Snails, worms and enough said

Yesterday began our first work day. We finally met our flatmates who have turned out to all be really funny and nice folks. In one day we made friends with so many people from different countries (there's Germany, Switzerland, France, England, and America represented here). Conversations in English are really fun.

We arrived at Turanga Creek somewhat early and were assigned jobs. Stacy and I had "snail duty" (actually they called it something else, but I didn't understand). After being driven an additional 20 minutes to a separate vineyard we began plucking unnecessary shoots from the vines and searching for snails, a grapevine's worst enemy (or one of them at least). Given small white buckets, we filled them up with the slimy little guys and between six of us probably found a few hundred within two hours. Kyle, our Kiwi boss for the job, told us he found 3,000 in one day, which seems like a tall tale but... well, I think I believe him after what I saw.

Remarkably, the snails are drowned (not the remarkable part) and then essentially turned into a "spray" that is used on the vines to deter the snails from climbing up and eating the leaves. Kind of like shark blood and submarines back in the day (Thanks Julia Child! Look it up). Very interesting.

I repaired a door and its sign, varnished some tiles and Stacy sanded and painted a table and washed a few things before we were given the oh-so awesome task of search through compost for worms. The overall idea left me a little confused, but I'll be honest, just diving in with your bare hands and nabbing some (probably a couple hundred) worms was pretty satisfying in a gross, hey-I'm-five-years-old-again kind of way. Thankfully the smell has left my hands.

To make it all so worth it, we got to enjoy the fabled "Pizza Night." The chefs at Turanga (it's a fully-functioning restaurant apparently) served our WWOOF group about 8 or so different small pizzas, each with increasingly weird and interesting toppings (smoked salmon, capers and pesto?). It was so dang fancy and fun.

Today we'll be going in to help in the kitchen at Turanga for a big dinner event going on. Apparently there will be a chef there for the evening who has cooked in 72 different countries and has made food for Bill Gates on his Yacht. So. No pressure...