When we only were three wwoofers, we couldn’t really get a day off. It would have been too tough to do everything with just two people. So instead, Diane decided to give us a treat. She had us start working earlier, and when we were done with lunch we all packed ourselves inte Dianes big car and went on a roadtrip. Destination: Vancouver.

It was a really rainy day, so the trip mostly consisted of Diane driving around, showing us different parts of the city through the car windows, and us getting out for quick glances of the view at a few special places. Mostly, she showed us the different houses where she has lived in the city – and that turned out to be a really nice tour. Diane has lived in many different areas of Vancouver, and we got to see parts of the city that aren’t on the beaten tourist track.

Rainy skyline of Vancouver.

In a park, the flowerbeds were full of yellow and blue and pink and purple and red hyasinths. The smell was divine. Why don’t we plant hyasinths in our parks in Sweden?

In the harbour, we saw this ship fully loaded with cars. It looked almost scary, all those cars, all that metal, on that little boat. But hopefully they were going to recycle it, and not just dump it into the Pacific.

Our treat ended with Diane buying Chinese take-out for us in a restaurant and bringing it back to the farm. The food was amazing. We had a great day, despite the rain.

After I leave Time Out Farms (in less than two weeks time now), I plan on going to Vancouver for a couple of days, before heading to Vancouver Island with Frida. And, you know, this trips seems to be all about sharing and international cooperation anyway, what with all the wwoofing, so I thought I should try out Couchsurfing. I have a feeling that Vancouver is a great city to loose your Couchsurfing virginity in.

For you who might not know what Couchsurfing is, it’s this worldwide internet community where people offer out their couches for travelers to sleep on. But the idea is not to get people free places to crash, but to facilitate for people from different parts of the world to meet and interact. The idea is that you shouldn’t only get to know a country while traveling, but also some of it’s people.

I’ve never couchsurfed before, but I have plenty of friends who have and they all say it’s been great. And, you know, with all the Germans and Spanish people here and all the French and Korean and Swedish people that I met in Edmonton, I feel like I need to meet some real Canadians approximately my own age before I leave. So, I joined Couchsurfing and started to look for potential hosts.

It’s a jungle. There are a couple of hundred members who offer their couches for travelers to crash on in Vancouver, but they all probably get far too many surfing requests, seeing as Vancouver is such a popular travel destination, so you have to make the request personal, so that you stick out from the croud. That also requires that you find a host that you actually really want to meet.

I spent many nights searching, reading profiles and writing requests. I got a few refusals due to absense on my particular dates and the host already being booked, and some people didn’t even answer. Eventually I got so stressed, my Vancouver days were fast approaching and I still hadn’t found anywhere to stay, so I had a night of panic request sending. All the while feeling that I probably wouldn’t be able to go to Vancouver at all.

Well, the next morning when I opened my inbox, I had gotten replies from all the hosts that I had sent requests to during the last week. Some said no, but others said that they would gladly host me and somehow, the ones that said yes were the ones I wanted to meet the most.

So now I have three hosts in Vancouver, three (probably) amazing couches to sleep on and I don’t know what to choose. One host is a girl who has traveled a lot in Latin America, the second is a Ph.D student of geography (!) and the third is a really adventurous guy who, among other things, works as a photographer. I want to meet them all. I’m leaning towards dividing my nights in Vancouver onto three different couches.

Mr. P is being taught by the master chillaxers Harley and Alex. He has turned out to have quite a natural ability for it.

It rains quite a lot here. Sometimes for days on end. But I’m willing to say that it doesn’t bother me. You see, the rain makes everything so green and the ocean makes the weather quite mild. That makes it possible for a lot of vegetation to thrive.

The moss, for example. All the green, everywhere, on the ground, on the trees, on buildings and even cars. It’s like therapy for the eyes. I can’t get enough.

(I read “A Study in Scarlet”, the first Sherlock Holmes book, a couple of weeks ago. It’s a cute little thing, but I don’t quite understand where the scarlet in the title comes from. This, on the other hand, is so obviously a study of moss.)

Some people are addicted to coke. Some can’t live without ketchup. Some get really cranky if they don’t get coffee. Well, my thing is carrots. At home, I always had a couple of carrots in my lunch bag. My standard lunch at university was: lentil soup, an apple and two carrots.

But as with many things here, things have to be easy. You can buy readily chopped onion, and pancake mix in a box, and there are also bags of peeled mini carrots. They are tiny, like half my little finger, with rounded ends and I think it’s silly. What kind of gene manipulation have they had to do to make the carrots look like baby fingers? Why can’t people just eat normal, proper carrots?

Well, about two weeks ago, I asked one of my fellow wwoofers to buy me some carrots when she went to the supermarket. And she came back with a 2,27 kilogram bag of mini carrots. Well, then I had to try. And my god, they’re good. Sweet and easy to eat and I just love them. I can’t get enough. After dinner, for desert. Before breakfast, as appetizer. After work, before riding, really, anytime. I’m hooked on mini carrots.

And I feel so silly.

Saturday: Today, I got to tag along with Jay, Doug and Danielle to the park. At first, Doug was supposed to go by himself with Lily, the beautiful palomino horse that he’s just bought from Jay (I got to ride her once, and I can promise you, she doesn’t only look heavenly). But then Jay and Doug got to talking and somehow I ended up having to get up early this morning to help Jay load Lily, Junior (one of Jay’s horses) and Zena into his trailer, so that we could all go to the park together. Danielle met us by the park.

Because, you see, there aren’t really any trails here around the farm. To get to a forest, you have to drive the horses there. But what a forest! Me and Zena were last in our little trail group, always ending up far behind the others, because Zena isn’t a horse who rushes. But I didn’t mind. I was watching the trees.

It was my first time in a British Columbian forest. And it might not have been a real temperate rainforest, it might’ve been slightly too small and a bit too kept after, but I still couldn’t believe my eyes. The trees were so tall. And the moss! Actually, it’s the moss that makes it. We have trees in Sweden too, loads of them, quite tall ones. But there is always a lot of brown in our forests, from the trunks and the dead leaves on the ground. But here it’s only green, moss everywhere, and so lush.

It reminded me of the Bolivian Amazon, which might sound strange at first, but then not really when you think about it. Both regions are rainforests, with an incredible aboundance of vegetation that is made possible by the humidity. It’s only the type of plants that differ. And the lack of sand flies that bite you into an itching mess here in BC. But I guess once the mosquitos start hatching in June, the biting insects will be here too.

The trail through the park was eleven kilometers and took a little more than an hour and a half to get finish, mainly at a walk. Oh, it was an amazing ride. I know I might start sounding like a record player on repeat, but I do really enjoy my stay here.

Thursday: This morning there was a car accident involving a pole holding the electricity cable. Therefore, we didn’t have any power all day. With no electricity, the water pump to the well doesn’t work. So, no water either. It was a warm, almost sticky day, so I barely had time to eat lunch before I had to go out again and redestribute the water from the mares (who happened to have quite a lot of water in the bucket in their paddock) to all the horses in the stalls.

Then Jay and I were supposed to train Tully and Portia, but there was a thunder storm, so while I waited for the rain to stop falling, I started to groom Memo. And I just kept going, Tabitha, Tesse, Tully, Portia, until suddenly it was time to feed the horses their dinner. But before that, some additional water had to be carried. Hay is quite dry.

The power wasn’t back on until half past seven. So, even without any riding, it turned out to be a long and labourous day.

At dinner, everyone laughed at me when I took my fourth helping. I’ve created a reputation for myself here with my apetite. They say I have hollow legs. And Diane says I might have lost weight, that I look thinner in the face. I can’t say if that’s true, it’s probably just the sunburn. I’m out all day, you wouldn’t belive the colour I’ve got. I’m not pale as a ghost anymore.

But I do enjoy eating. And with all the work and exercise I get here, I feel as if I was a teenager again. No end to the hunger. But don’t worry, mom and dad, they are all making sure I eat here. Diane with her cooking, Willie with his good-heartedness, Jay with his teasing and the other wwoofwers with their laughing.

Tully managed to escape from his paddock today. Tully is one of the horses that I’ve been helping Jay with, he’s a light brown little pony with this long, black mane and he’s the most beautiful little thing. But underneath that cute surface, he is vicious. I don’t think that I exaggerate when I say that he’s the poniest pony that I’ve ever met.

And for all of you who don’t know what I mean, ponies are generally known for being extremely intelligent but stubborn, lazy and real gluttons with good memories. Which means that if you once let then get away with something, they’ll milk that until you pull your hairs out, they’ll do anything for a bite and will generally want to go in the opposite direction from where you intended. Jay calls it pony head, and Tully’s really got it. I have to really bite my tounge not to scream out my frustration when he refuses to do such a simple thing as turn when it doesn’t suit him.

Well, today he broke the fence. The fence has three rails, and by putting his head through the two lower rails and then lifting up his body, he managed to brake the middle rail and walk right through the fence. His paddock companions, three large thoroughbreds, watched him jealously from the hole in the fence (that was much too small for them) while he walked right out into freedom.

All other escapees that we’ve had (cause we’ve had a few during my stay here) have all spent their time in freedom running around, playing hard to catch for a while before they let us put halters on them, but not Tully. His goal with escaping was the green fresh spring grass, and as that grew right by the paddock fence, he just had to take a few steps before putting his head down to eat. And he was so busy chewing the delicate grass that he barely noticed when I came up to him, got a halter on him between mouthfulls and pulled him off the grass.

The rest of the day he had to spend in his stall, thinking about what he had done, repenting. But he looked just as cheerful a usual. He’s a really charming thing, but oh, SUCH a pony.

The Germans have left now. Since Easter Saturday, we’re only three wwoofers here at Time Out Farms, me and the Spanish couple. It was nice with all those people, always something happening, a lot of noise and the work was always done very quickly – but now I’m really enjoying the quiet too. Jaime and Paloma are really cool and like to relax, and they are happy to talk about the horses or mountain climbing or their travels, or just let me have my space for a while when I need it. So, I’m having a splendid time here.

The work takes longer now, though. From working for maybe barely three hours a day, we have to work atleast four now. But I don’t mind, combining that with riding two horses and maybe grooming a couple more each day, I’m more or less done for by dinner time, and then I can barely stay awake for an episode of Angels in America (we started watching that three nights ago), before I stumble into bed. The physical work is good for me, my body is enjoying every second – and you should see my arm muscles. The three weeks that I’ve been here has really kicked life into my old hay bale carrying and horse poop picking muscles.

But, you know, with The Peak radio station, the working hours just fly by. That was the first thing I did on Saturday morning. Ane, oh, it’s still a geat station. They’ve played The Arcade Fire and Franz Ferdinand and Feist, old high school favourites of mine. I’m in such a good mood these days, I don’t know what to do with all the smiles I keep carrying around. The horses get a lot of pats, and the cats get a lot of cuddles, and inbetween, I try to think nice things about myself too.

The name of the farm is Time Out. And really, this is like a real retreat stay for me.

On Easter Sunday, we had turkey dinner. Because apparently, turkey is the Canadian equivalent of the Swedish pickled herring – maybe you change the other dishes a bit, but the thing that is always on the holiday dinner table, Thanksgiving or Easter (Christmas or Midsummer), is turkey (pickled herring). And Diane had made the table with candles and heirloom plates, the turkey was served with vegetables and jams and stuffing and cranberry sauce and it was delicious.

I felt so privilaged, eating Easter dinner with Diane, Willie, Paloma and Jaime, in Fort Langley, British Columbia, Canada. I didn’t mind at all that I didn’t get an Easter egg or lamb or pickled herring or even a real boiled egg.