Enjoy peaceful life and pure nature at our big old house in Eastern Finland

Details

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  Description

  **We welcome someone who likes outdoors activities May-October. Long stay of 2-6 months preferred. Or someone who is good at cleaning and enjoys it is welcome in June for a couple of weeks. **
  
  We are a family with 2 kids and 2 houses, next to each other. Looking primarily for someone to live in our old house, taking care of heating and maintenance of the house where you live. We are used to having au pairs, friends and guests from different cultures living with us, and I enjoy learning to know new people, cultures and creating friendships. We hope you want to participate in rural every day life with gardening, possibly forestry and making firewood, which are all included in the way of living here.
  
  We live in the country side. Life where we live is really slow, quiet and peaceful, right In the middle of nature. You need to be prepared for no restaurants, no shopping, no public transportation, no social events. Instead you can have all great pleasures of pure forest, fresh air and time for yourself, for free.
  
  It is nice if you can engage with our normal daily tasks (in wintertime it takes a few hours daily to heat the house) but you have time to study or work full time doing your own things if you like. We welcome someone who is calm, independent, reliable, helpful, friendly, cleanly, healthy and focused. You will need to be open for a different way of doing things from what you are used to and follow given instructions. The most important thing is that we find a good understanding and communication with each other.
  
  About us:
  Me, Jessica, 48 years old, former office worker, now studying for profession in natural resources and being an entrepreneur around wellbeing. I like doing yoga, biking, kick sledging, skiing, foraging, growing vegetables, reading, crafts, music, spending time with friends, visiting relatives, relaxing, taking walks, iron age related anything, swimming, volunteering, thinking, nice conversations. My core values are freedom, family, health and helping others.
  My husband, Jussi, 54 years old. Works driving a milk truck. Likes to work around the house and in the forest.
  Esja, 12 years, goes to school. Likes to play with friends, anything with horses, jump on the trampoline, swimming, crafts. She also likes to use her phone for playing, making videos and watching youtube.
  Eirik, 14 years, goes to school. Likes to play on the computer, wrestling, fishing, hunting, trampoline, downhill skiing, swimming, motocross, hanging out with friends.
  Ilona, dog, 5 years, West Siberian Laika. Likes to run in the forest, hunting, humans, treats.
  
  The picture of our family is already a couple of years old. I just realized both kids are already taller than me :).
  
  We are not looking for someone to work for us. For me this is a cultural exchange and making new friends while helping each other.

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  Types of help and learning opportunities

  Help around the house

  General Maintenance

  House sitting
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  Interests

  

  Beach

  

  Sustainability

  

  Pets

  

  Self development

  

  History

  

  Music

  

  DIY & crafts

  

  Gardening

  

  Animals

  

  Yoga / Wellness

  

  Nature

  

  Winter sports

  

  Outdoor activities

  

  Cycling
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  Cultural exchange and learning opportunities

  - You will be the close by neighbor of a regular family living a simple life in countryside of Finland. You can learn some Finnish or Swedish and take time away from city life and stress. Hopefully you will get new life time friends.
  - If you want and when possible, you can join in our activities, like making fire wood, talking walks in the forest, picking berries and mushroom, fishing, hunting, gardening, plowing the snow, skiing, skating, swimming, watching movies, going on errands, playing board games.
  - You can learn how to be nearly self sufficient on heating, from getting firewood from the forest to burning it to get warm water and heating all around the year.
  - I'm not a big fan of cooking, but I like good food, so I'm very happy if you want to cook and share some meals.
  - I like to discuss topics like how to get to know yourself, how to find your own potential and enjoy life in the presence.
  - I will tell you about our culture, how to do things, and I hope you will feel comfortable and happy as our neighbor.

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  Help

  Living in the house requires heating (wood, central heating oven) and keeping the house clean. Daily heating needed in winter time varies from 2-6 hours depending on how cold it is. In summer once a week is enough.
  
  Some general help in the houses and garden like cleaning, plowing snow, mowing the lawn, or lending a hand if needed, is appreciated. Depending on the season we have different tasks to be done inside and outside the houses. If you are able to help with firewood, it would be great. We need to do forestry tasks, cut trees, weed, chop, stack and move firewood. You can participate according to your skills and preferences.
  We need sometimes help driving the kids to their hobbies, so it would be good if you have a driver's licence.

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  Languages

  Languages spoken
  English: Fluent
  Finnish: Fluent
  Swedish: Fluent

  This host offers a language exchange
  It's nice to learn phrases, songs, words in different languages. We can also teach everyday Finnish or Swedish if you like.
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  Accommodation

  A big old furnished wooden 2 floor house with sauna, shower, toilet, kitchen, 4 bedrooms, living room. You will have a private bedroom. We still use the house as storage (there is still a lot of our stuff there) and sometimes as guestrooms. So we still visit your house weekly. Mostly you will stay and live by yourself in this separate house, but we can sometimes join for meals and activities as agreed if you wish.
  Sometimes there will be other guests in the house too if agreed.
  You will be provided with fire wood (heating and cooking if you wish), electricity and water. You need to buy your own food and necessities and prepare your own meals.
  We hope that you have a tidy and environmentally healthy lifestyle including energy saving and recycling.
  We don't accept smoking, using drugs or heavy alcohol use.
  Since it is an old house, and since power cuts are possible, we experience sometimes short periods when electricity/water/drain/toilet is not working. You need to be comfortable with possibility of this occasionally until problem is fixed.

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  What else ...

  You can enjoy walking, skiing, biking, photographing, swimming, relaxing in the nature. Peaceful location for studying, reading, working, getting some time for yourself. No public transportation. Closest village with grocery store, pharmacy, school, library, pool and gym is 10km away. Closest city, Savonlinna, is 1 hour away. You are welcome to come with us on errands when you need a ride for buying groceries.
  In the forest lives bears, boars, wolf, lynx, elk, fox and smaller animals but we rarely see the bigger ones. In the summer we have lots of insects outside.

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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 a good wifi. However it is not 100% stable and fast all the time. Sometimes we also have power cuts and the connection is cut too. Some working online is still possible, but heavy online working that requires constant fast connection may not be possible all the time. Wifi cost is 15€/month if you want to use it.

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  Space for parking camper vans

  We live in the country side and you can park your car by the house.

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  How many Workawayers can stay?

  More than two

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