Alsace Vineyard

Well we have hit the halfway mark of our job here in Alsace. We have made so many friends from so many areas around the world. We have eaten so many potatoes and traditional hearty dishes from the area that it becomes quite hard to get back into the rhythm of work in the afternoon. Yesterday we had a day off and visited Struthoff, a concentration camp not far from here, but more on that later. Life here is pretty good, the view is always amazing, the wine at night is last years harvest of the grapes we pick in the day and the conversations are a plenty. It's going to be hard to leave at the end of the week, but we have an exciting adventure in Eastern Europe to look forward to. So for now we will continue working hard and eating even harder.
-morgan

Hunawihr, Alsace

Just a quick little update to say we have made the journey to Alsace and have have started work on the Vineyard. This really is wine country and we are surrounded by vineyards left and right. The work is hard, yet rewarding and we are so very grateful we have a nice big comfortable bed at the end of each day. There is always an abundance of wine on the table and a wide variety of Alsacien traditional dishes at each meal. Needless to say, we are loving our 2 week "job". Hope to keep you updated as we venture out, but days off and internet are rare, but we will try our best.

Chantier Médiéval de Guédelon

In the village of Treigny, in the center of France, construction is on the go, to build a grand Chateaux. What they are constructing however is not that important, it's they way they are doing it. The Chantier Médiéval de Guédelon is a rather epic place, where they are attempting to build a castle using using the same techniques and materials used in the Middle Ages. Its scheduled to take 25 years, and is funded solely on visitors admission fees.
Morgan and I don't usually got to touristy places like this, but we were highly encouraged to go. What we saw was really quiet impressive. You get to walk around the worksite and watch the masons chipping away at the stones, talk to the carpenters preparing the beams, and see the whole construction process. It was pretty amazing.
-k

more donkeys

After some great little visits to some great French towns we have found ourselves on another organic farm. A loose relative of mine recently bought a 18th century farm house with 13 hectares of fields and woods all around it. Their vision is to restore the house using traditional and eco-friendly building methods and start a small organic farm. On the property they have 5 dogs, 3 cats, 5 new kittens, 5 donkeys, 4 chickens, two horses and a pony. Needless to say we are having fun helping them out and spending alot of time with the kittens. We will only be here for another week but we are making the most of it before heading back into busy Paris.
-morgan

On the road again...

Well we are back on the road, and it looks like we will be cruising around from place to place for the next 6 months. We have just spent the last few weeks finalising plans which includes a trip to the UK and Norway (September), more road tripping around France and a train trip through Eastern Europe (November-December). A couple of days ago, we arrived here in the French alps and over the next 3 weeks we will be making our way over to Lyon, and through Central France up to Paris. There is a lot planned and we can't wait to share snippets of what we get up to when we can. We will probably be instagramming more than we get time to blog, so if you want you can follow us at [morganandkim].
Are you ready for the adventure?
-kim

ps. Here is a little map which brings us to the end of September when we will be working on a Vineyard in Alsace, France.

bon voyage farm

Our time is up on this amazing farm and we have truly enjoyed it. We may be a little sick of weeding, but our appreciation for where food comes from and the hard work farmers do has changed the way we look at eating. We have learnt so much about the land, organic living and sustainability. We hope to work on a few more farms in the future and are in the process of trying to find a cheese farm.
When in France!
-morgan

animal traction

Our time working on the farm has involved many new experience. Last week we got to try our hand at animal traction using 2 donkeys, Parpaillon and Pinocchio. Animal traction has been around for many years, but has faded out of farm life. There is an orginisation in France set out to make it popular again. There are 13 different tools you can set up behind a donkey for weeding, plowing, airing and more. It's low cost, good for the environment and makes for true organic farming considering we don't use a tractor. It's great working alongside the donkey, not as it's master, but as it's friend. We were told to keep in mind, without the donkey and you working together, you both will not eat tonight. After we formed the mounds, we then planted pumpkin seedlings over the whole field.
-morgan

Les Petit Pois

It has been a really great experience working here on the farm. Over these last few days I have had a great "revolutionary" experience in the way I view produce. On Tuesday we were out in the rain pulling out all the pea and broad bean plants, as they were ready for harvest and a new plant would be placed in the ground. We were out for hours in the mud pulling them all out and collecting them up to bring back to the shelter. Once we were back and in dry clothes we proceeded to pull the beans from the stalks, a process that was long and messy. In total we had 65kg of beans and about the same of broad beans. The next day after they were washed they were sorted into good and bad and ready to be distributed to the customers. The bad beans were to go to the house for us to eat, so morgan and I then spent the afternoon shelling the peas and in the evening we ate them.
This whole process took 4 people over 2 days to complete, and it was a good reminder where my food comes from and the process it takes. I usually buy bags of frozen peas, all ready to cook in 1 kg bags. To get that 1kg of peas takes a long process on an organic farm, which I have never even considered.
As someone who loves good food, it has been so good to get a reality check on where our food really comes from and all the work that goes into it.
-kim

farm life

We have arrived and settled into life working on a farm. For the next three weeks we will be living here as WWOOFers [Willing Workers on Organic Farms]. We work here on the farm and in exchange we get housed and fed.
Well, after 3 days of hard work we are loving this experience. We have done a variety of different things already, weeding, reaping, sorting produce. It was lots of fun weeding yesterday with a little 2 month old kitten trying to play with us while we tried to work. He would climb our legs and sit on our backs.
They also have 2 donkeys here which they use to work the land. I love donkeys and best part of my day is when we take the donkeys to their new feeding spot each day, then returning them to their stable in the afternoon. We have already learnt so much and are growing in our appreciation of "field to fork" culture.
-kim