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19 Oct 2024
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Description
We are always looking for outdoor help with wood projects
The work is physical and you need to be fit. We will work with you, 3.5hours either in the morning or in the afternon . You will be free the other half of the day. We offer great hospitality ( read our reviews) and expect energetic commîted contribution. Looking forward to hearing from you.
If you are practical, positive and energetic and like the idea of being outdoors, we need a couple or two friends to help with general maintenance work. We offer great hospitality, independent accommodation, great food and some visiting
We are a French English couple, Alexandra and Ed. For a few years, we have been restoring our Normandie Farmhouse, while enjoying its produces, sometimes with the help of great workawayers. We live within 20 minutes drive from the main Normandy landing beaches, with 3 horses and 2 dogs and a few chicken. We are well integrated in the local village community and involved in local events. With one of us being French by birth, we can give you good insight into French culture and traditions, and help with progressing your French language if you wish to. Our main home language is English.
If you are looking for outdoor work, are physically fit and happy to live the village life, we can offer you a warm welcome. We offer top class accommodation, and good meals, as well as a personal experience. Do not just take our word for it, read our feedback.
Types of help and learning opportunities
Gardening
DIY and building projects
Farmstay help
General Maintenance
Cultural exchange and learning opportunities
Alex is French, active in local politics and local social activities. You will have a good insight into traditions and approaches of French people both in Normandy and from my native Alsace. Ed has a wonderful understanding of the landing history, and knows every local site, big or small, related to this historical event. He will tell you a wealth of things you might not know about your country's involvement in those events.
We both love outdoors and have a good understanding of the seasonal demands of living off the land, which we are always happy to share. We are both educated to postgraduate level and speak several languages.
If we feel you are sufficiently responsible, we will have no hesitation involving you in any job you might wish to. Depending on the job we are tackling, this might involve driving our small tractor.
We will always help you plan your exploration of the area, and will make an effort to show you local sites within our time availability.
Help
We like couples or strong individuals to help with general maintenance. It involves working in the garden, lots of weeding, clearing any storm damage, strimming, spring cleaning the stables, and possibly a bit of painting if the weather allows. We will try to give you tasks that fit your skills, we have good tools and are happy to teach you how to use them if you wish to. If you are skilled with strimmers, or paint brushes, or if you enjoy general repairs and would get excited about restoring an old lock to functioning, we would welcome your company.
Most of the help we need is physical, outdoor nature. You do not need to be extra strong, but fit and you need to enjoy working outside, whatever the weather. You also need to be motivated to keep going, even if the task does not turn out to be what you expected.
Work with animals could be available if you have experience, but will always be combined with other work, and will only be a small part of the day. If you do not have experience with animals but wish to learn, we are happy to share with you what we know about horsemanship, chicken keeping and dog training. One of us is bee keeping, and you are welcome to learn from us in this area too, if the season allows you can have some hands on.
We privilege workawayers who can work independently, are responsible, and keep motivated at this.
We will agree volunteering hours to suit you, but expect 20 committed hours a week.
Languages
Languages spoken
German: Fluent
English: Fluent
French: FluentThis host offers a language exchange
This host has indicated that they are interested in sharing their own language or learning a new language.
You can contact them directly for more information.
Accommodation
your fully equipped 70 square meters studio, with kitchen, bathroom and view on the fields. It is really very nice accommodation, far above what is usually offered. We do not let the studio commercially, so it is most likely to be available when you visit, and is plenty large enough for families.
What else ...
Our location is very peaceful, with a lot of wildlife, including house-martins and swallows, hawks, several types of owls and bats. It is however remote from any socializing. To enjoy your stay with us, you need to be looking for simple pleasures, such as the peace of the morning dew on the cow fields. We thrive on the peace of the area and live mainly outdoors, with radio or TV only rarely on. Wifi is plenty and of excellent quality / reliability with your own computer.
Although we would not call ourselves permaculture experts, we use a lot of the local knowledge and methods to grow our produces. We try to look after Mother Earth and use minimal chemicals, both outdoors and in the house. A lot of our food is home grown, although we sometimes indulge in the delights of the local goods such as patisseries.
We have varied, always seasonal, and nice food which I (Alexandra ) enjoy preparing in the French country tradition. We hope you will enjoy sharing it. We are not vegetarian but do not eat meat every day and if you are, we will enjoy adapting our meals for the duration of your stay! Normandy however is the home of dairy, and we would therefore find it more difficult to accommodate anybody who does not eat dairy products.
Once work is finished, there might be the possibility for you to ride the horses if you are a rider, and borrow our bikes for an exploration of the area. Previous (very!) fit workawayer made it to the landing beaches by bike. We will help you plan your visits of the area, and we have always in the past taken workawayers to worthwhile sites of interest to them, but this is obviously depending on our availability. You are also welcome to join in our activities in the village, in which we take an active part.
We only take one workaway ( or one couple) at any one time and pride ourself in looking after you well and giving you a personal experience. We welcome workawayers for their personality and the stories they have to share as well as for the work, and appreciate people with a positive outlook on life.
We are happy to welcome long or short stays (one week or more), with an initial trial period of one week which will be extended if we all get along. Please let us know in your application when and for how long you are hoping to stay. For stays over 3 or 4 weeks we only consider workawayers with their own transport. We have recently had an excellent experience with a couple who joined us for 3 weeks and ended up staying close to 7 months. The independent accomodation we provide allows for this, and in this case we usually agree a pattern of morning work/ lunch together and the remainder of the day for you to organise. Unfortunately we have no feedback to/ from this couple as their membership expired while they were with us.
Non smokers only - this is non negotiable ( hay is far too inflamable)
If we decide to go ahead, we have a detailed briefing note to help you plan your trip.
A little more information
Internet access
Limited internet access
We have pets
We are smokers
Can host families
Can host digital nomads
We have good internet connection, and have previously hosted a couple who worked online in their spare time
Space for parking camper vans
We have plenty of space for your own van. We must say however that previous workawayers who came in their own van, decided that after all the facilities and accomodation we offered were so good, that they would prefer to use them rather than their own.
Can possibly accept pets
We love pets and can accept some of them with previous agreement. We have a male and a female dog, both of which are sterilized. Life would be dangerous for cats, although we have hosted some previously. Please discuss your pet with us before applying
How many Workawayers can stay?
Two
Hours expected
Maximum 25 hours a week committed help
Feedback (21)
We helped with clearing fallen trees and branches in the field. We chainsawed a lot and carried heavy branches, it was a physical hard… read more
Juan approached us when we were not really planning to host, but we thought we would give him a… read more
Photos
Feedback
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Accuracy of profile:
(4.8)
Cultural exchange:
(4.5)
Communication:
(5.0)
We helped with clearing fallen trees and branches in the field. We chainsawed a lot and carried heavy branches, it was a physical hard… read more
Juan approached us when we were not really planning to host, but we thought we would give him a… read more
Thank you Ed for taking us to see some of the history of the local area!! Despite the difficult timing due to the virus, Alex and Ed made sure that our stay was more a time of rest than… read more
Good luck in your travels. We will… read more
The always plan some activities to do with the workawayers: Alex took me to the horse races and Ed to Utah and Omaha Beach and to the… read more
Alex’s cooking was delicious and we were fed like… read more
I’ve been at this farm for about two and a half weeks, but I feel like I’ve spent there just a couple of days. Everything about that place is simply amazing! Alex and Ed are a really wonderful couple, always… read more
Giovani has been a wonderful guest, interesting, yet considerate and discrete. It is a privilege to meet him, he is understated, yet has done plenty and has lots of experience. We have certainly enjoyed his company… read more
She also came with me to ride the horses, which is a great way to discover Marais du Cotentin et du Bessin with it's great flora and fauna. Because I had… read more
Celine is strong… read more
In the work, we found exactly what we were hoping to get out of workaway! We were able to complete several fulfilling projects, all the while learning about rural life in the French countryside!
I am… read more
In their projects, they did more than we expected. They learnt very quickly a very wide range of skills and welcomed every task with both calm and determination. Despite only staying with us… read more
We loved Dan's sharp… read more
Alex is a wonderful cook, and made it her personal mission to spoil us with many traditional,… read more
They are very mature despite their young age, very hard-working, able to operate on their own easily but willing to work as a team too, all with a smile. They are also terribly kind,… read more
While the farm and house are “work in progress” it is still beautiful as is the surrounding countryside.
The accommodation is superb staying… read more
Rae could not have done better, on any of the tasks she undertook. If we had time to set her up, she was willing to work to our expectations, yet when… read more
To begin, they were willing to accept us 9 months out and kept in good communication with us. Upon acceptance they emailed a document to explain the stay in greater detail, something I wish all my workaways did. The… read more
They are very organised, flexible and that makes work so easy going.
All the different work tasks like: wood work, painting, gardening, cleaning the stables were good changes… read more
Shelly and Kyle are very mature, interesting and permanently positive. In the 3 weeks they were with us, they consistently smiled despite very difficult working… read more
There is anything I can say I didn't like, because I was very happy with my job, the food, the room, the caring, etc etc.
Even their dogs are very affective!
Everybody around was very kind… read more
They are great people and they really take good care of you.
Alex is really organized and she is an amazing cook. She don't have a kitchen...yet, but she just manage to bring out all those delicious french dishes!
And Ed is the most gentle person I've ever met.
Their house is… read more
She has been far beyond expectations. She has worked very hard in a sustained way. Never complained about the heat, rain or any of the conditions- just got on with it. She is active, consciencious and sees what needs doing. She keeps going, even with what others might think is a boring job. She… read more
Jan has probably learnt from this and matured in his approach.
