Address: Pratale, Vallingegno, 06020 Scritto, Pg, Italy no phone, email goldiehel@yahoo.it

Pratale is an open house in the foothills of the Apennines between Perugia and Gubbio. The farm consists of 50 acres of woods and hilly pasture in a beautiful green valley. We keep milk sheep, donkeys, horses and poultry.

We like to have people to share our life here and welcome people who want to join in this attempt at living simply and learning to become native of this place. We eat what we produce and use the resources sparingly. We have an earth loo, for instance, in the summer when we need to conserve water for the vegetable gardens. We have plenty of sleeping space and mattresses.

We have been here since 1975; the old farmhouse was damaged by a major earthquake in 1984, and was rebuilt for stables, storerooms, workshop and dairy. A new wood and stone house was built around a shady courtyard with the help of many friends over the years 1985-88. It is earthquake-proof (as tested in 1997/8!) and consists of a big kitchen, a library (well-supplied and mostly in English), 2 bathrooms and several bedrooms all giving onto the central courtyard, where we often congregate on summer nights to sleep under the stars. The courtyard is a good place for eating outside under the shade of the mulberry, or for shelling peas or plaiting onions under the vine while someone reads a story or dancing. There is also a piano.

The donkeys are Sardinian, small, very strong and very affectionate. The male is called Otello, his two ladies are Titania and Olivia, and they usually have a baby each every year. Otello carries fruit and now that he is not so young, he leaves the wood-carrying to the young horse, Papu. There are three horses, all Camargue: Raja, Papu and Imperia. Martin has trained Papu to help with the transport of wood. Kokopelli, Leila, Nico, Natasha, Orfeo, Orazio and Paddy were the foals born here in the last 5 years, and they have now gone to good homes. The present foal is called Quincey.

The twenty sheep are also Sardinian. They are wild-looking, goat-like sheep, very hardy and intelligent. We milk them and make pecorino cheese, ricotta and yoghurt between March and August. We shear them at the end of May and sometimes get it together to weave or make felt with the black and white wool. Anyone who wants to learn to make cheese and shear, should come towards the end of May. All the sheep are recognisable to us and have names.

The hens and ducks are basically for eggs . If they hatch out a lot of chicks and ducklings, we eat the males, but we don't eat much meat here. When we do, we know the animals have had a good, free life. We use our own cheese, eggs, olive oil, ricotta, yogurt, jams, herb teas, wine, fruit in season and vegetables all year and bake our own bread. Vegetarian guests are no problem, as long as they tolerate our,views too.

There are two vegetable gardens and many fruit trees, also about a hundred olive trees and a new vineyard which is now in its seventh year of production.

There are several acres of woods and we try to take care of them. One area was bought with the help of friends and is untouchable because it had been so exploited. We have a woodstove which heats the house in winter and we try to get as far as we can on dead trees and prunings. We have just built a bread oven in the courtyard so we can use wood for the bread-making. Certain parts of the land are left for the forest to grow back and we also encourage the growth of 'pascolo alberato' - pastures dotted with native trees to help stop erosion on these slopes: this is a piece of work which has been going on for a long time now and the results are beginning to show. It takes a very careful balance of allowing wild growth and then choosing the right moment to clear around established trees. The fields are scattered with juniper, field maple, Spanish broom, wild rose, dogwood. and now with increasingly big oaks and ash trees. It means that there is leaf fall for the soil and the animals also have leaves, acorns and berries to eat in the autumn.

We do without some things: car, phone, TV, freezer, washing-machine. It is more longwinded to walk, write, wash by hand, make our own entertainment but it's more satisfying, slower, easier on the earth, mind and heart- This comes from passionate conviction, a desire not to use the earth's resources more than is absolutely necessary, but we try not to be fanatics and we do use radios, a computer, a pump, a chain-saw, and an ape (a tiny Italian 3-wheeler truck).

We enjoy having visitors and we no longer frog-march people out to dig. Those who enjoy doing the four-hour stint of farm work pay 8 euros/day for food, like us. (We do some outside work because we are not completely self-sufficient). Those who want to relax, sleep, read, walk, think, paint or whatever pay 13 euros/day for food. We all join in with the cooking/cleaning. You don't pay to sleep (this house was built for all of us by many friends): bring a sleeping bag - a warm one in winter - and sleep where there's space: there are mattresses & pillows. Anyone can swop deals any time they like: if you get the four hours done, it's a 8 euro day, if not it's the other. It's nice if we discuss this the night before so we can all organise our day. Children under 6 are free, children under 12 pay half what their parents pay. No work Sundays, festivals, or when it rains/snows.

In the summer, we avoid the great heat by working 6-10. We're usually clearing brambles, mucking out stables, hoeing in the garden, weeding, barrowing manure, picking fruit for jam. The grape harvest is end Sep/beginning Oct. In the winter, work can start later and jobs include: chopping wood, digging, weeding, fencing, mending ditches, picking olives (Nov) and rosehips.

To get to Pratale, its a 3km walk from the road. We welcome visitors, but its helpful to us if people write to us before their arrival. Write for information.

Sometimes we are just the family (Etain, Martin, Ben and Camilla if she's up from Rome and Melissa if she's over from London where she works), sometimes there are other people staying a few days, weeks or months. We are members of SERVAS and ask Servas members to contribute like everyone else for food (we have about 50 Servas guests a year) but invite them to stay as long as they like. We belong to WWOOF and you can write and ask if there's space: this is usually a one-month or longer stay. We particularly welcome people who are into bees, birds, flowers (we hope to learn from you!) horses, donkeys, dairy sheep.

We are also active members of the Italian Bioregional Network which has contacts all over Italy, publishes arious deep ecology newsletters and has published various books on bioregional thinking and translations of the work of Gary Snyder, Peter Berg, Gary Lawless, James Koller and Nanao Sakaki.