So, you contact a farm that sounds good to you, whether its a vegetable only farm, a small farm, a huge farm with animals, a cow farm, a wine-making farm, whatever you fancy. You email them to tell them a bit about you and what you're interested in, if they have a vacancy for you to come, etc. You send some emails back and forth and set up a time that you'll be there. You're supposed to give them x amount of time (usually 4-6 hours a day) and they are supposed to provide you with room and board for the duration of your time on the farm. It sounds like a pretty awesome things, and now that I've returned from my first woofing experience, I can definitely say, it is a really cool thing. =)
I ended up choosing a farm that wasn't very far from where I lived, about 3 hours away, in Pennsylvania. The name of the farm is Jamboree Farm in Legonier, PA. They grow vegetables and have some animals on their farm. It is also a fairly small farm. You can find some information about their farm here.
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| A picture of some of their land |
My hosts were Todd and Beth, and there was also another WWOOFER there, named Derek. Derek had already been staying and working with them for about 2 months! I was only going to stay for a week.
Todd, Beth, and Derek were all outgoing and friendly people who made my time at Jamboree Farm fun and memorable.
I knew nothing about farming walking into it, but I walked away with a lot more knowledge then I came in with!
We had morning chores each morning where we would let all the free range chickens, guineas, and turkeys out. We went around and fed all the animals as well as filled all their water containers for the day. We would also fill pools of water for the alpacas, chickens and make sure the pig's wallow hole was filled with water.
We would collect eggs from the chicken coop, wash them and put them in containers to be sold. All in all they had about 12-14 layer chickens, 12-14 guineas, 12-14 turkeys, 80 small chicken peeps that would be meat birds, 1 mama pig with 7 piglets, 4 alpacas, and 1 small horse.
During my time on the farm we tended to the animals, the garden, doing planting, weeding, mowing. We went on a nature walk and learned some of the native plants, invasive plants, different weeds. We cleared some plants/weeds on their land. We tilled up land and planted grass seeds in bare spots. We moved fences to allow these animals to graze on different areas. We started a whole new garden plot while I was there, and I used various farming tools to till up the land and make it seed ready.
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| Peeps - the baby chickens |
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| Guineas |
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| Alpacas! |
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| Beckham - the pony |
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| Water break |
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| Collecting chicken eggs from the coop |
Farmers work hard and long hours. There's always something to do on a farm. Starting one project will inevitably create more projects. Todd and Beth are extremely knowledgeable and very big on fixing their own equipment, tools, house projects, plumbing, electric, cars, etc. If you're going to own a farm you need to know how to fix your own equipment so you don't have to pay someone else to fix it. It was awesome to be around them for the week. It allowed me to see a lot of their skills in play. It was nice to stay for a week to get a general feel of how things run on their farm.
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| Mornings - feeding the animals |
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| Working hard on the land |
We also had some fun on the farm as well. Derek and I went several times to hang out with our camping chairs in the little creek that is on part of their property. We went into town one night and had dinner at a lovely local restaurant. We also went to the Legonier Farmers market on Saturday morning, which was filled with craft vendors, local meat and produce, and delicious food trucks!
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| Legonier Farmers market |
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| CHICKEN... |
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| Climbing into the danger zone |
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| Derek and a turkey! |
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| Me and a turkey =) |
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| Wwoofer friends! |
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| June Lee - Derek's dog, one of the best dogs ever, I absolutely adore her! |
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| Alpaca love! |
All in all, it was an awesome, educational, and fun week. I hope to be able to do another WWOOF experience in the future. I learned a lot and spent some time with some fantastic people!
