We are a young couple and need help with creating a Natural Farm to support our small eco-community. Volunteer in Portugal and experience a balanced lifestyle!
Help out with eco-farming as a volunteer in Portugal – requirements & tasks
We are a young couple with some experience of self-sufficient living. In 2015 we got a piece of land close to a small growing community of close friends in a beautiful valley at the highest mountains inside the biggest natural park in our country. We need help with creating a Natural Farm to support our small eco-community!
We want to share our daily life with people who like us are looking for a balanced lifestyle and are open to change and cooperation.
So we hope you’re willing to practice these principles:
– Work with Nature, not against it;
– Value edges, marginal and small;
– See solutions not problems;
– Produce no waste;
– Value people, their skills and work;
– Respect for all life;
– Use public transport and renewable energies;
– Calculate food miles;
– Reduce your carbon footprint.
This year we will need help maintaining the herb garden, vegetable garden and food forest, building simple structures with roundwood and recycled materials, harvesting herbs, vegetables, and fruits and processing them, and farming maintenance (cutting fire-wood, moving electric fences and farm animal summer shades, cleaning the stable), sharing experiences and much more.
In north Portugal, we have a strong culture of family agriculture that is still practised by beautiful old people and some young new amazing neighbours. You will meet some of those and can get to visit them to chill out or help with farming maintenance in exchange for services, products or money and learn some knowledge or skills with joy!
You will work for about 18 hours per week.
Help out with eco-farming as a volunteer in Portugal – what we offer
We only need help for around 3 hours/day and 6 days/week according to goals, therefore we only provide accommodation (camping tent, mattress and blankets) and shared facilities (kitchen, dry toilet and hot shower) so, you buy your own food (we sell fresh, fermented and dried vegetables and herbs and eggs).
There’s also a natural pool in the stream and according to the season, mushrooms, edible and aromatic plants, berries, acorns and chestnuts. Minimum age 18 years and minimum time of stay of 4 weeks.
Donations for facility maintenance and gas to cook your food and keep the shower hot are gratefully accepted.
We are in north-central Portugal, in a mountain with two glacial valleys, a lot of water on lakes, rivers and streams, that you can follow to find abandoned farming and shepherd houses surrounded by wilderness. There are villages close to us: Linhares da Beira (+/- 5km), a historical place with a military castle, a local association, a craft shop, a cosy bar, a gourmet restaurant and two hotels; Figueiró da Serra (+/- 2km), with more vivacity has tow local associations, a grocery-shop, tow bars and a hotel with restaurant. We have a car that we use often to bring needs from outside but there’s also a bus passing in Figueiró da Serra every day at 9 am that goes to the closest town (Gouveia +/- 20km) and comes back at 5 pm.
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