wwoof wwoof

This week we had a visit from Ana. She is making a film about Wwoofing. Wwoof, if you are unaware of them, are an organisation bringing together volunteer workers with hosts who garden or farm organically. The deal is that the wwoofer is given a place to stay and food to eat while they give their time and energy to help the host. It is a brilliant concept, and a scheme that is gaining popularity across the world. In fact, when I first heard of wwoofing some 20 years ago it stood for 'working weekends on organic farms'. The acronym now stands for 'world wide opportunities on organic farms', neatly bringing it up to date with the current reality of Wwoof. As a host I receive up to 20 emails a week from people wishing to stay and work with us. And everyone's a winner - as a host we get 'free' and generally very willing help around the holding, as well as new energy and fresh perspectives. Volunteers are able to travel all around the world, meeting and staying with people, being involved with their day to day work and lives, at no cost other than their time and labour. Fantastic.
It was a great pleasure to walk around our smallholding with Ana, speaking about the many projects that we have achieved with the help of wwoofers. Many of these would not have happened without the many wonderful people that we've had the good fortune to welcome to our home.
First up we visited the two wood stores. David helped with the first, on the back of the house. It seemed that he had never swung an axe or hammer in his life, being more familiar with a tennis racquet, or a pen. He soon got the hang of things however, and began to deliver uncannily accurate blows to split the larch logs we used to build the frame. So much did he enjoy this process that when Lara came this winter we had most of the wood we needed already split, and the new store was built in two days.
I next took Ana to the geodesic greenhouse. Alfredo and Natalia were here helping with this job. They made a good impression by being outside waiting for me on day one, dressed in overalls, stout boots and work gloves, a good impression that grew daily. During the two weeks that they stayed we built the dome, a bridge, clad the chicken house in hand split and shaved shakes, and mended the roof of the house. There was still time in the evenings for me to enjoy drumming while Natalia played heavy metal guitar and Alfredo held us steady on the bass. We also had Piers staying, who is no stranger to the microphone, and his girlfriend Anya who took a little persuading to join in, despite playing cello for the Munich Philharmonic! Good times.
Further good, though more gruelling times were had building the pond. When I collected Jonathan and Cleo they had been rough camping in the Grampians. In November. And them hailing from the south of France! I knew they would be hard, and they needed to be. Most days ground work could not begin until 10am as all was frozen solid, and by 4 in the afternoon all had again turned to stone. Cleo suffered terribly with chillblains. She bravely and artfully cracked on with Jonathan and I, creating the hole that was to be filled with over-flow from the spring that feeds our house with clear clean water. We had expected to be digging away earth, but what we found where the pond was to be deepest was a huge pile of rocks. So we took each in turn and built them into the pond wall. Big stones, and there were some goodly 'wee chuckies', were placed carefully to form a gently curving dyke, while the shrapnel was packed in behind to shore it up, and to create the slope required in the inside. Of course we still needed to somehow seal the pond. What we did not expect as we begun to dig at the end nearest the spring was clay - a rare commodity round here. This had been brought up and laid down by the spring over lord knows how long, and was naturally the perfect material with which the line the pond. Ultimately just a few barrow loads of earth needed to be taken away (actually just enough the level the path there abouts). As with most projects before and since, our job had been simply to organise the elements already there. Nothing added, and nothing taken away - most satisfactory. Elegant, zero carbon, and so far, looking to be long lasting. Annoyingly we did subsequently have to drain the pond and take apart a section of wall to lay the pipe for our hydro-electric system (thanks to Damien and Ron for invaluable help there). However, the wall is now once again complete, and the pond holds water beautifully. There were many reasons to build a pond there in the middle of the garden - wildlife, micro-climate and as a feature - but the driving force was to be able to grow water cress in clean, fluke free water. Having thought that the ducks (now all eaten, both by us and the fox) had themselves eaten all the cress, I am happy to report that in munching their way through much of it they also succeeded in spreading it all around the pond. From there it is taking advantage of a mild winter and making a strong come-back. I look forward to sweet and spicy salads this summer, when I also hope to watch trout feeding amoung thick, dense, and healthy water cress stems.
I had hoped in this post to cover most of the wwoofer assisted structures - the rest will have to wait, as bed beckons. Until then...