wwoofer - Adam Grace

 

Adam, an English sound engineer and musician stayed for a week in March.  He recently gave up his job and luxury flat in the UK to explore new horizons ... to work with his hands ... to learn about self sufficient living. He is currently on a motorbike tour of Europe and this was his first wwoofing stop.   Some images from his stay ...

The Pallet Greenhouse

He started the week working with wwoofer Luc on the greenhouse - a structure made from pallets and recuperated plastic ....

 

Working in the Garden

Digging a trench for a hugulbed ..
 

Filling the trench with rotting logs found on the
land ......... the wood will act as a sponge retaining
water ... so less or no watering to do ... and as they break
down they will provide nutrients for the plants ..

Smashing up the logs ....

Adding leaves, hay, twigs ....

Collecting branches from recently
felled laurel trees to put in the bed ..

Creating a crumb structure with the earth
that was put on the top ... ready for seed sowing ..

Placing logs from trees felled on the land
 to define the garden beds .......
 

At Leisure

Thanks for the great mexican supper!!



... and the music



Preparing the bike before leaving .... bon continuation
and thanks for everything ....

 

wwoofer - Joachim

 

 

Joachim, a young Catalan traveller stayed three weeks in February/March this year.  Disenchanted with his work in tourism and driven by a desire to reconnect with nature, he arrived with great enthusiasm and motivation.  He spent his time productively reading about different aspacts of permaculture, building a greenhouse from pallets, helping out with vegetarian cooking and working on the land.

The first volunteer to diligently take notes ... on
permaculture, herbs, rocket mass stoves and so
on .............

Brushcutting  brambles in preparation for planting
willow for basket making ....

The beginning of the pallet greenhouse project - here
Joachim works with a couple of visitors from
Paris.

 

He spent quite some time levelling
the six display pallets ....



In the workshop ... working on the roof for the
greenhouse.....

 

Potting up seeds to go in the cold frames ...

Planting asparagus crowns ...
 

An expert at shelling walnuts ...
 

Bottling homemade cider vinegar ...

 

A competent and creative vegetarian
cook ......

 

Much free time spent learning to
play the eukaleli

Putting his new musical skills into practice ...

A rare cuddle for grey cat ...

Bon continuation .... à la prochaine .... thanks for all your help, curiosity, enthusiasm and good humour!!

Wwoofer Simon May

Simon stayed for a week - a short break from his course at the Sorbonne in the history of art ...

He arrived immaculately dressed:

... but that soon changed ....

He initially decided to design and build a chicken house.  He researched the topic, did some sketches, sourced the tools he needed and available wood on the land and set to work ...

 

.... a project to be continued ...

 

He helped to harvest the willow crop
and planted cuttings through plastic
to create new shrubs ...

Cutting harvested willow into
batons ......
 



He harvested laurel from the land,
tied them into bundles and then
hung them to dry in the living
room ...........

He spent the rest of his short stay helping to construct a greenhouse from recuperated pallets and plastic ......

Simon at Leisure



Ever the philosopher - here wondering whether the leek
 still exists if he closes his eyes

An accomplished and confident
cook ...........

A charming if rather strange smile ...

Preparing crepe batter ....

Preparing to toss the crepe ...

 

... et voila ....
 

Kitchen camaraderie ...

Simon the musician ....

Thank you for all the shared songs ...

A la prochaine ......

The Madness of the Global Food Industry

This is a great youtube clip with Helena Norberg Hodge talking about the need to localise food production and other economic activity.  She talks of rebuilding community and the local environment.:











Main points:

• There is a split between governments and their people
• Governments are pursuing an outdated economic model
• This economic formula says 'more trade' 'more foreign investment' 'more production for export'
• Governments implement local cuts while investing in the global economy
• There are local movements (permaculture, urban farms, farmers' markets) that shorten the distances, increase diversity of production
• The global food industry asks farmers to grow in larger and larger scale monocultures which leads to a loss of biodiversity and food waste (crops not of standard size are thrown away)
• More food per unit of land can be produced with small scale diversified local farming as well as more jobs.
• Locally grown food means cutting out waste (irradiation, preservatives, refrigeration, packaging ....)
• It's a case of reducing the ecological footprint while increasing productivity and increasing diversity and getting rid of toxic chemicals
• This appies to fisheries and forestry as well as agriculture
• The global economy with its long distances is responsible for the widening gap between rich and poor
• The issue is global versus local
• Small, slow and local is the way to go
• The globalisation of the food industry has led to the breakdown of communities and an escalation of energy consumption