Wwoofing in Stanley

So, easter sunday sees me sitting at a walnut and chestnut farm in Stanley, just out of Beechworth in victorian mountains(ish), kind of half way between Smelbs and Canberra.

Grace and I have been here since Monday, after I spent about a month and a bit in Melbourne hanging out, drinking coffee, enjoying seeing the everyday sites, catching up with melbournians from around the place and the stupid amount of WAliens living in or visitting Smelbs, and vegan feast making with Grace in her hobbly little Willy Wonka style kitchen. And dropping my mobile in a bucket of dishwashing water - doesn't even come with the cred of dropping it in a pint. And yes, becoming very fond of their little cat (Bruce Willis the Adventure Cat). Strange, I've never been a cat person, and I still think they're a bit ridiculous for Australia, but I can now more completely envisage myself as a crazy old cat lady...

So yes, back to the farm. It's been an awesome week. The family is a lovely couple and their 2 cute young kids (1 and 3), who've been producing commercial scale organic produce the last few years, but have scaled it down this year - still with a very big vegie patch and the nut orchard. We've done an awesome variety of jobs and they've taught us heaps, though I've still got soooo much to learn (a lot of what we've learnt is really simple stuff I already should know - like what the plants that our everyday vegies grow on actually look like!)

Day 1 we cleaned up garlic (removing outta shell and getting it ready for use), weeded a vegie patch and airated another for planting. Highlight of day was picking carrots that we ate for dinner. Squee!

Day 2 Spent the morning putting branches of tree lucerne around orchard trees - a plant which fixes nitrogen and releases it as it breaks down. Arvo we planted some of the garlic out. Very cool seeing the full cycle! Also discovered the peppermint bush for awesome teeeaaa. Ah yes, and that's the day some of their extended family came round. Turns out affection for organics, composting toilets and not eating dead animals doesn't always run in families. Go figure. Grace had fun justifying veganism though...! Highlight of day was descovering the walnuts!! Yum, ate them from the tree :-D

Day 3 Planted seedlings of broccoli and cabbage, then went into Beechworth and poked around. Not much to say! Highlight of day was getting back and picking chestnuts! So spikey on the outside, so good on the inside. We roasted them and ate them in bed in our caravan room. Tasty but hard to peel. Totally worth it :)

Day 4 Made cucumber chutney in the morning and helped with the kids then they took off for the easter weekend and we were left with the house, all the fresh vegies we can eat, and a combustion stove we're still trying to work out a few days later, heh.

So since then we've kept doing some handy things around the place and kept discovering little bits of the property (wombat holes!!! - but no wombats yet. But clearly that's a pretty good impersonation). Generally just enjoying the amazing view and mudbrick house goodness. Pruned rasberry bushes today and dug up their potato crop yesterday, heh was way too much fun :p We ate some of them in chips for dinner last night.

So, not sure exactly where I'm going next. Smelbs on Tuesday for a few days but then not sure, yet again!

Most choclate-less easter I've ever had, but good good food, and we've raided their CD stash so right now listening to a waaay too long keyboard solo by the Doors, ha! Incongruous you say? Better than Primus Grace says...

Ah! and before I go, today we found a toadstool that was RED and WHITE! In the real world. Not in mario. Or in my drawings from primary school. One of the best things I've ever seen...that and the wombat hole.