WWOOF!

K and I have a dream. A dream that one day we will actually have some land (instead of just a patio) to grow most of our own food and keep a cow, some chickens, maybe some bees and sheep. Well, a lot of people have this dream, but I've been brought up by my down-to-earth rural parents that it's no good just to be a dreamer. We are aware that currently we don't have the faintest about keeping cows or making hay and that we are unlikely to find the time to go to agricultural college any time soon. So, in the interests of being more than just dreamers, we have a new hobby - organic farming. Thanks to the lovely people at WWOOF (that's Worldwide Workers on Organic Farms, for those who don't know), we've got in touch with Fen End Farm - an organic farm about six miles out of Cambridge whose owners are happy to have some extra pairs of willing if unskilled hands every other Saturday. So far we have helped put up fencing, fed cows, shovelled shit and de-thistled a field! Currently, I can't look at a thistle without wanting to charge at it with a spade.


Credit for this wonderful idea must go to K. We've actually been members of WWOOF for about a year with the intention of using it to have a working holiday one day (preferably somewhere scenic with hills), but we hadn't managed to find the time. A month or so ago, however, K read an article in the newsletter encouraging more people to be 'weekend wwoofers' and so build up more skills over a longer period of time at one farm. Apparently the organisation began to encourage people to do just that, but it has increasingly become orientated towards those looking to travel, so that people are more likely to go and work in the Andes for a month than they are to go and help the farmer down the road with his lambing. Long-distance travel is all very valuable, of course, has great potential for the exchange of ideas blah blah blah, but runs the (all too familiar) risk of ignoring what is going on in your own backyard. Cambridgeshire may not be very sexy (or hilly, for that matter), but it is where we live. If only it had a few more hills...