Going against the tide is not an easy task but, despite all the difficulties, we are convinced that it is worth it. We love being together as a family and learning from each other as a team. Our children are full of happiness, imagination, curiosity and learn important and serious things in life, living and sharing the world of adults. Despite the hard work and pressure of society, we value our life, humble and closely related to nature. We thought it was time to find other families or people and help us find more peace of mind.
Pedro is Portuguese, he currently works as a gardener in the morning and is a wise man and lover of plants and nature. Esther is Spanish, she stays at home taking care of children, animals and our little corner. Our intention is to stop working as a gardener and make the land we own profitable, as independent as possible. We have tried it sometimes, producing plants and selling them in small markets. We have been looking for our little corner for several years, where we can be together as a family, in the peace and rhythm of nature. At this moment, we live in Argela (Caminha - Viana do Castelo) in a land next to a small river where we have built a small house of bioconstruction and we are more happy to pamper our animals and our plants (2 donkeys, goats, sheep ...). Our three children (9 and year old) are always with us, study at home and help us a lot. We have acquired more land and we would like to make it a big edible forest and be even more self-sufficient. It is not easy to swim against the current and in recent years we have worked hard to build our small independent repermies. However, we are determined to continue in this way and have thought to share the land with two or three other families with children or people who wants to relax in nature, healthy life and love of nature, vegetable garden, henhouse, many animals familiar well kept, to help us and to share daily life, with respect, mutual help, tolerance. In addition, we believe that it would be very positive for children to have other healthy people to grow together by learning about respect for nature and the community.
We are slowly entering the winter, it is time to enjoy many backward work. There is always a little calm. We prepare
firewood, home repairs,
energy and animal
shelters. Today we are planting new
trees as the rain approaches. At this time, Pedro works the week as a gardener. and Esther stays at home with the children. We enjoy weekends to see friends, do things with children and work together.
Our way of life is very simple, we try to enjoy being together without much luxury. So far, we have worked hard until we prepared our corner and our life. We are very happy with our little house, our plants and our way of life. However, the house will be very small when the children are older and Pedro will want to stop working outside, use all his time and time to work for us. In all these years, we have gained a lot of
experience and knowledge about plants, building, enjoying the values of life, etc. We believe it is time to take another step forward. We have a new land of about two hectares, which we would like to turn into a big forest full of food and where we can build another house (bioconstruction) and we thought it would
be nice to find two families who want the same thing. They could build their little houses and their little private area, their space, and together, organize and work to make the land profitable and as autonomous as possible. We are working right now on how to do all this under the tolerance of the
city and the town hall.
We must be honest, it's hard work from scratch. We still have a lot of work to do, but we think it will be a great experience and it will be the best life lesson for kids.