On the Road to Find Out

This is a great farm to come for anyone interested in the WWOOFing experience or volunteering on a farm. The twist with this farm is that it’s biodynamic. This is a philosophy (based on the teachings of Rudolf Steiner) that’s application to farming puts it it on the next level up from organic farming.

In reality, this means treating everything as one organism; us, the cows, the grass, the flowers, we are all part of the same process. The better we treat every part of this process, the better the end product will be. Which, judging by the quality of the cheese and dulce de leche produced in the dairy, is on a pretty high standard indeed.

All of these dairy products are free for volunteers, as well as pasta, rice, beans and oats, and anything that you want from the garden. Ultimately then, summer is the time to stuff your face, but even in winter there are plenty of pumpkins, onions, chilies and herbs knocking around to have some good options.

Work involves a mixture of working in the dairy (learn to make cheese, yoghurt and dulce de leche!), in the orchard (which constantly needs much attention) and tending to the animals. They have cows, horses, sheep and chickens which need to be fed/cleaned/milked (delete as appropriate) each day. This last one was, for me, the most gratifying as after a couple of weeks I was given the responsibility of looking after the cows, which meant getting them fresh grass during dry spells in the weather, milking them, making sure they were grazing in the correct field, and for the little ones, making sure they got rid of their fungus infection!!

If you want to get involved in organic farming as well as really getting stuck into some work this is a great place to come! Days start at 8am and finish at 5pm but there is always plenty of breaks and plenty of different things to do. Plus, the lunch that is cooked for you, as well as the other food available to the volunteers will leave you surely with a few extra pounds by the time you leave.

The biodynamic aspect is also very interesting, especially in regards to seeing everything as a single process. However, delving deeper reveals a world with magic elves that live in caves, and stones with special powers, which can unfortunately put people off a philosophy that ultimately has a really good heart.

More:
WWOOFing organic farm work in Argentina

“Sand?”
“Right here”
“Herbs?”
“Yep”
“Flour?”
“Here somewhere, yeah, got it”
“Juice of cactus?”
“Yep, over there”
“Horse’s tail?”
“Got it”
“Milk?”
“Yep, that too”
“Ash?”
“Also”

This was the conversation between Luis and myself just before we added all of these ingredients into a wheelbarrow full of fresh cow dung I had picked that morning. The next step; to mix it all together. Luis dove in without a moment’s hesitation, I followed a moment or too later, once he had broken the cow pats up a little bit so that they didn’t quite resemble poo anymore. The smell was a little over-whelming at first, but i flung a load of the herb-infusion in there and it started to lose it’s foul odour, and kind of just smell of nothing, which was a relief.

But what was this concoction for? For the trees of course. It was the Day of the Earth and those trees were ready for a little helping hand. We got the others and everyone went round the farm spreading it all over the tree trunks. I’ll have to remember to get the recipe before I leave.

For some reason, Juan decided I was the best person to be in charge of the cows. He was off to plant wheat in some nearby farm all day and needed someone to take care of them. You would have thought he would have chosen someone who actually knew what the hell he was talking about. But no, he chose me.

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The time has come to roll up my sleeves, grab a hoe and get to work, which is exactly what I have been doing. After 3 weeks in Uruguay, I headed to Buenos Aires for the weekend before hitting the farm; Granja Las Ondinas to be exact. This past week has brought with it the best and worst of meat eating.

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