helpx

I had a friend round this week to give me some advice on the garden, she is doing horticulture at college, anyway she took a load of vegies she had grown with her which were really nice and she told me about WWOOFers which is an organization that puts organic farms in contact with people who will give labour in exchange for learning the trade, you pay nothing for their work but provide accommodation and food. A bit like the Kibbutz that used to attract backpackers when I was a kid.  The Kibbutz was a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1909, was Degania.

Anyway I'm not an organic farmer so this sort of ruled out the WWoofers but I found a site called HELPX which does along the same lines offering food and accommodation to travelers in return for their labour. I could really do with a hand clearing and maintaining this big garden so am going to give it a try and see if it is worth it. After putting the ad on the website I got 5 emails straight away 2 blokes from the Czeck Republic who are at college in Brno but want to visit Ireland for 3 months to learn English and suss out job prospects here, they sound quite good as they have experience in building walls and so forth. The was an email from a 19 yr old French bloke, a girl from Canada and one from Barcelona who loves dogs and could be a great house sitter if we went away in the New Year, save putting the dogs to the kennel. I shall maybe give it a try after John Sheana and Sacha leave at the start of November.

Looking forward to some company.

I put a dado rail up round the living room last week and painted the lower section of the wall a deep red colour it looks good, the old office needs a paint now so I can use it as a third bedroom. I have a section still to do behind a big book case the first wet day that comes along.