories, people, and the earth.
NOTICE RE MY IMMEDIATE NEED FOR A FARMSITTER: IT WOULD BE TO TAKE CARE OF THE 4 GOATS IN THE GOAT FAMILY (1 milking doe, one young pregnant doe due to kid in June, and two wethers), a small flock of chickens and guineas, tw dogs and one cat, and in my absence of two weeks in early spring, to plant the early indoor garden seeds and care for tender seedlings and feed the fire in the woodstove I am here most of the time all winter but need to work elsewhere for a week to two weeks this spring. I am open to continuing with a different arrangement during the 6-7 month garden season internship program described in the profile. Thanks and please let me know if you are interested in either the farmsit or the internship program.
A little more information
Internet access
Limited internet access
We have pets
We are smokers
Can host families
Can host digital nomads
This host has indicated that they love having digital nomads stay.
Space for parking camper vans
This host can provide space for campervans.
How many Workawayers can stay?
More than two
Hours expected
5 hours a day, 5 days a week
Feedback (7)
She was extremely caring, welcoming and understanding from the beginning. Because of her I met… read more
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She was extremely caring, welcoming and understanding from the beginning. Because of her I met… read more
