CrazyFarm in Athens

Arrived from our brief layover in Doha, we began making our way to our next stop – a farm 40km north of Athens where we’d be working on another HelpX for about 3 weeks.

Our host, Theo, has spent the past year developing his property into something he calls Crazy Farm – it’s a few acres of property, formerly used as a family residence, which he is turning into a working farm.

He’s been utilizing HelpX to make this dream a reality and there were already two helpers in residence as we arrived; Victor and Morgan.

Victor is a massive Hungarian who personifies the term ‘gentle giant’. After working for 9 years in the UK without a single day of holiday leave, he quit and has spent the past two years wandering the European continent.

Oh and did I mention that during this two year walkabout he hasn’t had any money?(!)

Rarely will he have more than 5 Euros to his name- he exclusively relies on the kindness of others to sustain him. Make sure you grasp how crazy that is.

He’s traveled for two years without any money.

His wonderful motto is “Everyday is Sunday” and he’s of the opinion that if you greet life with a positive attitude, it’ll treat you right.

And you know what the coolest part is – it almost always has.

He says he’s never gone hungry and usually will even get a beer if he wants it! He will certainly sleep in his tent on occasion but will frequently be invited to stay with complete strangers.

He just goes wherever the wind takes him and knows, with utmost confidence, that things will work out.

If that doesn’t give you some hope for the world I don’t know what will.

And then there’s young Morgan – an impressive bloke in his own right.

Only 19 years old, Morgan was en route to his home in New Zealand after spending the summer in the US as a summer camp counselor for mentally disabled children. Despite the fact that it was his first time out of his country plus the fact that he was on a limited budget, he decided to come back through Europe just because he could.

He discovered HelpX along the way and has relied on it his entire journey – impressive, as HelpX typically isn’t the sort of experience a rookie traveler would throw themselves into.

I should also mention that Morgan, at 19, has two novels published on Amazon – he’s currently working on another (typing it on his cell phone!). He also has a great food blog and an insatiable appetite for learning – something I know will serve him well as he continues to develop.

Also – Theo nicknamed him Mr. Map for reasons you can see in the second photo below.

Let’s now go back to Theo.

Theo had lived in Athens his entire life working a multitude of interesting jobs but just last year decided that he’d had enough of the city life and wanted to give his green thumb a try.

He found the aforementioned property and got to work. His goal is not only to have the property producing enough fruits and vegetables to sustain him but to also be a destination for families in the area to come and learn about his way of life (and also have some fun with his resident goats and pigs!).

Theo is very big on practicing sustainable farming methods and wants to teach as many people these techniques as he can. In addition, he’d also like to create a portion of the property that can be used for addiction rehabilitation.

The man obviously has a big heart and truly wants to make the world a better place. I’m glad we were able to help someone like him.

So to what we did during our stay – the main project was to help Theo establish a web presence for his various projects, so we built him a website! CrazyFarmGreece.com or CrazyFarm.gr – go check ‘em out.

We also got him hooked up with AirBnb to generate a little extra income which would help fund some of these ideas – he’s already got a few guests booked! Hope the guests like goats…

But being that it was a farm we couldn’t just stay inside and type on the computer all day – we had to get our hands dirty! And so we did.

We dug some awesome vegetable beds, built a clay grill (to go with the clay oven), fed the pigs/goats, cooked some pizza in the clay oven and even stomped some grapes for wine making!

We also unfortunately had to make use of the remains of Mama Goat who decided our stay would be a good time to kick it (and by made use of the remains, I mean Victor skinned her and we fed her meat to the dog…gross, I know).

Here are some photos (don’t worry not of the latter…):

It was really a wonderful stay and we were sad to leave. We’ll miss the numerous coffee breaks, Theo’s amazing (yet reluctant) cooking and of course…the tzatziki sauce. I don’t know if it was just because we were in Greece but we could not get enough of that stuff.

Thanks again to Theo, Victor, Morgan, Lady, Mama Goat and the rest of the crew for a memorable three weeks. Until next time!

(Posted by Chris on September 8, 2015. Here you can find the original article.)