CAUTIOUS CARGO ↑ This way up ↑: November 2014

The one and only Green Croft Gardens, Grindrod, BC. October 2014.

My next farm placement was Green Croft Gardens in a tiny place called Grindrod, BC. I stayed with a truly inspiring German-Canadian family, led by Wolf and Gabi, two of the hardest working people I've ever met. The main income at the 20 acre farm was from vegetable sales, either at the market or sold to restaurants, and they kept Icelandic horses for natural horsemanship, cows and calves, pigs and piglets, sheep, hens and ducks. There were three big dogs and a couple of cats. And a budgie.

There was an employed team of five young workers who I worked with most of the time. In the mornings we would harvest the vegetable orders (herbs, kale, rainbow chard, celery, sui choy, lettuce, beets, daikon, watermelon radish, black radish, I could go on), stop for lunch where if you blinked you'd miss Wolf whipping up a cake or a clafouti, and then in the afternoons maybe we'd crack garlic (separate the cloves for planting by hand) or maybe prepare for a market the following morning. I worked at three different markets, the first one included a 4am start. I found myself setting up the stall before sunrise and thought of all the times I'd seen stallholders in London doing the same, with their bright red fingers and noses. We soon warmed up when the sun, and the customers, showed up. It was fun, I liked it. We also went to an auction where we sold some hens and ducks. I milked a cow.

Lessons learnt at Green Croft Gardens.

The old railway

The farm

There it is!

Sheep and cows. Not goats.

The farmhouse

Miss Piggy

Miss Piggy's Mum

Cricket investigating

Jus' chillin'

Gabi and one of her Icelandic horses

Tibo on MY bed

I know you're awake

And again

The kales

Rainbow chard, my favourite

Pumpkins and the Pumpkin Keeper

Sheep. Not goats.

One of many crops

Meeting the family, Hope, BC. And, I go for a walk, October 2014.

I'd chosen to work in Hope because my cousin Sandie and husband Pete live there, pictured below when we visited Bridal Veil Falls. They also took me to Hell's Gate, Alexandra Bridge and a place for spotting spawning salmon, who return to their birthplace to reproduce. We also took a trip to the old cattle farm in Agassiz where my Great Aunt Muriel and husband Ted lived. It meant a lot to catch up with my Canadian family; I was able to spend time with cousin Wendy again, who I'd last seen on Vancouver Island with Matt, and I even caught up with cousin Bob, wife Pat and daughter Zabrina, who I'd never met before. And so, I got to be included in Canadian Thanksgiving.

The rest of the photos below I took when out hiking on my day off from the retreat. It was pretty special! The barely-perceptible sound of pine needles landing in a silent forest...

Spawning salmon

Pete and Sandie!

Sandie and me at Alexandra Bridge

Hell's Gate

Hiking in Hope

Hiking in Hope - where it snows pine needles

The return to Canada. Hope, BC. October 2014.

My 55-hour bus journey from San Diego to Hope in BC, Canada (only the third time I've travelled the US west coast in two months) saw me fall asleep in Sacremento bus terminal at midnight when we were all turfed off the bus for a spring cleaning session or something. Whoosh! My backpack made it nearly all the way to Canada (Bellingham, near the border) without me. The rest of the journey constituted one long game of catch up including an unexpected night in a Portland hotel at Greyhound's expense complete with free toiletries, breakfast and transfers. A gargantuan security guard stood with me while I waited for my taxi to arrive. I made it to the Bellingham baggage office 10 minutes from closing, picked up my estranged backpack, and then onto Coquitlam, BC, where my bus and my connecting bus pulled into the terminal simultaneously ("hang in there kid, it looks like you're gonna make it" the uber-camp, leather driving glove-wearing bus driver said over the speaker system). Dashed from one bus to the other and made it to Hope just 12 hours late which was amazing, considering.

So I'd decided to work on organic farms across Canada travelling east. The first of these was an eco retreat on the Coquihalla River in Hope where I helped the host, Sue, pack up the retreat for winter's off-season and harvest and preserve vegetables for the winter. Dug potatoes, harvested kale, turnips, tomatoes and beets, learnt how to pressurise (can) potatoes. Generally helped out around the house and the grounds, tackled some weeds with roots that went all the way to hell. The first week I shared the cabin below with Melanie, a lovely 21-year old French girl, and the second week it was just me. Commandeered the bottom bunk and created a hibernation-worthy den of ten blankets and duvets. Snug. We showered outside every day (with eco friendly soap of course) and a couple of times treated ourselves to a wood fire hot tub. Perhaps not so eco friendly.

Melanie and I hiked around Kawkawa Lake one day, and one night we went to a blues night at a local house in town; turns out the host's Mum used to babysit my cousin Sandie years ago. Met so many interesting people; a glamorous lady in her 70s who claimed to have discovered how to dispose of nuclear waste with no harmful effects to the environment, a Quebecois who described herself as Bill Gates, the Swedish documentary maker and her partner (whose rice recipe went like this, "Boom, boom, and then BOOM!"), and the star of the show, coconut lemon curd dollops of pale yellow deliciousness, created by the mother-in-law of the lady host who apparently won't give up the recipe for love nor money. Another night we went to Paul's house, whose garden complete with sauna looked like it had been created by Alan Titchmarsh. He made us a perfect caesar salad, black bean spaghetti with seafood, and the best cheesecake - and possible even dessert - of my life. Hot, berries, texture, mmm! Much laughter, most of which was about a 'fanny' conversation. I was laughing to myself for days after this.