Several options to stay on the mountain next to the house.

EXCHANGE

Stay in exchange for ± 3.5 hours of work pp/pd.
That equates to 17.5 hours a week.

When you come to visit the mountain with your camper / tent, do not expect that you will end up in a spread bed. You are completely self-sufficient. It is a mountain where there is no water, electricity, terraces, paths, niches and the like. The mountain still has to be ‘shaped’ and we can do that together and in consultation! So you can stay there with your camper, tent or caravan in exchange for ‘positive’ cooperation. You can organize your time yourself and spend it on making your own place beautiful and useful and therefore also on communal facilities.

By positive cooperation we mean that you enjoy going into a creative process. You mess around with soil and plants, you start a blog about the wall you make. Even if collecting stones for a staircase, wall or path is quite a hard job, it is still about the result. The place that makes you an even nicer and more accessible place! You can look at it every day with pleasure and pride! It is important that it is alive and radiates harmony. Especially then we like it together.

METHOD

You create a vision, which we discuss together. We certainly have ideas, but when you look around you, they are mainly very logical plans. Shade and shelter are, for example, very important. A terrace under the mountain oak next to the house at the entrance of the new mound… That is the most logical place to dig out a nice flat piece and put a table with chairs in the shade of the tree. At the house you can use the wifi. This place could become a fantastic picnic spot!

We had to learn as ourselves. Building walls, playing with cement, stacking stones, making sturdy steps, pruning or picking olive trees and knowing when something is false and you have to start all over again. The road from Rome to Paris was also not built in one day. An unruly mountain is not easily defied. It’s slow.

We are not slave drivers, we have already worked hard to make it what it is today. We will not give that away, it is much too precious for us. We are quite easy when it comes to inspiration and about giving and taking. In other words, you never come in life just to get something, you also come to bring something. Together we will find the balance and if it does not come, we will each continue on our way. Nothing is for nothing, because then skewed relationships quickly grow and you break up with quarrels and situations!

Clarity above all.

If you’re not blind, you’ll see everything fall into place soon enough. Self-interest and public interest go hand in hand. When one uses the word MUST too much, it quickly becomes no fun anymore. I know this from experience so I would like to watch out for this ‘together’! So even when ‘wanting’ turns into ‘must’, we will give it words. We all think: What is in it for me? That is also your right and very normal! It is about balance and that is a form of mutual respect. The rules we have are only logical… something like: never throw your cigarette butts on the ground and you don’t leave a mess in nature.. etc

The architectural style we prefer is with natural material, preferably from the garden and preferably with round shapes. It may look like it’s 100 years old, as long as it’s sturdy and doesn’t break your neck. Furthermore, there are many practical things to think about.. power connections, water point, well, water storage, showering and washing, shelter. In all respects, we prefer to work with used materials. Every now and then we take something away from the garbage. We have already collected quite a bit that can be used.