Biological Dimzeni Farm

Name: Biological Dimzeni Farm
Start: 2018-09-03
End: 2027-12-08
Location: Jelgava, Latvia

Code: daad4ace-af64-11e8-9d5a-0242ac110040 Copied

Latvia Farming Environment Manual work Farming Environment +2 Permanent

About the project

📝 Detailed information

🏢 About the local organisation

Farm has 11 ha of land, where 8 ha is used for sheparding goats and horses, and 3 ha is used for garden and farm's technical needs. The farm consists of 5 buildings: dwelling house, bath house, barn, stable for goats and horses and henhous.There are arond 20 goats, 2 horses, a dog and 4 cats in Dimzeni. Goats give milk and guests of Dimzeni can shepherded them twice a day. Horses are keeping Dimzeni meadows clean and you can ride them (initially under supervision, later independently). Dogs and cats are protecting house from wild animals (mice, foxes, deer) and are friendly to the humans.

💼 What the programme involves

Work: In Autumn 2016 in the stable where se animals live there was a huge fire and the whole building was dammaged. In the last summer, the restauration of the roof have been done but there is still restaration work needed in order to make it in good living condition. The work will be divided in 3 blocks:

RESTAURATION:  Whitewashing the stable.  Insolation of the windows  Painting  Building the fencce

ANIMALKEEPING  Shepherding the goats  Hay collection (depends on weather conditions)

FOOD PRODUCTION  Gardening  Milking the goats  Cheese production

The official working language will be English. But we can communicate also in German, Russian, Spanish, Polish and Latvian, of course.

🏠 Accommodation on site

Dwelling house of Dimzēni was built in the 30'ies of 20th century and is more than 300 square meters big. It was renovated in 2001-2004 trying to keep and to recreate authentic style and atmosphere of Latvian countryside as it was 100 years ago. Living conditions, of course, are better now (electricity, water-pipes, even WC), but still differs from city standards. There will be two big sleeping rooms available for the volunteers, common kitchen and eating room. In good weather conditions when its warm we use to eat outside at the big table below the oak tree.

🍲 Food

We will eat basically vegetarian, sometimes some meat or fish. The milk products are local, biological from the farm. We buy vegetables from the neighbours and the bread from local biologically certified bakery. Volunteers will cook.

📍 About the location

Dimzēni is a biological farm situated in the middle of Zemgale, 25 km from Jelgava on the left shore ofriver Svete. The closest shop, school andd other public institutions are 7 km away. There are just 4 buses per day. The local village Ūziņi has just 200 inhabitants. So it is a quite remote place.

🎒 Leisure activities

Bath house ( is the oldest building in the farm. It is big traditional Latvian so-called "black sauna", where fire heats up stones and smoke goes through stones directly to the bathing room and go out through window as well as through chimney. Average temperature is 70 C, humidity 100%. It requires a lot of wood to burn to heat it up, so for that reason sauna in Dimzēni is only once in a week, if there are at least 6 persons who is going to sauna. Usually Saturdays are the days of Latvian SPA. You will have possibility to enjoy it too.

There are different musical instuments in the house. Dimzēni is organizing Christian youth gatherings with music workshops with singing meditation.  In case of hot weather, there is always a possibility to swim in the river.  Visiting Tērvete Nature park http://www.tervetesnovads.lv/wpcontent/uploads/2015/08/Welcome-to-Tervete.pdf  Excursion and workshop in the local bakery

⚠️ Requirements

- sleeping bag and towels - swimming suit/trunk - hat and sunglasses - working clothes - please bring with you photos, objects, clothes, instruments, music and everything you want that can show your country, for some intercultural activities.