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We define a number of great WWOOFer-projects within our Bio-Dynamic managed 33. 3 hectare Dominio in the beautiful and unique North-South oriented valley of the Mondego river being part of the Natural Park Serra da Estrela. Located at the brim of a 100.000 ha nature conservation park next to the village of Faia with its almost 300 inhabitants and 12 km away from Guarda, a major city (with railway station) in the north-east of Portugal. The estate is located on an altitude of 600 m.
We - 2 Dutch families with 6 children (aged 4 -16) - live on the estate and manage the estate as a whole entity: including the bio-dynamic 160 dairy sheep, the production of Estrela cheese & olive oil, the vegetable & herbal gardens and take care of the beautiful mountainous landscape include forest with cork- & stone oak.
We run a small, professional restaurant, Turismo Rural in 2 self-catering renovated Quintas or farmhouses and a select Campismo rural with 15 campsites. Art (sculpturing, land art, performing arts e.g. theatre & music) will be an important aspect of our organized activities.
We put in a lot of effort to restore the ancient culture structures e.g. dry stonewalls, the classic road systems, the levada (a stream for the watermill) and 7 historic buildings on the estate.
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Woofer Project nr. I Restoring the original landscape & natural heritage
People inhabited the Mondego valley already in prehistoric times. The archaeological remnants are being found all over and shown in the Historic Museum at Guarda. The Romans we here and build a road system that still exists including the only two bridges that cross the river and are still used daily by all local traffic. In the last two decades 2 new roads were built on the estate, demolishing historic dry stonewalls. We plan to restore those walls and roads, wherever possible, but need enthusiastic people to help us do the job within the next 5 years. The nice thing is, that one can select a clearly defined spot, restore it and be satisfied with the immediate result. To get an impression look at the digital map of the estate to see for your self where these walls and historic roads are located. In order to visualize this for yourself select a specific piece to restore within the timeframe you will have available. Of course we have set our priorities; certain walls need to be fixed sooner than later. The work itself consists of: clearing parts of the dry stonewalls and parts of the ancient road system from bramble bushes, dirt & stones and sometimes even trees. At some locations the walls have to be restored by putting the missing stones back in. We initiate a project with the Câmara (municipality) of Guarda to restore the historic roads in the valley, in order to reconnect the roads within our estate with the other Quintas in the valley. It is our goal not only to restore this unique cultural heritage, but it opens up the landscape and connects the ancient villages for slow traffic (hikers, bikers and as a horse track incl. donkeys) We bought the estate in August 2007. The place was neglected and looked like Cinderella?s castle. In order to open up the landscape and the existing walls, water wells, fornos ancient roads etc we employed a caterpillar for 3 months last winter to clear the estate. Large parts are therefore totally cleaned, but the fine-tuning by hand and smaller equipment is still to be taken care of. We have good farm equipment incl a large and brand-new New Holland tractor, chainsaws and bush cutters. But lack the time to finish the job on lots of places within the estate. We invite Woofers to help us achieve our goal to restore both all natural elements, the oak woods, riverbed, visualize great rock-formations on the one hand and strengthen the organic agriculture at the other hand. Both are very important aspect of the estate and are reflecting the quality of the Park Natural in the Mondego Valley on a micro scale.
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Woofer project nr II : Nature Conservation
We consider nature conservation a separate project. Because you might be more interested in working with plants, soil, trees and natural elements. Rather than the a-biotic aspects of nature like dry stonewalls, roads and water wells. We define the restoration of the landscape in a perspective of the next 7 years (re-)plant trees (fruit trees, pines, chestnut, olive trees and clear legally protected stone & cork oaks.
Woofer project nr III : Bio-dynamic farming & gardening incl Mediterranean herbs
The farm - arable land, pastures, the 160 Serra da Estrela Bordeleira dairy sheep, the olive groves and cherry orchard - are being managed by 2 fulltime persons - Eelco himself and our Portuguese farmhand Joaquim Ferreira, our 16 year old daughter Deirdre is taking care of our 2 Lusitano horses and the Mirandesa donkey
Woofer project IV : Cheese production
4 years ago a brand-new - state of the art e.g. according to EU-regulations - cheese production-unit was built at the Quinta da Portela include. 2 large refrigeration rooms. All the milk from the dairy sheep is being processed - from October until April - to cheese and cottage cheese, the so-called requeijao. Both products are produced under licence of Ancose, as genuine Serra da Estrela products that are also DOP protected under European legislation. Woofers who are interested in learning the artisan way of turning milk from dairy sheep into cheese and cottage cheese can join.
Woofer project nr V : Olive picking in December & January Our olive groves are wildly spread over the estate and partly located on the terraces. In winter the olives are being harvested by hand and by mechanical means - we employ a pneumatic tractor driven device that enables 3 people at a time to sweep the olives out of the trees with so called batta palmes, pneumatic fingers on long sticks. Olive picking is a harvesting campagne. The harvest of 2007/8 took place within 6 weeks, with a team of 9 local people plus ourselves. The olives are being processed on a weekly basis: you will be part of the complete traject: from olive till olive oil azeite. The interesting thing about this harvest is, that we prune the trees directly to ease the harvesting and let the sheep graze the prunes olive leaves. Daily spontaneous lit barbecues with wine increase the fun and enlighten the workers on a cold weather day.
Woofer project VI : Gardening
The vegetable & herb garden as well as 4 to be created new floral-gardens, this needs specific attention by people who have a keen interest in all aspects of gardening and preferable bring some skills and experience. We do invite Woofers to take responsibility for the upcoming growing season. Look at the website to see where the different Quintas are located within the estate, in order to get an impression of the variety of locations, the size of the gardens and the type of gardens and gardening activities.
Quinta da Portela, the main farmhouse including, Casa das Pombas, the Pavilion das Ovelhas, the reception building & restaurant kitchen in the old Lagar. Here are 4 gardens located south of the buildings on a terraced hilltop. The biggest vegetable garden is almost 2.000 m2. Working the fully irrigated gardens under great olive trees on a southeast oriented hilltop, overlooking the world, is unique experience by itself. Growing Mediterranean crops & herbs incl. Cardo closely related to artichoke, is needed for our cheese production and an obligation for Estrela Coop. On a small distance is a large cherry orchard of 122 cherry trees that needs to be looked after: in winter we prune the trees, apply manure and in may we harvest the delicious cherries, in summer the trees need to be irrigated and the sheep will graze the grass underneath the trees.
Quinta do Rio is located near the Mondego river ?at the bottom? of the farm. Here we operate a 3 level-terraced irrigated vegetable garden directly located north of the old style granite house and swimming pool. The house and the garden are beautiful located on top of a great rock-formation overlooking the river. The garden has 1.500 m2 surface we plan to grow a lot of melons, strawberries and leafy veggies such as lettuce etc . South of the house are 2 ornamental gardens ocked-in between the traditional firewood heated bread oven & barbeque at the one end and the birdhouse at the other end. These 2 gardens need improvement and require a total remake because the present mixture of tropical palm trees, olive trees and buxus can do much better. Who has both green fingers, loves gardening and has a keen interest in re-designing the present gardens, creating a new relationship with the classical granite house, link inside and outdoors, combine the different parts and make them accessible, give water an important role, create exiting corners and hideouts and a Whysteria shaded terrace.
Quinta das Canas at the entrance of the estate urgently needs a nice garden, because the house has none, since it was not used for the farm. Recently irrigation water is available. The entire garden needs to be designed, created and planted with effect of early spring 2008. This Quinta is also a classic granite house, that used to be a Lagar. A public dirt road passes by at the rear, the house and garden are overlooking the Mondego valley and have a beautiful view of the Serra da Estrela mountains on the opposite side. The house is surrounded by olive trees, chestnut and an oak. It has terrace walls and a vast natural forest at the rear.
Woofer project nr VII?: learning & practicing organic and bio-dynamic agriculture
Eelco Schaap is offering his personal experience, information and knowledge in organic and bio-dynamic consulting in Europe and the USA gathered over the last 35 years. You are included in all aspects of bio-dynamic farming, which are being implemented on the farm. That means the whole range of activities from farm inspection & certification till the daily practice. Certification by Ecocert Portugal and Demeter International from Germany including the administration, the formal Portuguese legislation on organic farming & Bordeleira dairy sheep by Drabi & SNIRA. European rulings on organic agriculture and the Portuguese national support system (subsidies). We -partly- make the bio-dynamic preparations ourselves, process them and tractor spray them in the fields and apply them by hand in the gardens. A holistic concept: the farm being an organism is being practiced and a lot of theory is implemented and can be offered as a showcase for those that are interested in the new farming concepts that are nature driven and produce non-industrialized health food for organic whole foodies in a European market.
Woofer project nr VIII : landscape related to tourism & restaurant guests
As part of the estate we operate a small scale campsite for maximum 15 tents with 12 individual wc/shower units. It is called campismo rural. On 3 terraces are wide spaced campsites. The landscape is very much in tact because the present vegetation is conserved. Additional trees and bushes have to be planted include the newly sown pastures. Footpaths and infrastructure have to be created and fine tuned for our guests to walk from the campsite to the restaurant & Lagar, the parking lot and to link up with the internal roads and smaller footpaths on the estate.
Woofer project IX : the restaurant kitchen & food conservation
The restaurant is Emely Sligtings domain. The restaurant will primarily serve a function for all our guests. People that rent the houses at the estate will wine & dine at the restaurant. This applies also for the guests at the campsite and volunteers. All in all in high season there might be up to 40 to 50 people include our 9 family members. Cooking, from ordering or harvesting vegetables and herbs in the morning, arranging the menu and preparing the food are included. Since we produce our own olive oil and cheese, we will increase in the summer of 2008 more home grown products: cherries, other fruits and pumpkin jam a specialty that comes along with the cheese of our dairy sheep. In the fall chestnuts are available in large quantities. For processing both the new restaurant kitchen and the cheese facility will be used.
Contact Eelco Schaap for further information:
info@dominiovaledomondego.com
www.dominiovaledomondego.com
tel. 00-351-271926276
mob. 00-351-968624800
Facilities for WWOOFers/volunteers:
- private campsite with shower/toilet
- we have a tent for you, when needed
- meals and drinks during the day
- insurance for volunteers
- internet access
- open air art atelier
- swimmingpool / swimming in the river
- horseriding
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