Back To Square One. Again.

What does a head of cabbage have to do with job searching, you ask? Absolutely nothing.

Hello all. It's been a couple weeks... and what an eventful two weeks it has been, between Thanksgiving, helping my parents do some home renovation work, and excavating my pit of a room as Step One of the "I'm Going to Grad School Next Year and Need to Move Out" plan*...all of which helped to distract me from the email I got right after arriving home.

The email, from the Sieberts of Clear Spring Creamery fame (remember them?) basically told me that while they like me, they can't afford to have a full-time, paid intern who will be leaving in August. They did offer me an unpaid but full room/board sort of situation - not unlike being a WWOOF-er - for a few days a week, which would allow me to find a part-time job off farm. It's not ideal, but what is?

It is, however, a plan fully dependent on my ability to find some sort of part time work. Which I definitely could, but I am picky, and I'm the first to admit it. Also, said part time work would likely be in Baltimore or DC, which would be a lot of driving.

This is unfortunately the same story I've heard from multiple farms - "We'd like to hire you, but we need someone here the full season. Sorry." So while I'm not totally back at Square One... I'm sort of back at Square One.Which has me re-evaluating my situation. After some thought, I've come up with the following three options:



Continue the Farm Search
Just because I keep coming up empty doesn't mean it will happen forever. I actually sent in a farm application just this morning. Who knows? It never hurts.


WWOOF-ing Galore
Not gonna lie... I find this a very attractive idea. It gives me the chance to travel around, to work on a variety of different farms, meet a ton of people, and to continue learning. It allows me to be as flexible as I want with my schedule, which is handy. And wonder of wonders... one of my AmeriCorps friends emailed me just yesterday asking if I'd like to WWOOF with her in California for a month, starting in late January. Serendipity? Perhaps.

There are some cons, however. A big one is money. I saved a few thousand this past year, which is not too shabby, but I was planning on keeping it back for grad school. So before I go haring off into the Wide World of WWOOF, I will need to do some calculating and some budgeting.

Another con is that, in an ideal world, I'd like to stick close to DC for (ahem) personal reasons. At any rate, the idea bears some thought.


Other Job Options
Although farm work is pretty high on my list of what I'd like to do, there are a lot of other opportunities out there that could be very valuable learning experiences. There's a lot to be said for working in a nonprofit or for an agency where I can learn about grassroots organizing, the legislative process, media/communications work, or other skills useful for advocacy.

I've been checking Idealist and Good Food Jobs regularly for internship opportunities - sent in two applications this morning, as a matter of fact. A lot of those jobs happen to be unpaid, however, and if I'm going to be unpaid, it will be while WWOOF-ing.




So that is where I am. Updates to follow, of course. And any thoughts or ideas are appreciated, naturally.




*No judgment, please. I have 25 years worth of stuff in there.

The Farming Internship, Part One

I started this blog in order to document my WWOOF-ing adventures. I know this. But that does not change the fact that sometimes, circumstances change.

It is my duty to now inform you, dear readers, that you have been misled. This blog will no longer be the blog of a WWOOF-er. I accept full responsibility for the deception, and will attempt to make any repatriations necessary for those who feel hoodwinked. But I must be allowed to state my case - then, and only then, can you take me to task if I have been neglectful of my duties as a blogger for and devotee of the organic and local food movement.

Basically, it comes down to what I feel will serve me best as I attempt to educate myself about small farm operations. I think WWOOF-ing is wonderful, and it's still something I'd like to do in the future - possibly for some months next year as I wait for grad school to start. But in the meantime, I am directing my attentions to the ever-useful Farming Internship.

I started thinking about farming internships as an option after a friend/co-worker directed me to the ATTRA website (also known as the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service... nothing close to "ATTRA," now that I think about it), which has quite a detailed and informative directory for farming internships and apprenticeships in the US and Canada. You can search by state/province, city, farm name, or keyword. After perusing a few descriptions, I started thinking about whether an internship was for me. And...I decided it was.

Two words: "Learning Experience." The whole point of WWOOF-ing (apart from the travel, the adventure, and the free food, of course) is that I want to be learning about organic agriculture - I want to network with farmers who rely on it for their livelihoods, I want to learn about issues in the field*, and I want to pick up lifeskills like plucking chickens, canning tomatoes and making things grow out of a field without managing to kill them in the process.

Yes, WWOOF-ing can and does expose you to these things, but internships are designed to put education first. A lot of the internships I'm looking into have relationships with other farms and organizations that allow interns to visit and learn about other types of organic ventures, attend workshops, take classes, etc. And the whole point is to educate people like me, who have barely a scrap of farming experience.

Also, as a WWOOF-er you might have some say in what you do. It probably depends on the farm and what they need, how many WWOOF-ers they have around, and how much experience you have. But your chances are better with a farmer whose intention is to teach you, rather than just have you do whatever work they need done.

Money and stuff. Not to be too crude about it, but while WWOOF host farms give you room and board in exchange for your work, you're on your own for any other expenses. A lot of internships have stipends - not much, but if it pays for my toothbrush and soap and gas for my car, then it certainly helps. And actually, a lot of the stipends I've seen pay as much (if not more) than my stipend as an AmeriCorps NCCC volunteer. A couple even provide health benefits, although I think that's outside the norm. Who knew?

What about travel and adventure and being a free spirit? So I'll be in one place for six to eight months instead of traveling around that entire time - my experience will be all the richer for it. I'm not saying you can't make good friends in a month or six weeks, but I like the idea of really getting to know the location, the other workers/interns, and the farmers who are teaching me. And it's not like I won't be traveling - as you'll see eventually, I'm applying all over the US... although my home territory, the good ol' Midwest, isn't receiving any love. Not that I don't love Indiana, but I want to travel, and that means going away. Far, far away.

And like I said, I still see myself WWOOF-ing in my "off months". By then, I'll have more experience under my belt, so maybe I won't be stuck picking grape tomatoes for seven hours a day.

And what about trying new things, learning different skills, and not getting stuck with one job? I'm glad you asked. According to my recent bedtime reading partner, a small family farm is a tightly contained, sustainable organism in a way. It doesn't produce a monoculture of just one crop - corns, soybeans, wheat - because not only is that unsustainable and terrible for the health and chemistry of the soil, but no one can survive on just corn or soybeans or wheat. A local, small, family farm has its fingers in a lot of pies - it grows a variety of produce, it puts up jams and jellies and canned goods for winter, and it often has livestock such as poultry, sheep and/or beef running around. The crops are rotated every year, since different crops require different nutrients and the farmer doesn't want to deplete the soil; the poultry eat pests and scratch up the soil, helping to prevent weeds; food waste goes to the pigs, and manure from livestock is in turn used to fertilize the growing produce. Also, if one crop (say, tomatoes) goes kaboom one year, Mr. Farmer isn't royally screwed for not growing anything else.

My whole point here is that working on one farm for an entire growing season doesn't mean I won't get the opportunity to do a variety of jobs. In fact, that's something I've taken into account as I've researched farms. I'm only applying to places that grow produce and keep some variety of livestock, with the hopes that I will get the chance to do a bit of everything.

Join me soon for Part Two, in which I struggle with deciding..... WHERE I SHOULD GO. (dum dum dummmm)



*This pun will never get old for me. And if you don't like puns, don't read this blog. And don't ever meet me.

The Game Plan

So now that I have decided to actually WWOOF, the next year and half or so are starting to loom in a rather alarming way. I've made the big decision (What do I do next?) and now I have to start making those annoying little logistical ones (So... how do I actually do this?).

Frankly, the task is a daunting one. Let's start at the beginning: first and foremost, I need to decide where the heck I'm going. There are 195 countries in the world, give or take one or two (do we count Taiwan? What about Vatican City?), and 99 of those host WWOOF-ers. But while I would love to backpack my way across international organic landscapes, learning how to say "permaculture" in seventeen different languages , there are two big reasons why I won't.

First: the money. I do not have much of it, and I would like to not spend all of what I have. Second: I am interested in learning about the issues surrounding the agricultural systems of this country, where I intend to live and work and play and eat for all my days. So it makes sense, financially and for my future career, to stay here in the US of A.

Not that this simplifies things, really. I go to the WWOOF USA website and what do I find but a giant map of the Fifty Nifty United States. Fifty. Five-Zero. That's a lot of states, people. And while I may pretend to be whimsical and happy-go-lucky in my day to day meanderings, there is no way I'm pulling a Doctor Doolittle and going wherever my finger blindly falls in the atlas.

Rather than approaching this from the outside, I think I need to take it the opposite direction, and examine my own needs. What are my reasons for WWOOF-ing? What do I hope to gain? If I identify the "why" for myself, I can use that to whittle away at the myriad farms and organizations out there, and find the ones that address what I'm specifically interested in.

So here are my thoughts, such as they are:

Variety is the spice of life. I don't just want to plant corn for a year (although I do love corn). I want to sample a broad swath of what's available the organic agriculture horizon, working in a multitude of different areas. This includes, but is not limited to:

• Ranches (or anywhere with livestock, really)
• Dairy farms
• Orchards
• "Traditional" farms with your average produce
• Winery
• Apiary (a.k.a. a bee farm)
• Wherever I can tap trees and make maple syrup

Being skilled and savvy. Related to the above is another list, which grows longer daily, of skills I'd like to learn along the way. How to make cheese. How to can tomatoes. How to build a fence. Increase my upper arm strength by chopping wood. Learn the basics of gardening. Dry herbs. Milk cows. Collect eggs from chickens.

Increase my organic know-how. Well, that's the whole reason I'm doing this, after all. Ultimately, I want to get my Master's in Food Studies (more on that eventually). What better way to learn about the issues facing today's organic farmer and the industry of organic and sustainable agriculture than to actually go out and do it? By WWOOF-ing, I will meet people who are invested in this industry and this movement. I can talk to farmers and the future leaders of the organic initaitive, make connections, and learn first-hand what is out there and what needs to change.

Gotta sow those wild oats. I'm young and limber (ish). I can handle sleeping on the ground and spending a few weeks bent over a row of beets. Plus, I need stories to tell my grandkids.

So - new game plan:

• Make list of the types of farms I want to visit and learn more about (started above)
• Defile the snowy-white screen of my untouched farm spreadsheet with information about interesting-looking organic farms
• Contact farmers and learn more - what kind of accomodations are available, what tasks will I do, are there cows around (I like cows), are there cats (I like cats too), etc.
• Create a loose itinerary that takes into account all of the above

The Practical Guide to "The Practical Guide to WWOOFing"

Given that it will be several months before I am actually able to start my WWOOF-ing adventure, I've been doing a healthy amount of research to prepare. Pretty much the first thing I did (after visiting the WWOOF website) was purchase Adam Greenman's self published book, The Practical Guide to Wwoofing.

 Adam Greenman is a British fellow who has been WWOOF-ing since 2000, mostly in Europe. Greenman writes: "...it just occurred to me that there may not actually be a simple paperback for new wwoofers. Over the coming months, I found lots of references to wwoofing in other books and also online information, but not a plain 'A-Z' type book." And thus, The Practical Guide was born.

Greenman's book takes you from the beginning. And I mean, really from the beginning...not quite to "Let there be light" but close enough. If you know next to nothing about WWOOF-ing basics, this is certainly a good place to start.

On the other hand, perhaps you have already done a modicum of research - talked to people who have WWOOF-ed before, read *ahem* WWOOF-ing blogs, visited the websites, googled articles, etc. It's still worth the read, in my opinion, but you'll find yourself rehashing a lot of stuff you already knew. However, Greenman does provide a comprehensive list of websites and contact information for countries that support WWOOF-ing; several check-lists for equipment and so forth to, uhm, check; and travel advice born from years of experience. He also sprinkles the book with little narratives and stories, gleaned from the previous decade.

The Practical Guide itself is not what I would call "professional" (clip-art proliferates its pages like medieval castles along the Rhine, or nudes in the Louvre), but it is reasonably priced and, as I mentioned, worth a look if you are seriously considering the WWOOF lifestyle but don't know too much about it. And while the size the size (214 pages) might seem like a rather large commitment if you're just wanting to read up on WWOOFing, don't be alarmed. Greenman has made the font large to benefit those readers who aren't as fluent in English. Plus, all that clip-art takes up quite a bit of space.

The other nice thing Greenman has done is make The Practical Guide available as a pocket book, a full-sized book, or an electronic download. I took the final route, which has the multiple inducements of costing less (around $8, compared with $16 for the full-sized edition), being more eco-friendly, and being available immediately. And while patience may be a virtue, I do like things to be available immediately.

The First One

Hello all, and welcome to my new blog.

This blog will chronicle my forthcoming adventures in the wide world of WWOOF-ing, otherwise known as World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms. This is an organization that allows people to work on organic farms all over the world, in exchange for room and board.

A little bit about me: I am currently a Team Leader with AmeriCorps NCCC (National Civilian Community Corps), a fully residential, team-based community service program for 18 to 24 year olds. It is a fantastic program, but one that sadly will not allow me to serve a third year with them. Therefore, I am in the process of figuring out what to do with myself after November 23, when the federal government shall cut me adrift.

My current plan is to go back home, enjoy my two favorite holidays (Thanksgiving and Christmas) with the family I hold so dear, and then in January... well, the metaphors are endless, but somewhere "stretch my wings" and "hit the road" should do the trick. Point being, I plan on having some serious bonding time with Sylvester, my faithful Toyota Echo, as we explore the vast and varied organic opportunities that await us.

That's it for the time being. Good night, and good luck.