I’ve arrived!
The things I learned in my first 7 hours on the farm:
- Communal farming involves a lot of people with a lot of different ideas which means that communication (and patience and an easy going nature) are a daily part of life here;
- Projects never get completed as quickly or painlessly as you imagine they will;
- Get to know your neighbours – because they’ll get to know you whether you’re aware of it or not. And neighbourly relations are just about as important as farm family relations;
- Maple Ridge farms are on a water meter (which means you get charged per how much you use) which means being conscious of water usage here is really important (for economic reasons in addition to environmental reasons). This farm is on a septic tank that has a tendency to overflow. Put those two things together and you get the farm ‘toilet etiquette’ which translates to ‘no flushing after you pee (until there are at least 4 pees in the toilet)’.
On the agenda for tomorrow so far:
- Pancakes with raspberries, blueberries or blackberries from the farm (straight off the plant into the batter);
- Coffee;
- Babysitting Canaan, one of the two babies on the farm.
On my to-do list:
- Trailer: start unpacking all my moving boxes and finding a place for all my stuff to live;
- Farm: weed the raspberry bush patch.
Happy to be here.
Goodnight all!
j.