Wwoofing at Waru

To get some hands-on practice before I join the Permaculture design course at Milkwood I decide to go wwoofing - 'willing workers on organic farms'. A whole different experience for this city girl. After contacting a couple of addresses I end up at Waru organic farm just outside Orange, NSW. A beautiful place on a slope with views over a dam and forested surroundings.
On the Central tablelands it's really winter with frost in the night and morning. There are only some winter hardy veggies and herbs growing to be picked and harvested, like thyme, kale, rocket, beetroot. Most of the work consists of preparing the 18 meter beds for the new season; weeding and re-modelling them into terraces, and after that compost and mulch on top. The heavy duty weeding is a bit too much for my poor back, but hoeing and raking is going well. And I join the girls with the more gentle weeding of the herb beds.
We work from 8 am with a short lunch break till 2pm. The afternoons we can spend as we like; going for a walk (with Betty the friendly farm dog), behind a laptop watching movies or surfing the Internet (if you have a mobile broadband device), or reading through the extensive library of Anna. Sometimes we get a ride with Anna into town.

To my own surprise I'm thoroughly enjoying working outside in the fields, listening to the exotic bird calls. It's almost meditative. The city is literary far away with no reception on my mobile phone (I have to walk 20 minutes up the hill to get a bit of reception ;-) nor Internet access.
I'm learning a lot as Anna enjoys sharing her immense knowledge. She explains about crop rotation, seed harvesting, composting, companion planting, micro climates and a lot more. Really looking forward to get my own garden going someday. And definitely will have some chooks roaming around, what fun creatures!