Advertisement
Published: November 17th 2009
Edit Blog Post
So I get the bus from Quebec, and head for New Brunswick. The countryside seems to be a grim rural wasteland, with snow and earth and industrial towns with names like St. Louis du Ha! Ha!, presumably named to offset the drab and dreary landscape. Or it could just have been the weather and the time of year - maybe it looks great in the summer, I don't know. At least we left the snow behind when we left Quebec.
I arrive in Fredericton, where I am couchsurfing with Leah, who is having some of her friends over for dinner when I arrive, and then they head out for a concert that sold out weeks ago. So my first night in Fredericton is spent watching DVD's and drinking tea with Ruger the dog for company - very pleasant. Leah turns out to be very cool indeed - she has done her fair share of triathlons, and I ended up reading her copy of the triathlon bible "Swim Bike Run", which filled me with inspiration and made me go out and buy an expensive tri suit in a Triathlete shop in Fredericton. Which almost certainly won't fit the moment the plane
lands back in England. Leah is also concerned about my lack of warm clothing, and in another display of generosity that has marked my experience of Canadians, she
gives me an old fleece and a warm coat. Which I accept, and wear immediately. It is a vast improvement, and I no longer shiver whenever I venture outside.
Anyway, I spent a couple of days wandering around Fredericton, walking the dog, and visiting various art galleries. The Beaverbrook gallery here has a Salvador Dali original on display: the
Santiago el Grande, which I can tell you is absolutely massive - never realised it was so big. Impressive stuff.
Then I set out on my next WWOOFing adventure, this time on a sheep farm near a town called Harvey. This was different to my previous farm experiences, since it was a commercial farm, run for profit rather than self-sufficiency, and reminded me of a hill farm in the Yorkshire Dales. It included two sheepdogs, various barn cats, and a parrot amongst its menagerie. Until the week before I arrived it would also have included a donkey which they'd had for 18 years, but the farmer had reluctantly had to put it down
(i.e. he shot it) on the vets advice. So there was a donkey carcass out in the field when I arrived, being disposed of in the 'natural' way. Being eaten by 'critters', presumably.
It was also different in that the farmer and his wife (and indeed most of the east side of the country it seems) are pretty much traditional conservatives with strong Christian beliefs. The church is still very much the centre of the community here. I was a bit concerned when I first realised all this, what with me being the wishy-washy liberal type with rampant atheist tendencies, and I felt a bit uncomfortable when we sat down to dinner that first night, and suddenly we're all holding hands and they're saying grace.
Naturally we had some pretty lively political and theological discussions during my stay, but it (thankfully) was all very amicable, and in the end took the form of enjoyable ideological 'fencing' between myself and Ted the farmer. His assertion that "two or three more weeks here and we'll have you straightened out" became a running joke.
My jobs on the farm included feeding hay and 'brewers mash' to the sheep (Ted had
an arrangement with a local microbrewery to take the by-product from the brewing process), chasing escaped chickens round the barn (picture it, if you will), and splitting wood with the wood splitter, which I did for three days straight. This could have been a pretty dull task, but once I got into the rhythm it became a sort of meditative thing, and I found I really enjoyed it. And chucking the split logs into the tractor trailer, then stacking them all in the woodshed back at the farm provided a pretty good workout too! Certainly helped keep me warm, despite the bitterly cold wind that blew most days. I also helped out with repairing the new 'tarp' barn, which had only been up for three months, and which had suffered some structural damage during the high winds on my first night there.
One day a few Muslims showed up - they have an arrangement with Ted where they buy some lambs, and then despatch them and 'dress' them right there on the farm according to their religious beliefs. I was splitting wood at the time, so missed the actual deed itself, but had a good chat with them before
Emergency Repairs to the Tarp Barn
Using the tractor to pull some of the bent struts straight again they left. All that was left behind was the wool and the offal/guts/whatever (I didn't have a close look), which was left out in the field for 'natural' disposal.
The next morning I was woken by a gunshot. Which quite freaked me at the time. Turns out Ted had spotted a coyote come to investigate the sheep remains, so he shot it. Apparently they're quite partial to the odd lamb, and they get shot on sight. 'Natural' disposal also acts as bait then.
I was sad to leave in the end, and had enjoyed my stay there, but the overall experience proved invaluable in that I now know I don't want to run a commercial farm. Too much killing for my liking - not something I really want to 'get used to'.
Back in Fredericton, I stayed with Leah again, and was invited to a dinner party that evening, where I mingled with Fredericton's finest: accountants, lawyers, doctors etc. A fairly major contrast, having only left the farm that morning, but enjoyable nonetheless. At least I'm fairly certain I didn't disgrace myself or my country!
That was New Brunswick - next stop: Prince Edward Island!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.112s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 11; qc: 50; dbt: 0.0717s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Keira
non-member comment
Nice - cheesy sunset shot!