Golden Years

This photo and many others in this entry by Agathe Duault

Now for the hippies.

N: When I was twelve, I told my parents that I wanted to live in a VW bus in a communal living arrangement. I probably took this claim about as seriously as my skeptical parents, because I was shocked to discover that my preadolescent desires were to foreshadow great things to come. 

Enter Golden Ears Community Farm
Here's how it works: there are ten under-30s. They work the land and sell their produce at local markets and at their fruit stand. The profits are divided between the ten. Their work is aided by interns and WWOOFers (that's us!).

The property is essentially twenty-something acres of edible crops, including, but not limited to: strawberries, apples, blackcurrants, pears, cherries, garlic, onion, kale, lettuce, swiss chard (aka silverbeet), radishes, yellow and red beetroot, potatoes, four varieties of raspberry, peas, beans, cucumber, squash, pumpkin, corn, basil, tomatoes, broccoli, and medicinal and tea herbs.

There is a market garden, and a kitchen garden for personal consumption. The members ordered in their grains, spices, and nuts--virtually everything else in their diet is sourced on the farm. Win!

The clan settles down to a homegrown banquet.

Golden Ears has a humanure composting toilet system and a long drop, affectionately christened the "Poo with a View".

The view of the river

"Support Our Poops!"

There is a river that runs adjacent to the farm (which makes up the aforementioned view). Nancy found it intolerably cold, but then, as we all know, her thermostat is broken. Steff cheerfully took her kit off and jumped in with everyone else at least twice daily to cool off and remove the top layer of encrusted dirt. There was, in fact, such a constant stream of naked youths crossing the road to the river at any given time that we wanted to change the "LIVESTOCK CROSSING" sign to "NUDIST HIPPIE CROSSING".

The wild roaming chickens!

Friendly household pigs!

In addition to profits earned from their food, the farm has a bike stand, which is run very efficiently by two cycling enthusiasts from Alberta. Bikes are repaired, rebuilt, and custom-made for clients. The bike whisperers also collect broken, dilapidated, or unwanted bicycles and restore them to their full health.

There you have it: Golden Ears Farm. It was here, in Chase, BC, alongside Shuswap Lake, that we WWOOFed from late July through to mid-August.

What Did You Do There?
We picked raspberries.

It's like a jungle sometimes; it makes me wonder how I keep from goin' under...

We did some other stuff, sure. For instance, we made fresh mozzarella cheese and peach jam, processed garlic, weeded strawberries, picked peas, and painted a door. We even experimented with cooking for a household of sixteen. And, of course, we swam in the river--one day, Nancy was so brave as to go in as deep as her knees!

Nancy proudly displays fresh mozzarella!

Steff works on a knitting project with the help of Starshine, resident stray.

The completed (but unmounted) door

But before, in between, and after these activities, we picked raspberries.

Steff wields her battle scars from raspberry picking.

The work day begins at 6:30 am, with breakfast at around 8, lunch at noon, and dinner at 6 pm. Meals are shared in the main house, and individuals sign up for weekly cooking and cleaning duties on a giant blackboard. WWOOFers are expected to work five to six hours a day, six days a week.

What Did You Feel There?
"Overwhelmed" is probably the best descriptor to go with here, at least at first. It was akin to the first day of school, entering a pre-established social system, not knowing a soul, and trying desperately to get to know everyone. And this was an "everyone" that had been living together in the same house for at least a year.

We suppose that if we had to sum up our experience of Golden Ears into a life lesson, it would be that communication is key. Our stay at the farm was more about learning to live harmoniously with others than it was about raspberries, believe it or not. With a densely interwoven and hugely complex network of interrelationships to decipher, not to mention the challenge of coming to understand the ten to fifteen individuals (the number of residents fluctuated), our stay at Golden Ears was an intensely emotional and educational experience.

Steff consumes Gaia's Garden.

It is a given that there will be miscommunications in a community of so many people. We often found that we were given at least ten different sets of instructions for a given task. And naively, we thought that it would be easy to share the same space as a small horde of people; after all, we both have some experience in waiting for siblings and flatmates to get out of the bathroom. Oddly enough, it so happens that waiting behind fifteen people in the long drop line-up after a hearty meal of baked beans is another matter entirely.

Preliminary sketches for the door painting

No, it wasn't easy, but it was certainly rewarding. We met a motley crew of fascinating characters. There were people who sang Simon and Garfunkel's "Cecilia" to the point that it was causing mental instability in everyone else, and some who routinely hoed in the nude. We met people who traveled everywhere at a sprint. There were those who craved daily routine and others who relished spontenaiety, people who loved to produce gourmet meals and others who would prefer to wash every dish in the house than cook a meal themselves. There were rabid permaculturalists, chicken enthusiasts, avid nudists, and candidly honest, sensitive individuals. In the words of The Small Faces, it was "all too beautiful".

Happy 21st Birthday, Agathe!

Meta-WWOOFing
While at Golden Ears, five of us were loaned out to another farm, two hours away. Matty, one of the five chosen ones, leapt at the opportunity to spend time at Mendel and Paula's quiet sanctuary. Little did he realize that bringing four girls along would invalidate all and any claims on silence. We planted lettuce and thinned carrots during our two-day stint at Mendel's farm. Over that period, we simultaneously got to know each other very well and drove Matty to the brink of breakdown. On the last morning, Matty rose at six in order to get in a few hours of work in peace.

Mendel was a genial, crazy sexagenarian with a heart of gold, and his 110-odd acres were spectacular. See for yourself:

Weeding cabbage 

Lettuce, tomatoes, carrots...

In addition, Mendel had a recording studio and held regular jam sessions with his two sons, also musicians. One afternoon, Steff stepped up to the mic to take on lead vocals, Nancy jumped on piano, Matty banged on bongos, Agathe and Georgia played percussion, and Mendel and sons made up a hearty rhythm section. A great musical jamboree was enjoyed by all.

Mendel himself, rocking out to Arlo Guthrie's "Comin' Into Los Angeles"

Nancy on piano

Steff belts out CCR's "Proud Mary".

"Cecilia, you're breaking my heart..."

Mendel taught us the two fundamental lessons of Canadian farming, and we now pass them on to you, readers, in the interest of broadening your educational horizons:
1. Swear a lot (ie. "F---, I just ripped out thirty carrots!")
2. Work faster, winter's coming!

On the way back from Mendel's, we stopped in Kamloops. We found the local travel agency offering a "Great Escape to New Zealand". Here, Nancy points out to Georgia where we live. And went to school. And where all our friends live. And our families. 

The Prom
Allegedly, there are a great many Vietnam War draft evaders still residing in the Shuswap area. These artful dodgers, many having missed their proms as youths, now hold an annual Hippie Prom, which we, of course, attended.

Note: In another version of the story, it was once a harvest festival, in which those in attendance shared and showed off their annual harvest of the non-edible variety. There were certainly traces of such a history at this prom.

And so, to culminate our stay, we kicked up our heels with a hallful of immaculately tuxedoed and prom-dressed hippies of all ages. Here we are, getting ready for the prom:

Don't we clean up nice?

We had to borrow dresses. Fancy clothes don't fit in our humble van.

On our last evening, the co-op road-tripped to Armstrong with us to see an outdoor production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. After the show, everyone bid us farewell and returned to the farm, while we slept in the fields behind the theatre. In the morning, we awoke to find ourselves, surreally, in an empty meadow, miles from the farm and our new friends.

And much like the characters in the Shakespearean comedy we'd seen the night before, we had trouble separating whirlwind dream from reality...

Ella the dog, guardian of the gates of Golden Ears Community Farm,

Many thanks to Agathe who took some of the photos which we included in this entry. Here is a portrait for you!

The Quest Quotient by Nancy Howie and Steff Werman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at thequestquotient2011.blogspot.com.

Old McDonald Had a Farm

...And from Ken and Shirley's to Jeff and Rachel's.

Jeff and Rachel had a lovely home on several acres, next door to Claire and Jan. Being in an area named McDonald, they had named their farm, aptly, McDonald Farm. And on this farm, they had a dozen chickens (ee-i-ee-i-o). And, having a dozen chickens, they received approximately a dozen fresh eggs daily--the difference between fresh, home-laid eggs is, as Shirley said, "day and night".

The coop that Jeff built

Good morning, ladies!

 And on this farm they had some WWOOFers. We planted corn, butternut squash, peas, beans, leeks, cucumber, tomatoes, broccoli, cauliflower and oooooodles of kale (here a kale, there a kale...).

Rachel and Jeff had a delightfully polite and generous three-year-old son, who rechristened us "Those Guys". After several days, we found ourselves responding only to "Hey, Those Guys!" So, in addition to planting and weeding and tending to the kitchen garden, we spent a good deal of our time fingerpainting, making playdough people, and reading Franklin and Berenstain Bears stories. It is possible that we were more enthralled by these activities (especially Berenstain Bears, just as entertaining as we remembered) than our preschooler accomplice was.

Apparently, our overall dexterity has improved since we last did this.

Our home from the 9th of June to the 17th

On our second or third day, we bonded with our toddler friend over music. He had seen us carrying our guitars in from the van to the cottage on the day we arrived, and tentatively asked if we'd play for him. We obliged, whipping out the hits: "She'll Be Comin' 'Round the Mountain", "The Lion Sleeps Tonight", and, clearly, "Old McDonald Had a Farm". Our avid listener responded with equal enthusiasm. He cracked out a host of dance moves, tucking his arms into his armpits and flapping his elbows like a bird or a rollicking aircraft. "Play more and more and more forever!" he instructed us, before turning to Rachel and inquiring, incredulous, "How do they know all these songs?!" Halfway through a third chorus of "Yellow Submarine", he announced "Enough!", and departed the concert. A lot of people probably feel that way about "Yellow Submarine".

But we've neglected to mention Taiga, Rachel and Jeff's loyal and fragrant Golden Retriever. Taiga slept on our the front porch of our cottage, valiantly defending us from intruding raccoons.

We had a wonderful time WWOOFing, learned a great many things, and met some incredible people. Leaving Jeff and Rachel's on the 17th signaled the end of our stay on Gabriola, a tiny Gulf Island we had only intended to stay on for 10 days, originally... 

Next up: this mystery animal and more!

The Quest Quotient by Nancy Howie and Steff Werman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at thequestquotient2011.blogspot.com.

On the Farm

The WWOOFing saga continues: from Jan and Claire's on to Ken and Shirley's.

Ken and Shirley lived five or ten minutes down the road from Claire and Jan (nobody's ever more than fifteen minutes from a neighbour on Gabriola). These WWOOF hosts very kindly took us to see a Canucks game, patiently explained the rules to us when we got confused, and pointed our where the puck had gone when we lost sight of it.

The homestead, and Mikey, resident border collie

 On their property were dozens of hummingbird feeders. We saw more hummingbirds in a matter of days than we are likely to see for the rest of our lives.

Ken and Shirley had seven hens and two roosters. Shortly after our arrival, Shirley and Ken drove to Nanaimo to pick up four 2-day-old chicks. Additionally, one of the seven hens had gone broody and was sitting on a clutch of nine eggs. We were unspeakably excited at the notion of working with livestock, so we gladly assumed the unofficial role of Chicken Guardians. Here we document our adventures with the chooks:

We built a new nest box on our first day at the farm. I'm sure you'll all agree that it's beautiful. Sadly, the chooks didn't think so. They chose instead to cram into the existing box and peck each other half to death over the lack of space.

 

Egg collection

The chickens put themselves to bed every night at 6. If we were late to close the door to the roost, the ladies gave us the dirtiest of looks. Like this:

"You're late."

Triumph of triumphs! The splendour of  our nest box finally attracted a laying hen. Either that, or she was bullied into it by all the others. Yeah, that was probably it.

...And then the chicks arrived. As promised, there are plenty of gratuitous shots of naked chicks:

 

 We had barely begun to get the hang of caring for these little guys when the first of the eggs under Mama Hen began to crack open. We thought it would be a quick, tidy affair, but it was 40 minutes before...

The chick pereforates a circle around the tip of the egg, then begins to strain against it and force the crack open.

 

Yechh...

 

Fortunately, they're cuter once they've dried.

Post-hatch examination

Five of the nine hatched and survived.

10 points if you can find the chick.

But it wasn't all fun and games and chickens. On our second day at our second homestead, we were commissioned to produce 100 lamb-burgers. Here, Nancy and Shirley sample the first.

The lamb meat came from a sheep farm at which Shirley volunteered. She brought us with her one day to visit the sheep. You read right; we travelled 11, 000km from a country in which sheep outnumber people ten to one to bottle-feed lambs! This certainly didn't stop us from enjoying ourselves, though.

Nancy fails at bottle-feeding. Try its mouth, Nancy.

Paco the donkey, 55 years old and longtime safekeeper of the sheep

Then, of course, there was the garden work.

Planting squash.

Fraternising with the adopted stray, Perlita.

Finally, a parting anecdote. Ken and Shirley used to have ducks as well as chooks. Once, Shirley put duck eggs in with the chickens in the hopes that they'd hatch. One broody hen, unable to tell the difference, sat on the clutch. However, as soon as the ducklings hatched, they hopped into the water bucket, as they are wont to do. Mother Hen flew into a blind panic, thinking she'd spent nearly a month on her eggs only to watch them drown minutes after hatching.

"What are you doing?!"

Until next time, folks!

The Quest Quotient by Nancy Howie and Steff Werman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at thequestquotient2011.blogspot.com.