WWOOF

For those of you who don’t know what WWOOF is it stands for Willing Workers On Organic Farms.  Here is a link incase you want to check it out a bit more.

My first time wwoofing was a pretty interesting experience to say the least.  It was not what I expected at all.  It actually turned out to be a little more on the character building side then on the muscle building side.  When thinking about working on an organic farm, one would typically expect to be working pretty hard and getting pretty dirty everyday.  Well, that happened one of the 7 days I was there!

The beginning of my first day of wwoofing, Monday, started with catching a train down to Cleveland (not Ohio...), then hopping on a bus to Redland Bay and finally jumping on a ferry to Russell Island.  About two and a half hours later, I arrived on the Island to be greeted by Dianne.  She took me to a delightful little coffee shop where she bought me a delicious chai tea latte and we sat and got to know one another a bit.  We drove around the island for a quick tour.

We arrived at her house and she showed me around and then we had lunch.  She had an appointment to go to on a different island, so I ended up home alone for about three or four hours.  She asked me to sweep and mop up the floors.  I asked her if she would mind if I cleaned out the fridge (because it was disgusting!) and she said go for it!  So I became a maid.  Not exactly what I thought my first day would have entailed, but hey...not too bad.  The house was a bit on the dirty side for me and a slight challenge for me to deal with through out the week, being the neat freak that I am.

Tuesday I had a pretty relaxing day.  Dianne had a bunch of appointments (square dancing lessons...) and was gone for most of the day.  I enjoyed my alone time, as I have not had that much space and time to myself in a long time! 

Wednesday was sailing day.  We met up with one of her friends at the jetty and took the ferry over to the mainland, also known as the Big Island or West Russell.  Then we drove up to Manly to the yacht club.  Every Wednesday they have a race of about 40 boats.  So you just try to find a boat that has room to join their crew and you are good to go!  It was a pretty fun day.  I think we came in around 10th place? 

Thursday I actually did some work with Dianne, but inside her house.  We made curtains and did a bit of rearranging, interior designing.  It was work I guess, but pretty low key.

Friday we did a little tidying up around the house, as Dianne had a date coming over for lunch.  It was kind of weird because it was her first date with this dude and I was there to join them for awhile.  Friday night we went to a BBQ at the Russell Island chapter of the Queensland Yacht Club.  That was a pretty neat experience because, well Russell Island is basically populated by retired boat-ee’s.  Russell is pretty much their home base and they travel, mainly by boat (sail boat) around the world.  I have heard a lot of interesting stories.  It sure sounds like quite the life!

Saturday morning I got up earlier than Dianne, which happened most days.  I hung out for awhile and enjoyed the use of free internet in the convenience of my own home.  Once she got up she put together a little bit of a plan for the day and said we would start at 10:30.

I decided to go for a quick walk to a place I could get reception on my phone and called my mom.  I found out that my grandmother had passed away just two hours before.  It was a relief of sorts, as she had been suffering for quite some time.  My mother was there by her mothers side, holding her hand as she passed in her sleep.  It seems like a beautiful thing, to witness someone pass into eternity.  To watch them go from complete pain and agony to peace and rest.  What a blessing.  I only wish I could’ve been there with my family as they were mourning Grandma’s death and celebrating her life. 

Instead of being with my family, I was actually starting my first day of wwoof-ing.  That’s right I actually was working in the garden!!  It was kind of crazy!  I helped move some tiles around and planted several different plants, mulched and watered them.  It was a pretty long day of physical labor.  I had forgotten what that was like!  After that was all done I helped her package some of her hand made soaps and prepare them to be sold.
Finally finished the day off with some much deserved time in front of the T.V. 

Over all it sounds like a great experience, not a lot of strenuous work, lots of down time and fun time too.  It was good, but it was also very wearing on me, as I struggled very much with the lack or organization of my time there and the cleanliness of the house.  I felt like there was a lot of things I could have done to help her get her house in order and clean and all that, but she didn’t really seem to be bothered by the filth or clutter, which is fine.  I just hated to sit there and not be used of my abilities.  I felt like I didn’t accomplish much at all and that bothered me a lot.  One thing I feel that I learned was to just flippin’ chill out a bit and go with the flow.  Don’t get worked up about things you have no control over.  Of course I have known that for quite some time, but I just feel like it was really reiterated in my soul this past week and I feel like a better person because of it.  It also seems like because of this experience I have been able to relax a lot more on my job hunt.  I definitely feel changed by this situation in ways I never expected.  Its funny how life works sometimes and the ways that God works in unlikely situations.