Want to know what the medicinal properties are for weeds on your farm? Herbalist and forager Raquel Perdigão is coming to Keela Yoga Farm from ‘Awakened Life Project’ on the 21st June to teach us how to forage for wild greens, the medicinal properties of herbs and how to use them. Please join us and also get a tour of our farm, a healthy vegetarian lunch and an optional yoga class on our new yoga deck.
Starting a permaculture yoga farm from scratch has definitely been a challenge within itself. It’s exciting, exhausting and exhilarating all at the same time. There is construction, plumbing, solar generated electrics, gardening, tree planting, water issues and much more that is taken into consideration every single day. We have been lucky enough to have a steady stream of solid volunteers that have been working through rain, shine and chilly weather in the earlier months, in order to develop our ‘Zone Zero’ building site into something a bit more homely. However hard labour, heavy lifting and digging gardens all day means that there are at least 10 hungry mouths (including Laurence and I) to feed, 3 times daily. more “Food, Glorious Food!”
With 46 acers of land, multiple fields, daily yoga classes, a community to run and a huge permaculture project, starting a food forest can be very overwhelming. We decided to fence off a smaller area which had three old burnt down pear trees, named it the pear food forest and made it our focus for the first half of 2017. more “Starting a food forest in portugal”
Over the past few months, while working on improving our water, solar, camping spots, food forests and vegetable gardens, we now have three choices for showers: A wonderful compost toilet, a yoga room, a chill out mezzanine and 46 acres of land to hang out in. The upgrades continue every day with the help of our amazingly committed volunteers. more “Facilities at the yoga farm are improving”
Three years ago we planned to give it all up and start a sustainable yoga community in Portugal. We moved onto the land we bought less than two months ago along with 6 pioneer volunteers who offered to come and help us set up, in exchange for food, yoga and meditation.
more “Pioneer Volunteers”
Although we have only just bought the land officially on the 22nd November 2016, my birthday, we have had friends and family volunteering with us for the past two months to help us start our permaculture and yoga project. Please see some of the work we have been up to on this blog. more “Volunteering at Keela Yoga Farm”
Three years ago, my wife and I decided to leave our jobs in the city to start a self sustainable community and yoga retreat centre in Portugal. After two years of research and saving, we quit our full time jobs in Singapore and embarked on our life changing journey to find land in Portugal. This blog summarises our journey to find our plot of land in Portugal. more “Finding land for Keela Yoga Farm in Portugal”
During our volunteering stint in Portugal this year, we have seen many different types of structures and buildings that have been built with natural materials and using various techniques. One technique that has interested me is timber framing. This traditional technique requires skilled builders that use green timber from local fallen trees with no nails, screws or cement.
Ever since reading ‘The Moneyless Man’ that was recommended to me by Kimberly’s brother Darrell, I have wanted to learn more about foraging for food in the forest or roadside. It wasn’t until I was volunteering at the Awakened Life Project in Portugal, where they serve wild greens as the salad at every meal, that I started to learn about it. more “Foraging for wild greens in Portugal”
After volunteering for the past few months in various parts of Portugal and learning a lot about gardening, community living and most recently meditation, we were looking forward to working with Fiona and Nonu at Yoga Holidays Portugal for a new experience. more “Yoga Yurt Holidays Portugal”