Family home and garden - rural, Educational Centre, Eco Retreat, Mixed Farm
Beja
Quinta da Coruja is a farm and retreat center in southern Alentejo. Coming from Finland and looking for a way to increase our level sustainability.
We are welcoming creative and handy volunteers for all kind of farm tasks as helping with animal care, land clearing, milking goats (if you stay long enough) taking care of horses, gardening, compost making, olive picking (October-November), landscaping, forest work and making firewood, house cleaning, painting, maintaining fences, natural construction, making our surroundings more beautiful...
At the moment we are also looking for one person who has experience in training horses.
If you want to learn how to milk the goats you need to stay with us for a longer period! At this moment we have 8 goats to milk and 12 in total including castrated males. From the milk we make different cheeses and yogurt. We treat our goats with lot's of love and respect! They keep giving us milk for many years without having kids in between, so we don't need to slaughter or sell extra animals. We never separate the mothers from their kids.
We appreciate serious requests from people who really want to stay with us and not sending the same request to many other farms same time! If you request to stay with us and change your mind without canceling we report no-show to the organizers. We ask you to read through the whole description before applying to stay with us.
We expect volunteers to be ok with being far from the next village and enjoying peace and nature. It's good if you are independent, able to think, willing to learn. A great bonus if you already have skills in gardening, animal care or natural building!
Smoking, drugs or daily alcohol consumption are not welcome on the farm!
We are in Portugal since October 2017 and happy to have found a beautiful farm in Alentejo with lot's of possibilities. Shanti has a lifetime of experience with Eco-farming, gardening and keeping animals, producing cheese etc, in Finland. We decided to move to Portugal to enjoy a better climate and to be able to produce our own food basically around the year and for our goats to live a real goat life in an environment of mountains and bushes. We mix principles of permaculture and bio-dynamic gardening with a lot of intuition.
Our vision is to create a Sanctuary where we can receive people, looking for a silent place to contemplate or meditate, just being in harmony with nature, animals and wild life. Also with time, create a place for people in the neighborhood to come together for dancing, singing, playing and sharing.
We, Shanti, Simon and Anna, are looking to share our skills both on the farm and in Portugal in general.
You can read more about us on our website.
Practical details:
Accommodation in our guesthouse or camping, yurts, depending on the amount of people and time of year.
Some meals we share and other meals woofers can make together from food that we provide. No meat!
Working 5 days/week, 6hrs/day. If you exceptionally come for only 2 weeks you will have only 2 days off!
Internet access available
Read more
Learning opportunities
Vegetable farming
Fruit or nut farming
Horse or donkey farming
Sheep or goat farming
Dairy farming
Forestry
Aromatic or medicinal plants, teas
Cheesemaking
Green Building
Renewable energy production
Methods or systems
Biological pest control
Biodynamic agriculture
Holistic management
Permaculture
Regenerative agriculture
Host type
Self-sufficiency property
Former WWOOFer
50
Hectares
|
123.6
Acres
Accommodation
Shanti and
Member since 2017
Languages spoken:
English, Finnish, French, Spanish, Swedish
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Response rate: 100%
Response time: typically within 1 day
Beja
The address is Quinta da Coruja, rua Monte da California, Santa Cruz, Almodovar. We can pick you up in Almodovar or any where near the farm, Dogueno, Santa Cruz.
Reviews
Petra
Germany
•
January 2026
I had a great time at Quinta da Coruja. A lovely place with nice accommodation and surroundings, created by Shanti & Simon with the help of many Wwoofers before me. Together they/we made it that special place:-)
My wish to relax by spending time (6 weeks) in Portugals’ nature and with animals came true. I helped taking care of the 12 lovely goats and really enjoyed walking them almost every morning. I worked a bit with the horse(s) in the round pen and took them back out to the fields afterwards, happy to see them waiting at the fence again next day.
I worked on and finished some nice craftsman work like making a fence out of cane or cutting pine branches for firewood.
I enjoyed the lunches we had together cooked by Shanti from the veggies and salad out of the garden & greenhouse, and I enjoyed the conversations during lunch or during the day. Pity that I couldn’t stay until the goat babies are born (soon), but I am planing on visiting again ;-)
Read more
Julia
Germany
•
December 2025
I really enjoyed my stay with Shanti and Simon. I liked the olive harvest, the walks with the goats, the good food, and the beautiful sunsets. I learned a lot and I am grateful to have met so many wonderful people on the farm. I highly recommend staying there!
Bianca
Germany
•
March 2025
I LOVED my time on this farm; what a special and wonderful time and place ❤ Thank you, Shanti and Simon- you really inhabit and create a space of peace and beauty: surrounded by gentle hills, lush green (in my spring time 😄) , these lovely goats giving the day rythym and joy.... I learned so much from you in these 3 month: building soil in the flower beds; how to clear the land and allow the wild lavender, young oaks and diversity to grow; caring for, walking and milking the goats (and enjoy their happily contributed milk and cheese - never tasted anything soooo pure and good), building compost, fighting pests without harm for nature; ... and sooo much more...!! I am thankful- for meeting you, your open farm, house and heart - it was a great time full of learning, enjoying (also great food!!🥰) and work full of sense, respect and purpose. Total Recommendation!!! ❤
Read more
Clara
Spain
•
July 2024
It was my very first wwoof and I was very happy about it! If you want to have a relaxing time, surrounded by nature and just connect with yourself, this is a very nice place to do it. I really learned about how to take good care of the animals, treating them with respect and always caring about their welfare. Maybe I would not recommend to go in the summer months (june, july and august) because its too hot to do things outside during the day, so we worked very early in the morning and late in the evening. It was a great experience and I learnt a lot from Shanti, Simon and Anna.
Read more
Daniel
Sweden
•
February 2024
If you enjoy solitude then this is a good place, had a wonderful time here being able to go deep into myself and enjoy the nice views and goat cheese and yoghurt! Nice experience overall. Loved the sauna tent!
Jérémy
France
•
August 2023
C'était une belle expérience un vrai Havre de paix tout au naturel lieux bon pour la méditation belle expérience je recommande. Mes meilleures vœux
