What’s it like to WWOOF at Peace & Plenty Farm?

DJ and Kathy raking wild organic blueberries

Hi Lloyd,

Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve written.  I wanted to send you a writeup of our experience at Peace and Plenty farm:

Kathy and I have been traveling to many different countries and volunteering our time on many different small farms over the past year and a half.  We have had many varied experiences including herding cattle, pruning magnolias, building pizza ovens, weeding, culling, and harvesting many different organic veggies, building a strawbale house, working on a nature reserve, and building retaining walls, fences and chicken coups.  While we have done much on these other farms, we had no experience quite like the one we had on Peace and Plenty farm with Lloyd and Hope Griscom.

Our accommodation in the Potato Hill Cabin was like living in a mountain paradise!  We saw moose on several occasions, one time just 20ft from the front deck.  We watched amazing lightning storms to the south from the big picture windows in the kitchen.  There were lots of delicious edible mushrooms growing just a couple hundred yards from the cabin, and there were a myriad of trails to hike just out the back door, including a long stretch of the Appalachian Trail.

Along with the incredible accommodation, we had a great work environment.  Lloyd is a very easy going, relaxed guy, and so it made raking blueberries for him quite low key, and very pleasureable.  The mountain views from the field are gorgeous, and the berries are delicious.  Some days we would spend 10 hours in the field, but only when we chose to.  Most days we were out there about 4-6 hours.  We still managed to pick over 1000lbs of berries in the 4 weeks we were there.  Working with the winnowers is very interesting, as it feels like you have stepped into the past and are processing fruit as they were back in the ’50s.  The machines work incredibly well for what they were designed, and so sorting the berries is a nice break from bending over and raking.  It’s great to be a part of the whole process from field to packaged bag of frozen berries.  Kathy and I enjoyed raking and processing the berries so much in our time at Peace and Plenty farm that we are now in search of our own blueberry field to own!

It’s really not just the Potato Hill cabin, or the fields with a mountain view that make Peace and Plenty farm such a great place.  Our hosts Lloyd and Hope were truly wonderful to us.  They made us feel very at home, and invited us to dinner on a number of occations.  We shared many personal stories, adventures, and dreams for the future with them, and they were always, kind, encouraging, and often had very similar views on how the world could be a better place.  It’s not often you meet people like Lloyd and Hope Griscom, and we feel very fortunate to have shared a month of our lives with them.

Lloyd, I am still working on the new winnower design.  We have been very busy with picking apples (just ended last week) and getting the wood stove you sold us installed in the Yome.  It’s all finished now though!  I will continue working on the winnower design.  I just got a parts list together today, so I will look those up and see what the major costs will be.  Keep in touch.

Peace,

–DJ Hewey