DRUŠTVO EKOPOT
  • About us
  • Our purpose and projects
  • European Solidarity Corps 2023
  • Volunteering Stories
    • Organic Life 2022
    • Organic Life 2021
    • The warriors blog 2020
    • iFarm Organic 2019
  • Contact
  • About us
  • Our purpose and projects
  • European Solidarity Corps 2023
  • Volunteering Stories
    • Organic Life 2022
    • Organic Life 2021
    • The warriors blog 2020
    • iFarm Organic 2019
  • Contact

Organic Life 2021

RESUME - Katharina

11/20/2021

0 Comments

 
Picture
​When I arrived in the small village of Jarenina at the end of February, it was like coming home to me. The warm hug of Maja and Matjaž, the crackling fire in the oven and a delicious tea made from home-grown herbs were the start of an unforgettable time.
It was cold and snowing in Jarenina when my voluntary service started. On a farm that makes a living from growing fruit, vegetables and grain, there is not much to do in winter, there is time to rest or time to do things for which there is no time during the year. One of the first challenges was removing an old apple orchard with tall trees. Fortunately, I didn't have to do this on my own, as two other volunteers live on the farm with me. The beginning of the year is also the time of sowing and planting. Potatoes, onions, garlic and also carrots, beetroot and other vegetables found their way into the soil.
With increasing temperature, sunshine and rain, the variety of tasks expanded. There was a lot of weeding, hoeing and harvesting. Not only the cultivated plants shot up, but also weeds such as wild amaranth, dandelion and convolvulus.
In mid-May, the most beautiful part of my voluntary service began: the berry season. From now on we had to harvest (and eat) berries one to three times a week. First strawberries, followed by blueberries, currants, black raspberries, blackberries and red raspberries. In the middle of September, it was time for the last berries for this year, the aronia berries. A harsh-tasting vitamin C heroine who is very popular here in Slovenia and is slowly becoming known in Germany as well.
Now, in November, the feeling of saying goodbye is slowly spreading. In agriculture, the time when the days get shorter and colder is also the time when large parts of the yield are harvested. The last few weeks have been shaped by potatoes, carrots, beetroot and many other vegetables being brought in for the winter storage. I finally can see what we have been working for all year long. It's an overwhelming feeling to be part of this cycle. To have helped grow a plant from a single seed and harvest delicious fruits from it. And it wasn't just the plants that developed and grew, I myself grew during this time as well.
0 Comments

Building a Sauna

11/18/2021

1 Comment

 

So my personal project was to try and build a sauna. I have never built anything nearly as big as a sauna before and except for the bench I built this spring my experience in building is generally very limited. The idea came to me as a suggestion or a strong implication that it would be nice to have a sauna at the farm and that there is not enough time at the moment for them . And since I have wanted to expand my rather limited knowledge in build I thought this would be a great personal project. Just a quick note; I am not so stupid to think that building a sauna would be something easy or fast in any way, hence the try in the first sentence. I also took some time to think over if I really wanted to take on this huge project, which you now can see I decided for. After deciding on it I directly started to sketch the whole construction and dream about how nice it will look in the end. This part dragged on for a long time but at some point in the summer I got the first building material which was the thick beams for the base construction. Sawing and preparing them were quite a lot of detailed work and there were some swear words involved several times. After just starting to prepare them I went home for my vacation which meant a long break from sauna work. But when I came back I had a lot of energy to continue and manage to finish the sawing and with some help put all the pieces together and form the base of the construction.

The next step was to put on the floor. It was quite straight forward and made it look so much more like a small house immediately. After the floor I began to put in all the beams in the walls and it felt like for everyone I but I realized I needed one more for some reason. For example, is it apparently very important to have beams going across for all the stuff you want to put up on the outer walls like hooks and hinges, something I absolutely thought about in the planning. I had a really good moment at this time when I could walk through where the door were gonna be and look out through the hole where the window were gonna be for the first time .

With all the beams in place it was time for the inner walls. I had some help at this time so it went quite fast, although my right arm was dead afterwards because I needed to handsaw all of the boars so make the joints straight. When I had put up all the inner walls it was finally time for the benches which I enjoyed making. They turned out very nice as well after covering them with boards. After some debating we also decided to put in insulation in the walls which meant some extra work, but I think it’s really worth it in the end not having to freeze in a sauna. With the insolation it was time for the outer layer of boards which made it look like a tiny house. With all the walls finished it was time to drill into them in order to make holes for ventilation and chimney which not at all felt completely wrong to do. With all the holes made in the nice, even walls I felt like doing some finishing touches like putting a frame around the window. That really made the sauna look less like a construction site and more like a finished project. The next huge thing to do was the roof which I fortunately got help with to put on. With the roof it already looked almost finished with the most noticeable thing missing being the door. The door was a bit tricky to do because I wanted insulation in it so it had to be double layered. But in the end it looked really good. When leaving the farm now in some days there are still some things left to do but I still feel good about how far I got.

When writing this it feels like the whole project seems straightforward and easy when in reality the journey was filled with bumps, twists and turns. I also put in so many hours into this and put so much effort and thought into every single detail. Building this sauna has been such an experience for me and I feel like I learned incredibly much by doing it. I am so proud of the sauna which turned out so much better than the dreams I had in the spring and I also feel so grateful that I got this chance to do it.
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
1 Comment

RV Renovation - My Island on the stormy Sea        by Brigid

11/18/2021

0 Comments

 
I had the honor to renovate the old RV situated in the orchard as my personal project this year.
I have been interested in the tiny house movement and building my own home for a while already, so this kind of building project intrigued me.
It was also a wish of mine to live in the orchard during the summer since I felt the need to withdraw from society, noise, and distractions and to find peace and awareness in nature and the simplicity and
remoteness that this space would provide me.
In the beginning, I had the idea to buy my own RV and take it to Germany with me to live in it in the
future. But I had doubts about such a big financial commitment.
Due to my undecided and changeable temper, it took me a while to come to the decision not to buy one,but to work with the lovely RV that Maja and Matjaž already owned. Since this camper might serve as an accommodation to future volunteers, I was also happy to make a useful contribution to the farm and the people living here after me.
The main work I did from the middle of May until the end of July, so that I was able to move in after I
returned from holidays at the end of August. I didn‘t know how long weather and temperature would
allow me to live there but I was quite determined to stay in RV and orchard as long as possible.
But I was lucky and after some chilly days at the beginning of September, late summer was sunny and
warm and even allowed me to go for many mild and calm evening walks until the end of September,
when it got cold and too early dark to be outside for longer in the evening.
In October it got quite rainy and cold and I was struggling with drying my wet clothes in the damp air in
the RV. But I found enough candles and blankets to stay warm and cozy in the evenings and nights, not
wanting to leave my little island yet.
In the mornings, it was hard to get out of bed, into the cold, sometimes even frosty autumn air. But the
pink and orange sunrise over the hills, the mist over the meadows, the deer grazing on the neighbor's
field, and the meetings with my friend and neighbor Harry the hare, paid off for all the cold and
inconveniences.
I felt at peace and home in this space. The two months in the RV taught me many things about myself and how I want to live in the future and where.
I feel endlessly inspired and grateful for this experience and will remember these days with love and
gratitude towards Maja and Matjaž, who trusted me to allow me to renovate their RV and to live in their
orchard and who gave me advice on how to proceed if I had problems, to all people who supported me
during the working process and to all creatures and spirits that shared their home, the orchard with me.
STEPS IN THE BUILDING PROCESS
• tearing out little bathroom/shower cabin and huge wardrobe
• dismount cupboard doors, clean and paint them with white varnish
• tape edges of all cupboards and furniture along walls, before painting
• take out old curtains
• rip out old linoleum flooring and discovering black mold and rotting of wooden boards underneath
in the area of the former bathroom and at the entrance
• cutting out rotten wood with a saw
• filling up empty spaces on the floor with cement plaster
• cutting of nails sticking out of wall and ceiling where wardrobe and bathroom where
• painting all furniture with white varnish twice
• replacing old plastic knobs on cupboard doors with new wooden ones and putting doors back on cupboards
• measuring out flooring and sketching the layout
• Cutting out and taping together cardboard in the measurements of the future floorboards
• Cutting out wooden floor pieces, with cardboard sheets as measurement support
• laying cardboard under wood floor noise cancelation and less friction between the old and new
wood
• laying out new floor, fitting boards into each other, and gluing edges together
• filling out gaps and cracks with silicon
• glaze floor with transparent varnish twice
• assemble left-over wood to kitchen counter cover
• sow covers for sofa cushions and curtain for open cupboard in the kitchen
Picture
Picture
0 Comments

    Author

    Write something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview.

    Archives

    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.