…Beautiful B.C.

I would like to give you an idea of what I have been getting up to on the weekends lately. Usually we finish work a little early on Fridays and the work crew and the family (bosses and kids) relax and enjoy a tasty treat prepared by Louise usually fresh that afternoon. Be it a Blueberry Pie or Strawberry Shortcake, or something savoury like… actually it is usually something sweet - maybe cakes with tea and a cool juice. I never thought I would say this but it actually beats Friday knock off drinks.

My life pretty much revolves around food these days. I am enjoying all the fruits of my labour - even when I am not working. I stayed at a friends house on this last weekend and woke up and helped her dad pick some fresh cherries from there fully loaded tree. Of course I got a bag full out of it. After work last week me and Cammie spent a good hour in the hottest part of the day, sweating it up picking Sascatoon berries from the trees that line the drive of the farm.

Whenever I go hiking or even for a stroll there are berries beside the path. A few weekends ago a group of us (mostly work crew) went hiking up the Enderby Cliffs, a pretty difficult trail with a rewarding view of the whole valley right down to Okanagan Lake. All along the way there are tiny wild strawberries growing which are so sweet but hard to find especially if your colour blind. We hiked for about two hours, all the while Andreas and Therese were lagging behind, which we thought was fair enough considering they are a bit older than the rest of us. But given that they are Swiss we expected a little more from them. Anyway we finally get to the top and kicked back to admire the spectacular view. Sure enough Therese and Andreas arrived a short while later and promptly disappeared to find some shade under a tree (it was a hot day I suppose). When we went to track them down, they had laid out a picnic blanket and cracked open the back pack (that we all had wondered why they had laboured so hard with to get to the top) and produced a feast of freshly baked breads, quiches, pizza, hand made dips and two bottles of wine to boot. “This is how we hike in Switzerland!” explained Therese with a big smile. Then she cracked a bottle of wine and poured us all a glass. We all had a sip and were savouring the cool refreshing wine when upon sipping it both her and Andreas objected to the taste saying “don’t drink that wine - it is corked” and promptly tipped out the rest of the bottle into the grass. None of us had even noticed it tasted bad, until we tucked in to the second bottle that is. It was such a suspiciously perfect outing that every now and then I had to ask if I had in fact taken a fall off the cliff, died and gone to Switzerland. Of course there was much yodeling over the edge of the cliffs on the way back down.

Most weekends I get off the farm and end up crashing at someone or others house. It is ridiculous how much time I spend with the work crew, we all laugh about how inseparable we are. Two weeks ago I crashed at Eric’s place after a trip to a nearby town called Sicamous to watch the Canada Day fireworks show over the lake (Half the work crew and some of B.C.s finest came along for the ride). It was magically spectacular to see all the boats out on the water and fireworks lighting up the mountains surrounding the lake. Canada day was spent helping Eric move house (a big step in a male relationship I know but I think we are both happy with the pace that things are developing) and playing with his 1.5 year old daughter, who is so busy she makes moving house on a 35 degree national holiday seem like a walk in the park.

This past weekend I left the farm after Friday treats with the rest of the crew. It was weird to see this final chapter of the work week from a different perspective. Normallly I am left standing wondering what I am supposed to do, still at work but with no one else to work with. Anyway I took a road bike with me and we had to do three car pool changes, bike and all, before ending up at Alisha’s place, which is a neat little cabin about half an hour from the farm. I went to an art exhibition that night which made for a nice change. Got a little dressed up and a little drunk and perused some local talent and grazed on some local food organized by Eric’s wife Jen.
I rode back to the farm the next day, which is mostly downhill but still a good hour/hour and a half ride. I have been riding around a lot lately either on Herman’s road bike or my mountain bike. I find it such a nice way to travel as you get to experience so much more of the sights, sounds and smells of the surrounding landscape.

On Sunday I went with Cammie to Laird’s place (both obviously work crew too) which is almost an hour up the river, to go canoeing. He lives with his folks and they have a really nice property in the hills right above the river. We had to catch a ferry barge across from where the car was parked which was pretty neat. His mum gave us a tour of the garden and we all got terribly excited about the veges, the same ones we spend our whole work week surrounded by! His dad took me on a tour of the house which soon became a tour of were the previous owners had all there hydroponics set up and were the Jimi Hendrix poster covered up the big whole in the wall. While we waited for others to arrive we went for a walk (more wild berries) and a swim in this gorgeous little canyon. The river was pretty wild and flowing fast up this far but we swam in this neat little cove were the water eddies around. It started raining as we swam and once again I was pinching myself as too how lucky I was to be there. The canoe trip was pretty cool too as the water was so fast and the bottom of the river rushing by was so close. We tackled a few rapids and finished up swimming again at a beach at the end of our float. We were greeted by some other locals at this beach. Some were fishing, some had a camp fire going and some were playing smash ’em up derby and crashing into trees with an old sedan that had recently been rolled but was evidently still drivable. These guys were classics and I had to speak to them just to check whether they had broad Australian accents. The canoe trip ended where it started - in the rain.

Despite the fact that we spend all weekend together too, things are great at work. We are all pretty different folks with different strokes but with a common thread which just seems to loosely tie things together. It’s a relaxed enough environment to have a bit of a guff with your buddies every now and then while still keeping a straight face and a tight ship. On Wednesdays when Herman and Louise are off distributing the vege boxes we usually just drop tools, get loose with the party pig and raid the cooler for what ever takes our fancy.

Since I wrote this (several months ago) I have had so many amazing weekends I don’t know were to start, so I will conclude with a brief synopsis:

- Went to an Indian Pow-Wow in nearby Squilax. Then to Summerland
to see Braleigh for her birthday and see a performance of her play, which was really funny. Great to hang out as friends, I felt kinda like a kid in a candie store who has a bag full of money but has been bound and gagged… by himself.

-Went to Nelson (sort of a hippie town) in the Kootenays, with Cammie and Alisha to visit our sisters. Great road trip, went to market, sat on a beach, swam in the lake, went to the “Culture Shop” and narrowly avoided a “drug bust”, fell in love with a check-out-chick, went to the beach again and drove home.

- In saying farewell to Cammie, got a little drunk, squirted a waitress (and some patrons) with a water gun, got really drunk, passed out in a bed with two beautiful ladies (as close as I have come to intimacy in quite some time). Spent an adorable day picking berries, eating crepes, harvesting lavender, doing shoulder stands, and deciphering tattoos. Went to an outdoor performance of Macbeth (complete with draft horses), courtesy of H & L Bruns.

-Took a trip back down to the Kootenays with a duo that take the cake for querky. Got into a music festival for free, courtesy of a chance encounter with a friend from Vancouver. Rode on the back of a motorcycle and caught a ferry across a lake to visit an Ashram with famed rockers Hall and Oates (I had an awesome time and thankyou again to everyone involved).

I could go on but I will have to save it for another entry as I know you have far more important things to do…

Simon C is for Canada Marshall