Visiting WWOOFer's

We had a visit on Monday afternoon from a young couple from Germany.  They were WWOOFing with a friend of ours and wanted to try milking a goat before they went home.  We had a pleasant visit and a successful milking.  I showed them how to make a soft cheese and they took home a bottle of dandelion wine.

I don't know exactly what WWOOF stands for (the organization changed their name recently), but the basic system is that travellers exchange help on organic farms for room and board.  Farms register with the organization and people who are planning a trip contact the farms directly. 

We were registered as a WWOOF farm years ago for a few seasons and it was a good experience.  We met quite a few interesting people from all over the world.  Only one of the WWOOF'ers turned out to be an undesirable visitor, and a couple of them were amazingly helpful.  We decided to quit doing it, however, because it seemed so often to be more work for us than it was worth.  I think this is because we had so many short-term visitors, and our living arrangements are so unusual that the WWOOF'ers didn't have time to get used to them before it was time to leave again. 

We're thinking of registering again next year, with the condition that we will only take WWOOF'ers who are willing to stay for several weeks.



The completed soft cheese