Julia; Germany, April 30th-May 11th, 2007

Julia also from Germany, was travelling, not only for the life experience, but to polish her English language skill. Which I must say were better than some Canadians’. Julia, and been in Canada for a couple of months already and was in Vancouver studying English. Julia was in between studies in Germany. Julia had started landscaping as a career, but found the work too physical and mainly in urban settings. So Julia once her travels were over, she will go back to Germany to study landscape ecology. Which Julia hopes will allow her to work more in nature.
Julia arrived at our farm-woodlot two weeks into Gregor’s stay. This was great as we had lots or work that needed to be done. As I had just started with the planting of the garden.
Julia had hoped to do more hiking while she was here, however because of the high winter snowpack and cool spring, most trails were open, but only the lower half, as we didn’t see much sense in hiking if we couldn’t get to our destination.
We did make it to Thompson Falls for a short hike. Then Gregor, Loren and Julia road the bikes the 16 km back home. Julia is very interested in horses, and while at her last Wwoofing hosts in Enderby, she had learnt some Perelli which she tried on Duke. She also road Duke in the round pen. But he hadn’t been ridden this year and was a bit rusty. Julia also went to Rachelle’s to practice Perelli on Rachelles horses.
Julia, amongst other chores, helped to wash all of the windows in the lodge. Prepared the garden for planting onion sets and carrots, mulched the raspberries, moved sand to the trench used to re-route the lodge electrical.
Julia will be missed. She is such a quiet and thoughtful soul. We hope she will stay in touch with us.

Gregor, April 23 to May 13, 2007

Gregor; Gerolstein, Germany. We have had Wwoofers return to wwoof once again and Karla, our first Wwoofer (2003) has returned twice as our friend. But Gregor was our first Wwoofer who was coming to stay with us, because his sister Charlotte, who stayed with us in 2004, had recommended our farm-woodlot to her brother Gregor. Charlotte had called in Dec 2006, to see if Gregor could Wwoof with us. We were very excited to have Gregor come to our farm, because Charlotte had been such a pleasant and studious ww.
Gregor, had just finished high school and was taking a year off to travel. Gregor wants to study to be Forester, like his Father and Grandfather.
Gregor visited the woodlot where Loren logged this winter, and was preparing to harvest on in June. Unfortunately, Gregor left before Loren’s new processing/excavator arrived at the site, so Gregor wasn’t able to see the processor work. Gregor, went out into Louisiana Pacific’s (local forestry company) forests and plantations with employees of the company. It was very exciting for him, as these areas are in the mountains and over 90 kms from our farm.
Gregor was great help around our farm especially because he was both independent and could run a power saw. While he stayed with us, among smaller chores he helped Loren; fill the woodshed, repair fences and install new gates, dig a trench to re-route the lodge electricity underground, mowed the lawn and cut up a large aspen tree that Loren felled. Gregor and Julia installed fence posts to enlarge the chicken coupe, and then Gregor finished it by putting up wire and filling in the trench.
While returning from Calgary with us, Gregor was lucky enough to see and take photos of not only one, but two

Grizzly bears inside Banff Park.
Gregor was only going to stay for two weeks, but he stayed an extra week. We were glad to have the extra help.
We know we will see Gregor again, and Charlotte too. One day we would like to visit Germany and have Gregor and his Father show us forestry practices there.

Theo; Holland, Dec 15-21, 2006

Theo; Holland, Dec 15-21, 2006
Theo, from Holland, was our last Wwoofer of 2006. We usually don’t take Wwoofers at this time of year, because we don’t have much for chores. However, we sensed that Theo needed an experience in the winter Rockies, so we agreed to take him on.
We had already had a lot of snow by this time, so Theo did his share of snow shovelling and kept the barn clean. This is something a Wwoofer must be prepared to do during winter in the Rockies. Theo was very good at origami, he made us several small figures, including frogs and birds. We used some of these on our Christmas Tree.
Surprisingly for someone who was travelling in the Rockies during the winter, Theo was not interested in out of door recreation. We did get Theo out on the sleigh for our inaugural season ride. Theo headed off onto the Slocan Valley, however due to poor hitchhiking he ended up travelling back to Lytton to a host home, where he had purchased a vehicle for travelling in over the next few month. We did not here from Theo after he had reached Lytton. We do hope he has found his way ok.