Italy
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Hello, it's Adelaide and Raffaele here!
We are developing our regenerative and permaculture project in the Tuscan Apennines, in the Upper Tiber Valley.
The aim is to create a regenerative hub where people can reconnect with nature and their own wilderness. We want to accomplish it through holistic practises focused on mind and body well-being and regenerative agriculture techniques focused on improving soil health.
We have chickens, honey bees and a lovely cat. We have a vegetable garden, an olive tree grove and a chestnut orchard. Right below our house, there is a beautiful river with a waterfall and 2 hectares of arable land which we would like to transform into a food forest and rotatory grazing land. Around the house, there are many woods and trekkings.
We are also volunteering at the local association that is managing the urban and community gardens. We help in the maintenance of the place and the organisation of the project.
Adelaide is graduated in Agricultural Science. She took 3 PDCs around the world and now she's starting her Permaculture Diploma in Italy. She is a beekeeper and she teaches organic and bee-friendly beekeeping. She loves to disseminate scientific knowledge on how to become a better and a decent human being, especially regarding safeguarding the Planet and mental health. She practices Yoga and loves to read her favourite books on the hammock right outside the house.
Raffaele is a handyman guy, graduated in electronics. He loves to travel the world and spent much of his last years discovering new countries and cultures, meanwhile exploring more about himself. He's really good at creating DIY projects, building and fixing everything. He likes everything regarding hospitality and making the place beautiful and comfortable. He loves to camp in the wild, trek in the wood, pick wild food (mushrooms, berries, fish etc.) and cook it.
Charity Work
Help with Eco Projects
Gardening
DIY and building projects
Animal Care
Farmstay help
Creating/ Cooking family meals
Help around the house
General Maintenance
During your stay here you will be immersed in the Italian culture and especially in the culture of one of the latest small towns in the Apennines mountains which is trying to keep old traditions still alive (such as Vinsanto making, cured meat from free-range pigs, wild mushrooms and berries picking and more).
You will have the opportunity to learn about Permaculture Design, regenerative agriculture techniques such as bio-intensive horticulture, and holistic planned grazing. All the things behind the magical world of honeybees from biology, how they live in the wild to how we can keep them mimicking nature and respecting them.
You can learn how to become handier and improve your DIY, carpentry, and electronics skills.
You can also learn how an urban and social garden is managed and maintained.
You will be asked to help 5 days per week and 4 hours per day.
Depending on the season, we need the following kind of help:
- Design and maintenance of the bio-intensive and regenerative veggie garden
- Caring for honeybees and chickens
- Olive and chestnut picking
- Planting trees
- Maintenance of green areas: home garden and orchards
- Eco-building: clay oven, yurta, geodesic dome, camping sites, sauna, and more
- Carpentry and painting
- Cooking and general maintenance of the house
- Maintenance of the trekking pathways and natural sites around the house
If you would like, you could also help in the urban and social gardens where we are voulonteering. It is a really great project where you can learn how to manage urban and community spaces, meet really intersting young people.
We you contact us, ask us what kind of help is needed in the period you will come and also tell us what you would prefer to do, learn and what are your skills.
English: Fluent
Italian: Fluent
Spanish: Intermediate
There are many types of accommodation in our house. Sometimes not all types are available depending on the season, but there are certain periods of the year when you will be able to choose:
- Private room with a double bed in our flat (you will be staying in our flat and we will share the bathroom and the kitchen)
- Private flat with two rooms (1 double bed, 2 single beds), 1 bathroom, 1 living room, and 1 kitchen. Usually, this type of accommodation is shared with other workaways.
- Camping. You can also campsite with camper/van or ours/yours tent. In this case you will be able to access to the kitchen and the bathroom.
There is a washing machine available that you can use to wash your clothes.
We will provide general food supplies following our diet (we eat different types of cereals, legumes, vegetables and eggs. Sometimes we eat locally sourced meat, we don't usually eat diary. Most of the food we eat is organic, locally sourced and from our own production).
We don't follow specific rules on cooking. Sometimes we can cook for everybody, sometimes you will and sometimes we will cook all together. We don't have to eat all the time together, we love to share our meals but we want also you and us to be independent.
LGBTQ+ and BIPOC people are welcome here!
Public transport in our area is not the best (the means of transport are clean but there are not so many during the day), but there is a train to the nearest main city and buses to reach our house. If you have a car, you will enjoy and visit also far away places and you can move however you want. Otherwise, you will have either to organize with local transportation or us (we both have cars).
During your free time, you can visit so many things, from towns and cities around and natural sites. But you can also just hang around the house, stay in the hammock, go to the river or lake, take a walk in the trekking pathways, and so on. The area is plenty of trekking paths, including San Francisco's path going to the nearby Franciscan Sanctuary (La Verna) or to Assisi. You can enjoy the amazing beauty of centuries and thousand-old trees and the amazing view of the valley below. You can swim on different rivers with waterfalls and a big lake where you can also book a small boat.
You can meet our friends who live in the nearest town with who we share this kind of lifestyle and the urban garden project.
We love the so-called hippie life, playing music, dinner parties, fireplace, do what we feel doing, and following our instincts and dreams, but not at the expense of our and others' wellbeing. That means taking care of our body and mental health, taking care of the people living with us and the neighbors, taking care of the place where we all live.
The realization of our project and dreams is really important for us and we worked and still are working really hard to be the best version of ourselves for our life purpose. We hope and wish you will respect this.
That means that there will be simple and human-friendly rules to follow that we will send to you in case you decide to come to visit and help us.
We use open, non-violent, and conscious communication to resolve any kind of argument or disagreement. We are not experts on this, we are learning, but we are implementing this type of relationship between us as a couple and among our other relationships (friends and family) especially in the NGO where we volunteer. We expect you to be open either using it during your stay with us or learning it.
Internet access
Limited internet access
We have pets
We are smokers
Can host families
We have a really good Wi-fi connection and desks and tables where you can work comfortably.
There are some nice camper/van spots around the house where you can park your van.
We can accept dogs and cats, but it is important (especially for the dogs) that your animal is comfortable staying around people, kids, cats, and chickens and that he/she doesn't bark all the time. You will be responsible for cleaning your pet's hairs and whatever concerning your pet.
More than two
Maximum 4-5 hours a day, 5 days a week
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