WWoofing
My roommate, Liz Hendy, cleaning out the chicken coop
In case you were wondering, WWOOF stands for “WorldWide Opportunities on Organic Farms.” The WWOOF organization helps connect people interested in organic farming with farms looking for help. The workers help part-time on the farm in exchange for food and lodging. There is no transfer of money involved, so taxes and work restrictions are not an issue. The part-time work situation leaves plenty of free time for exploring local cities and nature.
My roommate so far has been another WWOOFer, Elizabeth Hendy. By complete coincidence, we are both violinists! She is also from the East Coast of the USA, growing up in New Jersey and attending the Juilliard pre-college program before pursuing her undergrad in violin performance at McGill University in Montreal. She graduated college in 2021 and has been traveling in Europe since then. Also, both of us were homeschooled for much of our lives before college. Our host, Sarah, started to think most Americans must be homeschooled musicians!
My WWOOF site is a vegetable and flower farm, with some animals that they keep for children’s tours. There is a lot going on around the property aside from the farm too. A gourmet mushroom company, Hut und Stiel, uses a couple buildings on the premises along with an office in the main house. Cafe im Leo is a coffeeshop right next door :) The farm boards several horses on site, runs a greenhouse and field garden for culinary and educational purposes, and hosts beehives at the back of the property. I think there is also a carpentry shop, a couple of spaces for hosting classes and receptions, and several tenants: Ali from Afghanistan, Lana from California (she lives in a wagon in the backyard), Sarah, and us WWOOFers.
The “Glashaus,” outside and inside, and “the Field,” the outdoor garden a half mile up the road
The land around the farm is full of edible plants. There are some old forgotten gooseberry bushes, red currants, black currants, and raspberries near the chicken coop. There are many cherry trees too, both cultivated ones in the garden and what I am guessing are the progeny of some discarded pits along the road. Wild fruits include tart black cherries, tasteless strawberries, unripe walnuts, and elderberries in between the flowering and fruiting stages. A huge mulberry tree in the field is supplying us with bowls and bowls of fresh fruit.
Gooseberries, black currants (or Johannisbeeren), and some fresh mulberry sauce on top of waffles and ice cream!
The moka pot in action
A typical day starts around 7 a.m. I have a bowl of muesli with milk and a cup of coffee made in a moka pot (the water in the bottom reservoir steams up through the coffee grounds and condenses into the top reservoir). Around 8 a.m. Liz and I go out to take care of the “little animals:” bunnies, chickens, goats, sheep, and llamas. After feeding, watering, and cleaning up after them, we deposit our wheelbarrow of fresh compost on the newest pile in the farm’s maze of decomposing hills. Then it’s time for a coffee break! Around 10:30 or 11 a.m. we head back out to help with gardening. Some days we weed in the “Glashaus,” prepare soil, plant new vegetables or flowers, or water the ones already there. Lunch is the main meal of the day at 2:00 p.m. (or 14:00 in Austrian terminology), and we all take turns making the lunch. After cleaning up from lunch, there is no more farm work for the day, and most of the extra helpers go home. Here on the farm, we often take a nap, read, go for a walk, hang out, or try to write :) Dinner is fend-for-yourself, usually leftovers.
The bunnies, Lawrence the sweet goat, Herbert the crazy goat (pc: Liz), the sheep, the llamas Chocolate and Vanilla, and the newest compost pile
In the evenings, we often go to one of the nearby lakes. One day in particular sticks in my mind. Sarah, Elizabeth, and I biked to the nearby Spar convenience store for snacks and drinks. We each got a couple of beers (about 1 euro each and no ID checks), and I got some bread and cheese (1 euro baguette, maybe 2 or 3 euros for the cheese). As we shopped, it began to rain. The downpour became too intense for biking, so we waited just outside the exit and started our meal. An empty flower display rack became my dinner table. Soon, the clouds passed and the sun broke through. Sarah led us on a ten-minute bike ride to the Lobau Nature Reserve. Many of the streams/lakes in the park are from groundwater flowing from the Danube, so although they don’t have any inlets or outlets they are crystal clear. We found a secluded section of the lake, parked our bikes, and sat down for the rest of our dinner.
Biking to the Spar convenience store, dining in style, and a relaxed evening by the lake (pc: Liz and Sarah)
I found this type of evening so different from the culture in the USA. First off, it was totally legal to consume alcohol and food in the park, and secondly there were absolutely zero signs of people leaving bottles, cans, or trash anywhere. There were helpfully placed trash cans at various points around the lake for just such a picnic as ours. Third, this is a popular spot for nude bathing, and when several people off in the distance took the liberty of skinny dipping, it didn’t even seem weird. I don’t think American culture is mature enough for any of this.
More thoughts on Viennese culture to come. And as a final random thought, I wanted to share this picture of a snail. It is enormous, and they’re all that big. Makes more sense why the Europeans turned the snails into food!
See the shoeprint for perspective.
Lana is organizing an eggshell brigade to stop their progress toward her plants.