Join our multi-cultural family on our Appalachian mountain homestead in Pineville, USA

Details

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  Description

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  **When I am in KY is when I'm looking to host. For 2024, that will probably be April, July, October, November.**
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  I live in MA part time, and part time in Southeast KY on the 200-acre homestead where I grew up. My 88 year old philosopher dad, brother, inlaws, and other animals live here, both domesticated and wild. My brother might be tending goats, cows, chickens, dogs, a pony, a couple pigs, cats, ducks, geese, etc. My dad might be tending his vegetable garden. We're out in the country, in the mountains, and we enjoy meeting new people and sharing this amazing land with them. We're almost always doing something that could be funner and more educational with a new friend. We like learning about how other people do things, their lives and their homelands.
  
  You might like to explore the caves and rock formations behind the house, go swimming in the pond, milk goats, speak Spanish and teach English with my Central American relatives who live here. If you are looking for a break from urbanization, materialism, information overload, and constant busyness, you might like this rural setting.

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  Types of help and learning opportunities

  Language practice

  Help with Eco Projects

  Elderly Companionship

  Gardening

  DIY and building projects

  Animal Care

  Farmstay help

  Creating/ Cooking family meals

  Help around the house

  General Maintenance
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  Cultural exchange and learning opportunities

  If you ever wondered how eggs and milk and meat are made, or how good a homegrown tomato is, or how a brother-sister combo can eat 15 watermelons in one week, then you might enjoy visiting our homestead. My dad is a homesteader, theologian, philosopher, writer, reader, cultural critic, and will happily discuss about anything with you.
  
  We don't have a lot of interactions with our neighbors. ( due to the geography? car culture/lack of meeting people by walking? religious, class, other cultural differences? Personality differences? After 45 years, I still don't know.) But we'd like to know them more.
  
  Here you can have a taste of rural Appalachia, appreciate nature, dawn and dusk without artificial lights.
  If you're used to constant outside stimulation, learn to slow down and be present with yourself and your surroundings. I'd love to be your tour guide. :) And we have a tandem bike we can ride around on.
  
  I like when visitors help my see my homeland with new eyes.
  We'd like to meet you!

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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

  There are 3 houses on the property, and 4-7 people between the ages of 18 and 88. My priority is helping out my dad. He likes to dig up bittersweet, transplant blueberries, keep the drainage ditches clean, read, write, learn, educate, meet people, contemplate, and take naps.
  His vision is deteriorating, though, so it makes it a lot harder to do things around the house, such as cleaning, finding things, fixing things around the house like clocks, lamps, tools, doors, windows. These are things that I do, but it would be fun to do them with someone else. And gardening, pruning fruit trees and berry bushes, planting trees.
  
  Really, I just like company and making friends.
  
  My in-laws would enjoy company who can talk Spanish with them. They're isolated not speaking much English and living in this rural place.
  
  My brother likes to show off his goats and other farm animals. Sometimes he could use help on things like walking the fenceline, moving hay, shoveling manure, butchering an animal. My sister-in-law has beautiful flower gardens she could use help keeping up with. Another helpful thing is just picking up trash that the dogs chew, the pigs root open, the cats claw, the chickens peck, and the wind blows away.

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  Languages

  Languages spoken
  Spanish: 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.
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  Accommodation

  You'd be staying in one of the 3 houses with us, in a private room with bath. Either in my dad's house, or possibly my inlaws house, or my brother's family's house. or camping in yard, field, or forest, or wherever you feel most comfortable.
  We have homegrown food, all year round - butternut squash, black walnuts, goat milk, eggs, chicken and pig meat, frozen vegetables, canned tomatoes, persimmons, chestnuts, corn, mushrooms if you're a wild forager, etc.
  There is a small store a mile away, and a big store 25 miles away.

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  What else ...

  If you enjoy the mountains, you might not want to leave for the first week. We're right here in them. If you want to explore nearby, Henderson Settlement Methodist mission is about 4 miles away. Pine Mountain State
  Park is 11 miles. Cumberland Gap National Historic Park is 20 miles. You can climb nearby mountains and old strip mines and see the devastation. Neither my dad nor I drive, but we have extra bicycles and I will go biking with you. Closest public transit is the Greyhound stop 50 miles north in London. If you're flexible with timing, we can probably pick you up there.

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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

  My brother works online and my nephew is always programming, so we have a good wifi connection.

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  Space for parking camper vans

  We have lots of space.

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  Can possibly accept pets

  probably not dogs, since there are already 6 dogs here, and sometimes they brawl. or kill livestock.

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  How many Workawayers can stay?

  More than two

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  Hours expected

  2-3 hours a day, 5 days a week