My First WWOOFing Experience/My Fall (or Jump) From Vegetarianism: Days 1 & 2

 Day 1

View from one of their fields

Lauren and I arrive at the train station in Boussens, about an hour southeast of Toulouse and are met by a small wiry man in his late 40s named Cyril. He’s wearing old Levi’s, dirt encrusted trainers, and a sun-bleached T-shirt. He’s got short salt and pepper hair, dark tanned neck and face, worn hands with dirt caked in every crevace and crack. We exchanged pleasantries (read: bisous) and got into his old dusty Citroen. On the way to their farm we drove through Aurinac, the closest town, to buy some baguettes and make a stop at the hardware store, where he buys on credit. I’m definitely not in Toulouse anymore.

Tita (left) and Loutte

When we get to the large 200+ year old stone farmhouse we meet the rest of the lineup, including Cyril’s sunny, equally tanned wife Dominque whose wearing a faded threadbare romper printed with melons, trainers and no socks. I love her immediately. The rest of the family consists of:

-       2 dogs: Tita and Loutte, the former of which is younger and more mischievous

-       A roost of hens and a coq

-       3 ducks and a dozen of goslings

-       2 pigs; a pregnant Peggy and Edmund

-       Sheep, including a newborn lamb

-       Rabbits

-       An especially quirky hen named Ben, after a memorable former WWOOFer who apparently was never the same after a very special mushroom omelet

-       A slue of tabby cats

Edmund

Their farm is 100% organic, or as the French say, “bio,” meaning that the use zero chemicals or products whatsoever on their crops, soil, seed, animals, food for their animals, zip. The practice a kind of farming called maraichage, or large-scale gardening. They grow corn, spinach, lettuce, zucchini, eggplant, squash, melon, strawberries, artichokes, potatoes, carrots, beans, beets, tons of varieties of tomatoes and more. When they go to market, which is Saturdays in Muret, along with the harvested produce they also sell homemade & fermented apple cider and organic seedlings of all the crops they grow themselves. They raise the animals for their own meat but don’t sell any of it.

After getting a tour of the grounds we saw the inside of the house, which is a large, rather unfinished but cozy, and gives you the impression you’re still outside when you’re in. They have a tiny kitchen but a large living room with am enormous, fabulously worn wooden table. There’s also a small sitting room/library with floor to ceiling bookshelves mostly filled with books about agriculture, wildlife and minerals and mismatched antique chairs. They don’t have a television, but a huge alphabetized eclectic collection of music on shelves in the living room and a stereo. Upstairs is where they sleep and there’s an extra bedroom where WWOOFers have the option to stay. They also have an old 60’s era camper permanently parked in the yard where WWOOFers can choose to sleep.

Ben

That night they were having some kind of agricultural meeting at their place, so we ate pretty early with some of the participants, mostly neighboring farmers, around 8pm. Cyril prepared a pasta salad with soft-boiled duck eggs and cured sardines. One woman brought a rice pudding. One couple brought a WWOOFer from Washington they had staying with them and the 3 of us went for an after dinner stroll while they had their meeting. The countryside is beautiful, like a painting: hilly with varying shades of green for miles and miles.

           

I already love C & D, they’re extremely laid back and funny. It feels more like host-family than a working exchange. They told us to get up when we wanted tomorrow and find them in the fields to begin work.

Day 2

Parabol

First day of work. What to wear?? I opted fro some old cargo shorts (yikes!) I bought in High School, never did I think that one day I would be wearing them to farm in the south of France. Lauren and I came downstairs around 8 to find bread, butter and several open pots of homemade jam strewn on the wooden table and 2 bowls set out for our coffee.

We spend the morning planting cucumber, zucchini and tomato seedlings in holes in tarp that was already laid with a really nice woman named Ingrid who was there helping out for the day. For lunch Domi had been cooking something in a large earthen pot suspended over a giant bowl-shaped solar panel. It turned out to be rabbit (one of their own), some of the first zucchinis and rice, which we ate outside in the shade of a large flowering tree. This was my first run in with meat since being a veg. I knew they ate meat here every day, as it was described in their blurb about their farm, and eating meat was something I wanted to get back into under the right circumstances…and what better circumstances than 100% organic, free-range meat killed just days before? None. So, I dug in.

Table set for lunch on our second day

I was forcibly reminded of my first (and only other) rabbit run-in that happened to also be in France 2 years ago on the farm of my host father’s mother. It was really good, very tender with lots of juices from the vegetables. For dessert we had fromage frais with homemade blueberry jam. We followed lunch with a 2 hour siesta through the hottest part of the day. I could get used to this farming business.

View of the Pyrenees from the top of their driveway

That afternoon Lauren and I weeded out nettles around the back of the house while Domi blasted some cool jazz out the window for us. That evening I went for a run though the surrounding woods with the 2 dogs. What was explained to me as a simple, 30 minute loop turned into me getting lost for an hour and a half and returning at 9:30 just as it was getting good and dark and Cyril was about to come looking for me. Oops. It was a little Blair Witch for a about 20 minutes when I took a wrong turn that took me deeper and deeper into the woods but very zen when I finally emerged, Omaha by the Counting Crows came on my iPod and saw the fiery streaks of the remnants of the sunset over the surrounding fields. Duck egg omelet, goat cheese and salad for dinner. Farm life is good so far.