It’s early morning and I miss my Tiny Home and morning yoga in the geodome (although I’m happy to be back with my hubby). I just returned from my two-week pilot test WWOOFING at a nonprofit farm 24 miles away by bike (yep, I rode there on my folding bike with a backpack).
I’m drinking coffee and updating my WWOOF profile so I can now start reaching out to the other farms on my planned cross-country trip* as experiential research for my new multi-platform book project, Round America with a Duck (see Shake Your Tailfeathers, Mama!). I’ll be back to normal rollerskating, riding my bike, writing, and tending my home and refugee gardens later today but nothing is normal anymore. This experience (like all experiences) changed me. And I love who I am, and who I am becoming.
Here’s my updated profile on the WWOOF USA site:
Describe yourself
Hi! I am traveling cross country via bike, bus, train and WWOOFing along the way, starting March 20, 2023 at a goat cheese dairy farm in North Carolina. I just completed a two-week WWOOF assignment at Our Giving Garden in Mableton, GA to road-test in preparation for the larger trip (Virgo that I am lol). It went extremely well and I loved it.
I lived in a Tiny House; used a composting outhouse; cooked (and shared) food; helped with crop planting, harvesting and donations; took care of chickens; cleaned the Little Free Food Pantry; and volunteered at the annual pumpkin patch fundraiser. I got along great with the amazing fellow WWOOFers, volunteers and staff. I documented numerous stories — such as the arrival of new beehives and a power-tools-for-women class — via video assets** shared across social media. I’m also writing a media release for them, even though I’m back at home now 🙂
I learned a lot and got to share my knowledge as well. I enjoyed my down time exploring the area via bike and meeting local people, including the owner of a local smoothie shop who may now start providing its veggies and fruit scraps to the farm’s compost bin!
I started organic gardening/farming in 2001 (following 9/11) and have since created community, food pantry, school, refugee and home gardens. I’ve written several related books and had feature stories and columns published about all aspects of triple-bottom-line sustainability with a particular focus on organic agriculture, bikes-as-transportation, and people making a difference in a world-in-crisis. Here’s one.
A natural morning person who brings a lot of positive energy to everything I do, I am very fit (I am a daily gardener, bike rider and rollerskater, although I’m not bringing my skates with me). I am good with people across generations as well as alone for hours. Trustworthy. Playful. Low-maintenance vegetarian.
I am married and have two grown daughters (who grew up with our huge home garden and as members of local farm CSAs). I am WWOOFing alone, with logistics support from my husband at home. My trip takes me from Atlanta to New York for my father’s 90th birthday and then cross-country to Los Angeles (where my daughters live). I am looking for diverse, new experiences and people doing good on whom I can shine a light.
What Motivates You to WWOOF?
I would like to help on your farm, applying my skills (vegetable growing) and learning new ones (animal care, value-added products, markets, construction, agritourism/intentional communities, and the impacts of climate change on your farm). I can also barter let’s say about five hours of WWOOF time during my stay to provide professional communications skills. This could be building a very simple website (see https://helpingfeedatlanta.wordpress.com and https://bikebloom.wordpress.com as examples) for you, starting/reviving your blog, or creating engaging social media content such as what I donated to Our Giving Garden, which they cross-posted and which resulted in a high level of engagement for them (Note: I especially love making TikToks, which can also be posted and shared as Instagram Reels as well — see https://www.tiktok.com/@speedofbike). I am a hands-on experiential writer who will be working on a new book during my travels while growing my skill set for our changing world. I blog at https://travelingatthespeedofbike.com and https://foodformydaughters.wordpress.com. I will, of course, respect your desired level of privacy.
*Here is the current brief synopsis of my forthcoming new book:
**Here are the social media assets I created for Our Giving Garden:
Food for My Daughters (and you) 