WWOOFING Adventure No.2: Paradise Valley
After a week of camping and hiking in Squamish, it was time to get back to work and to our next WWOOFING placement: this time, on a farm in Paradise Valley.
After having such an incredible introduction to volunteering at Ruby Lake Resort, I was interested to find out how our next placement would measure up. But I can safely say that while this experience was a completely different one, it was just as rewarding and interesting as the first.
The night we arrived, we drove down a winding gravel road through the forest, eyes peeled for our new hosts’s home as the sun began to set. As we rounded a corner, a huge wooden house, looking like one of those moody, high-contrast stills from a trendy folk Instagram account, suddenly appeared. It was so impressive that we involuntarily slowed the car down. And that was before we even learned that our hosts, Ian and Claudia, had built the whole thing themselves from the ground up.
It wasn’t to be the last interesting thing we learned from these guys, who over the next two weeks taught us about a sustainable, organic lifestyle, Biodynamics and the process behind their successful local cutting board business. It wouldn’t by hyperbolic to say that every day they taught me something, and widened my horizons with their outlook and lifestyle. To me, this is kinda the whole point of wwoofing: to learn and broaden your mind, and perhaps adopt some principles you agree with into your own life.
We were given a cosy room in their rustic yet modern home, and prepared to get to work. As well as the cutting board business, they grow their own fruit and veg to eat, and also keep chickens for eggs and goats for milk. It was my job to tend to the chickens in the morning, and I also learned how to milk Schneilly the goat. We’d get up at 8am and have a leisurely breakfast of homemade granola and coffee with goat’s milk until 10am, then we’d work until 1pm. After a lunch of salad fresh from the garden, homemade bread and freshly whizzed hummus, we’d start work again at 3pm until 6pm. Although the days from start to finish were long, the leisurely breaks and laidback pace meant we never felt tired or overworked.
The property was gorgeous - a place where the wilderness was tamed with a light and respectful hand. Filled with towering trees, wildflowers and of course the meticulously tended garden, it was a peaceful and gently restorative place. In between learning to make sourdough bread and adding compost to the vegetable beds, I went for lazy runs through the forest trails and down to the river, where the high water cut fast and powerful through the land.
Our two weeks in Paradise Valley differed to our time at Ruby Lake in many ways. Firstly, we were the only WWOOFERS there at the time, so as a result we were able to spend a lot of time getting to know our hosts personally. Staying in someone's home and helping them with their daily tasks is a big contrast to helping out with the running of a busy resort. It's more intimate, and while the pace was slightly slower here and we didn't experience the camaraderie between WWOOFERs that we did at Ruby Lake, it was so valuable to genuinely experience our host's lifestyle and get a taste of what it would actually be like to live it ourselves.
One of my favourite little tasks was oiling the cutting boards in preparation for market to be sold. Ian and Claudia harvest all of the wood from their own property, and it’s left outside to kind of mature before it’s taken in to be shaped and sanded. They’re oiled as pretty much the last step in the process, to condition the wood and keep it in top shape. It was another of those repetitive but deeply satisfying tasks which gives you plenty of time to think and reflect.
If you like the look of the boards, you'll need to seek out Raven Timberworks at either Whistler or Squamish markets over the summer. They're a fiercely local and decidedly offline business, so Google won't help you this time.
After a couple of days, I became a bit attached to the greenhouse (something I never expected to say!). During our WWOOFING experiences, I’ve discovered that in the beginning I like to have clear instruction then freedom to work, and I really enjoy repetitive but satisfying tasks where you can see the result in the end. So when I was given the task of weeding the pathways in the greenhouse, I attached it with relish, weed bucket in one hand and rusty trowel in the other. It might just be me, but there’s something so incredibly satisfying about the irregular pop of the roots as you unearth them. As the humid sun beat down heated the greenhouse, I put on a relaxing playlist, sipped icy water and drifted off into a kind of productive meditation as I completely cleared the paths. So satisfying.
In the evenings, we’d cook together or watch a movie. The couple’s adorable shiba inu dogs, Tiko and Toro, were a constant source of cheeky entertainment.
As a couple, Ian and Claudia were warm, accommodating and full of stories. We had so many interesting debates with them, and their passion for the environment and a sustainable lifestyle was contagious. I found myself looking around sometimes, marvelling at the fact that this beautiful environment was completely hand-built. It takes a pretty amazing couple to do that.
But, as always, sooner or later it was time to go. We waved them off as they left for the market on our last morning, their refurbed Chinese fire truck all loaded up with cutting boards. We then drove 6 hours up to Williams Lake for our next placement, where I’m currently sat in an airy wellness studio, tired and covered with insect bites, but content. Stay tuned to find out how we get on here
J
