Welcome to Lerbäcken

Welcome to the free life and work in the wild!

We do not agree on the lifestyle this society provides, and we wish to go our own way... In every aspect.

That is why we moved out as settlers in 2006 and why we are rebuilding this old farm with sustainable thinking. Freedom with responsibility taken is the keyword.

We started with wwoofers in April 2008, and WWOOF has been a great thing for us, bringing us much needed help and joyful meetings with good people from all around the world. We have had wwoofers from Sweden, Germany, USA, Belgium, France & Australia, check out www.wikhall.com for further details...


About The Place
After planning for years and searching for the optimal place, we found it at last in the fall of 2005. This place is called Lerbäcken (Mud Creek)

Of course, there is nothing comfortable of buying a decayed summerhouse with an old small garden in the midst of a deep forest. But this suited us just perfect! We could make things just as we wanted them. Just to pick up the chainsaw and the hammer and keep on going.

The place is located within Västergötland (West Gothia), Sweden, 70 km northeast of Gothenburg, and the closest village is Sollebrunn, closest town is Alingsås and other cities that are close is Trollhättan and Borås. This place lies in the country, inside a forest close to a lake called Anten.
Some people called it "Alaska" but it is still very close to many towns and cities.

About us
We are Charlotte and Jan Wikhall with our two sons Edvard, 5 and Alexander, 8 and our dog Scilla, a toy poodle and the cats Ullet and Gullet and their kittens Unix, Fedora, Piper, Lycke (Lucky) Moltas and Kanel (Cinnamon)

We live in an unconventional way, this is not only a construction site, but it is our home.

We live in a ready room in the house which we are building and wwoofers coming to us will live in a caravan of 26 m², the caravan which we lived for two years before the room in the barn was finished. We all share the kitchen in the caravan, it works and we have been 11 people at itś most around the kitchen table...

We live a simple life close to nature and have an outdoor privy. We are vegetarians and that is the food that we serve.

The Construction Work
It used to be a farm between 1850 to 1960, then it was a summerhouse until we bought it, all in a very bad shape.
This is a very special type of project. We work with restoring this beautiful place and here we are going to build our ecological houses.
The first one is a barn which we started with in October 07. The schedule is working and we estimate the interior to be finished January -10 and the exterior July/August -10

We have also taken a small storagehouse, a so called "friggebod" of 10 m2 and we are going to make a clayhouse out of that to, plastering it and insulate with sheepwool in clay.
We work similar with both the projects and other people are brought in occasionally. Other future projects are at the planning stage.

As a woofer, you will also work close to our contractors that is, for carpentry. We prefer an open mind since this whole construction project is unconventional.

The Other Work
There is a lot to do with the garden and thousands of other things. What is accurate for the moment we will breif you about when you come.

Living together
It is important to emphasise the following:

- This is not in any sense a farm! We have no agriculture, no croppings, no animals except cats and the dog (yet).

It is a beautiful estate in the forest, and a construction site. There will certainly be self-sufficient farming in the future, but first things first...

If you are strictly into organic farming, there is other wwoof-hosts to turn to, please check out the Swedish WWOOF web page.

- The language that are spoken here is english. Therefore, it is a requirement that the ones that are coming here speak english, as fluent as possible if it is not your mothers tounge.

- If you arrive by airplane, there are transportations from the airport to us. It is quite simple to come via Gothenburg central to Alingsås Central train/bus station. (Alingsås is a suburb to Gothenburg) and from there we can pick you up by car. If you come from the north, there is a bus line from Trollhättan to Borås, the closest bus stop to ours is Gräfsnäs. It is quite simple too to get there. Alingsås has close connections to Stockholm as well, trains go regularly, the Intercity and the X2000 fast train.

- Respect to one another is essential, and the way that we live here. An example is our flexible hours. We do not have a schedule of which hours we work. We work anytime that is needed, and that could even be on Sundays or evenings.
But then, a wwofer could easily have a day in the week off to go to Gothenburg or elsewhere and all of us do activities beside the work from time to time.

There are some more differences to know about, compared with other farms.

First of all, due to the small space, we all live together in a type of collective.. The caravan and one ready room in the house (were we sleep) is all, at the present. That requires cooperation and responsibility for all.

Like taking care in the kitchen concerns everyone that uses it, one example.

The basic requirement that we have for a wwoofer is a good mood and a positive attitude. Freedom of thought and respect for the way of living is the also the base in our lifestyle.

Then, an absolute requirement is experience of some kind.
This can be:

...from construction work, conventional or non-conventional
Experience from actual physical work is appriciated before strictly theoretical (architecture, as an example)

and/or

...farm work, organic or non-organic

and/or

...caretaking in kitchen/household/children

and/or

...gardening/forestry

and/or

...any other relevant skill/profession
(smithery, crafts etc)

and/or

...experience from traveling/living/construction in third world countries

...and especially we emphasise experience from life in general.
A requirement and a necessity to stay and live here and to help us building up the houses and the farm.

We take wwoofers the whole year round. We also prefer people that want to stay for longer periods, minimum two weeks.
If you contact us and want to come and then change your plans, please notify us in time. This is very important for us avoiding problems with planning our projects.

Smoking is allowed but should be outdoors. Drugs are not allowed.

You are going to live here with us and take part in our daily life. So if you think this sounds interesting and inspiring we will be glad of you coming here and you are most welcome.

Sincerely
The Wikhall family