You may have noticed and wondered about the series of seemingly
random young people at our farmers' market stand or the farm over the
last three years. In total we've had 19 people come stay with us on the
farm, helping out with all the different farming and related activities
we do (learning how to go through a bee hive, milk a cow, make simple
cheeses, weeding, mulching, transplanting, scything hay, stacking
mushroom logs, picking corn, threshing barley, canning tomatoes,
shelling peas, etc., etc.) Most of them have found us through a network
called WWOOF (Willing Workers on Organic Farms), although about a half
dozen of them connected with us in other ways. There are WWOOF networks
all over the world connecting volunteers with organic host farms. For a
lot of the volunteers it's a way to take a cheap vacation (basically
free after transportation), something like going to a dude ranch out
West. Michael was the first person to come stay on the farm, and he
stayed for most of the summer
as more of an intern, but since then everyone (so far) has come for
shorter stays, mostly 3-5 weeks. A couple Chinese graduate students
studying as foreign students in New York City came for their spring
break. A manager of a World Bank watchdog organization in Washington,
DC from a small farm in the Philippines took a little vacation time to
get away from the office buildings to help us plant strawberries and dig
peanuts. Most of our "WWOOF'ers" haven't come with any thoughts of
becoming farmers, wanting just to experience a different kind of work
and life for a little while, although some have come exploring
vocational options and a couple have even come with more serious desires
to build on their farming educations. We've had three separate
volunteers come as part of international travels, all coincidentally
from France. A couple different WWOOF'ers have come from as close as
the Winston-Salem suburbs. It's been a
fun experience for us as hosts. We've enjoyed getting to "travel" to
China and France, the Philippines, Alaska, and Miami, Florida. We've
also especially enjoyed continuing relationships with the North Carolina
WWOOF'ers. Two of last year's WWOOF'ers came back to the farm this
spring to get started keeping honeybees of their own. We're growing
things like hops and Asian persimmons now thanks to our visitors.
Before they leave, we have the WWOOF'ers carve their names on a beech
tree by the WWOOF'er hammock. It's a living guest book of these random
visitors' we've had the pleasure to get to know. So that's a little
introduction to WWOOF'ing and what we've been doing as WWOOF hosts. If
you know of any young people (or other adventurous souls) that might be
interested in leaving home to live and work on a farm for a period you
might suggest the idea to them.
