Spring, which comes to Central Oregon is odd ways, is just around the corner. It’s a time when local farmers have more than their fair share of work repairing and fixing their farms from the elements of a harsh Central Oregon winter as well as preparing their land for the promise of summer’s bountiful crops. It’s also a time when they could use some extra help from those of us wanting to get our hands dirty for a day.
The next WWOLF event will be held at Field’s Farm, a 10 acre farm located only a few miles from downtown Bend on March 24. The WWOLF pack will have a chance to learn to garden with Bend legend Jim Fields who has over 20 years of experience planting organic vegetables and berries in Central Oregon.
Now that we know that buying local and organic is better for us, why not offer your help on one of these small, private farms? You will walk away knowing a little bit more about farm life and sleep soundly that night after a long day of rewarding volunteer work spent outside in the fresh air.
If you have the energy but aren’t quite sure how to offer it, WWOLF or “Willing Workers on Local Farms,” is your connection to those farmers. WWOLF is a chapter of Local Commerce Alliance, a non-profit that is working to increase local commerce in Central Oregon and is focused especially on helping local farmers become more self-sustaining.
Throughout spring, summer and fall WWOLF volunteers provide assistance to local farms in the form of volunteer labor forces called “WWOLF packs.” The packs spend the day building fences or outbuildings, pulling weeds, raking and even scooping poop or just about else anything else the farmer needs help with.
Last weekend 10 volunteers spent the day at Juniper Jungle, a permaculture farm just outside of Bend. WWOLFers at Juniper Jungle spread straw over 3.5 acres, weeded and prepared planting beds and built a small rock wall to protect the fields from erosion.Chris Casad, 24, farmer from Juniper Jungle says, “The work that was accomplished today by the WWOLF crew would have taken me at least a week by myself, probably more. My push to cultivate more land calls for each step of the cultivation process to grow exponentially in time and energy. This is the kind of work that is much more enjoyable with a big group, it can be monotonous and exhausting alone, but with a crew like this we all have a great time. I can’t believe all that we got done today. They told me to make a long list of projects and to be honest I didn’t think we would even come close to finishing them all, but we almost ran out of stuff to do at the end. Having a WWOLF crew visit the farm has set us ahead in ways that will last the entire season.”
WWOLF days are usually held on Saturdays. Volunteers meet at either Whole Foods or Starbucks on the north side of Bend and carpool to the various farms. Projects usually take a few hours to complete and the volunteers are rewarded with a farm tour and a freshly cooked meal prepared from produce or meat grown on the farm.
There are a several other WWOLF events scheduled in the next next couple of months.
For more information and to register go to Central Oregon Locavore’s website. http://www.centraloregonlocavore.com
