Towel and Sam: À la Ferme: Wwoofing à Les Planious

We arrive at our first wwoofing () assignment, Les Planious, an energy independent, organic farm and gîte in L’Epine, about a half hour drive from Veynes. The proprietors of Les Planious is Emmanuel and Geraldine Arnoldi. Emmanuel is an exceedingly sweet Frenchman and mountain guide. Geraldine is a teacher originally from Australia (that explains all the communications in English). Other wwoofeurs on the farm include a girl from Scotland, a girl from Colombia, a pair of Norwegian guys, and a girl from Canada. Geraldine and Emmanuel’s four children (roughly in their twenties) are also around. Given the lack of French ability amongst the woofeurs, the week is spent mostly in English.

Our lodging for the week is in a treehouse. Other wwoofeurs have been assigned to either rooms indoors or the caravan. The treehouse, we guess, is for the birds.

A view of the farm orchard with the treehouse in the background.

Work around the farm comprised mostly of fruit picking, cooking, doing the dishes and gardening. The pace is very relaxed and the atmosphere very social. One our first assignments is picking and pitting sour cherries (griottes) to make jam.

Est-ce qu’il ramasse les griottes ou est-ce qu’il joue avec les griottes? (Top photo)

The jam (confiture) made from these was excellent. After the jam was made, I kicked off every morning with a croissant avec le confiture de griottes. C’est très bon!

Here's Emmanuel in the lettuce during a weeding and leek planting day. Our daily salad came from this garden.

During some time off, Geraldine treated us to a quick excursion over the Alpes/Provence border to Sisteron.

Sam and Towel finding some shade in Sisteron