Winter is well and truly here, with our fire crackling away to keep us cosy and warm. Despite the chill, there is still interest from people wanting to learn organic farming, and WWOOFers are joining up to experience your family and farming life. It’s a fantastic opportunity to welcome the world into your home, hear fresh perspectives, and share delicious meals together.
There has been an increase in WWOOFers signing up this past year and you have hopefully had some good times together. WWOOFing can still happen in winter, preserving, cleaning out gardens beds, getting seed ready for planting, fencing and planning your projects for when spring arrives. Winter is also a great time to get out your arts and crafts. Activities we may take for granted such as knitting or woodwork can be new and exciting for your WWOOF visitors. Remember your WWOOFers are interested in growing organic fruit and vegetables, making food (bread, cheese, sausages… ), creating craft-work, managing stock and land organically, or learning homesteading skills and how to become self-sufficient along with wanting to to experience a more personal and meaningful stay with New Zealanders.
Supporting Sick WWOOFers
A few hosts have contacted us over the last year after having a WWOOFer who either got sick during the stay or even arrived unwell. While it’s unfortunate, supporting sick WWOOFers requires hosts’ compassion. Feeling unwell while far from home is definitely not a pleasant situation to be in. When a WWOOFer falls ill, hosts should have an honest chat with them to understand if the illness is serious. They may need help finding medical help or just some bed rest. Providing comfort and care is not necessarily part of a hosts brief but if you can manage allowing them a bit of rest, an extra blanket and a hot cup of tea it can make a difference. If they are not feeling better after a day or two and especially if you feel you are being taken advantage of, you can help them find alternative accommodation such as a local backpackers or B&B. A little friendliness and support go a long way in helping sick WWOOFers feel better soon! We do advise WWOOFers to have travel insurance to cover sickness.
Nostalgia
We were happy to have been able to search and find some old hosts and put one of their past WWOOFers in touch with each other. This was from a stay that happened nearly 20 years ago! They were back in the country, now married with children and were able to make contact and arrange a visit. There are so many wonderful stories of friendship made, with ongoing visits to and from each other’s countries and meeting the family. Some even re-connecting years later with the next generation coming to visit.
Fabulous Feijoas
Use your leftover feijoa skins for this. Maybe after you’ve made that feijoa crumble, chutney, ice cream, muffins, tarte tatin, strudel, cake, salsa…. I was pretty excited to hear about this as I hate wasting those fleshy green skins. Many of your WWOOF visitors will not have tasted feijoa before, we had family stay recently who had heard about this delicacy and were desperate to try them!
Feijoa Fizz
- 20 feijoa skins, washed
- 1/2 cup sugar (more or less to taste)
- 2 litre water
- Place skins in a large, sterilised container. Add half of the sugar, then cover with the water.
- Place a weight on top of the feijoa skins to ensure they’re completely covered by water. Cover your container with a tea towel or cheese cloth. Leave for two to three days. (I forgot about it so it was about 4-5 days!)
- Strain the liquid into a bottle or jar, then stir in the remaining sugar. Seal tightly with a lid and leave for a day or two or until it’s fizzy.
Serve in a glass with ice. Or experiment with a splash of gin or vodka for a feijoa cocktail.