Maxine

United Kingdom
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Profile information

Travel information
I am currently
At home
Description
Hi! I'm Max, I love being outdoors in nature and working and have come to appreciate every living being.

My background is in wildlife conservation, although more recently I have been building upon knowledge and experience within regenerative and agro-ecological farming.

I am currently looking for somewhere to Workaway for February and March before I head back to a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm in Sweden where I spent time as a Workaway last year.
I’m also hoping to be able to save some funds during this time so a paid opportunity would be preferable.

Although I love working outdoors, I also have previous customer service and hospitality experience.
I have a great capacity for learning and understand the importance of attention to detail, learning from others and sharing skills and knowledge. I find it easy to get on well with others, working as part of a team and alone.
I also understand and appreciate the importance of community.

In my spare time I love hiking, nature photography, camping, listening to live music, yoga and generally anything that involves being immersed in nature. I enjoy regularly socialising with others but am also happy to spend time on my own.
Interests
Politics / Social justice
Movies & TV
Books
Art & design
Cooking & food
Outdoor activities
Plant care
Sustainability
Vegetarian or vegan
Languages
Self development
Photography
Nature
Hiking
Farming
DIY & crafts
Animals
Beach
Carpentry
Cycling

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Languages
Languages spoken
English: Fluent
Swedish: Beginner
More details about my language interests
I am interested in learning Swedish.
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Skills and knowledge I'd like to share or learn
Some knowledge of:
Eco Projects
Gardening
DIY and building projects
Animal Care
Creating/ Cooking family meals
Helping around the house
General Maintenance
Helping with Computers/ Internet
Life at a Farmstay
Hospitality/Tourism
More details about your skills
Some of my experience so far:

- Working outdoors in all weathers
- First aid training
- Living communally
- Full UK driving licence
- Completing repetitive tasks to a high standard

- Habitat management
- Working with livestock, including sheep and cattle.
- Chainsaw and brushcutter/strimmer licence
- Driving off-road vehicles
- Ecological survey skills
- Basic infrastructure maintenance
- Harvesting vegetable crops manually and food storage
- Creating a 'wildlife' garden, such as planting for pollinators and providing nesting areas for birds, bees and creating small ponds
Age
33
What else ...
In my spare time I enjoy expanding my knowledge - this usually involves attending online lectures or reading about ecology and the environment or attending local events and meeting like-minded people.
I also enjoy maintaining my physical fitness; whether hiking, cycling, bouldering or joining the local sports club on an adventure such as caving. I also spend a lot of my spare time birdwatching, looking for fungi, macro photography of flowers and invertebrates or exploring nature reserves and hiking in the surrounding area.
I also appreciate evenings with my friends watching live music in the local area.
Some more information
- Smoker
- Driver's licence
- Allergies
  No
- Special dietary requirements
  Vegetarian

Feedback

2 Dec 2023

Left by Workawayer (Maxine) for host (Support our quest to become ...)

What an amazing first Workaway experience! I spent 8 wonderful weeks with Hanna and Folke on their inspiring farm. I quickly felt at home and part of the family.

I gained valuable experience and knowledge shared regarding regenerative and sustainable ecosystems whilst also producing food. This included planting perennial vegetables and… read more

(Excellent )

22 Nov 2023

Left by host (Support our quest to become ...) for Workawayer (Maxine)

Maxine stayed at our farm for 8 weeks in 2023. We are very happy that she joined our team! We can higly recommend her. (Actually we already did: when Max wished to stay somewhat longer in Sweden we introduced her to friends of us who are running a community supported agriculture (CSA). Guess what? After being there one month they offered her a… read more traineeship for season 2024!)

With Maxines help our solutions to our need of food, energy etc will regenerate the ecosystems at our farmland: that´s the joy of regenerative landscape managment!

Maxine contributed to our increasing capacity for photosyntesis to happen at our farm, i.e. biological solutions of carbon capture and storage (bio-CCS and LULUCF: land use, land-use change and forestry) Accordingly, we reinforce our contribution to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) regarding climate action (SDG 13). Soil carbon is pure life, and therefore her planting a wide range of many different plants also supports SDG 15 (Life of land) as Maxine did protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems. Among the plants were perennial vegetables, berry- and nut bushes, nursing and biodiversity-supporting trees and bushes. They are now integrated in our food forest/forest garden as well as in our upcoming agroforestry. All these plants requires a lot of knowledge of different species, and what kind of habitats they need. Maxine has this knowledge, or just dives into learning. She now also knows how to adjust the habitats for specific plants with resource efficient and circular methods. And she also gained experience in protecting the root systems and building up wood chip-islands for establishing plants. Furthermore she has regularly been nurtering our plants with mighty microbes. Maxine also took the opportunity to learn to farm mushrooms like shitake etc. She has deep knowledge and interest in species and their habitats, not least birds and insects. Biodiversity was also promoted by Maxine by building earwigs hotels, which she managed independently and also was able to teach us about different technics.

Maxine also got very well together with our friends and co-farming team. She is a really good working company for anyone! On a cold, windy and rainy day we were a team planting many trees, and typically Maxine she kept her and everyone elses spirit up all the time, celebrating every single planted tree with a fanfare.

Other operations Max been into covers the following:
• Beekeeping tasks including harvesting honey (small-scale, manually) and preparing the colonies for the winter (non-toxical treatment of mites, etc).
• Apple juicing: Max was a central drive in our apple jucing days as well in our community apple festival. She works well with anyone and was highly apprieciated in the juicing team.
• Harvesting vegetables and berries.
• Food preservation of healthy and tasty food, helping us enjoying achievment of the SDGs 2 (Zero hunger) and 3 (Good health and weel-being). She can now make tempeh, home canning as well as lacto-fermention of many vegetables.
• Circular flow have been maintained by Maxine, for instance by taking care of biomasses and use it as deep litter bed for our animals.
• Maxine has been fully responsible for the animals on the farm while we have been away (sheep, geese, ducks, chicken, cat and dog), and managed our beloved ones excellent.

Maxine nurtured our farm very well, and in her sparetime she occasionally volunteered in a nearby national park as well as in a nature reserve on behalf of the County Administrative Board, where she was much appreciated. She has also taking own initiatives to join NGO-activites by the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation and similar while she was here.

Maxine is good in keeping contact and we always felt confident with her clear communication. Before arrival (”pre boarding”) we provide our volunteers with information that they can volunteerly dive into. There are links to films, books, projects etc. Maxine was very keen to learn, and was very much into the given sources prior to arriving to our place. Once at our place she did also stringently respect the house rules.

Thank you for joining our farm and our lifes, Maxine! We wish you all the best!

(Excellent )