Volunteering at 13 Market Street - Abbotsbury, Dorset
with WWOOF or helpexchange.net
Introduction
We are a house with a large vegetable garden ... in Dorset - a very beautiful part of England!
We are (almost) self-sufficient in vegetables and have been growing produce for our own family (with a small excess for sale outside our house) for the past 24 years.
We also have fruit trees and established shrub, herbaceous flower borders and 6 laying chickens (see photo below).
We are located in the beautiful and picturesque village of
Abbotsbury, in West Dorset, southern England, with views of the countryside and sea (20 minutes walk away - our volunteers often go to the beach in the afternoon).
We are Mary-Clare Buckle, an artist, and Andrew Green, a writer (and rpeviously web designer) and have twin sons (Arran and Fingal, aged 25), who were entirely home-educated (except for a short spell in school in 2008) up to the age of 16 and then went to University, having read Digital Film Production and Fine Art, respectively - so they're sometimes here and sometimes not! We have a small gallery behind the house, where we sell Mary-Clare's art and some jewellery. We are trained and experienced in the use of natural medicines and therapies.
We have been involved in the environmental movement since the early 1980's and think that what we are doing here is very important - there are many organic farms, but very few people with the tenacity and drive to be (virtually) self-sufficient in vegetables. If everyone grew their own food, people would be a lot healthier and we would have far fewer lorries driving up and down our roads!
... and to quote Ron Finley, the black American 'Guerilla Gardener' -
“If kids grow kale, kids eat kale. If they grow tomatoes, they eat tomatoes. But when none of this is presented to them, if they're not shown how food affects the mind and the body, they blindly eat whatever you put in front of them.”
“Gardening is the most therapeutic and defiant act you can do, especially in the inner city. Plus, you get strawberries.”
"growing your own food is like printing your own money"
See this page about Ron.
However, despite all of this 'alternative' stuff, we like to enjoy ourselves and not make life difficult - we have a dishwasher and central heating, go on holiday every year (often to the Far East - India or Thailand) and don't spend too much time worrying about whether our radios are on standby!
(Most of our volunteers come via WWOOF - which is why we refer to 'WWOOFers' on this page. If you're come to this page via Help Exchange or Workaway, for 'WWOOFer', read 'helper'!)
Abbotsbury village, West Dorset
We are located right in the centre of the village, which has 2 pubs, a post office, a general shop, a butcher (selling only naturally-reared meat) and some gift shops. The nearest towns in this part of Dorset are Bridport, Dorchester and Weymouth (all 10 miles away).
The amount of space around here means that you shouldn't ever feel cramped, even though this is just a house and (large) garden. Our garden, in particular, has views of the sea and countryside, which gives a good feeling of space and peace when you're outside.
You can see photographs of Abbotsbury on this page and this page
Work
- maintenance of garden buildings
- (simple) carpentry or skills in electrical work, electronics or plumbing
- maintenance of 2-stroke and 4-stroke engines
For 2019 we have a major digging job - removing a large amount of bamboo, This is heavy work and might suit a couple, or 2 men coming here together.
The general volunteering work here is mainly general garden maintenance, together with some help in the house and with our other work -
- weeding
- hoeing
- tying up tomato plants
- picking vegetables, for eating and for sale - see the photographs of Patricia (far right), from Switzerland, picking beans and Kamila (below), from Germany, picking tomatoes
- using strimmer (powered grass trimmer) and lawn mower
- cutting back overgrown shrubs
- making paths around vegetable beds
- using electric shredding machine to break up shrub branches for composting/mulching - see the photograph of Camilla (right), from Verona, Italy
- in Spring - clearing used vegetable beds - ie digging the beds and removing weeds (can be quite hard work!)
- in Spring and October - clearing beds and covering (with plastic sheeting) vegetable beds not being used this year
- indexing and categorising a lot of articles which I will be using as reference material for a book I’m writing (see short introduction here, as an idea of what I’m driving at)?
- helping Mary-Clare in the gallery, with exhibitions or with her work
So, as you can see, there's a lot to be done!
We work hard ourselves, but are quite easy-going and don't require long hours working - we normally get up about 8.30-9.00, have breakfast mid-morning,
lunch about 2 and dinner about 7-8.
Our volunteers normally work around 5-6 hours every day and have one full day off per week.
They often take a few hours off during the day to go for a walk on the hills, or down to the beach (only 20 minutes walk).
We expect our volunteers to be 'self-starters' and not require too much attention or looking-after from us - we are busy and don't have time to 'mother' you.
Our experience (as WWOOFers ourselves) is that large WWOOF sites often tend to rather treat their volunteers as 'slave labour' - working outside in the pouring rain and mud, etc.
In contrast, we have a much more relaxed approach and aim to treat our WWOOFers as part of the family.
1-2 weeks are best for us - always difficult deciding (for you as well) how long: if we get on well with someone and have arranged only 1 week, it's a shame that they are leaving so soon! On the other hand, if someone doesn't fit in with us so well, 2 weeks can seem rather a long time.
I suppose that what we most appreciate in our guests is just a general willingness to do those little jobs when you're not actually working (like chopping some onions, a bit of washing up, etc) and, most of all, clearing up after yourself and keeping things tidy. It always seems petty when you set it down like this, but it's those little things like leaving mugs around instead of taking them to the kitchen, leaving hair in the bath ... you know, the sort of thing your mother would complain about ... which can start to irritate!!
What to bring with you
Gardening can be quite dirty work, so you will need old clothes. It's useful if you can bring thick gloves, leather boots for working outside and also possibly (rubber) Wellington boots, if you have them (these take up a lot of space in your luggage, so you could buy them in England).
It an get quite hot here in Summer, so if you need to wear a hat in the sun, then bring one with you. If you want to wear gloves for weeding, etc, you will need to bring some thin ones with you - but we always feel that it's better to 'get your hands dirty' (figuratively and literally!)
You should bring some light indoor shoes, because we don't wear our outside shoes in the house.
Also - but only if you have room - a sleeping bag is always helpful.
Accommodation
Accommodation here in the Summer will be in a room in our house, or possibly in our large tent. In the winter you will always have a room in our house.
Two weeks is about the maximum amount of time that we can accommodate anyone.
We will only ever have two people at the same time if they have useful skills (ie not just weeding!). You might need to camp if there are two of you (we have a tent). Couples (or 2 friends) are also fine.
See the photograph (below) of Daniel, from Switzerland, who helped Andrew build the studio - which he's standing outside.
We are VERY unlikely to ever accept volunteers with children, since this will simply increase the amount of work in looking after you; we are not comfortable with the idea of getting children to work sufficiently much to offset the extra work on our side.
Our house and facilities
We have a large sitting room and very large kitchen (where we eat our meals). There are two toilets - which is useful when there are more people here (but there is no toilet outside). Just outside is a pretty courtyard (with fig, olive and lemon trees), where we eat our meals when it's warm. We have a cat and 8 laying chickens.
UPDATE - we now have a lovely outdoor solar shower for you to use - very hot water and a very powerful shower .... obviously only if it's sunny!
We have 5=6(!) computers in the house and a fast (broadband/ADSL) internet wired (ethernet) connection, which you're welcome to use for keeping in touch with your friends and family. We will swtich WiFi on only if/when you need it, since we think that there are health implications from exposure to microwave/wifi/RF radiation.
Because you will be sharing our life in a family house (not a farm), it is important that you should be able to get on with us, clear up after yourself and keep things tidy. We are quite easy-going, but there needs to be tolerance, understanding and flexibility from you and us!
We can put you in touch with previous volunteers, so that you can find out all about what it's like being here.
Food
We normally eat a lot of vegetables and vegetarian dishes, but also eat meat and fish, especially at lunchtime. We were vegetarians for about 15 years and we're still not really that keen on meat, so can happily cook vegetarian meals - but any special dietary requirements (eg vegan or gluten or sugar-free) would create too much need for complex meal planning!
We normally have breakfast mid-morning, lunch about 2-2.30 and dinner about 7-8.
In the evenings
In the evenings, we normally talk or watch a film on the television.
We are also very into dance music (called techno and trance in Germany) and sometimes go out clubbing (to parties) ...
so if you like that type of music, you might like to come out with us!
We are probably older than you (!), but most of our (clubbing) friends are in their 20's or 30's.
... hope this is all interesting!
Getting here
You can get a train or bus to Weymouth, where we can pick you up, or you can get the bus, which stops (nearly) outside our door. Getting to Abbotsbury from London - the coach is cheapest, from London Victoria Coach Station to Weymouth.
the view from our bedroom window
a view of the garden
13 Market Street, Abbotsbury, Dorset, DT3 4JR, UK<
tel: +44-1305-871561 or +44-1305-850674 email: