Loppers, Canes, and Spurs

Hello, Friends and Family!

We’ve reached the end of an era. Again. Though, compared to the doubts we’ve had in the past (e.g. moving away from Auckland), we are absolutely, positively thrilled to be done with WWOOFing.

Granted, our hosts and overall WWOOF experiences have gotten better and better in these two long months, and I think with Bob and Jennie (our now-landlords), we finally realized what the whole WWOOFing thing was supposed to be about. It’s called Willing Workers On Organic Farms because we, the workers, are supposedly given the opportunity to learn various principles, logistics, and techniques of organic farming. Scrubbing mold from a shower, serving tables in a restaurant, and cleaning out a tool shed taught us quite a bit, like what NOT to do in our own eventual house and restaurant, but taught us nothing about organic farming. As Bob has said, some travelers do the WWOOF thing to travel cheaply, and some do it to learn, hands-on, about organic farming. We were probably more in the former category, excited to explore the rest of the country without having to pay for food or lodging, but the backfire came when we figured out that we didn’t particularly like living in a stranger’s house and working for no money. Live and learn – our motto for this year.

What fascinates Jenny and me is how some people can be so into the WWOOF program. Natural born WWOOFers. There’s a guy from England who has spent the last three (3) years just WWOOFing. In New Zealand. He even had a stint at this orchard with Bob and Jennie. And then there’s our Slovenian friend on Stewart Island, who had been WWOOFing for the restaurant owner since before Christmas. We’ve kept in touch, and he says he’ll be leaving the island in June. Maybe if we’d done this later in our lives, like those two, we’d have a different perspective, but as it is, we’re quite happy to now have paying jobs and weekly rent for our own little cottage.

Last week, we picked and packaged some feijoas (-->), but most of our time was spent weeding the 18 rows of blueberry bushes situated right next to our cottage. It might not sound like much, but it took the three of us (Jennie, Jenny, and me) a little over four solid half-days of grubbing, pulling and chopping to make sure those bushes will be weed-free for the next season. On the second day, Jennie commented, “Now you know why you have to pay a little extra for organic.”

In our short time here so far, we’ve been lucky enough to meet Bob and Jennie’s “organic auditor,” who comes by once a year to make sure they’re maintaining organic practices and to re-certify them for the year. He audits farms all over New Zealand and the surrounding Pacific islands, and some of the stories we heard from him have definitely made us think that paying a “little extra” is totally worth it for certain products. Apparently, harvested wheat is often fumigated in the storage silo while it’s waiting to be sent away for flour processing. And non-organic stone fruits, like nectarines and peaches, are sprayed with a pesticide strong enough to kill birds. Granted, it can be difficult to grow certain fruits and veggies organically. When Bob and Jennie moved onto this land, it was a nectarine orchard, but because of pests and fungus, it’s practically impossible to grow nectarines in this area organically, so Bob took out all the nectarine trees except one, and replaced them with blueberries, plums, and feijoas. I’ve found it interesting - though I guess it should be obvious - how much of a role the region plays, or should play, in agriculture. The climate in this region, for example, is somehow decidedly perfect for growing white grapes, particularly the Sauvignon Blanc. As a result, Marlborough Sauvignon Blancs win lots of awards and are becoming more and more popular all over the world. Oddly enough, numerous wineries in the area have found it to be not only possible, but fiscally beneficial to produce their wines organically. And in the spirit of living and learning, Jenny and I are in the process of trying every single one of them.

Free wine tastings are rarely free, though, since we usually end up trying something we like and leaving the cellar door with a bottle in hand. So far, we’ve really enjoyed the Rieslings here. We control ourselves by riding Bob and Jennie’s bicycles to all the nearby wineries, so we know we can’t buy any more than what we can carry under an arm. Don’t worry, we wear helmets. And it’s a great way to explore the area on weekends.

Which brings us to today, our first day of pruning. We’re working for one of the largest wineries in New Zealand; our vineyard is about a 5-minute drive from the cottage, and it takes up 850 acres of Marlborough territory. Needless to say, we’ll be pruning all winter.

At 8:30am, our supervisor brought a handful of us new employees to a row of Chardonnay grapes to give us a crash course in pruning. Use the loppers to get rid of the old cord-ons, but make sure you leave about six good canes above a couple well-chosen spurs to give the pruned vine a nice “wine glass” look. Right. So, after 15 minutes of digesting those instructions, we could feel a few sprinkles of rain. Soon thereafter, it began to rain harder. By the time we got inside the break room, it was 10:00am and we were soaked to the skin, so the supervisor told us to go home and try again tomorrow. And wouldn’t you know it, as soon as we got back to the cottage, the “sunniest place in New Zealand” held up its reputation as the clouds disappeared and made it seem like the rain never happened. But now, I’ve written this while Jenny’s been working on a 5th draft of Violetta Dying, so it’s a bit too late to go back to the vineyard. Might as well open that bottle of Riesling and get ready for a full day… tomorrow.

A big toast and much love to you all,

Jenny and Brandon