Last Friday, Lori’s friend Dave took both of us to a concert at the hall in nearby Errington. I didn’t really know what to expect, Dave had said that it was some kind of reggae-world music and that there would probably be dancing. I tagged along just because I thought it could be interesting to see how the hillbillies (Lori’s expression, not mine) in this part of the island behaved at a music event on a Friday night.

Well, if my expectations were low, the surprise when the band entered the stage was so much bigger. I couldn’t believe my eyes. The band, The Boom Booms from Vancouver, consisted of six young, superhot guys. And when they started playing, I didn’t know what to do with myself. The combination of my weakness for musicians and the fact that I hadn’t met a single person of the male sex younger than fourty for more than two weeks, much less a good looking one, made me confused and excited and combined with their music I just couldn’t control myself. I got in there, right in front of the stage, and danced like a lunatic to their reggae inspired rock-pop. For all four sets, plus the encore. Happy and sweating like a pig.

And I wasn’t the only one. I might have to revise my earlier statement about Canadians not liking to dance. These ‘hillbillies’ at the small and cute Errington concert hall stood up right away, at the beginning of the first song, and started dancing. I didn’t even have time to take a picture of the band on stage before the audience blocked my view. There were older people, dancing in pairs, and younger people like me, doing the more improvised but much less graceful single concert-club-dance.

The atmosphere in the hall got more and more extatic, the band mixed their own songs with more famous reggae and samba songs in English, Spanish and Portugese. They had a guy playing the congas, and an amazing guitarist (now afterwards, I’m not sure if my opinion of his amazingness was mainly due to his guitar playing skills, or the fact that he was amazingly good looking and had a really amazing stage presence).

We were all part of this intense energy flow and in the end when they were called back to do an encore, the guitarist even took off his shirt. Soon all six band members were jamming like crazy, barechested and sweaty. Standing as I did right in front of the stage, I didn’t know where to look. And as I always do when I’m embarassed, I had to hide behind something. So I picked up my little compact camera. Luckily, the photo became blurry. Otherwise, it might have been considered as light porn.

The concert didn’t end until well after midnight. Once I sat down in the back of the car, I felt as if I would never be able to get up again. Farm work and concert dancing is a combination that could make anyone a cripple. But, sitting there, almost falling asleep, I made a resolution: I have to get back into music. Join a choir, start a band, learn how to play the guitar. Anything. Because I need it. It’s as easy as that.

Lori lets me borrow her computer. So, finally, I can download podcasts from the Swedish Radio and learn what’s happening in Sweden right now. That’s something I started doing last summer, downloading podcasts and listening to them while working in the archive. Listening to radio programs while weeding works just as well.

It feels so safe in a way, and homey, to listen to these familiar voices. Hanna, Kodjo and Martina from the morning show Morgonpasset, Emmy, Henrik, Valeria and Robin from the news guide P3 Nyhetsguiden, Emma, Nanna, Jonatan and Ola from the satire programme Tankesmedjan. The calm of the philosophy programme Filosofiska rummet, the interesting reports from different parts of the world in Konflikt and the inspiring essays of the culture programme Obs.

And I feel kind of connected with the world again. Working at the farms and being a tourists, I’ve barely had the time to answer my e-mails. I’ve had no idea what’s been happening outside the property gates of Time Out Farms and Whiskey Creek Farm. But now I do!

I know that the French have a new, leftist president. That gives me hope. I know that the Greek voted a neo-nazi party into their parliament. That makes me terrified. I know that president Obama supports gay marriage now, and that our own statsminister Reinfeldt made a blunder when he said that since the ‘ethnically Swedish in the middle of life’ have employment in a very high degree, we don’t have a mass unemployment in Sweden. What did he mean with ‘ethnically Swedish’? I know that the superhero movie The Avengers now has the record for making the most money on it’s opening weekend. And I know that the genious pop pianist Frida Hyvönen has released new music, but I’ve only heard the intro and the outro of the single, because the rest is cut out of all the podcasts.

Squatting there, in the middle of the garlic patch, digging up stone after stone, weed after weed after ever-returning weed, I manage to keep my mood up by having Annika Lantz and her humour programme Sist med det senaste to listen to.

Of course, being a chicken farm, there are loads of chickens walking around the property, digging holes in the ground, hiding eggs and shitting. They talk, and after a while I started to realise that they make different kinds of sounds. Chickens are much more interesting than I ever could have thought.

There are several roosters around, and they are really funny creatures. They strut around, crow, chase hens and fight each other. So macho you wouldn’t believe.

But there are other birds here aswell. Like the turkey, for example. Did you know that male turkeys change the colour and length of the skin bag underneath their beak depending on mood. What might he be feeling at this particular time? Romantic, perhaps?

And here? Fiery and passionate, maybe?

There are a lot of wild birds too. The hummngbirds you’ve already seen, but for the more majestic creature, we also have a bald eagle couple. In the mornings and evenings, the usually sit in the trees around the pond in the back of the property. They’re spying on the wild duck family that live in the pond, and the stupid ducks never learn. When the eagle dives down from the tree, instead of flying, the ducks start screaming, waiting for him to pass. When I came here, there must have been ten ducklings in the pond. Now I’m not sure if there’s even five.

Many birds. A lot of new behaviour to learn how to interpret. It’s been a fascinating time here, at the chicken farm

The first time Lori asked me to take the pick-up truck on an errand, I took a wrong turn and had to drive through all of Qualicum Beach (which isn’t a big place, but still) before I found a place to turn around on. All the while, I got really worried about the gas – because one of the things I was supposed to do was getting gas for the truck. What if I ran out before I reached the gas station?

I didn’t luckily, and filling the tank worked fine aswell, even though it was my first time ever to pump gas (why didn’t they teach me that at the driving school?). The other errands were also taken care of, but my heart was pumping like crazy all the time. The pick-up truck is a big car, huge, and it felt almost dangerous driving something that big. And the parking was a nightmare.

When all the errands were done, I was in Parksville. Lori had told me to go to the beach, just to get a whiff of the ocean. And oh, was it nice to walk out on the sand, watch the seagulls fly above me and let my heart calm down. It is stressfull, taking the truck on errands.

The beach at Parksville is beautiful. I understand why people want to retire there. Because that’s what they do. Move here when they’ve retired.

The trashcan at the beach had a funny, fancy sign. And you know I like signs.

The drive back was a lot easier. I knew where I was going this time. And for every time I drive the truck, it feels less and less monstruous.

I have my own room here at the farm. It isn’t usually a bedroom, but due to the construction work going on here, Lori put a bed in the “everything-else-room”. There are three saddles hanging on the wall, and a big cupboard full of watercolours and paintbrushes.

And above my bed there’s a map of the world. With the smell of leather from the saddles and the map being the last thing I see before I close my eyes at night, I feel right at home. And so does the cat.

Mr. P, thinking they are of similar size, visited the chick barn to make new friends. But they were sceptical. Most of them didn’t even say hi. I guess he’ll just have to keep looking.

There are a lot of people coming and going at Whiskey Creek Farm. My first couple of days, there was two young German guys here wwoofing (and they managed to change my mind about twenty-year-old Germans – they can actually be really nice too. I was just a little unlucky at Time Out Farms), but after they left it’s only been me and Lori and her mom Vi living here. But there are the workers in the butcher shop, three different carpenters coming to fix stuff, customers and friends that just drop by for a chat and a bite. I don’t feel isolated in the least.

One of all these friends is Kathy. I’ve been at her house with Lori eating dinner and watching the movie about W. Edgar Hoover with Leonardo Di Caprio (scary story, but well made film), and one Sunday afternoon she came here and took me with her for a walk around Cameron Lake. It was a beautiful, sunny afternoon, and the walk was a wonderful brake from all the weeding. And the lake, with the snowy mountain tops in the background, was just magical.

I really feel like part of the family here, included in everything. I could stay here for months, taking it easy, getting dirt beneath my nails. But I have a conviction now. I need to move on, return to university and get my master’s degree. There are things that need to be done in the world. Talking with Lori and Kathy and all the other people I’ve met here, I’m more convinced than ever.

During the entire week that we spent together on Vancouver Island, Frida wouldn’t stop talking about the hummingbirds, and more specifically, that she wanted to see one. I saw hummngbirds both in Victoria and in the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve, but since the others always were so far ahead of me, I couldn’t show them to Frida. I’m not sure if she ever got to see a hummingbird.

Here, at the farm, there are many hummingbirds. Lori has a feeder with nectar on the large balcony outside the big kitchen/dining room/living room, and in the mornings and evenings, the hummintbirds come there to eat. They are fascinating creatures, so tiny and insectlike, but still birds. And they are very colourful too. Sometimes, when they stop mid-air, keeping steady with their blurrily fast wings, you can see their red chests shine.

One afternoon, when I was walking around the house, I noticed two hummingbirds on the wrong side of the glass in the downstairs suite. One was unfortunately dead, but the other was still desperately trying to get out through the window.

I did as I always do when insects have lost themselves inside – I took a bucket and a paper and tried to catch the hummingbird against the window with the bucket. The little creature wasn’t very cooperative, but finally I caught it, and using the paper as a lid managed to get the bird outside. I gently let it out on the ground, where it at first seemed to play dead, then just sit there and look, letting me take as many photos of it as I wanted. Then, suddenly, it flew off.

That’s got to be worths something. Saving a hummingbird. Lastly, before I took the dead hummingbird to it’s final grave among horse maure and weeds, I took a few shots of it’s amazingly shiny chest. They are beautiful creatures, hummingbirds.

I’ve written many nice things about Canadians, and they are all still true, but sometimes I just get so annoyed.

By the way that they always drive too fast, and I always end up having a long line of cars behind me on the highway.

By the showers they have, in which you can’t actually choose how much water that flows out. The only thing you can decide is temperature, the volume of water is always the same. Either it is on, or it is off.

By the fact that they haven’t seemed to invent the Wettex rag yet, this wonderful kitchen equipment that has such an amazing ability to absorb water. Instead, they use just ordinary cotton rugs. Totally pointless. You’re actually just spreading whatever it is that you’ve spilled even more.

By their lack of ability to make good cheese. Really, cheddar is ot good. Cheese should taste something more than just salty. That shouldn’t be so hard to appreciate. And anyway, what’s so hard with using an osthyvel?

By all the fat free, sugar boosted food that they have in their grocery stores.

By the fact that they’re just not Swedish in any way. Maybe I’m having a mild case of the homesickness. Or then I’ve just had a bad day.

I wake up at a few minutes to seven, to let the chickens out and make sure that they all have food and water. Especially the baby meat birds have to be looked after. Then I give Tango the horse her morning hay and take a round around the property with the wheelbarrow and a fork to pick up her poo. After that I eat breakfast (which more often than not contains fried eggs and some kind of fruit – Lori loves buying fruits).

In the evening, at about five, I take a round looking for freshly layed eggs. At six, Tango gets her evening meal. Just before dark, I get the chickens into their sheds and the barn again. The laying hens are usually in already, but the meat birds might need some chasing.

Those are my set chores, the ones I have to do every day. The rest of the time, I can more or less choose myself. I’ve been doing a lot of weeding. Sometimes I help Lori with packaging the chicken. I’ve taken the truck on errands, delivering things or getting chicken food. I’ve baked cookies and brownies and pie for the workers in the butcher shop. And sometimes, I just clean a little around the house, or on the property, or in the barn. In the evenings, I usually work with Tango, practicing the exercises that I learned from Jay.

It is not very demanding work, and I more or less decide myself how efficient I want to be. But somehow, the hours flow by so quickly and by nightfall, I’m so tired that I can barely think. It’s all the clean mountain air, I guess. And the sun. And just doing so much stuff all day.

So, instead of thinking, I drink tea with Lori, or watch a little bit of a movie, or read some “Anna Karenina”. Sometime between ten and midnight, I go to sleep in my cozy sleepingbag.