Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Roger's Pass: Road Gleaning
The Trans-Canada Highway passes through Rogers Pass to connect Revelstoke to Golden . It is is located in Glacier National Park and is a popular destination I have learned for ski touring. However, the road is quite hazardous and the pass itself is home to the world's foremost avalanche control program for a transportation route. That being said, especially in the winter, there are many road closures due to slides and avalanches. On top of this, there are often accidents as a result of the poor road conditions. The most beneficial of such accidents are always when food trucks turn over. In these cases, any food that falls is no longer fit for consumption as a result of stirct company policies around food safety.Consequently road gleaners have emerged. Basically, any time a crash involves a food truck, there is sure to be food abandoned on the road, or available to be collected at the scene of the accident. Apparently in Revelstoke you will know when such a crash has happened, because all of a sudden the town will be flooded with a certain product. I have heard stories of oranges going around in 2010/2011, and just this week, a truck went down full of mushrooms. I know this because our household was lucky enough to be offered a flat of the discards and we are now eating lots of mushrooms! What would you want to road glean if you had the chance?
Monday, November 28, 2011
Revelstoke: Photos
This is Eric with Orange, a ten year old sled dog that is very shy and you can only pet when he stand at your eye level on his dog house. Eric has made identical dog houses for all his dogs.
This is Chaos giving me a big kiss. He's the most 'disney' looking of all the sled dogs.
Sled dogs are really mutts. They are part Husky so that they have large paws and thick fur for the winter conditions, and often part Greyhound or other fast dog in order to be as fast as they are. You can see Jasper here even has an eye that is half brown and half blue.
This is my new home until mid-late December. The two-story house is a typical country cabin with a wood stove in the basement to help keep us warm (and luckily it is right near my room too). In the fron you can see the truck that allthe dogs are transported in to go sledding.
Making tea. On the first day Connie was working on putting some Christmas gifts together for her family, so she and Nadja assembled a collection of herbs and flowers that Nadja has dried from the summer harvest to make some warming, natural and healing tea blends.
Revelstoke
I have arrived safely in Revelstoke. The weather was mild and the highways relatively clear on my drive up from Vanouver this past weekend, which put my mind at ease for not having any winter tires or chains in my possession should the alipine passes get a little hairy. However, when I pulled into Revelstoke, there was a man on the highway stopping everyone to inform us that the highway between Revelstoke and Golden was closed due to avalanche and slide hazards. Luckily I did not need to go further that day. However, when I leave Revelstoke to drive to Calgary, I will need to surmount Roger's Pass, which was apparently the last hurtle that had to be overcome to connect eastern and western Canada and is still considered one of the most dangerous parts of highway in Canada. Great. I'll deall with that obstacle when I get to it, but first, life in Revelstoke.
I have been here less than a day and already I feel home again. Home being a lifestyle, a way of living and a way of seeing your daily existence. I live in the basement (on a single foam mattress) of a cabin style home with my friend Nadja and her two roomates that are here right now, Eric and Connie. Nadja will be starting her organic farm here, and Eric and Connie run the dog sledding business.
The home is in the middle of the property. In the back are twenty or so dogs in a paddock that each have their own snoopy-style home that they live in. It was pooring rain yesterday (which hopefully means dumping snow in the alpine) so the dogs were all hiding in their little homes. Today when I got the farm tour, I got to meet the dogs. There are 22 in total. Most are rescued dogs from other operations and all come with their own emotional baggage and quircks. Five of the animals though were bred at the farm and are less spastic than the others. The dogs are: Emily, Chevy, Oreo, Hawk, Pam, Orange, Sapphire, Lily, Jasper, Jake, Chaos, Flip, Nibbs, Tiny, Penny, Keeno, Griz, Spock and the pups, Bandid, Pepper and Gary. I can recognize most of them, but mainly when they are sitting in order at their dog houses. That'll change soon.
Today I worked with Nadja raking leaves and fall debris to pile onto sheet mulch (namely cardboard) which we then sprinkled with lime and manure. She is hoping that this mix will decompose into great soil to grown food in the next five months, and I will be interested to see the success rate of the various permaculture methods she is employing. Though she has access to a lot of organic matter on the property, she still had to buy her manure and straw. For a dumptruck of manure it cost Nadja $200.00 - it came from one of the local horse stables. When raking, we also raked up a few bones as the dogs survive on donated meet and bones from the local game butchers.
I am really eager to be learning again, to be living with positive young people that are making their dreams come true. I have a feeling I am going to know a lot more about dogs, dog sledding, dog sled guiding, cutting dog food, permaculture, herbal tea blends, skiing, touring and Revelstoke! What fun :)
Pictures to come soon.
I have been here less than a day and already I feel home again. Home being a lifestyle, a way of living and a way of seeing your daily existence. I live in the basement (on a single foam mattress) of a cabin style home with my friend Nadja and her two roomates that are here right now, Eric and Connie. Nadja will be starting her organic farm here, and Eric and Connie run the dog sledding business.
The home is in the middle of the property. In the back are twenty or so dogs in a paddock that each have their own snoopy-style home that they live in. It was pooring rain yesterday (which hopefully means dumping snow in the alpine) so the dogs were all hiding in their little homes. Today when I got the farm tour, I got to meet the dogs. There are 22 in total. Most are rescued dogs from other operations and all come with their own emotional baggage and quircks. Five of the animals though were bred at the farm and are less spastic than the others. The dogs are: Emily, Chevy, Oreo, Hawk, Pam, Orange, Sapphire, Lily, Jasper, Jake, Chaos, Flip, Nibbs, Tiny, Penny, Keeno, Griz, Spock and the pups, Bandid, Pepper and Gary. I can recognize most of them, but mainly when they are sitting in order at their dog houses. That'll change soon.
Today I worked with Nadja raking leaves and fall debris to pile onto sheet mulch (namely cardboard) which we then sprinkled with lime and manure. She is hoping that this mix will decompose into great soil to grown food in the next five months, and I will be interested to see the success rate of the various permaculture methods she is employing. Though she has access to a lot of organic matter on the property, she still had to buy her manure and straw. For a dumptruck of manure it cost Nadja $200.00 - it came from one of the local horse stables. When raking, we also raked up a few bones as the dogs survive on donated meet and bones from the local game butchers.
I am really eager to be learning again, to be living with positive young people that are making their dreams come true. I have a feeling I am going to know a lot more about dogs, dog sledding, dog sled guiding, cutting dog food, permaculture, herbal tea blends, skiing, touring and Revelstoke! What fun :)
Pictures to come soon.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Life Update: Transitions
My life on the farm has come to an end. I am now living in Vancouver visiting friends and housesitting a very special cat, Taiya. I am thankful to be taking this time to reconnect with important friends, share my stories of life on the farm, share delicious organic foods that I have preserved, and plan the future.
So what is on my horizon in the coming months? Be warned it is busy.
First I will be moving to Revelstoke, British Columbia with on of the other apprentices from Klippers Organics as this is where she has leased a 3 acre property to start her own farming business. I will be there from November 26 - December 22 and in this time our goals will include getting product organized for her to retail at the winter farmer's market in Revestoke to get her face known by local consumers, get her business name and company registered, do home renovations including build a kitchen and of course, to ski as much as possible. My friend will be sharing her property with a couple friends who run a dog sledding business off of the same land, so I will be interested to learn more about their pack and dog training as well.
From Revelstoke I will be driving through the rockies to Calgary from where I will fly home to Montreal for the holidays. I so look forward to Christmas dinner where we will surely reflect on everything that has happened this past year. I remember last years dinner where 2011 was filled with the unknown and possibility of adventure. It was a time that was still anxiety filled but exciting. Similarly, 2012 seems to be filled with a lot of unknown as well.
I will start off the year in Montreal where I will be dog-sitting my parents new addition to the family, a now 5-month-old 85 pound great dane puppy while they are travelling abroad. (So for anyone that has ever wanted to come to Montreal in the heart of the winter, January 2012 is that time!)
It is amazing to think about that the last time that I have been in Montreal for a six-week period was in 2004, the year that I moved away from home. I am both eager and anxious about returning home for so long. It will be nice to call the place where my parents are home again, but at the same time I am worried about missing BC a lot. This province has a special place in my heart, and I know that I will miss the mountains and the life I have built here greatly.
After my parents return, my adventure begins. South America has been calling to me for many years now. I fell in love with the latin American culture while volunteering in Costa Rica in 2006. I will be starting my trip in February in Brazil. There I will be staying with friends and the extended family of close friends to appreciate some of what Brazil has to offer. I also will be going to Carnival in Rio!!
Then in March I will be moving to a town just outside of Asuncion, Paraguay, near Formosa, Argentina where I will be working on a large-scale cattle ranch. One of my goals with my trip to South America is to gain a better appreciation our global agricultural system and the agricultural practices in other climates and cultures. Argentina is the third largest exporter of beef in the world, and they are one of the largets consumers of beef in the world as well. For this reason, I was not able to turn down the opportunity to work and learn from Argentinian beef producers about their industry.
I will be working on the first property for a month. This property is 30,000 hectares in size and has approximately 12,000 head of cattle. I will be shadowing the manager of the ranch and his team as an assistant to see what is involved in terms of administration and operations.
I will then move south to a second ranch owned by the same family as the first in Ameghino, Argentina - a 2000 hectare farm where they do agriculture (soya, maize, sorghum) and have a large feed lot for 6000 head of cattle.
I will finish my second month of cattle ranching in Lincoln, Argentina on the largest operation of the three - it has 50,000 head of cattle.
I can't even imagine how this experience will change my perspective on agriculture and myself, but I am eager to find out. During an interview, I was asked if I would at all be interested in being involved in the 'mechanic' side of the operations on the ranch. This question immediately sparked an image of me pushing a big red button every ten seconds to slaughter another cow - I obviously said no.
May 1, 2012 is unknown. Dreams include backpacking and volunteering in Chile, Peru and Bolivia; undertaking adventurous and adventurous climbing trip; working for CIDA (the Canadian International Development Agency) on agricultural projects in South America; or maybe returning to Canada. I will have to wait and see who I have become at that point, where my finances stand, and how my life ambitions have matured through my experiences.
Wish me luck!
So what is on my horizon in the coming months? Be warned it is busy.
First I will be moving to Revelstoke, British Columbia with on of the other apprentices from Klippers Organics as this is where she has leased a 3 acre property to start her own farming business. I will be there from November 26 - December 22 and in this time our goals will include getting product organized for her to retail at the winter farmer's market in Revestoke to get her face known by local consumers, get her business name and company registered, do home renovations including build a kitchen and of course, to ski as much as possible. My friend will be sharing her property with a couple friends who run a dog sledding business off of the same land, so I will be interested to learn more about their pack and dog training as well.
From Revelstoke I will be driving through the rockies to Calgary from where I will fly home to Montreal for the holidays. I so look forward to Christmas dinner where we will surely reflect on everything that has happened this past year. I remember last years dinner where 2011 was filled with the unknown and possibility of adventure. It was a time that was still anxiety filled but exciting. Similarly, 2012 seems to be filled with a lot of unknown as well.
I will start off the year in Montreal where I will be dog-sitting my parents new addition to the family, a now 5-month-old 85 pound great dane puppy while they are travelling abroad. (So for anyone that has ever wanted to come to Montreal in the heart of the winter, January 2012 is that time!)
It is amazing to think about that the last time that I have been in Montreal for a six-week period was in 2004, the year that I moved away from home. I am both eager and anxious about returning home for so long. It will be nice to call the place where my parents are home again, but at the same time I am worried about missing BC a lot. This province has a special place in my heart, and I know that I will miss the mountains and the life I have built here greatly.
After my parents return, my adventure begins. South America has been calling to me for many years now. I fell in love with the latin American culture while volunteering in Costa Rica in 2006. I will be starting my trip in February in Brazil. There I will be staying with friends and the extended family of close friends to appreciate some of what Brazil has to offer. I also will be going to Carnival in Rio!!
Then in March I will be moving to a town just outside of Asuncion, Paraguay, near Formosa, Argentina where I will be working on a large-scale cattle ranch. One of my goals with my trip to South America is to gain a better appreciation our global agricultural system and the agricultural practices in other climates and cultures. Argentina is the third largest exporter of beef in the world, and they are one of the largets consumers of beef in the world as well. For this reason, I was not able to turn down the opportunity to work and learn from Argentinian beef producers about their industry.
I will be working on the first property for a month. This property is 30,000 hectares in size and has approximately 12,000 head of cattle. I will be shadowing the manager of the ranch and his team as an assistant to see what is involved in terms of administration and operations.
I will then move south to a second ranch owned by the same family as the first in Ameghino, Argentina - a 2000 hectare farm where they do agriculture (soya, maize, sorghum) and have a large feed lot for 6000 head of cattle.
I will finish my second month of cattle ranching in Lincoln, Argentina on the largest operation of the three - it has 50,000 head of cattle.
I can't even imagine how this experience will change my perspective on agriculture and myself, but I am eager to find out. During an interview, I was asked if I would at all be interested in being involved in the 'mechanic' side of the operations on the ranch. This question immediately sparked an image of me pushing a big red button every ten seconds to slaughter another cow - I obviously said no.
May 1, 2012 is unknown. Dreams include backpacking and volunteering in Chile, Peru and Bolivia; undertaking adventurous and adventurous climbing trip; working for CIDA (the Canadian International Development Agency) on agricultural projects in South America; or maybe returning to Canada. I will have to wait and see who I have become at that point, where my finances stand, and how my life ambitions have matured through my experiences.
Wish me luck!
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