Safan Ranch - Fiddletown CA USA Fiddletown - Volunteers Base - Free Volunteering and Work Exchange Opportunities.

Location: Fiddletown, California, United States

www.safanranch.com
Safan Ranch is 7 miles east of Highway 49 in Amador County near the town of Plymouth, just outside the greater Sacramento metropolitan area, 2+ hours from San Francisco. This area is the historic home to the California Gold Rush of 1849 and more recently, to a burgeoning viticulture and wine-making economy. Amador is a rural county where recent decades have witnessed the cattle ranches and walnut orchards fall away to make room for boutique wineries and smaller farms.
We maintain 56 beautiful rolling acres, including several organic gardens that we farm using permaculture methods. We also keep goats, sheep, fowl, dogs and cats. Most of the land is rustic woodland at about 2000 feet of elevation where we encourage selva pasture and maintain a philosophy of low-impact use. We have hives for pollination and honey production, we forage for wild mushrooms and we harvest a bit of firewood, all of it sustainably. Here in the wine-country (Fiddletown-AVA) of the Sierra Foothills and we also make wine each fall, requiring ongoing attention of course throughout the year.
We accommodate volunteers year-round with a one-week minimum, but prefer to host longer-term interns for a stay of 2 months or more. Many of our 60+ volunteers to date have remained with us 4-5 months.
Private, rustic lodging is provided in individual travel trailers grouped about the property. There is no plumbing in the trailers although power and heat are available if the need arises; a need that has proven seldom. Major facilities are available in the main house, including group meals, toilet, shower, and so on. There is an outdoor shower house and water near the trailer campsites. Our group meals are often extraordinary and have earned a bit of a following amongst past volunteers. The accommodations too, have generally been rated highly.
We are rooted deeply in the ideas of permaculture and sustainable living. We generate little waste, reuse and recycle most everything and regularly undertake building projects using straw bales, earthbags and so on. We eschew packaged or prepared foods generally in keeping with a healthy attitude and lifestyle. We are on the grid but use a solar-powered well for most of our water needs. The ArtRanch is here at Safan as well and provides residencies to qualified artists who live and work along side our volunteers. We have found a large number of our volunteers in the past have been artists as well, and we encourage a blending of the two. We maintain a studio and gallery for artists of every genre.
While we are a small producer, there are many different things going on and opportunities to learn and experience many aspects of rural life. We are well connected to the University of California Ag-Extension system (UC Davis) and regularly attend free classes nearby. We ask volunteers to be prepared to work 30 hours weekly. In the garden we look for help with irrigation, weeding, mulching, planting, organizing and harvesting. Other projects include apiary, green building projects, woodland management, tree trimming, cutting firewood for the fall and building brush piles for burning in the autumn and spring. We keep Goats, Sheep, Bees and Fowl that require some tending as well as the ranch dogs and myriad other things. In addition, everyone pitches in to keep up our communal space.
From Sacramento, bus service is available to Plymouth just 10K away, there is fairly easy public transportation from the town of Plymouth to other locales. We speak English plus limited Indonesian and Spanish.
Sorry, we cannot host children or pets and we are also unable to accommodate Vegan volunteers, vegetarians are welcome however. We do not allow smoking and prohibit the use of hard drugs.

Please apply with detailed personal information including DOB, Drivers License or Passport #, emergency contacts, references, your resume or CV of your background, tell us of past WWOOF experiences and send along links to your MySpace/Facebook/Blog pages so that we can know more about you. And anything additional that would help us know you better... interests, goals, experience, skills, passions, etc. What is your timing like, when you would like to arrive, for how long do you wish to stay, and what type of transportation will you be using to get here are similarly things we need to know before we can extend our invitation to you. Please be sure as well to tell us of any food allergies/preferences and describe any medical conditions that might be of concern or otherwise impact your stay with us. Most importantly, we'd like to hear what it is you would like to learn from your stay here, and why you chose Safan Ranch from all the possible WWOOF hosts available.
You should be aware that we live in a rural area with poor cell phone coverage. Safan provides limited satellite WiFi and fairly good cell service and broadband WiFi are available in Plymouth, about 7 miles away. If you come to Safan, please be prepared with a warm sleeping bag, a battery-run alarm clock (other than your cell phone) a towel, gloves, a hat, sunglasses and a headlight (preferred), flashlight or lantern. And if you need to make LD telephone calls, a calling card as we have no LD service available. You also ought to pack along any personal hygiene/first aid supplies you might need and finally, if you are allergic to poison oak, we suggest you tote along whatever is your favored prophylaxis or remedy/treatment as well for the inevitable springtime bloom.

So, please get back to us with the requested information and we can take it from there. Again, thanks for contacting us and we look forward to hearing from you!