Just Another Woofer Week

We just finished our March woofer week hosting two couples from the United States:  Ben & Ellen from Brooklyn, New York; and Katie & Nick from Portland, Oregon.

Both couples wrote to us independently about their common shared interests with us:  sustainability,  introvert-minded,  board gamers.   They seemed like a good fit with us and with each other.    And we were right for both couples had a lot of synchronicities going on in their lives including quitting their professional jobs for an opportunity to go traveling for six or more months.  New Zealand was on the top of their respective lists.

We started the week making a list on the white board of all the possible tasks/chores we could tackle during the week.

As you can see from the photo, we managed to get to almost all of them:  house gutters cleaned;  cracking and shelling walnuts;  making peach jam;  mowing;  transplanting and sheet mulching around new trees;  fixing the woodshed; pruning trees; chipping the 10’x10’ high pile of branches we accumulated in the last few weeks; and clearing and fixing the lower paddock garden beds.    We also harvested and dried some hops, flowers, and herbs.

Nick, having previously done some landscaping and having worked as a groundskeeper was keen to get my sad full-of-weeds and inconsistent shaped veggie beds in order, complete with brick borders and proper wood sides for terracing down the mild slope of the paddock.   The crew set out to achieve this task over a two-day period and worked hard trenching and laying a brick border; weeding the beds;  and laying weedmatting on the paths and filling them with many wheelbarrows full of eucalyptus chips.

We finished by transplanting celery and broccoli seedlings into the beds and mulching with pea straw which the ladies found quite satisfying!

There was lots of good cooking going on too thanks to the team:   brussel sprout and carmelized onion pizzas;  venison Bolognese pasta; and gourmet Mexican were just a few of the dinner items.

Gaming occurred as well as a few quieter nights of reading for us introverts.

All in all a good week, with over a 100 hours put into the property.  We couldn’t do it without da’ woofers!    Thanks team!