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I skipped class on Friday. I skipped class, packed my bags, and drove two and a half hours
to WWOOF. WWOOF stands for World Wide Opportunities Through Organic Farms. It's a website that
connects people with farmers. In exchange for your volunteer work, they give you a place
to stay and food. I went to a blueberry farm, and wasn't sure what to expect. The first
night was awesome. Me and the other WWOOFer, Lisa, helped bottle wine that the owner, Rich,
had been fermenting. There were plenty of mistakes to be made. Messes to be cleaned
up. And laughs to be had. But hey, by the end of the night, we had some pretty decent
wine. And then the next morning, came the hard work. This is pine bark. This is a lot
of pine bark. Our job was the shovel it into the trailer and then put it down on the rows
of blueberry plants. Next we flattened it out with our hands, and repeated the process.
Shovel it, drop it, and spread it out. We would do this until the sun was low in the
sky. When you work that hard with someone for that long, you really get to know them.
So I was living in LA and working in Beverly Hills selling lasers, surgical lasers, in
Beverly Hills where my grandparents had died. So I told them that I was going to buy the
land from them and that I would sell off the last of the herd that we've had in our family
for over a century and basically start a blueberry farm. It was my brother's girlfriend on Christmas
day surprised me with a gift. She opened up my laptop, went to the WWOOFing website, and
there were pictures of the farm and a write up about what we do. I thought to myself,
this is fantastic. What a great gift.And she explained to me what WWOOFing was. The thing
about it is I didn't know what to expect. And I didn't think it would work to tell you
the truth. I mean, who would want to come out in the middle of nowhere and spread pine
bark and plant blueberry bushes. Well, it turns out, a lot of people did. What they
get out of it, I think, is a reconnection to the land. A real appreciation for what
goes into making food. There's a lot that goes into all the ingredients to make our
food and blueberry farming is not different. But it's so much more than that. It's not
just about agriculture it's about connecting with people. Watching two WWOOFers interact
with each other that have never met each other before...it's magic. I've seen people fall
in love here, from two completely different countries. I've taught one WWOOFer how to
swim. I got two other WWOOFers jobs, I've been a reference many times over. A lot of
the skills they learn here are things that they would have never learned otherwise like
how to drive a tractor, how to use heavy equipment, how to care for plants. All of those things
really aren't going to help them get that next accounting job. But it does show that
they can be responsible productive members of society, and that has value. For me it
was a deal breaker not to go organic it had to be organic. I mean, at the end of the day,
I make a fraction of the money I otherwise would staying in corporate America where I
was. So, it had to be something wholesome for me. I have children and when they're walking
down the rows and they're going shoulder deep into blueberry bushes to pull out the fruit
and they pop them into their mouth right from the bush, I don't have to worry about all
the chemicals. There's a lot of pesticides, there's a lot of herbicides, there's fungal
sprays that conventional farmers put on there that's just not good for your health. It's
just not good for your health. There's been some studies by Stanford University and other
institutions that have shown that the nutrient levels are not significantly different. I
think they're not looking at it the right way. Nutrient levels are immaterial if your
food is covered in chemicals. On our last night, we had dinner, and a bonfire. I've
never been in better company. I don't plan on ever being a farmer. But, I never thought
I could learn so much in two days. I left feeling so much more conscious about nature.
I left with an eagerness to go back. Nothing beats pine bark.