5 live-in roles available on a Nova Scotia riverfront farm
Description
I am seeking:
1 fibre spinner
1 animal keeper
1 handyman
1 person good at tech and social media
1 beekeeper
This volunteer live-in opportunity provides a chance to go back to nature, live communally and *sustainably* in Cumberland County, Nova Scotia, and learn about the animal fibre business (and other farm activities). You do not need to be an experienced spinner or farmer.
Ultimately, I would like to find 5 *non-smoking* individuals to be part of this - one or two new people each year. It will take a long time to find people who share my goals and outlook and who have good chemistry with me personally. Fortunately, I have lots of time and lots of patience to do this. I can take one person this year. All 6 of us need to be proficient in the animal care, but the rest of the time we’ll do our specialization. (Mine is marketing, finance, and management of the whole endeavour, since these are my farms.)
I’m a quiet, middle-aged guy who mostly keeps to himself, but I also love good conversation around the dinner table or the woodstove. Because I am seeking people for the long-term, it's important that we have some overlap in our worldview and spirituality. I personally have a great relationship with God, and I am about as far from "woke" ideology as you can get.
Rather than asking you to work full-time to live here or to pay a lot of money, I just want 10 hours per week of your help with the farmwork and fibre processing and a $400-600 monthly contribution (depending on which room you are in) to the common living expenses, which covers your shelter, meals (if you are in the main farmhouse), and wifi. At the end of each calendar year, I will give you 10% of the farm profits (which currently come primarily from animal fibre products, farm stays, and a small biennial blueberry harvest). By working together on the activities listed below, we can increase the farm revenues so that your profit-share at the end of the year is a couple thousand, instead of a couple hundred dollars. Either way, it’s not going to be even enough to cover your housing cost; so, please don’t think about doing this just for the money.
I have a pair of beautiful riverfront hobby farms, each with a large 4-bedroom house. There are 3 acres of wild blueberries, 6 acres of pasture, and about 8 acres of woods that provide more than enough firewood to heat both homes, using only sustainable harvesting. I have a small flock of free-range chickens.
Over the last 8 years, I have been raising fibre animals and developing a fibre business around them. I have 6 fibre animals at the moment, but I want to build the herd up to about 20 and to broaden the range of products we derive from the fibre. A small portion of my food comes from the property, and my vision is to increase that slowly and steadily every year.
Some of the new areas of activity that I want to undertake (once the right long-term cohabitants are found) are:
-processing the fibre on-site, e.g., spinning and felting
-bee-keeping (which will also help pollinate the blueberry field)
-permaculture and biodynamics
-large vegetable and herb gardens
-farm store for the fibre products and blueberry products
-fishing the 1500 feet of river
-renewable energy to reduce our dependence on the grid
-art studio, as there are a lot of tourists here in the summer
-a yoga/meditation retreat / wellness centre (this would be further down the road)
This situation probably would not suit a couple and definitely not a family, because of the difficulty in finding a financial contribution amount that is fair to all. However, If you have a family, I am amenable to you building a tiny home on the property and then I would forego most of the financial contribution, obviously.
I am open to the idea of you having your own studio / shop in one of the houses, if you have the talent and inventory to make a go of it. We'd have to sort out the financial arrangements for that.
Tell me all about yourself if you decide to message me about this. :-)
- Furnished: 1
- Ad Type: Offering
real estate | commercial, office space
2025-01-31