Back from the dark (and rainy) side of busy

Gosh, it has been crazy busy around here. In a good way, but busy all the same. We've had a wwoofer here for the last ten days and she is keeping me on my toes.

Wwoofing, for those of you who don't know, is a great exchange of energy between people who are farming and people who want to learn about farming. By offering to teach and supervise (and feed and house) someone when they are learning, I get a volunteer who will work on the farm for 25-30 hours a week. Here's a picture of our wwoofer Kaitlin hard at work!

This is our first experience with the wwoofing program and so far, it's been great. Wwoof stands for willing workers on organic farms, and Kaitlin sure fits that description. Just like most wwoofers she travelled here from far away. (Kaitlin is from the coast of Maine.) In case you are interested, you can learn more about wwoofing by clicking here .

So far, in the last week Kaitlin has shoveled manure from my friend George's dairy farm (stinky!), double dug two and a half very large garden beds (which you may remember entails digging a hole three feet deep, adding tons of organic matter and manure and then refilling it), made a biodynamic preparation, finished the property line fence with Steve and mixed up seven trashcan-fulls of chicken food. And that is just some of the stuff she has done. Here's a bad picture of one of the holes she dug in our

absolutely dreadful weather. Seriously, in the last week, we

we have experienced deluge after deluge, a ferocious windstorm and an icy snowstorm and Kaitlin has experienced them all first hand.

It's great to actually be accomplishing THE LIST. Even if we aren't the ones doing all the work. (Maybe BECAUSE we aren't the ones doing all the work.)

Kaitlin is in Seattle today on her day off exploring the city. When she's back on Friday it is on to building compost. And she thought digging holes was hard work!