15 years experience
living on the land


Learn skills for
a good life in nature
Almost 300 people
in our programs

About us

The Country Life Academy is a family owned business by Peter en Barbara Scheltus.
In the corona-summer of 2020 we asked ourselves: "What is really important in our lives, what are we good at and how can we make the world a better place with that?" And that was the start of our Country Life Academy, where we can combine our passions for nature, permaculture, personal development, and use our 12 years knowledge about hosting people and setting up projects.

Barbara Scheltus

Barbara Scheltus - van den Berg (1973) is a passionate permaculture gardener & designer (of land and life), living self sufficient in harmony with nature.

"My vision is to live a simple, healthy, happy life in nature, with like minded people to share and celebrate.

I really enjoy facilitating courses for people who want to take steps in care of their land and their life, designing for it, and growing towards self sufficiency/self reliance/independence in their lives. This world needs a caring, connective way of thinking. If the values earth, people and future care and fair share would be mainstream, most world problems would not exist!

As a facilitator I like to make things practical for people. How can you do things, how can you design (parts of) your life so that you take good care of the earth, of yourself and other people, and care for the future. Even when you live in an appartment in the city."

Barbara started learning about permaculture in 2005. How can you setup a low maintenance garden, how can you let Nature do her job so that you can do yours.
On their property she has setup an ecological vegetable park, a food forest and a food savanna, a net-and-pan-system in the plum orchard, a permaculture greenhouse, a polyculture nut orchard and all preparations for a greywater cleaning swim pond.

Barbara has been working with permaculture ethics and principles for more than 15 years now. She designed for land and for life, teaches people how to bring permaculture into practise and how to design for personal and social issues.
Barbara is tutored by Looby Macnamara (“People and Permaculture”) and learned also from international teachers like Rosemary Morrow, Delvin Solkinson, Mark Shepard and Taco Blom.

barbara@countrylifeacademy.com or call +385 95 5555 677


"You're such a strong and inspiring woman and what a great teacher you are! I love the fact that you still can be amazed by nature. Passion is shining all over and that gave me great energy."
Charlotte

Peter Scheltus

"To be able to deliver I have studied with various less famous or more famous coaches and trainers in the world. Together they span two and a half decade of study.
The subjects vary from anthropology to NLP with John Grinder. From Buddhism experiences in The School for the Orientation of Being, to Vipassana, to post academic project management at a business school in the Netherlands. From experience led learning at Essense Trainingen in the Netherlands to a month of learning at the Findhorn Foundation in Scotland. And T. Harve Eker and The Unlimited Power Within with Anthony Robbins . Also learning about the value of money with George Kinder Institute and The Soul of Money of Lynn Twist. Years of NLP training with NTI NLP in The Netherlands. Indigenous people from North America as mentors and a course in process oriented psychology in Switzerland. Where the last one, Process oriented psychology, glues everything together in my humble opinion. Especially the people in a group-part.

Now I have some mentors that accompany my life. Among them Bob Proctor of 'The Secret'.
Together with wife and kids we co-create this life in nature. It is not necessary for everyone to live this 'in nature' life. If I can support you to touch your nature and get it into a manifest life with zest, I'm yours. Call or send an email. If you provide me with your email I have a bonus waiting.

Do not hesitate. Send your email so I can give you your pdf file of a 'how to start on this journey'. And I have a surprise if you do so."

peter@countrylifeacademy.com or call +385 95 5088 572

"Thanks, Peter, for the conversations and motivations to keep my dreams and continuous walking in this path."
Rodrigo

 

Together

We have a hybrid hospitality, homestead and permaculture farm in the countryside of Croatia. We provide the educational context for educative programs we run ourselves as well as for external suppliers, up to 30 participants. We provide shelter and high-end food from the forest, stables and our gardens. We have three cooks in the house enjoying kitchen teamwork.

We use all of the mentioned systems boiled down into one comprehensive system that encompasses planning, design, execution of our building projects, garden and park designs. Also recruitment, project management as well as communication, daily management and feedback systems are available to educated directly. Indirectly we use everything according to the need of the moment. You can imagine maintaining 12 hectares of land and various animals and building projects as well as community projects needs a system. Otherwise one will become overwhelmed and stay overwhelmed without any progress.

We have had 250 volunteers to learn about natural living and the fit with themselves. Some of them clearly and distinctly mentioned creativity, dedication and celebration within a week. Without us telling them literally. They said we live these values. And over the years the feedbacks have been getting better and better.
Including those where the match, despite going through our whole recruitment system did not turn out The Match. We were able to gently communicate that our ways were going to separate. And we got a good feedback anyhow. We were not so good at that in the beginning. But after 10 years we are becoming masters in that. In maintaining a super energy in our selves and the group. If youwant to hear more about volunteering or recruitment, contact us. We can assure you and provide you with a full-proof growth system.

The first three are the fire in the background on which the three more physically manifesting values operate. If you wish to learn about how these values work, do not hesitate to contact me. I will have a bonus for you if you do. Remember, dreams not taken action on become the root for regret. Dreams not taken action on fester and stagnate.

Be bold or stay home.

info@countrylifeacademy.com or call +385 95 5088 572


"I feel so blessed to have spent this month here, and know now that I will continue this path and some day create a permaculture community for myself. I feel more alive and happy, and at the same time more peaceful than ever, and ready for my next adventure."
Jessie


Would you like to live a free, healthy & happy live in harmony with nature?
Would you like help on your path to get there?