Duncan

Small town, lots of Totem Poles. We are living near Duncan in the Cowichan Valley in the SE part of Vancouver island about an hour north of Victoria.

The dogs

Beau the dachshund and Bella the sheepdog. Jack the lesser haired Pomeranian sometimes visits and unfortunately Dillard died when we were away in Salt Spring Island. He had a good innings making it to 14 with one eye.

The Farm

Red Bell Farm sits on 20 acres: there is house with 4 bedrooms, a workshop, a barn for the hay and animals.

work

feeding the animals, pruning the fruit trees (sometimes from the tractor!), harvesting vegetables, planting garlic & blueberries, moving things in the tractor etc the jobs never run out! A local farmer had problems with the feds and so we received 4 of his huge Berkshire pigs - 3 sows and 1 bore Leroy who, after a few drinks at the infamous daily cocktail hour, we deceided to ride. The Pig Rodeo - Yeeeha. Don the cowboy hat, grab some rope and away we go...not sure what would happen or if we would get crushed but sounded fun at the time! Leroy was a feisty beast and took me round the field at full pelt: hang on and enjoy the ride.....I think I lasted about 8 seconds and got 30 meters on my first attempt. pretty scary.....extreme.

Everyday we collect the waste from a local supermarket and feed all the animals. its incredible how much perfect food is thrown away and the animals are certainly well fed. We also keep a lot of food to eat, especially the pastries!

The Animals

4 Goats, 4 Horses, 3 donkeys, 3 cows, 19 sheep, 1 llama, 25 duck, 15 chickens, 1 tuckey, 3 dogs, 2 doves and 4 cats! did I forget anybody? Yes, pigs - 15 of them (including 3 pregnant sows).

Red Bell Farm

We have been working on an organic farm with loads of animals, fruit, vegetables and other volunteers. We have been with 2 german girls, Fatiha from Algeria (above), Malte from Germany (above) and Mai from China. Hot tub surrounded by mint plants at the end of the day with home brewed beer and cider is essential.

Washington State

Drove through fields of wheat which was as far as the eye could see up round Mt. Raina and it's snow capped peak. Last night of the trip couchsurfing with Dave, a stencil artist and his wife in Bremerton, just across from Seattle.

Fun times

Great beer for all the family!

the insect genocide

Eveyday we must have killed hundreds of insects - more bugslaughter than murder, so had to clean the evidence a couple of times a day. Next stop Pendleton, Oregon. More couchsurfing armed with our Polygamy Porter 6 pack of beers from Utah. Stayed with Justin who made sure we had a fun time cracking open vintage barrel aged beers and cocktails.

to the plains - Utah

Back on the road and not too many miles on the clock to play with as we had a limited milage to take the car accross the states. Definitely cowboy country: Stetson hats, rocky outcrops, big skies, horses and cattle is about all you see. Made it to Ogden, Utah to stay with Bob and Doris - a retired couple who have been to almost every country in the world and were pretty competative about it. Bob and his daughter Kathleen also cycled the southern tier across the states so we had plenty of stories to share.

Grand Lake, Colorado

finally make the Rocky mountains. Had a lovely couple of nights with Severs enjoying the view and being out of the car.

Lincoln

The Nebraska Cornhuskers beat the Seatle Huskies much to the delight of 85,000 people

Classic supporters with so much merchandise: Everybody was wearing red and had Husker cars, Nebraska gazebos for the tailgate parties before and after the game and even corn hats - genius! We just arrived as the game was starting and managed to get cheap tickets off a tout (scalper as they call them) so had a completely unexpected afternoon watching a surprisingly exciting american football game.

roadtrip

After about a month at kristin's cottage just north of Kingston, Ontario taking it easy - cooking, reading and swimming / kayaking on the lake it is time to head west. We luckily found a company on the internet which would pay us $300 to drive accross the states. Couldn't believe it - a free ride plus petrol money! so after a megabus to Toronto and a carshare we made it to Windsor, Ontario where we met Elizabeth who was paying us to drive her TP Cruiser as she was moving to Victoria, BC and wanted to fly. The car was not the coolest ride but you can't really complain when its free. Drove to the US border in Dertroit and had quite a funny time explaining our situation: is this your car? No. Where do you live? not sure. Do you have a job? No.....Finally made it to Marc's place in Kalimazoo, Michigan where we couchsurfed and had a few beers in town. The next day we drove through a corner of Indiana, past Chicago (Illinois) and into Iowa. The scenery was pretty unexciting as there are only corn fields and ugly housing developments. We stopped at Des Moines where we stayed with a friendly couple Doug and Ryan who had a couple of dogs. We ate delicious Korean food and chatted by the firepit on their roof. Another day of flat corn fields brought us into Nebrasca. We stopped off at the old market district in Omaha for a break and made it to Lincoln to stay with Tim who I knew from Japan.