Farm living

I have now been on babbinswood farm in Oswestry wales for four days, i am staying here as a WWOOFer. I had no idea what to expect going into the whole living Oma farm experience but so far I love it. I am one of seven wwoofers working on babbinswood right now, and between the lovely company and simple life it's been amazing. Each day starts at eight with breakfast, then by nine we are all working. Work, since its winter, right now is more about preparation for the even colder days to come. This includes weeding, building more compost bins, insulating the basement, bringing wood to the kitchen, preserving apples. We work until one when we have lunch, all together. Everyone takes turns cooking and there is a sort of rotation. The same goes for doing the dishes who ever cooked the last meal washes the dishes. Our meals consist of ingredients straight from the garden. Before dinner someone goes out and harvests what they want to cook. This means most of our meals involve a lot of cabbage, potatoes, apples, soup, and home made bread. The produce we use is all seasonal and all other baking products are organic. I have taken to baking a lot of pumpkin goods, such as last night I made pumpkin cake and the night before a pumpkin pie. A few nights ago, one of the other wwoofers made me an American apple pie, after all my talk of thanksgiving. What you may ask makes it am American apple pie? That is the crust on top. Most French pies are more tarts and don't have the crust on top. 

We have the afternoons off and they are usually, for me, spent going for walks, reading, cooking, and swapping stories with the other wwoofers. We also have weekends off but this weekend I volunteered to be the weekend wwoofer. This means I am I charge of the chickens, and doing simple up keep tasks around the farm. Yesterday my activities included raking, watering, baking, and collecting wood. As I am working this weekend, I have one day off this week to do whatever I please. I hope to go to oswestry, the closest town, to get a better feel for wales. The town is only a half hour bike ride away and there is also a great bus system. I love though being out of a town and more rural. It's so quiet and peaceful here that often the only noises are that of the clock and the chickens outside. 

As far as animals go there is the farm cat Tilly who sleeps with me, and one of the other wwoofers has a dog size. It's nice to have pets around again I really miss my dogs at home. And as far as the other wwoofers go, I am the only American. There are two French guys, one who owns Susie the dog. There is a Swiss couple also on a gap year that are the same age as me. One of them even has the same birthday as me! Then there is an English fellow who is staying at babbinswood through the winter then continuing on a bike tour of the UK. Lastly, there is a Spaniard who is the head wwoofer as he has been here the longest. We speak to endothermic in mostly English, sometimes French, or the others German as that is what the Swiss couple speaks to each other. I am staying for the shortest period of time, most of them are staying a few months at least. Everyone is friendly and they're knowledge of food, and environmentalism, and the world is amazing. I really feel that I'm learning a lot not just about the operations of a sustainable organic farm, but also about other ways of life. I know so much more about other countries, their habits, and how different, yet similar, we can all be.