so it turns out that those last minute wwoof arrangements that i had previously been so wary of can really be blessings. so was the case with our most recent wwoof host, Dieter. we called up Dieter and after a short conversation, he decided we could "give it a try." Dieter mostly operates on intuition we found out later so he must have sensed something special in my voice :) ha!

the next day we caught a bus from nelson to motueka where Dieter picked us up and drove us to his home/farm/orchard called Treedimensions (treedimensions.co.nz). we had our own flat which was very roomy and comfortable. the climate could be classified as mediterranean i guess and this suited us just fine--the mornings and evenings were crisp and cool and the work hours were warm, sunny, and dry. the whole farm was just beautiful, by far my favorite farm yet. there are just some places that i connect with and i felt an instant attraction to this farm--the landscape, the design, the plants growing on the property, the creek running through it, the beautiful home that Dieter and his children lived in...it's one of those places that made me feel alive and healthy.

most of our work took place in the orchard, which was a new experience for me and i instantly loved it. tom and i picked fruit for hours almost every day--mostly apples, but also pears, plums, blueberries, strawberries, and grapes. we worked really long days, usually from about 8:30am until maybe 5pm or sometimes 6pm--but the interesting thing was that it just didn't even feel like work and the hours passed so easily and happily. i didn't even mind working on the weekends, but we did usually take sunday afternoons to relax which Dieter encouraged. Dieter has designed his farm and orchard according to the principles and practices of permaculture and biodynamics. he had a lot of great reading material for us to peruse and we did spend hours sifting through all the information.

we had such a rich two weeks there that it's a bit overwhelming to put into words, but i'll just mention some of the other activities:
*picking/grading fruit for sale or processing
*observing and helping with a "juicing" (aka making apple juice or what would be considered apple cider in the States)
*clearing woodlots
*picking and cracking hazelnuts, then roasting them and making hazelnut butter and hazelnut/chocolate nougat
*weeding the house vege garden
*picking and coring crabapples for making jelly--the jelly turned out to be delicious!!
*bee-keeping demonstration
*pruning grape vines, picking grapes for sale (mostly table grapes)

we'd love to tell you all more about our time there as it was very inspiring in a lot of ways, but that might have to wait for face-to-face conversations.

we arrived in melbourne on march 18th and tom has now headed to the next farm, which is in Loch Sport (a couple hours southeast of melbourne, on 90 mile beach) and i'll be joining him in the next couple of days. we've been fortunate enough to stay with my cousins here in the city--they have been such gracious hosts and it's been a lot of fun for me to get to know them both better, as i haven't had much contact with them due to living so far away.

here's the link to another facebook album:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=66640&id=520444603&l=2b2c22c8f8

more blogging to come--we don't know what the internet situation will be at this next farm so it could potentially be awhile until i can post again. much love to you all back home........

jill