Canada
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hello.
We have been building our timber frame house now since spring 2017, it's a big project for us and has taken a lot of time. But, having completed the concrete and stone foundations at the end of last year, we raised the frame on June 1st 2018, and now we are busy finishing the walls, we have roofed the house and will be building a passive solar greenhouse on the east and south side.
We are a couple looking for a helper over the next few seasons specifically with building a small timber-frame and stone masoned house. Ideally someone with some experience farming and/or with carpentry.
This is an exciting opportunity for someone to deepen their knowledge of this specialized form of carpentry and low impact form of building. The house is going to be a 16 by 24 foot structure, earth sheltered into a contour of the mountain from the north side by building stone and concrete slip-formed masonry walls. The house is designed observing ideas of permaculture and passive solar design. we will be carving the timber frame using hand tools with some guidance of a very knowledgeable and experienced timber-frame carpenter we share the land with.
The land currently houses 6 permanent residents and there will be 3 other people joining us for the summer; we are a group of gay farmers homesteading off-grid and living in community together on 140 acres of mostly forested property on the North Mountain of Nova Scotia's Annapolis county. We are focused on self/community sufficiency, growing the bulk of our food organically and generating our power on site. We raise alpine goats, muscovy ducks and a variety of heritage breed chickens. We have a market stall at the Annapolis royal Farmers and Traders market through the summer and fall, which is a main artery in the community out here. We welcome radical Faeries and other like minded souls.
We ask that our guest work 5 hour days 5 days a week and be prepared and able to engage in sometimes strenuous physical labour. We use machines minimally, so most tasks involve a hang tool of somesort. The house building is going to be our main focus, but weekly tasks in the gardens and doing odd jobs around the farm will be part of the gig as well. Opportunities to work with the animals and come to the market are there too.
We eat well; growing a vast variety of vegetables and having an abundance of organic eggs and dairy. Our routine could accommodate a vegetarian, but if you are vegan you would have to be prepared to cook for yourself. Someone with an ease and creativity in the kitchen would be ideal for sharing in the daily tasks of cooking. We do lots of preserving and fermentation in the summer as well.
It's important that anyone coming here be very at ease with being around queer people to maintain this space as a safe and comfortable place for us to live and express our gender and sexuality freely. We are interested in others who are unplugging from the capitalist consumer crazed culture we live in, and who are interested in finding a spiritual life in harmony with nature. The adjustment to living with minimal electricity and internet access must be considered as well.
Gardening
DIY and building projects
General Maintenance
Creating/ Cooking family meals
Farmstay help
Help with Eco Projects
Help around the house
Animal Care
We are focused on trying to get back to a way of life that is observing and going with the flow of the natural world instead of trying to fight against it or hold power over it. We are developing systems for ways to survive and live well with as little dependence as possible on large scale markets and resources. While parts of how we live are born from an idealogy of social and ecological justice the focus is much more rooted in living the values instead of just debating or promoting them. So people coming here can participate in a living example of how we do this and how to operate in consensus with a group of people living as a tribe and working towards a shared dream.
The work here is fairly dynamic and offers opportunities for variety. We aren't doing anything on a huge scale so most jobs in the garden can be completed in a morning or over a few days.
House building Tasks
-Helping to mix concrete and build a stone mason foundation and hearth for the house.
- Planing and sanding the timbers in preparation for the frame raising.
- helping with some of the hand carving of the timbers.
-help with frame raising and general carpentry
-Window and door framing ,insulation, siding
Garden Tasks
-preparing beds with hand tools
-Planting,weeding and watering,
-Friday morning harvest for the saturday market.
HYDRO ELECTRIC POWER
We have a powerful brook running through the property from the Lake which runs all year round. We are very interested to look at the possibility of capturing electric power from some kind of hydro electric set-up.
If there is anyone out there who is particularly interested in finding a way to rig up a hydro electric power system, we have all the right elements for experimenting with this kind of thing and we would welcome someone with some technical knowledge and creativity who may be interested in have a go at this and seeing how successfully we can incorporate this type of thing into our way of life.
MISC
-Moving firewood out of the forest
-Cutting fresh hay for the goats.
And generally helping with the daily flow of whatever task is at hand.
English: Fluent
French: Fluent
We set up a camp for our guest nestled in a grove of maples next to the brook that runs through the property. We built a brick rocket stove to make it easy to boil water or cook something, though you would have access to our kitchen and share meals with us and to use the house for internet
While this way of life is hard work we make sure to find time for leisure and adventure. The area here is incredible beautiful, just a few kilometers up from the Bay of Fundy with the worlds highest tides. Lots of opportunities for forest hiking on and around the property and secluded beaches very close by. Clean lakes and brooks nearby as well. The wider area is fairly sparsely populated and can be difficult to get around without a car which could be an adjustment to some people but an opportunity to go to town usually arises at least once a week.
Internet access
Limited internet access
We have pets
We are smokers
Can host families
More than two
Maximum 4-5 hours a day, 5 days a week
