Decorated Farmhouse & Ecologic Milk Production
The farm is actually two properties. The decorated farmhouse where the volouteers are staying and where I and my siblings grew up. And the nearby property that was added when my brother extended the milk production. Both properties are formally merged to one economic unit. The property is ecologically certified.
At the milk production you can help in the dayly work, you would help in the morning or the afternon shift, there are in total 14 shifts a week that should be filled, the morning shift 5 am to 10 am. The afternoon shift is 3 pm to 8 pm. The most important shifts are every second Friday to Sunday when the employees have their weekend of, yes cows need to be milked also in the weekend and you are a part of it. You should do 5 shifts a week.
You can also build fences for the animals. If you stay a longer time you can also drive the tractor in the fields.
The decorated farmhouse
There is a variety of work available, painting the outside walls, cement and restore old windows. Clean the attic and other spaces used as storage. clean windows. Clear the flower beds. Cut the grass. Do a proper floor scour as back in the days. There is cats living at the farmstead they are allowed to be inside the house but are more of outside cats but they need some love. There are also sheeps, heifers and bulls who we feed and water.
The volounteers live in my house. It is everybody's responsibility that daily cleaning tasks are performed.
I was born on this farm and it has always been a part of my life. First helping my parents and now living there whenever i can. I work as a teacher at the university of Uppsala in the electric engineering master program. When I am not working I sing in a choir and dance Salsa, Bachata, Lindy hop. I also play many instruments and hope we can jam.
At the farm there first of all my brother Åke that is the main farmer, his wife Maria, the farmhand Anders that been with us for 30 years. There is also the milker Jesper.
My sister is not living on the farm but will help with supervising of tasks whenever she can.
The main stay is at the upper floor in the main building. There is a bathroom there, also a kitchen but it is mostly used as a room for volouteers. Downstairs there is a main kitchen, also two volouteers rooms that can be used in the summer. We cook together and go for weekly grocery shopping so there is always Ingredients for cook with. There is cats living at the farmstead they are allowed to be inside the house but are more of outside cats.
To get to the farm you just book a ticket to Söderhamn or to Uppsala (if I am in Uppsala.) I have space in my apartment where you can stay until I am able to go to the farm. I discovered that I have to meet the new volouteers first (every time I let the volounteers staying at the farm receive a new volounteer there have been miss understandings that created problems). Söderhamn has direct trains every 2 hours during the day and 2 direct busses. It is very convenient to travel to Söderhamn from Arlanda but booking system is confusing. Don't even try to do it without talking to me, you will just end up booking the wrong ticket. 50% do not understand that Arlanda is on the way to the farm and closer to Uppsala than Stockholm.
Everyone wants to visit Stockholm most do it before or after the farm stay. You could do a break and go back and forth, it takes less than 3 hours. If you are not yet 20 the cheapest ticket is three commuter trains. A 24 hour ticket in Uppsala and Stockholm county is 220 SEK, The ticket Söderhamn Gävle is 30 SEK, So for 280 SEK you are back and forth and the subway and busses in Stockholm is included the whole day. The first train leaves 7:04 am from Söderhamn. And you need to take the return bus from Gävle 22:30, Uppsala 21:12 and Stockholm 19:38.
If you are 25 or less the best option is the red SJ departures within 24 hours, trains with lot of space have last minute tickets mostly avaliable for departures Tuesday to Thursday and Saturday, a single ticket is usually less than 200 SEK.