I enjoyed reading about the craziness of people who show up to "help". A few years ago I had my turn with volunteers, and I thought "Oh I can't remember all the details and I am too tired to write it all out in an amusing way. Then I remembered I had written about it for my writing class. I cut off th eintro telling what WWOOFers are, and why I registered as a wwoof host farm,so it kind of has a rough start, but :
Judith came to me in May of 2010, A German woman of 23 just having finished a winter internship in Michigan, or was it Minnesota, a cold wet northern M place. Her luggage weighed more than she did, a tiny thing, a 90 pound powerhouse. This woman planted with precision, counting the seeds that went into the holes, carefully measuring distances and depths. She helped build fences, and would have wrestled the rented Billy Goat, a walk behind field mower. The orchard needed mowing before the apricots ripened, and the Billy Goat was not available, needed repairs. Judith said, "What about a scythe?".
I ordered one from the hardware store, and while we waited, we searched you tube videos to get some idea how to use it. It was not the prettiest job ever, but Judith got the orchard mowed. We played hooky together, hiking in Arches National Park, and visiting my friend Jane's off grid house 2000 feet above Collbran, Colorado. Judith went to yoga with me 2 times a week, and when I had what I hope is the worst Farm Stay guest ever, our eyes met with knowing glances at his outrageously rude and intrusive behavior. Her support sustained me through three days with terrible Todd.
Judith only stayed 2 weeks. Not long
enough for either of us, but her visa would expire soon and she was to meet her boyfriend who was flying in to Las Vegas. They had 3 weeks in which they planned to rent a car, tour the west, and find mountains to climb. They wanted to climb granite, basalt and gniess, having primarily limestone in the parts of Europe where they climb.
One day not long before she left, Judith asked me if I would be offended if she offered to mop the floor. OFFENDED? I would love her forever, so she gave me parting gifts of a clean floor, and a traditional Bavarian dinner of
mushroom dumplings, which her grandmother had taught her to make, and early one morning I took her to the bus depot where we hugged good bye.
Judith was not my first volunteer. I told you of her first because I wanted to start with something wonderful. My first volunteers cancelled two days before they were to arrive. I had planned around their presence, saving work I would otherwise have done myself, shopped for groceries, worried about how it would go.
Next were Garrett and Rachel, and oh the stories to be told about them. From the deep south, they wanted to stay the whole growing season. They wanted to see the things they planted mature, and they said they wanted to learn subsistence farming,could they have meant
sustainable? Though my preferred length of stay for volunteers 1-3 weeks, I had agreed. They arrived. Within 24 hours Rachel confided in me, in a soft voice, putting her hand on my forearm, looking into my eyes, "we just went off our psych medications", as in, cold turkey, they took their last pills yesterday.
YIKES thought I, 20 years a psychiatric nurse, that's waaay more than I bargained for. They would leave each afternoon and return in the evening, Rachel's pupils dilated, big as saucers. Apparently it was only their prescription drugs they had quit.
Rachel confided she had wept in the
local health food store for the people of her home town, who did not have access to all the wonderful products. Let me tell you, I only shop there because there is no other option. I fondly remember the Sundrop Grocery, and I know of some other very fine natural grocers in Madison, Olympia, San Luis Obispo, and I do not mean the big name box stores who
sell primarily green washed conventionally produced food- like -substances labeled "all natural", so I could not really share her reverence for the market where she wept.
When they used
honey, they poured it from the jar, letting it run over the threads, stringing it down the side of the jar, making a sticky gooey mess all the way onto the table. I asked them to use a
spoon, wait for no streamers.
My fine textile napkins developed dark stains. I showed them rags and napkins and dish towels, and asked for them to use rags for clean up, and save the towels for drying clean things, save the napkins for table use.
"We are adults, and we are used to doing what we want" was the response.
In my absence, Garrett and Rachel turned 3,000 onion plants, the ones the no show volunteers were to have planted into 500. "This is all of them." they claimed.
They had tired of planting and thrown 2500 onion plants away.
I should have watched them closer, I thought.
Rachel decided not to cut any more of the dry grass we needed for the earthen floor we were mixing and installing, hid out in her room. It seemed it would be easier to cut it myself than to sort that one out. When I tried start the mower, it mysteriously no longer worked. Garrett offered to check into it and discovered that oil in the air filter was blocking the air intake. Without the filter it would run just fine. Then Rachel remembered that, for an undisclosed reason, she had turned the thing upside down and "Maybe that's when it got in there".
I watched from an upstairs window as Garret would pull a single weed, then holding it at arms length would walk 50 yards to place it in a pile, then return to get one more weed, make another trip to the weed pile, all the while using one hand to hold his cell phone to his ear.. I provided him with a new strategy, pull the weeds, pile them in place, then move the whole pile.
Garrett had reported that he preferred to carry buckets of dirt rather than use the dolly, wheelbarrow, or
tractor. One day we were working together and I asked him to go get the tractor. After a time he returned with the bad news that the tractor would not start. I assumed it was a matter of the battery, thought we would need to jump start it. This man who claimed to be a mechanical genius said he wasn't sure...... and so I went to get the tractor.
I mounted the tractor and just to see for myself, went through the motions of starting it. I depressed the clutch, turned the key, which was suddenly half a key in my hand. Garrett made a sudden look of awe, of dumb struck amazement and wonder, said "Maybe a pair of needle nose pliers?" fetched the pliers from the garage and removed the piece of key which remained in the ignition.
I was not impressed. What bothered me most was the willful deceit. He must have planned exactly what he would say when I discovered the problem which had
led him to claim to love moving 80 pound buckets of soil by hand. He had been using the tractor, and simply decided not to use it anymore. Said he really just liked carrying heavy buckets.
"You know Garrett, I know what metal fatigue feels like, and that is not what I felt when I turned the key."
To his way of thinking, I was calling him a liar, and the next morning, with the car packed, they informed me they would be leaving. Probably a good idea.
Judith came after Garrett and Rachel, and restored my faith in the possible benefits of WWOOFers at Canyon Wren Farm.
And after Judith, came Amy. It was early June when returned from California where I had attended my uncle's memorial service. Amy was to arrive the next day. What I did not expect was how early she would arrive.
I had arrived home in the late afternoon, thought I would go to the grocery store in the morning, stock up. I was having my breakfast when the phone rang. Amy was not in Denver, she was just across town, where she had spent the night, she had breakfasted, and was ready for directions to the farm.
She arrived shortly. After greetings, and showing her to her room, we went out to weed. Like Judith, this girl was ready to DO something. We chatted as we crawled between rows of tomatoes, weeding on hands and knees. I showed Amy what to remove and what to leave. Meanwhile I was thinking, "I never made it to the grocery store. Everything in the house has been there at least 2 weeks! What ever are we going to have for lunch?"
I began to make a pile of the amaranth, purslane, and lambs quarters, we were pulling, sorting out all unknowns and inedibles, grasses and early bind weed. When lunch time came, we took our culinary weeds to the house and had a frittata. We still laugh together about the first meal we shared.
When Amy went to fix the flat tires that Garrett had claimed to have fixed, she found the inner tubes had long slashes in them where he must have caught them between the rim and the pry bar he used as a lever. That must have been why he did not use the dolly or wheelbarrow to move the dirt we needed. I cannot remember what other Garrett surprises Amy discovered while here, but we laughed often and she would beg me to tell her Garret and Rachel stories.
Amy stayed all summer. Her parents came to visit her here, to try to understand better why she was not getting on with a career plan or grad school, or anything they could recognize or understand as a viable option towards a suitable future. She had never used a shovel, never used a
lawn mower, never had a cat or a dog or a gerbil or a pet other than her sister's goldfish. She loved it here, worked hard, and loved to keep busy. She also went to yoga twice a week with me. People at yoga still ask about her. She took off on adventures to see her boyfriend in the navy in Chicago. Together we saw the arrivals and departures of Gabriel from France, Nick and Alexi from Portland. Amy minded the farm solo while I went to Africa for a month, giving me an opportunity to stay with my daughter at her Peace Corps assignment site on a remote mountain top in Senegal, West Africa.
"Your so called daughter," Amy liked to tease, "I've never seen her." The last week in October, Amy went home to spend some time with her family.
The 2011 season I had another Garrett, but this time his name was Richard. He chopped out my conspicuously marked apricot seedling research. He told me he knew how to build, and I showed him the tools and the materials, explained what I needed, asked him if he understood. Judging by what he "built" he had misrepresented his understanding and skill level. He used, and destroyed the materials I had set aside, telling him they were for another
project. He really truly cut the middle out of a long board to get a short piece, then needed a long piece.
I wonder sometimes, what do these kids think. What do they think is going to happen, when someone asks them to do something they have said they can do? Wouldn't be easier to just tell the truth?
Ah well, if at 25, it is the first time he hasn't been able to bluff his way through something, then it comes not a moment too soon. Richard and Brittany left me a note while I was off at my yoga class, they had decided to seek their fortunes elsewhere.
I am always filled with anticipation when a new volunteer is scheduled to arrive. We have always corresponded and agreed on what the person will do while here. I am willing to believe that the person has accurately reported his willingness, attitude, skills, and am SO EXCITED about the progress that will be made in fulfillment of some facet of my dream.
Christophe said he was an engineer. In my
experience an engineer's training lies in understanding the properties and tolerances of various materials, as conductors or insulators, or their load bearing abilities, tensile, shear or compressive strengths, or for chemical or molecular or mechanical engineers, they know the specifics and limits of something, and they know those limits well. That's what engineers do.
Christophe had agreed to help me build the
cob wall for my
greenhouse. I explained the role of each ingredient in the simple sand, clay, water,
straw mix, and told him the exact proportions necessary for the most durable mix. Batch after bad batch he mixed, patiently I again explained the role of each ingredient and the need for neither too little nor too much. 5 days he mixed bad batches, then said to me, "You really think the amount of clay is important?"
I had a pile of top soil which I discovered he was using rather than dig sand. "You really think it matters?"
Again I discovered him using the topsoil. "I thought we agreed not to use the topsoil in the mix"
"I am only using one
bucket of topsoil to two buckets of sand. I thought it would be a good compromise"
Compromising the durability of my building for his ease and convenience?
Christophe was reassigned to weeding. He left not long after. On the day I was to take him to the bus depot, he left before I woke, leaving me a note on the table. That was my third note on the table.
In late October, I was looking forward to Marie. At 19, she had just finished the German equivalent of high school. She was to arrive the day before Halloween, had agreed to stay with me 8 to 10 days, and then stay and work a few days with my friend Jane at her home in an Aspen grove at 8500 feet. Out of the work I had said would be needed in late October, she chose to clean house.
Can you imagine? If a person cleaned 6 hours a day for a 10 days, how clean the place would be? Everything done all at the same time? Clean windows, no cobwebs, floors mopped, shelves wiped, bathrooms squeaky clean?
Oven, windowsills, piano? Wash and rehang the curtains? The slip covers? Re seal the
shower grout?
I was SO EXCITED.
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