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Host rating
85 %
Last replied
14 Mar 2024
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100.0 %
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Details
Description
Hi folks: We are full up for Spring but will be welcoming a couple more people for September October. Give us a shout if you’d like to hear more after reading the rest of this profile. Thanks!
My partner Brian and I have owned our century farmhouse for 11 years, and moved here in 2018. I am more active in the gardens, while Brian spends most mornings writing (he is a published poet). I have a strong interest in applying permaculture principles to our 2-acre parcel. The land has a greenhouse with citrus, ginger and seasonal crops like greens or melons, and the hoop house hosts paste tomatoes or greens in winter. We also have a number of apple and pear trees, and lots of berries of many kinds.
I am very involved as chair of a local climate action organisation and we are both involved in our awesome neighbourhood farm project. We have an amazing community. Brian and I have been together for 25+ years, and enjoy smart, creative people open to the beauty and difficulties of our world in these crazy times. We are both looking for ways to bring humanity together in a way that respects our earthly home and its creatures.
Salt Spring has a lot to offer and our wwoofers and workawayers always love their stays.
Types of help and learning opportunities
Help with Eco Projects
Gardening
DIY and building projects
Farmstay help
General Maintenance
UN sustainability goals this host is trying to achieve
Cultural exchange and learning opportunities
This is an amazing island from the point of view of organic food production and permaculture so lots can be learned from the people here in these respects. As well, there are many travellers volunteering or working on farms in the nonwinter months, along with a highly literate population of people who've chosen this place as home, making Salt Spring a cosmopolitan rural experience! Brian and I are well-read, educated, creative, and love engaging conversation and the exchange of ideas from ecology, spirituality, politics, and more. I have learned a fair bit about gardening over the decades, so might be able to impart some knowledge. There is always lots to do and learn while here and I am happy to share what I have learned. :-)
Help
For fall 2024 we are looking for up to two people to help a number of garden prep and construction tasks. We will need strong bodies this year due to the nature of the work involved. Some familiarity with power tools and light construction would be a definite asset.
Garden work will include bed reconstruction (using wood and t posts), bed prep including manure spreading, weeding and fertilizing. There will also be seeding and seedling care, and likely some planting. Construction-related tasks include building a retaining wall for our tenanted tiny home, and backfilling it with earth that has been saved for this purpose nearby. Work also includes rebuilding a brick walkway to the house.
There are about a dozen apple trees, and three pears, along with hazelnuts, raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, cherries, plums, grapes, walnuts, peaches and more. Most of the orchard and existing garden beds are irrigated and mulched heavily with wood chips or straw. We are flexible as to length of stay and if the match is working well, we sometimes extend. If you have a WWOOFer membership, check out our profile there. We have great reviews and people really love staying here.
We are looking for folks who are proactive workers and good communicators. Since workawayers live in our house, we prefer folks with whom we can have conversations around the dinner table. Based on my experience working with people so far on our land, I have reasonable expectations of people, and am good at accommodating an individual's needs and work preferences. Meals are mostly vegetarian but I do eat some meats. Workawayers participate in some meal work like table setting and clean up.
Languages
Languages spoken
English: Fluent
French: Fluent
German: Beginner
Spanish: Beginner
Japanese: BeginnerThis host offers a language exchange
Nous parlons francais, ein bisschen Deutsch, y un pocito espagnol. :-)
Accommodation
We live in a beautiful 100 year old red and white very comfortable farmhouse. Your room is in the gabled section of our second storey on the same floor as Brian's study, and our twin guest room. The room itself is about 11'x16' with a comfortable queen sized bed, dresser, reading chair with footstool, a carpet and a small set of steps up to the room, separating it from the rest of the floor. Two windows by the bed overlook the sheep fields in the valley with views to the forests of fabulous Ruckle Provincial Park. There is also a skylight. There is a two-piece bath upstairs and a shower in the three-piece bath on the main floor. Nights are nice and dark and wonderfully quiet, except for frogs in spring, and mornings and evenings, you can hear the sheep in the valley. Common spaces include our living and dining room, and our kitchen. All of it is very well-equipped with a mix of antique furniture, funky objects, and family treasures. We will provide veg meals in exchange for 25 hours of work per week. We are fun but on the quieter side, enjoying reading or other quiet time in the evening, going to Dance Temple on Mondays or Thursdays (see section on cultural exchange), or enjoying conversation over dinner or on our front deck overlooking the valley. We are non-smokers for sure, and would prefer non-smokers staying in our home. We drink a bit socially, and are not big partiers for sure, but are good humoured and fun to be with.
What else ...
Salt Spring Island is a Canadian crown jewel with its beautiful scenery, warm climate relative to the rest of Canada, and great culture. Its Saturday market in the town of Ganges is legendary, there are a ton of things to do and see artistically, and just down the road from our house on Mondays and Thursdays is Dance Temple -- two hours of free-form dance with a beautifully mixed crowd of women and men of all ages and orientations. There is an excellent swimming lake an 8 minute bike ride away, which is clothing optional, and of course that is just one of several excellent swimming lakes on the island! There is also the ocean for hikes and, yes, for swimming too. There are some sun warmed bays that make for excellent afternoon swims when the tides are right! There are some great trails up the many mountains on Salt Spring, and excellent kayaking around the this and nearby islands. Salt Spring has an eclectic mix of artists, travellers, back-to-the-landers, alternative medicine practitioners, and more. It is relatively easy to hitch hike, and there is a pretty good local bus system on the main roads (we are a 10-minute drive away from a main road). In summer, twice a day, there is even a bus that goes past our house on the way to Ruckle Park and connecting with the island's small town, Ganges. We also go into town a couple times a week in our electric vehicle and would be happy to take passengers. We also routinely either take workawayers on hikes or sometimes even a kayak, or will drive folks to trailheads for a later pickup.
We always have zooms with folks who look like they will be a good fit. We find it's a great way for us to get to know each other a bit and the work that will be involved.
Happy Workaway hunting!
A little more information
Internet access
Limited internet access
We have pets
We are smokers
Can host families
Can host digital nomads
Strong internet and wifi connections. Desk space possible.
How many Workawayers can stay?
Two
Hours expected
5 hours a day, 5 days a week
