WWOOFing has been great so far. Willing Workers On Organic Farms puts people in touch with hosts who give you free room and board for several hours of work a day. I don't know how any host will be able to live up to this first family! The work is work and we do about five hours a day, but there is a break for tea in the morning and another for lunch and time flies when Karen has us doing different chores all the time and mixes it up so we don't get stuck doing any one thing. Today we emptied the worm bin (something we've been looking into getting ourselves) and planted lettuce and spinach, kale and kohlrabi. Over the weekend they took us on their family holiday with friends of theirs to a place called Okains Bay. Getting there was great! Roads like we're used to driving through Colorado and amazing views out to the ocean on either side of you when you were up at the very top! NZers know how to camp, we've never seen such large tents! There was good food, great weather, a couple nice walks along the beach and some nice live music from the fathers of the families (one plays guitar and our host dad plays harmonica).
It does make you laugh a little bit when you're prepping someone else's beds for planting and you realize, I could be doing this to my own beds, planting my own garden and paying attention to our bees and chickens. Karen has been great though, the perfect source of information. Teaching us all about the organic systems in NZ, how they apply the rules to people, how the farmers best sell and when and where. All things that we were hoping to learn about on this trip. Seeing how a small organic farm can make it and make money.
We're thinking of leaving Thursday and having four days to get to our next WWOOF hosts on the north side of Christchurch. They are a Dutch couple who grow tomatoes with hydroponics, they won't be able to live up to the experience we've had here so far but hopefully it will also be a great experience.
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