we arrive after 3 great hitchhiking. I have a very good energy. We meet H., the conversation is not great, but maybe I am too tired. The farm is just a poor farm. Instead of making us the tour, H tells us to go find N, to show us how to feed the pigs. Actually we make the tour of feeding for all animals: chickens, pigs, goats, goats and again pigs. It took like 2 hours and half.
N is programmer. He works in a hub. there are like 15 people. There is a gaming startup, I heard about it from the last hitchhike, the guy told me that they are looking for people, they’d pay for starting 70.000/year. N goes 5 days a week. The monthly fee costs 200$. Can you imagine, I could go working in the morning and the evening at the farm, and midday for my projects. I ask if the next day would be possible to join him. H cuts it, she says that there is work at the farm.
I feel a big frustration:
– H said about working 6h/day, not 4-5 as Emilie had told me
– the coast is at 15 miles, so 1 hour of biking, not 30 mins how they said.
– the presented orchard is an apple tree, smaller than the one on my terrace
– there are 3 golden retrievers, and 6 puppies, but they are too aggressive… for golden retriever to be aggressive, me , owner of one, it’s impossible. but since they are not free, and they lack human contact, they are pretty savage
– they said they cook the best meal in Canada, it was a good hamburger
– for farming I had two other opportunities:
1. to help my cousin to develop his farm, we had so interesting discussions, it would have been in the family. But I didn’t want to feel that we are supported. And Nova Scotia sounded wilder than outskirts of Boston
2. the guy who took us to the border, who wants to start offgrid. we spoke like 2 hours,he has so many projects, but we came here, because we promised.
1er jour à la ferme
Nous arrivons après une belle série de rencontres! J’étais un peu gênée de prévenir seulement une demi-heure avant, mais H ne semble pas embêtée de venir nous chercher.
La maison est remplie de brol, en bazar, pourtant il me semble qu’ils y habitent seulement depuis 2 ans. Elle donne l’impression d’avoir été habitée pendant des années et qu’ils y ont entassé tout ce qu’ils pouvaient. Alors que nous sortons pour voir comment nourrir les cochons, N, le compagnon de H., arrive avec un beau toutou blanc qui me saute au visage et me mange littéralement le nez et me slurpe avec sa longue langue…berk… La ferme est grande, une vingtaine de chèvres et boucs, une vingtaine de chevreaux, une trentaine de poules, 4 gros cochons et une quizaine de porcelets, 3 gros chiens italiens et 4 chiots absolument craquants. Et j’oubliais les 4 chats dans la maison (2 obèses et 2 maigrichons; y’en a un sur la photo qui suit…) qui mettent leurs poils partout. La ferme date du XVIIIè et ils ont du travailler beaucoup pour rénover. Le terrain est vraiment grand – 60 acres, soit 25 hectares. Nous allons nourir les cochons avant de manger, ils sont gros et ça n’a pas l’air évident de ne pas se faire bouffer l’entièreté du seau avant d’être arrivé à leur gamelle… H et N sont gentils, mais pas hyper chaleureux comme semblaient dire tous les commentaires sur le site.
He went with me in a gas station, he asked for a cupboard to write properly the desired destination.
He stopped right in front of the custom office. Then we continued our talk about ecology issues, about his business projects. He talked for more than one hour. And when I saw that it is already night, we started to walk to cross the bridge between the two countries. He came with the car in parallel, to give me his phone number, the American custom office was after his car. The custom officials stopped us, because for them looked very suspicious, that he hide us with his car, that they saw us talking for hours. As he is known to have a lot of land in the area, maybe we could have worked for him. So at 10 pm, me and Emilie we are invited to put our luggage in the custom office, we cannot touch any more our stuff. They asked us about needles. Yes, Emilie move her hand to show him. ‘Don’t move’, and the officer shows the gesture of a cocaine … No sir, we have needles for repairing cloths.
