Finland
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We are Mick 42 carpenter from Ireland, Marja 35 from Finland and our two kids Leo 7 and Luna 4 years. We live in the countryside in North Karelia 20 km from Joensuu city center. We are building a debt free, natural, straw bale insulated roundhouse to have a debt free life in. We bought in December 2016 five hectares of forest land adjoining a lake and the fields of Marja's Dads organic vegetable farm.
We want to live a simple life in the countryside, close to nature and growing most of our own food. In season we pick lots of mushrooms and berries for preserving.
You will be sharing our rented farm house which is a 500 meter walk through the forest to the building site.
We are expecting the main house project to last 4 years, in 2017 we did the planning, made a road, prepared all the logs, cleared the site, did ground works, foundations and started the timber floor of the house. In 2018 we got the roundwood timber framed walls and roof structure up, and started covering the roof. In 2019 we finished the roof covering and built the straw bale walls. In 2020 we got the walls coated in clay plaster, fit the windows, insulated the floor and roof. In 2021 we are hoping to get the house in a way that it is livable buy the end of the year, which would mean plastering the upper ceiling, building a small cob wall with glass bottles, removing paint from second habd floor boards and doors, building the floor, building a kitchen, making a stairs, some finishing on the outside of the house and if all that goes well some painting too.
If you have interest in crafting, natural building, working with hand tools, organic vegetable growing, being in nature, following natural seasonal cycles, berry picking, mushroom picking, getting or staying out of the rat race I'm sure we will get along.
Help with Eco Projects
Gardening
DIY and building projects
Babysitting and creative play
Creating/ Cooking family meals
Help around the house
General Maintenance
This project could involve children. For more information see our guidelines and tips here.
Learn how to provide yourself with a healthy, beautiful soulful shelter, which you will not need a thirty year bank loan for! Experience living more simply using local food and resources.
We are looking for people with a keen interest in crafts/hand work or an interest in gathering berries in season and harvesting and processing vegetables.
The tasks will be varied over the length of the project, but will include peeling trees for building wood, general carpentry, roofing, straw bale erecting, clay plastering, general site help such as digging and moving earth, preparing the garden and many other things.
We have learned from the last years that the longer people stay the better it works out for all involved, and are hoping to have people for a minimum of one month or longer.
For year 2021 we are looking for helpers for a few different kind of jobs, here we try to describe them as well as possible so that you know what to expect. Please read the descriptions well and tell us what job are you wanting to do:
Help 1: minimum stay 1 month
This person will be helping either Mick on the house or helping Marja with other jobs. Whenever Mick needs someone with him on the house you would be helping out doing some carpentry type projects or clay plastering. The other time you would be getting building materials ready, tidying up the area etc. You should have some experience of using hand tools and not be afraid of heights (3-5 meters).
Help 2; shorter stays are OK.
An experienced builder. In 2021 we will be doing the second fix carpentry so someone to help with this would be amazing!
Help 3; July and August only, shorter stays are OK.
Picking wild blueberries and lingonberries in the forests around our home.
Help 4: Longer stay 5 or 6 months.
Someone with a keen interest in building could work with me on the house and I will teach everything I can about our building techniques, using roundwood, clay plastering, strawbale building etc. but probably mostly we end up doing carpentry work. We have already had a helper stay for 6 months in 2018 and it worked out really great for us all, lots of learning about life and ourselves.
English: Fluent
Finnish: Fluent
We have two bedrooms available in our traditional Finnish farm house. We eat only vegan food. We have all food together, simple, local wholesome mostly organic food.
Free time: we live by two lakes to swim in, we can give you bicycles to go for a cycle and you can cycle to Joensuu 20km, there is a restaurant in the local village! You can do berry and mushroom picking later in the summer, walks in the woods, we have regular sauna.
Internet access
Limited internet access
We have pets
We are smokers
Can host families
This host can provide space for campervans.
More than two
Maximum 5 hours a day, 5 days a week
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