About us

We are Zak and Jackie. We live on an old abandoned farmstead in the hills of Central Portugal with our one year old toddler. We are trying to bring this land back into production in a balanced way that works with nature and to learn how things were done back in the days when the people that built the place actually lived and worked here. Join us to hear about all the challenges and succesess that we encounter in a typical week; from bringing new animals onto the farm, discovering hidden gems behind years worth of bramble, learning a new language and fitting into a foreign culture, figuring out how to make it financially vaible in the long term, and raising a child at the same time.

We also produce and upload a weekly video series on youtube that takes a more abstract view of life here.

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Stories of life at the edge of Europe, in the upper reaches of the highest hills, where people come to start a new life in a place where most of the old inhabitants left.

People

Zak Scott

@oakandolive

Learning how to help nature recover in the the anthropocene while trying to farm on a super small scale and "un-abandoning" a place.