Beth-Our new WWOOFer

Below is a photo of Beth, our newest WWOOFer and our son, Liam. She will be starting on Tuesday; four other WWOOFers will join us in March. Unlike most of our WWOOFers, Beth will not be living with us at The Ponderosa Lodge because she lives locally. She is originally from Atlanta and currently works as a nurse at the hospital in Beckley, WV. Last year, she WWOOFed full time at a farm/retreat in Oregon. We feel very lucky to have Beth join us here.
Welcome, Beth!

Although it is very early in the year and we will not have any vegetables coming on in the garden for a couple of months, there is still a lot of farm work to do at the lodge. We tell our potential WOOFers about the fickle spring weather and the lack of many growing things. Then, we happily accept the WWOOFers who still want to come and learn. On Tuesday, Beth will help us transplant blackberry vines and fruit trees into their permanent locations. Additionally, in the early Spring, we will do the following work with our WWOOFers:
1) start more seeds,
2) move the chickens from their current coop/house into the fields where the cows will be. We will need to build them a hutch to roost in at night before we move them into the fields,
3) convert the chickens' old coop into a garden shed,
4) move all the gardening items from the garage into the new shed so that we can actually park the car in the garage,
5) start a rooftop garden on the new garden shed,
6) purchase cows and possibly other farm animals and haul them to the lodge,
7) burn brush piles. It was too dry all last year to burn, so we have a lot to catch up on,
8) transfer compost and mulch to garden and flower beds,
9) continue building more raised beds for vegetables, and
10) continue working on the blog.