I am quite a solitary person, and although we were hosting Wwoofers for just 1 week at a time, having a relative stranger full time in your life was quite exhausting. We do provide a separate building for the Wwoofers, but when they arrive alone, we want them also to feel part of the family, but cooking and heating separately all have a cost. It was our Romanian Wwoofer who suggested that instead of waiting for the Wwoofers to find us and host them one at a time, we should put an urgent request on the site with specific dates for specific tasks and host a group for 2 weeks. So we did. Within 3 days we had 10 offers of help for 2 weeks in Februay/March. Some not so practical as they maybe had not read the dates we required or wanted to stay too long. It was at the time the new Wwoof website was launched and my chosen 4 were a result of their patience with the glitches, a friendly approach and enthusiasm for the project. A Canadian, a French couple and an English lad.
My 2nd exciting discovery was the No Dig Organic Home and Garden Book by Charles Dowding.
This was a revelation. No fights with weeds, no constant hoeing, NO DIGGING!! just tons of lovely bulky manure and brown cardboard. I became obsessed, stopping in the dead of night to pick up cardboard left by the side of the road or near recycling bins. I become a connoisseur of Midden Heaps. Dry and layered or decomposed and squelchy. I was happy to collect from any. Layering like a strange lasagne, those weeds were going to be suffocated into submission.
And so with a variety of abilities and life skills The Fabulous Four, worked initially in strange Cumbrian February sunshine and then in very usual Cumbrian Rain, to tame the old chicken run, and renovate the hen house (more bulky manure) chop back the devouring perennials, remove weeds from the cobbles (by hand), move and use the 10 year old household compost to fill buckets ready for planting, move paving slabs from the lawn, create paths, fill bags and bags and more bags with manure and layer it with cardboard and when rain truly stopped play, to process wool ready for dying. The only thing we have not yet done is plant some seeds.
They worked and lived together, sometimes we all ate together, sometimes I cooked and sometimes they did. Everybody had companionship and their own space. It was a perfect arrangement, and new bonds and friendships made. It felt more like a university field trip than a working party.
Winter is the best time for us to work with the Wwoofers as in summer our accommodation is needed to rent to tourists to pay the bills. Winter is not always the best time for gardening, but despite the snow and the rain the messy RH bed was transformed in a morning into 4 raised beds, and the view was revealed by a day of dilligent hedge trimming. Not only had we forgotten how breathtaking the view from the garden could be, but what it felt like to be a gap year student again. The house was filled with Italian words, cooking from life experiences as a Bistro owners in Milan, before Viviana and Vincenzo dropped into the slow lane to Wwoof around the world. Plans were made to Ski in Romania (or the Ukraine because that is where the Romanians now go). Bheinn learnt how to do magic tricks, and everybody got beaten at Mario Cart. But like all travel Wwoofing comes with the need for a lot of adaptability. None of the Wwoofing stays have finished/started as planned. A day late for a broken bicycle, an early departure for paid employment, struggles, to find a next host, or the public transport to accommodate that need on a budget. And none of us have finished a Wwoofing host or assignment without learning and becoming more than we were at the beginning. So for today
