I am looking to wooff at some point this year or the next, has anyone here done it? I have very little practical experience with organic farming, but I'd love to get some first hand knowledge in it or in alternative building methods. I'm also looking to take some classes as yestermorrow school in vermont. I am excited!
I have done quite a lot of WWOOFing (in Europe), I had a lot of good experiences, met nice people, and most of all learned a lot! I think I will never stop WWOOFing And when I grow up, people will come WWOOFing at my place
I want to wooff too, but I've had people tell me really bad things about it, that wooffers are basically indentured servants and are treated really badly. Is that true?
I don't see how. I mean if someone treats you badly you can leave. I wouldn't stay around where someone treated me like a servant. Which is not to say I don't expect to have to work, and work hard. Basically I expect to pull my weight, but not my weight and everyone else's too. I'm curious to see what others say.
from the people ive talked to its based on the place you go. there are some really cool hosts and some that will treat you like a servant. the part about leaving, some places make you pay a security deposit. plus you usually have to stay till the end of the period to get paid. some people need that money so have to stay. im personally a little apprehensive about the whole woofing thing.
I've had different experiences. I never felt like a servant though. I did sometimes felt like I had to work hard and didn't get enough in return. But on other farms we worked only 3 hrs a day and got treated like princesses. It does depend on the place. And you can always leave. WWOOFing is mostly based on exchange - you get a place to sleep and food and stuff like that - not money..
The subject came up between me and the dude I mentioned in my last post because I was talking about how I really wanted to learn some farming skills, because I have absolute none. He made it sound like he didn't learn anything from Wwoofing except how to do complete grunt work.
I don't mind grunt work at all. I am happy to do anything involving organic gardening. I would pick a farm that did not raise meat, at least commercially, because I don't eat meat but I can appreciate that family farms are an important part of life and need to be maintained. So as long as I'm not slaughtering, I would even consider that. Ideally I would be helping with gardening (which I realize will be very, very hard work), but also learning any other smaller skills that go on in a farmstead. Does wooffing not seem like a good way to learn these things? I have no experience to start with, apart from some book learning. I probably know more than I give myself credit for, however.
Like I said it depends on the farm, but I have learned a LOT while WWOOFing!! And once when the farm was shit, I learned to stand up for myself, and give up my plans and leave and it made my world so much bigger..
I didn't say it, okay? Mr. Dude did. I'm just going off what I heard from one guy. He gave me a bad vibe on it and I was looking for more info. I've signed up and I just go my packet in the mail. omg wtf lolololololololololi
