Yesterday I welcomed my first wooffers - actually I borrowed them for a day as I am not yet set up to host having no functioning bathroom, kitchen or accommodation to speak of. I called on Pierre, a local young organic dairy farmer for help with the exterior earth rendering of the house as it was proving rather physically demanding to do it myself what with hauling heavy buckets of earth mixture up a three story scaffolding with just a one wheel pulley. He offered to come for the day with two young woofers who are currently staying with him.
For those unfamiliar with the term WWoof - it means 'Worldwide Opportunities of organic farms'. It is a system of exchange whereby volunteers offer commonly 4 to 5 hours of work a day in exchange for accommodation and food.
Sophie and Gina, two young English woofers, were great company and heroically tackled the tasks of mixing up slip and treading a mixture of clay earth, sand and chopped up straw to make the render that we then applied by hand to the east wall of the house.
Above: Gina using the drill with bit to mix up a slip of earth and water to apply to the wall before rendering to help it stick.
Above: Pierre and Sophie preparing the render of clay earth, sand and chopped straw.
Above: Sophie and Pierre brave the rickety scaffolding to apply the render
Above: Sophie and Gina putting the finishing touches to the render
Above: I think they enjoyed themselves
Above: The east wall with its lovely new earth render
Above: Sophie inspects the render
Above: Sophie quickly mastered the technique of applying the render by hand.
Thank you Pierre, Sophie and Gina.
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