WWOOFing on Vallanes

PART TWO: the work.....US vs The Cursed Cous-Cous

The work on the farm wasn't actually all that hard. We would be woken up around 8/8:30am and have some breakfast, which was always "Gabriel's Breakfast" (I think it consisted of barley grain, apples, dried cherries, cinnamon, and maybe some other sweet spices) and bread. It was delicious the first day or two we had it....but it quickly got old.

Work began at 9:00am, and, like I said, wasn't extremely difficult or exhausting. Lunch, which always happened to be some sort of barley soup, was around noon, and then we were back to work by 1:00pm. The work day ended at 5:00pm and we had the rest of the day (which, since it pretty much doesn't get really dark anymore, was until about midnight or 1:00am when you realized you should probably go to bed soon) to do what we wanted, only having to be back at the monster house around 6:30ish if you wanted to eat dinner with the rest of the group.

Our job for during our stay ended up being to sow the carrots in the carrot field. Normally, I think, this was a task that took maybe a full day (and that's if you were taking your sweet-ass time with it). However, that was not true if our case. Eymundur decided to do an experiment and mix the carrot seeds with cous-cous instead of sesame seeds (he does this to ensure that the carrot seeds are evenly dispersed when they are planted). The problem with this though is that the seeder we were using (a two wheeled apparatus that basically drops and sows the seeds for you) didn't like the cous-cous. It was like putting kitty litter into a record player. We would take two steps and the wheel would clog up. We spent more time de-jamming this stupid contraption than actually sowing seeds, and after one afternoon, a whole day, and part of another morning I was about ready to hammer-throw the f*cking thing across the field. We decided that the cous-cous had won, and, defeated, we walked back to the Monster House to find Eymundur. Luckily (I guess more for him than for us) he knew of a farmer that had a different type of seeder we were able to borrow, and newly equipped for battle we returned to the field. This time, in the span of a little over two hours we were able to complete what had originally taken us almost two days. Victory was finally ours.

WWOOFing at Vallanes

Week #3, which included an introduction to organic farming, new people, and vegetarian meals, is coming to a close much sooner than I was expecting (though, I can´t say that I´m sad about the vegetarian meals part.....I like my meat).

We have spent the past week WWOOFing on a farm near Egilsstaðir. For anyone who doesn´t know, WWOOF is an organization where you work worldwide on organic farms. So basically there are farms all over the world that you can travel to, and in exchange for room and board you do a bit of work........probably one of the hippiest things I will ever do, but it was extremely interesting, and just one week was not quite enough time.

I suppose that I will probably go into a bit too more detail about the farm than I would like for one post, so I will be breaking it down into parts. (Mostly because it´s kind of a nice day, and I´d rather go outside, plus, no one reads long blog posts anyway).

PART ONE: the farm.

The first farm we chose is mainly a barley farm, however, Eymunder (the farmer) also produces a lot of other products like massage oils, beet chutney, some sort of organic crackers, and a few other things (so basically he doesn´t grow just barley). We didn´t choose it for any specific reason other than he was the first one to respond to any of our emails.

It´s a nice looking farm, quite large in fact (by large, I mean a LOT of different fields) and it even has it´s own ''forest'' which Eymundur planted himself (it´s puny, the trees are. but it is rude to snicker at the trees). To the East are beautiful, snow-covered mountains, and to the west there is a giant lake about a 15-20 minute walk from here (where, apparently, a like monster resides), On the property is a little white church with a red roof (I think I read some where the at one time farmers owned their own chuch......but I´ll read up on it later and explain).

We live in what is called ''The Monster House.'' It is the equivilant of two trailer homes put together (perpendicularly <----new word?) and the outside is graffiti-painted (well, I guess maybe more mural-like). It can house up to about 14 people, I think, and currently we have about 10 or 11 right now. It´s very peaceful here, but unless you hitchhike into town there isn´t a whole lot to do in your free time....other than go to the lake or the forest. The weather has been beautiful (sunny), but in the early afternoon the wind picks up and it´s much nicer to sit and read on the sofa and just look outside than actually BE outside.