Coming Home to the City During a Pandemic

I made it back to Victoria yesterday morning. I took the 9:50am ferry from Salt Spring Island to Vancouver Island, which has been home to me for the past 5 years this July. If you have been reading along, you know that I went to stay with my daughter there for the past 5 weeks after being released from the hospital. I needed somewhere safe to convalesce and gain my strength back again. The time had come to return to my life in the city. I had a job interview this week that I am hoping went well. If I am offered the job, I will be starting work very soon, so needed to be back in the city for that. I don’t know if the job will be office based at this point - kind of forgot to ask that important question during the interview!

I am parked on the street in front of my friend’s house, plugged in and on wifi. Had a glorious shower this morning. There were no real showering opportunities on the farm, off the grid. My daughter and her partner use their shower as it is a tiny little square thing in the bathroom. Mine is a nearly full size bathtub with a shower and has been far more valuable to me as a closet for my clothes as there aren’t really any in here. I have just been showering at friend’s/family houses or campgrounds for the past 4.5 years living in the RV. And when I can’t shower somewhere, I can wash my hair in the sink and get a good scrubbing with just one gallon of water. I didn’t care much on the farm. The only people that really saw me were my daughter and her partner. We were all dirty most days with farm work. The animals didn’t care. 

I stopped to do my RV chores on the way back here yesterday, as well as filling the propane tank, and stocking up on groceries. I went to Walmart where they had quite strict social distance guidelines which was great. I have to park in the Save-On parking lot across the street with an RV and walk to Walmart. 

For the past 3-4 years I have been able to take my shopping cart from Walmart across the street to the parking lot where I park. The carts initially wouldn’t go across because of that lock function but then that broke and no one noticed for the past 3-4 years. Until yesterday. I had always hesitated when I did take the cart over - should I buy something this heavy because if I can’t take it across in the cart, it might be too much to carry in my arms, and once the carts lock, you cannot move them in any direction. 

So fuck. The cart locked at the crosswalk. I had bought the heavy things. I had taken out most of my own shopping bags weeks ago as you cannot use them in the store. I had two cases of diet soda, a giant pillow, a floor mat and four bags of groceries. It took three rounds of pressing the crosswalk light and lining it up to when I was actually able to lift and carry everything at once. I kept dropping stuff, breaking handles, and had to pass on the crosswalk. Finally it all lined up, my hands and arms and shoulders and back are SCREAMING at me as I lug all this shit across the crosswalk. I get a couple of car rows in and am able to grab a Save-On Foods cart and dump all my stuff in. No one was washing the carts off there or controlling their return. On Salt Spring they had strict control on the carts. You bring them back to them to sterilize and all cart corrals were closed off. At Walmart there was no cart control either but plenty of hand sanitizer available, and they only had every second checkout open and someone was directing all shoppers through the checkouts to avoid being close to one another. I had gloves and mask on, as usual. I head into Save-On next where there is very little customer control happening other than a sign at the doorway that directs traffic to walk in on the right and out on the left of a barrier they have placed in. Problem was, when walking from the direction I came in, you could not see the sign as the barrier blocked it - they had written on a whiteboard right at the same level as the bars on the barrier. So I walked in the wrong way, got plague stares...whatever! Let’s get this shopping done and get me parked! 

Made it back here after a quick stop for propane and at a friend’s to pick up my mail. Couldn’t get in front of my friend’s house at first but as soon as the car that was parked there left, I jumped right on in there. Home. I won’t need to leave here for at least 2-3 weeks and only then for RV chores. 

I went for a walk this morning to Tim Hortons. I had not been in one since this all unraveled. The one I normally went to was closed before I went to Salt Spring. It was nearly empty as the seating is all closed off. The floor is marked with where to stand. I didn’t notice right away so was right behind this guy for a few minutes, got the death glare then figured out why. He was the only other person in the line. I decided I don’t want to go there daily anymore, not now with things the way they are. So I bought a can of the French vanilla mix and I will just make it at home for now and only go when I run out. Not worth the risk to go out in public like that. I didn’t see too many people while out, but I passed a lot of smokers who clearly live in non-smoking buildings, sprawled on the grass outside their buildings, coughing like smokers, and that just made me nervous. No one had a mask on of course as they were smoking, but that meant someone could walk by as they were coughing due to smoking, no knowing they might also have the virus. So fuck that. Got my can of FV mix and a huge bottle of Bailey’s Irish Cream. I’m good. I shall stay the bloody hell home. I will only need to go out for milk I reckon. The flowers I saw along the way though were beautiful!

So without all the farm work and hanging out with the creatures all day, I now have a lot of time on my hands again. I’ve cleaned the RV top to bottom, scrubbing out the farm mess. We always had all manner of chicken/goat/goose poop or mud, compost or clay on our boots and wood chips, hay, leaves, branches and who knows what all over our clothes, so there was quite a mess to muck out. Now it smells clean instead of like a barn. I think I will haul out my rock painting supplies and get busy. Nash is napping up top, beside his little windows up there. He loves this neighbourhood. Lots of dog walkers go by, little kids with parents. He just sits in the window and meows as they go by.

 

Just An Ordinary Day...on the Farm

I thought I would write about a normal day on the farm here for me at this moment in time. I like the routine of the day, and we are busy enough here that there is no time to be bored and the days have flown by. I have been on the farm for just over three weeks. 

7am - I am usually awake by this time as the roosters have been crowing and my daughter gets up earlier than I do to let the purple coop out to free range. The school bus Rita flock is let out much later. We need them to finish laying their eggs before they can be let out into their pen. They tend to escape the pen and go lay in the woods, goat shed, thicket, purple coop, wherever. 

I usually get dressed as it is warmer to be dressed in an RV in the mornings. I check my blood sugar and then I make myself a cappuccino (Tim Hortons) and roll up. I will check in on Facebook, CBC news and possibly with a friend or two on messenger or sms texting. I don’t need to collect eggs until about 9am, so I have time to putter. Often I will take this time to tidy up the RV, do some dishes, or I will go out and hang with the purple coop flock, or go say hello to the goats. 

9am - I grab my egg collecting basket and go out for my rounds. I stop first next to me to check on the newly arrived Large Dewlap Toulouse geese. It is a matched mating pair (I have been witness to the mating...it is quite a process for such large geese!) and their names are Boris and Beatrix, after Boris Karloff and Beatrix Potter. I watch them for a few minutes and then carry on down the hill, greeting the purple coop flock who come running to greet me, hoping I am carrying treats. I am not. No treats before eggs! I check the nesting boxes in the purple coop, usually on a couple this early as they are later in the day layers for some reason. There is always a Mama Rita egg (the one who hatched out some chicks before Christmas) and possibly one other egg. Then I head into the tent. They have a large outfitters tent that stores household items, hay for the goats, tools, clothing, etc. The chickens have been slipping under the flap to lay in the hay nests they have built in there. Better than laying in the woods, so we are okay with this. They lay in a nest behind the hay bales and another nest made in a pet carry cage that had hay in it. Sometimes 5-6 different hens lay in the cage nest. 

From here I head up the hill to the goat pen, check in with them, sometimes bring them treats. They love sunflower seeds (shell on) and they are good for their furry hair coat. After this I head across to the school bus to let the Ritas and two roosters out. They come flying down the ramp, the roosters as randy as anything start jumping on the hens all over the place, wing dancing for them as they go. Some are okay with it, some are not into their shit and run off. I then close them into their pen and head to the front of the bus where the nest boxes are and collect about 30 eggs from them on the first run. Then I head back to the RV to wash the eggs and prepare them for the farm stand. I have my breakfast then. 

10am - this is when I do a second egg run to add any stragglers to the eggs for the farmstand. I usually only get another half dozen. Then I head to the farmstand with the eggs, and on the way back, stop in to check on the little chicks who are in the brooder box. They will be three weeks old on Sunday and are growing like weeds! I have had several of them up - so cute and feathering out now. After the chicks I head back to my RV for a break and think about lunch. I often eat lunch earlier as I am up so very early. 

Noon - eat lunch, which is usually a salad. I then take my organic compost stuff down to the compost heap where the chickens love to root and peck through. They swarm me and Soleil races over to claim credit for feeding his hens, often taking up pieces and dropping them in front of girls, clucking and telling them what he found them. I do another round with the goats, check on the Seramas(miniature chickens) in their coop, check on the Ritas and that both roosters are still in their pen. Then head back to my RV or if Amber is home, we work on a project or chore. She has been getting the gardens ready for the season, has planted garlic, potatoes, onions, and several herbs so far. We have also been fixing up animal enclosures, tidying up the storage tent, painting things to make the place look better, and so on. Yesterday’s activity was building a door for the goose house, picking up the geese, and settling them into their new home. Sometimes I just read to the chickens. It was Stephen King this week. 

Our chores or projects often take us through the afternoon, with a check on the animals at some point, including the chicks.  

6pm - we start thinking about supper, usually either I cook or my daughter and her partner cook. Some times we spend separately as they want to cook other things that I don’t eat. Sometimes it is just for some alone time. We spend a lot of the day together when my daughter is home, so we need breaks of our own to do stuff as well. 

7pm - usually suppertime. 

8pm - usually bedtime for the animals. I don’t do much of the early morning chores or the going to bed ones. Amber gets the animals up in the morning and Jason puts them to bed. Now that we have chicks though, I often go put the chicks to bed as it is a bit of a hike, not a hard one to do. 

After putting the animals to bed, we usually retreat to our own homes to rest and relax for the rest of the evening. Neither of us stay up late often so are in bed usually by 10pm. If I am lucky, I may get to sneak in some rock painting. I haven’t been particularly motivated to paint though with no opportunity to hide them with the pandemic on. 

So there you have it. A day in the life of a part-time visiting farmer. 

Pandemic Eating

I hear often about how much eating folks are doing while isolating at home. It is all over Facebook and my bank account. If I pass the fridge I almost always open it. If I am busy outside, this happens less. I have developed a cracker addiction. It started when I was in the hospital last month and the only thing that was fit to eat was the cheese and crackers. When I got out, I had my daughter pick me up two boxes. Oh dear they went fast. Plain old saltines, store brand even, but right now they are hitting the spot. I don’t know what the spot is or why it needs crackers, but in lieu of all things salty and crunchy, I am devouring crackers. The ones I fed the chickens were the non-salted ones I bought by mistake. 

When I was living in Victoria, parked in my friend’s driveway, I didn’t cook much for myself unless a friend was coming over. I ate out a lot or more often, ate little snacks all day and no proper meals. Terrible habits for a diabetic. Now that I am here on the farm, no fast food in sight, we are cooking for ourselves here all the time. My daughter and her partner cook some of the nights, and I cook the other nights and once a week or less, we have separate suppers, which I think is very important for our own sanity. Sometimes we eat our lunches together and on occasion I will cook a brunch for us all. We do not share meals with the other family households on the farm property though as we are trying to keep our social distances as much as we can. Newborn baby at one house and two elderly parents at the other. And still I eat crackers...

Nash does not seem affected in any way by the pandemic. For him, the changing outside environment has been his life and we have come here enough I am certain he feels like I do, that it is a second home. He loves looking out the many windows at the activity. Chickens, goats, cats, dogs, birds, bees, bugs and all. He was a bit restless during the last full moon but that is to be expected from cats. It shone so bright it lit up the whole field we are in. 

The warmer days of spring have arrived and we are in shorts and sandals weathers in the afternoons. The mornings are still chilly but by noon it is warm enough. I must change 3-4 times a day with the rise and fall of temperatures. 

My biggest drama of the day was when my water backed up. It was my grey water tank. I am able to empty my grey water on the farm as it is just wash water and dishes, etc. I use biodegradable cleaners and soaps. My daughter’s partner has been bringing me water every day or two in five gallon jugs, usually one or two at a time. I lost track of how much water I had been through and did not pull the plunger on my grey water to let it go and it backed up into the bathtub by about six inches. I do not use the bathtub as a bathtub but rather use it as a closet as there are no real ones in my RV. My clothing hang on a rod above the bathtub. In the bathtub I keep my clothes basket with dirty clothing, a Rubbermaid with my paper products in it (toilet paper, paper towel, tissues), a big bag of cat food in a paper bag, and a few odds and ends. Well the clothing in the basket was filthy, having soaked for a couple days in old dirty dishwater. Ugh. I had to empty the whole tub and try not to let any of the messy crap in the tub touch all of the clothing hanging directly above it. So now I have left the plunger on the grey water tank open, so there will be no further buildup of water. The black water gets pumped out and the guy was here just last week to do that for us both. RV life off the grid is fun...

I have been busy this week painting a few things. First it was a bunch of Easter rocks for my daughter’s little nephew to find. Then I painted a little stand for my daughter to use in her garden when potting plants and seedlings. It is painted light purple like the stripe on my RV. It was leftover paint. I also painted her little round metal table. It was painted once before in Edmonton, but got worn and rusty so I gave it new life again with some leftover dark purple spray paint I have from when I did my wheel rims. My bumper and step into the RV are also the same dark purple. I think they look great! 

It is such a nice day out today, I think I will go see what the chickens are up to, bring a book and read in the sun for awhile. I may or may not read to the chickens. It depends on whether they like Stephen King. Chickens can be finicky. 

The Current Situation - WTF

It is easy to forget about what is going on when I am roaming the farm with the animals, but when I stop and think about it, or check in with the online world, I am quickly reminded that things are very different right now. Things I could not have dreamed happened, have happened. Death is hunting human life on earth right now, and I am trying to hide from it. We do have what it takes for most of us to survive. Stay home, wash your hands, social distance seriously, and keep yourselves alive and sane. It is not the same for everyone, I recognize that. Then there are the idiots of the world that are still out there gathering for parties, going camping together and having big gatherings in the woods, going to the store every single day for one or two things because they are bored, and then we have Donald Trump, who has to be the biggest moron on the planet right now. Demanding that 3M ship no more masks to Canada anymore. He is such an idiot that he doesn’t realize the ingredients for making said masks come from CANADA. So if you stop exporting them to Canada, you will also stop MAKING them for Americans. Why is this moron allowed to speak in public? Arrrggghhh, I can’t even...

So the current situation as I know it to be in Canada:

- all schools and universities are closed, some indefinitely. Some to be determined at a later date. 

- all parks, campgrounds, recreations areas, playgrounds and such are closed. 

- all non-essential businesses are closed. No open date in sight. Things like nail salons, hair salons, dentists, eye doctors, etc, anything with close contact - closed. 

- many businesses are trying to manage by offering delivery of items from their stores if you pay up front. Or you can go pick up your order outside the store, all from a distance. 

- essential businesses have very strict social distancing rules in place as well as rules about item limits on essential items. There are lines on the floors telling you where to stand and some stores have directional arrows on the floor so you can only travel in one direction and not pass someone in the narrower aisles. They have all the bulk food sections and any self-serve open stock are all closed and covered up with big sheets of plastic. Some form of barrier is between you and the cashier at checkout - either plexiglass, or a table is placed in front so you can’t physically get that close. At the drug store - where normally there is a row of chairs or more for people waiting for their meds, now there is a single chair. No one can sit beside you but if you must wait, here is one chair. Shopping carts at some grocery stores cannot be returned to any corral - just the one that is being manned with someone in gloves with sanitizer to clean it for the next person. Security guards are posted at all grocery stores and drug stores to maintain order, social distance, control traffic flow into the store, and if need be, slow the traffic. When it is busy, there are lineups outside the stores, often around the building as people put great distances between them. Paper and plastic bags are available and free and you must not bring your own bags. Certain things are hard to find - hand sanitizer, cleaning wipes, masks. People everywhere are wearing gloves, many wearing masks, scarves, anything to cover themselves. Most are doing it wrong.

- All restaurants and pubs are closed to inside dining and only a select few are offering delivery or take-out. Take-outs often require more sanitizing, gloves, distance, tap only, no cash. 

- all stores are working on much shorter hours. They often offer seniors hours - the first hour of business is for seniors to get in and out without having to see too many people that may carry the virus and crowd them out. 

- renters cannot be evicted for non payment of rent if they are laid off due to the pandemic. There is rent assistance available if needed, and mortgages are given a deferral. BC Hydro is giving everyone 3 free months of power since we are all stuck at home. Bell Canada is giving everyone unlimited data both at home and on cells. 

- the streets at night are empty except for the homeless who wander, trying to find what they need for the night. 

- some ferries have been cancelled altogether, and others have cut their service by half due to low numbers. They are asking only those with essential travel reasons to use them. I was lucky to get to Salt Spring when I did. 

- if you have any symptoms of the virus you are NOT to go anywhere but to call their emergency line and a team will come to you. Do not go to the hospital or any medical clinic. In some provinces they are doing drive through testing for everyone with results in an hour. 

- borders are closed. International borders are only permitting Canadians to cross and supply trucks. No inessential travel. Everyone entering from any other country must self-quarantine for at least 14 days. Anyone coming from another province into certain provinces must do the same. There is to be no travel for pleasure whatsoever. Stay the hell home. 

- People are engaging with others online like never before. There are school programs, science programs, museum tours, free university classes, free language courses, you name it - the world has opened up to everyone. There is a lot of pressure to accomplish something great while we are in self-isolation, however many experts would rather we just tried to stay sane and healthy and not push ourselves too much as the entire ordeal is going to be stressful enough. This is not going to be over in a couple of weeks. Not even a couple of months. 

- people have turned on each other as well as turned up for each other in record numbers. There is always someone out there to help and looking for help and looking to take advantage of either of them. Beware. 

- people are celebrating the essential workers with cheers, song, music, clamouring, honking and whatnot every night around 7pm or so all over the world in many countries. Tears me up every time. 

- gas prices have fallen to lower than anyone has seen in decades. Now I can afford to travel in the RV, but I am not permitted. Murphy’s Law. 

It is easy to feel despair for the world and the situation facing human life on earth. I know some of my friends are struggling being home day after day with children. I feel for you, I really do. I hope you find something interesting every day to keep the family spirits up. There are a ton of great ideas out there, and a ton of great initiatives to join in with. You are not alone. No one is alone in this. For the first time in a very long time, the world is facing something together. This is not a problem facing one or two countries that share a border. This is a problem facing earth and its inhabitants. We need each other to make it through. We cannot afford to turn on one another. We will persevere. We are strong enough together. There is reason to hope. 

Farm Bubble

Well, I have been here on the farm a week now. I easily forget about what is going on in the world when I am here, busy with farm stuff. I haven’t even had much time for rock painting! With so many mouths to feed, it is a busy place. We all have our daily chores, and mine is to look after the eggs every day. Sometimes we get up to 4 dozen eggs if the girls are feeling generous. There is egg loss as well, as they often break one or two in the nest as they crowd into the nests, one after the other to lay their eggs. Sometimes they lay an egg in a very inopportune place, such as the goat shed, where three goats manage not to step on the eggs most of the time, and do not drive the chickens out. I had to haul one out of the goat’s hay feeder in their shed. I find eggs under the feeder every day, usually two of them. Today I did not see one hidden under a bunch of hay and crrrruuuunnnchhh. Even so, we still ended up with 4 dozen off to the farm stand. 

We have been busy looking after the new hatchlings. We started out with 7, lost one early in, and then gained another late hatcher who is struggling to catch up. She has a twisted foot, so struggles to get around, but has been perking up by the hour. She tires very easily, and now may have a new issue. We will see in the morning how she is going. Other chickens can prey on a vulnerable chicken in their flock. It is why Cru and one of the Ritas were in sick bay for a week with a sore foot/leg. They couldn’t protect themselves if they cannot run away, and the roosters are all over the girls frequently. They also need to be able to hop up into the nesting boxes to lay their eggs. Both girls are back in the general population with no further issues. 

We try to spend time with the goats too when we can. The weather has been muddy and wet these past few days. Once things begin to dry up a bit, we can take them out on leads to walk around the property. They love being able to munch on something new. They love wild rose bushes. I will show them ALL of them. They are an evil beast to trip over again and again as they send their runners out everywhere. Get snarled up in one of those and fall to the ground tangled in thorns. Ask me how I know...I did a beautiful tuck and roll when I went down though according to my daughter. 

We have also been doing a bit of gardening as well when the sun is out AND the rain has stopped. We get a lot of rainy sunny days. My daughter is working on her veggie garden this week. Onions, potatoes and garlic are all in. Pineberries have been trimmed, and some flowering plants have been potted. I also potted a dahlia that she gave me. We will still plant it in her dahlia garden, but it will be my dahlia to collect cuttings from whenever I visit here. 

It is easy to forget about the global pandemic while surrounded by such beauty in nature and having fun with chickens and goats. Then I check in with Facebook and it all comes crashing back. I think I am coping pretty well with things, but I do miss my friends, hiding rocks, and just walking around the city. I look forward to heading back to the city when it is safe to do so. For now, I will be here on the farm with my daughter and her partner, and dozens of mouths to feed.