Help on our small hobby farm with animals and experience countryside of South-Eastern Finland

Infos

• 

  Description

  We are a friendly couple, Hanna and Rami, both aged 59 years. We live in the countryside in south-eastern Finland.
  Our home is surrounded by nature - there's also a natural park close by - and close to natural lakes with a swimming possibility.
  
  We moved here from Helsinki some 12 years ago to start a new, more sustainable way of life and have not regretted the decision. We both do mainly remote work from home. Besides our full-time jobs, we have a small hobby farm.
  
  Our small farm is home to several sheep (with new lambs to born in the spring), as well as two friendly horses, chicken, ducks and two dogs (one of which will surely want to be your new best friend). We also grow vegetables and have a greenhouse.
  
  Remote office work taxes our time, but also the farm always requires some maintenance work. This is true especially in the summer. There is painting to do, there are fences waiting to be fixed, some small renovations, cleaning the animal sheds etc. In short: there is so much to do and we have so little time.
  
  We enjoy hosting guests and making new friends, and we are interested in languages and cultural exchange. So when we learned about Workaway, we knew immediately this would be something for us: meeting new people and getting extra help.
  
  Your work here would consist of all kinds of seasonal and daily tasks: gardening, animal care and maintenance, according to your ablities and interests. We hope you are able to work also independently, also sometimes hard and/or in a bad weather, and that you not afraid of getting yourself dirty. We also appreciate a good sense of humour, since especially with animals, things do not always go as planned. Every day is surely different.
  
  In fact, when we started this lifestyle years back, Rami said after a while: "Have you noticed that every day something is HAPPENING; every day we have some nice and funny things happening".
  
  Ramis parents live right next to us, have also a small garden and a greenhouse alongside of a chicken coop. You would be helping also them occasionally, and by doing that, have an opportunity to learn a lot from the granny about plants and growing vegetables in an organic way. She is quite an expert on everything nature related.
  
  Our goal is to be as self-sufficient as possible, so that the food we eat is produced by us and organic. Home grown food is topped up with everything you can find in the Finnish nature: wild herbs, berries and mushrooms. Depending on the season, we will show you how to find these treasures of the nature.
  
  We mainly eat vegetarian food, but some fish and meat too - mostly local fish and our own production ie. lamb and roosters. We would eat together 2 warm meals a day, but otherwise you are welcome to use the kithcen for snacks, leftovers or to cook a meal as you like. We like good food, so you won't be hungry.
  
  We hope you to work 4-5 hours a day 5 days a week - or if you wish, sometimes longer days with more days off respectively.
  
  Our adult daughter will stay with us during this summer. As a family, we are somewhat unorganised, but warm, friendly, open-minded and welcoming. Our messy home is always open to friends and visitors from Finland and abroad, so also other people are coming and going especially in the the summer.
  
  We would be happy to host you, introduce Finnish culture and our way of living to you, and to learn new things and insights from you! Please feel to free to ask more, if you got interested.

• 

  Types d'aide et opportunités d'apprendre

  Jardinage

  Bricolage et construction

  S’occuper des animaux

  Aide dans une ferme

  Aide à la maison

  Entretien général
• 

  Objectifs de développement durable de l’ONU que cet hôte essaie d'atteindre

  ×

  ...

  ...

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  Qu'est-ce que c'est ?
• 

  Echange culturel et opportunités d'apprendre

  You will get experience of Finnish culture and nature in the happiest country of the world. More generally, you will learn about homesteding in our multi-generational family : learn about growing and conserving food; learn about the Finnish nature and finding food in there. Experience swimming in natural lakes. Learn about animals. If you are interested in martial arts, ask Rami for some training.

• 

  Aide

  According to your abilities and interest, help is needed in gardening (planting, urning soil, watering plants, weeding...), fixing the fences, painting, small building projects, animal care, cleaning the animal sheds and all sorts of farm work. If you are interested, help is welcomed also in cooking and household chores.

• 

  Langues

  Langues parlées
  Anglais: Courant
  Finnish: Courant
  Français: Courant
  Allemand: Intermédiaire
  Swedish: Intermédiaire
  Italien: Débutant

  Cet hôte propose un échange linguistique
  We would be happy to practise more our French, German, Swedish and Italian, languages that we otherwise do not have so often opportunity to speak.
• 

  Hébergement

  Your accommodation would be a room with privacy (and electricity) in a separate building across the yard. The bed is 120 cm wide. Shared toilet and a bathroom with shower are in the main building. Old sauna is in another separate building.
  If you are two persons travelling together but not wanting to share the bed, another place can be arranged in the main building or in one of the "summer rooms" , depending on the time of your stay,

• 

  Autres infos...

  In your freetime you could eg. go swimming in different lakes, walk the dogs and play with them, enjoy the company of the animals, join Hanna to go to the forest for picking berries and mushrooms (depending on the season) and learn about which ones are edible, enjoy traditional sauna etc. We have a small gym where you can train yoga, kettle bells etc. If you have some experience with horses (or are brave enough to start to get some) Hanna would be happy to take you for horseback rides in the nearby forests. Or then just relax in the hammock.
  
  We have bicycles available, we can sometimes give you a lift and you may sometimes also use the car yourself, if it is available. There is a pizzeria in the village a couple of kilometres away, and the the nearest small shop is 4 km away. The UNESCO World Heritage site Verla is about 25 km away.
  
  The nearest town is Kouvola about 30 km away. The public transport connnections are not super good, but on working days, there are a few busses from the village to go there. To be honest, there is not that much going on in the town itself. However, several trains a day run to Helsinki (1,5 hours) and to Lappeenranta (1 hr), which is a nice town in the summer, at the lake Saimaa.
  
  If you like hiking and camping, the national park Repovesi ( nature reserve) is about 15 km away with nice trekking routes of different lenghts and possibility to rent out canoes. We can lend your camping equipment, if you want to spend a night there.
  
  If you like, we can also make some day trips together to show you around.

• 

  Informations complémentaires

  • 

    Accès Internet

  • 

    Accès Internet limité

  • 

    Nous avons des animaux

  • 

    Nous sommes fumeurs

  • 

    Familles bienvenues

• 

  Espace pour garer des vans

  Cet hôte a de la place pour les vans.

• 

  Combien de volontaires pouvez-vous accueillir ?

  Deux

• 

  Nombre d'heures attendues

  Maximum 4-5 hours a day, 5 days a week