Saskatchewan

Workstay #3 - Broadview, Saskatchewan

We knew that sometimes we may not come across some ideal situations during our trip and our third workstay was not ideal for safety reasons, mainly. The hosts were wonderful, truly. An old time trapper and his wife, with lots to teach us, to be sure, but for safety reasons we could not really stay as Molly was the first child they had had stay on their farm, so the risks were too many. The trapper's wife had been ill and we understood that she hadn't been physically able to do the necessary work to look after a large farm house. But we offered to help get things cleaned up, but we the trapper was a bit afeared that the missus wouldn't take kindly to things being moved around and displaced, so that really meant that we hit a roadblock in how long we could stay there in those conditions.

We spent one day picking wild sage, which really was a wonderful workstay job to do, but just not ideal to drag Molly to a field for five hours to do this job. She was a trooper though and picked wild flowers, sat in the back of the pick up truck with a book or explored the field we were in.

Four freezers full of moose and rabbit meat. I made my first massive moose roast, complete with moose(!!) gravy. The funny story he told us was about his younger trapper Native buddy who spotted a moose on the near horizon one day. He got his rifle and when he shot, he thought he needed another round, so he bent down to reload. When he came up again, he realised the moose was still standing. So, he fired off another shot. Then when he looked back up, he realised the moose was still standing, so he fired off another shot. Finally, the moose was down. When they all went up to see the beast and start the arduous task of quartering the moose (with a workawayer in tow), to their surprise and dismay, he had actually shot three moose. And the roast I made was one of those badboys.

There were millions trillions gazillions  lots of mosquitoes.At night, all we could hear was the loud, collective hum, warning us to just dare to open the tent window. Taunting us. Hundreds resting on our screen windows, just waiting to have a chance at us. In the old farmhouse, there were seventy birds in a sunroom, connected to the living room, squawking and fluttering. Imagine feeding your hip city kid moose for every meal - it ain't happening. Nosireebob. The old fellar was an indoor chainsmoker and we still had Molly on a puffer trying to recover from the brutal cough she caught she caught from the first kids in North Bay.oh, but let's not forget the ticks. Ticks everywhere. And we can't get the image of the bunnies in the basement NOT being raised as pets. There was only a bath, no shower and Oscar swears that the upstairs roof was held up by jacks.

We felt really bad about having to leave, but we didn't really have a choice. Luckily, they have had close to seventy Wwoofers stay with them over three years and more were on the way to help them after we departed. It is just a different way of living, and it gave us a taste of how some people lived when they really lied off the land. It can be a really tough life.

B'N B Saskatchewan, Country Comfort with our host, Stephanie

We booked a bed and breakfast after leaving our workstay on the muggiest day. Oscar and I had a few meltdowns taking down the tent earlier, while mosquitoes attacked us relentlessly. So, when we arrived at this bed and breakfast, how happy we were to find a clean bathroom, a steady, cool breeze and no mosquitoes to be found. Our host, Stephanie greeted us and we roamed her wonderful property - cows, sheep, owls, an amazing black lab named Rocky and handfuls of kittens.

She discover a ewe that seemed to be lambing, but something was going wrong. Here is Oscar's version of what went down.

So we showed up to a little B and B south of Swift Current, Saskatchewan , chill out before we head up to Calgary . It's a beautiful working farm with herds of cows, horses, a flock of sheep, some chickens, pigs and bunnies. We we're here for an hour when the owner (a tough ,no holds barred lady named Stephanie) noticed that one of her sheep had been lying down in the field for a long time. She knew that the ewe was lambing , but something was up, something was awry. She went and checked out the situation , the lamb was breached , the legs we're coming out first. " Oscar can you help me here, if you don't mind gettin dirty ?" "Um, ok" immediately we realized there we're complications with the lamb,it was dead inside the mother. All we could see was the tail. the mother was not dilated . I'll never forget that smell or the sounds. Her partner came down to help her . Her arm elbow deep in the ewe trying to get the dead lamb out so the mother could be saved. After what seemed forever she finally found the lamb's leg , pulled it out, but the leg ripped right off. She tried again , but only entrails came out. No point in paying 250$ for a 300$ sheep that was septic and wouldn't survive the c-section. Only one course of action remained. Two rounds from a shotgun. I helped load the remains onto the truck. The air sucked out of our lungs, not a word was said between any of us. That was day 5 in Saskatchewan.

The next morning after breakfast, after Stephanie had realised what our mission was on this trip and how we were staying and helping on farms for food and lodging, she offered us two more nights to stay and help her out with a few things that she needed done on the farm. In return, we could stay in her sweet guest room, free of charge and she would feed us meals. Done! We spent the next two days doing odd jobs like tearing down a trampoline, tearing down an iron fence, gardening and weeding and a few other jobs. The breeze was steady, the sun was shining and we were well fed. It was a wonderful place to stay and we hope to land back at Stephanies in the fall to help her out again.

I discovered that I love the landscape of the prairies. golden yellows, emerald greens and with the perfect purple blue skies.

Manitoba

Rushing River Provincial Park - 2 days to relax

The most important thing we learnt from this stop was that two nights of camping is not nearly enough. We will, in future, never camp for less than four nights. Nextly, we also learnt that driving for 8 hours, then setting up our tent THEN cooking dinner and making a fire late is NOT ideal. It leads to fighting, bickering, stress and creating an environment where an excited yet over-tired Molly gets treated unfairly by her grumpy parents. Lesson learnt.

Workstay #2 Elma, Manitoba

Welcomed by Lee, Annie and five year old Aurora Sol, we really lucked out by having our paths cross with these folks. We were given our first glimpse of a family starting to be self sufficient, a year out of the city of Winnipeg and what a haven they are creating for their small family. They have around 60 acres, have a small collection of animals, small gardens, a small lake on their property that's all theirs and supplies all their water. They do a lot of murals in and around Winnipeg, as well as Annie gives art classes and Lee does some construction jobs.

We set up our tent in the back yard, near the birch trees that move with the slightest breeze and if anyone really knows me, they know that white noise is my thing , as is a fresh air breeze on my face at night, warm or cold weather. and wind through the birch trees is amazing white noise, so guess who is sleeping well. i mean, besides Molly, who sleeps well through anything really. 

Jobs have been a cleaning up a wood pile ( I love stacking wood, Oscar hates stacking wood, but loves wielding a chainsaw and i used a chainsaw for the first time!), the animal feed rounds every day (the one duck really hates us and pecks-bites our legs), helping them organise their art/mural supplies, possibly building an outhouse (and yes you can google instructions on how to do this).

Things we learnt during this leg of the tour...

1. Always double check that your rooftop carrier is closed. Ours was not, apparently, when we left rushing river provincial park, and we only found out after we were flagged down by a road construction worker who said his work buddies had some of our jackets about 10 kms back. which leads us to the second thing we learnt...

2. Be careful and thoughtful so a 10km journey does not end up in a 30km trip, by having to double-back because you forgot or missed something, or forgot to return house keys, or mail, etc.

3. Don't buy fishing rods from WalMart if you actually want to fish.

4. We learnt from Thunder Bay folks the best way to clean a marshmallow campfire is by sticking it INTO THE GROUND. It cleans right off. Holly sh**, right?

5. Apparently, there is a bug called a 'noseeum' that bites. so bloody small, like the size of a mechanical pencil dot with wings. We lived our whole life in southern Ontario without knowing about these bugs. How does that happen?

6. Kid camping essentials- these will make your kid sleep, which means, you guessed it - YOU will sleep too. and missed sleep in a tent is not something you want. the essentials are: afterbite cream, calamine lotion, a hippie, lavender/eucalyptus non-deet spray for nighttime, Tom's natural toothpaste with baking soda (amazing bite relief), Benydryl allergy liquid for the nights the bites are too intense. And have two or three of each of these because good luck if you run out and it's 4am ad the nearest small town is 40kms away

and closed on Sunday.

7. A $5, dented cooler from the clearance section at Canadian Tire WILL last you about a month.

8. Molly is a croissant fiend. When buying baby croissants, you must hide them or you will find her in the corner, eating croissants, double fisted, furiously trying to eat them before you catch her. Crumbs everywhere, greasy buttered face and anger when you try to take them from her.

9. Time alone is a great thing.

10. We thought after four months, we might be more patient or forgiving. Not necessarily so. It is hard to follow the old adage "don't sweat the small stuff", because the small stuff can really irk you because all you have is small stuff to deal with now. Weird, huh?

Brandon, Manitoba - Boondocking at Audrey & Camille's

We are members of a website, Boondockers Welcome. It has listings of strangers, around the globe,who have one thing in common - rv's or vans, travelling and some space to offer. I contacted a couple near Brandon,as a rest stop for us, where we could set up our tent for two nights. They agreed and we made our way to Brandon. The province was flooding in areas and by the looks of a few bridges along the TransCanada, we barely made it in time before the raging rivers would have cosed the highway in spots, had there been one more rain. One bridge we passed had less than two inches before it could wash out the bridge. When we got To Brandon, a few roads were closed and in areas, all we could see were the tops of street lamps. 

When we arrived at the home of our hosts for the next two nights, we expected they would greet us then just direct us to where to set up our tent. But, nope! They invited us inside, offered us some wine, food and we spent the next hours in their home. But when it came time to think about setting up the tent, Camille, said no, that they would set up their Boler trailer for us to sleep in.We were so thankful, as sometimes it can be such a chore to set up our whole tent. We learnt about Boler trailers, Boler meets, stain glass art and Manitoba.What an amazing welcome. With dinner done, we settled into the Boler for the night - fresh sheets, a gorgeous breeze and an episode of True Detective on our laptop. Molly fell asleep within five minutes.

The next day, they fed us crepes for breakfast and we set out to the Reptile Museum in Brandon for a day trip. Upon our return that night, we were a campfire dinner along with Smores.Molly and I had never had them before. We settled in for another night in the cosy Boler. We left after breakfast the next day and we held held hands and bowed heads while Audrey said a prayer & blessing for us and our adventure.

Audrey and Camille showed us such hospitality and we feel like we've made friends for life now.We intend to stay with them again on our way back through Brandon, maybe do a bit of a workstay with them, help them out with anything they might need done and spend some more time with these amazing folks.

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Well it's been 16 nights on our road trip. it seems like forever and it seems like a flash. As i write this, I am hunkered down at a cozy dining table in a warm, welcmoming home in Thunder Bay - Phil's home to be exact. A best friend of Oscar's from back in the day. And seeing Oscar so happy to be here is great, really great.

It's hard to blog on the road, that is for sure. Either getting the time or the wifi connection is a daunting task. But better late than never, non?

So, let's backtrack.

First, we want to thank Karla & Hector Berganza for hosting us for three days in Barrie while we got organised and ready to leave on our trip. They hosted a great dinner where Michelle, Bert & Sarita came to properly send us off on this journey. The night before the trip was a rough one. Every doubt, every worry, every real and/or imagined problem had turned my stomach into knots. I think I would have easily just looked at the for rent signs and Barrie and called the trip quits at that point. I had realised that I had never been so scared as I was that night. Not even of childbirth, or moving to Scotland - nothing gave me the jitters the way this trip did. Then i visited this blog and they gave a bit of a pep talk about how short life is and why not do something epic right now - if it fails, at least you tried. there are no regrets in trying. It was all I needed to read to calm me, so that I could  finally try to get some sleep. Instant peace of mind. Here is their blog:

http://blog.leftnleaving.com

Our first night, we sent at a Christmas tree farm called Arrowhead tree farm located at Huntsville... check it out on fb: https://www.facebook.com/ArrowheadTreeFarm

We found this spot by being members on boondockerswelcome.com, and Mike, the owner of the property met us at his site. We were the first boondockers to stay there. Tent set up was a lengthy procedure, but hot dogs never tasted as good as they did that night.

These are our solar power fairy lights. 

Off To North Bay. Ten nights workstay with a family of five along the river - Alexandra, Lance, Adora, Ari and Asta. Oscar never cut so much wood and I have never looked after so many kids in one fell swoop. This was through the workaway.net site, where you help out a family in return for lodging and meals.We did get sick with colds and passed it around like pirates and a bottle of rum, but we survived.  The mosquitos were determined to drain us of our optimism, but they failed. There were some rough times, some good times and a nice unexpected reward from the past seven years in an office job that will make this trip abit more comfy and fun for us.

Our first two weeks living in a tent... things we learnt:

Check your van tent for gaps around the van before you settle in for the night to avoid a swarm of mosquito's waking you up.

Be sure you don't unzipped the screen at 500am when you really meant to unzip the screen cover to let some air in. You will be left wondering how to effectively rid your tent of fifty plus mosquitos.

When staying some place  with WiFi, be sure that your tent is within WiFi reach.otherwise have your game of thrones fix downloaded on your netbook in advance to avoid disappointment.

One kid is hard. Two kids are harder. Three kids are really really hard. Four kids is mayhem.I highly recommend that anyone with one kid babysits four kids for eight hours. It changes your perception of how much freedom one kid truly gives you. Kudos to the moms around the world with two or more kids. Geez Louise.

The temperature at ten p.m in the tent is NOT what the temp at 430 am in the tent will be.

Showers are wonderful, amazing and miraculous. The day you take that for granted is a pity.

Water is beautiful. A jug of sun warm water can be the delight of your day. A jump in a river. An outdoor solar shower. A jug of water to wash your grimy hands or spray on your sweaty face. Let's seriously take care of our most precious resource.

Every single noise at night is Not a bear. Actually, its most likely a leaf moving in a tree. Fact.

Laziness is not an option. Most things have to be done when staying on a tent to prevent meltdowns. Must bring water inside, must have potty close, bite cream handy, moisturizers and lip balm , ibuprofen and Tylenol close by. Rain fly zipped up, food stored tightly, the list goes on and on. Mental checklists are a must.

We learn many things every single day of what 'not to do next time'.

We also managed to meet Dee, an amzing woman who let us camp out on her horse farm while Oscar painted her white fences on the property. It was a nice couple days that also let us get our petty cash box fill up a bit more and not feel guilty about a great country chicken fried dinner we had on our last night there.

Whew. You got this far, eh?

Well then, you certainly won't mind if I add in the photos of our lovely two night stay in Sault St. Marie, with an amzing family - Theresa, Dar, Chloe and Rowan who welcomed us into their home and to the family cottage for the day.

All in all, it's been a great two weeks.and every day is totally different, which is what we wanted - to get out of our routine. We are tired, I am down a pant-size (awesome) and or colds have taken a toll on us, one we werent expecting, the mosquitos have had their way with us and laughed, but here we are, still trucking on.

That's it for now, but will be posting our Thunder Bay adventures as they happen....

Cheers!