Eh?

The Canadians are here!

Shortly after I finished my last blog post, two chilly canadians stumbled up to the door of the Caravan. Claire introduced me to her friend Kelly. They met a little over a year and a half ago in Calgary, where they worked in the same cafe/bar. They are both great, very energetic and artistic people (Kelly sings and plays guitar, and Claire paints). Noriko was feeling a little under the weather, so she was a little quieter than usual. She eventually feel asleep on the couch next to the fire while everyone else was getting ready for bed. As the only male in the Caravan, it was my job to get rid of any spiders lurking aboot. I had to get rid of one, and Claire recounted the horror story of the last time she was alone in the caravan and needed to get rid of a spider. She saw one in her room in the caravan, and was afraid to leave to find help because she was worried that, left unsupervised, it would crawl into her bed and wait there for her. This led to a 2 hour standoff, with Claire too terrified to approach the spider but also petrified of leaving it alone. Eventually, realizing there was no other way, she somehow found the courage to catch it with a jar, but then she could see it crawling around inside the jar and shrieked. It's good that I was here to help this time. I can't wait for summer when the tarantulas come out.

Since we had so many people, we were given the day off on Friday (too many to fit in the trucks). Noriko left late in the morning to go to her next farm in Corsica. I got an e-mail from her later sending the pictures she had taken of me, and a few kind words of thanks. One photo was of me feeding betty, and the other was one of all the WWOOFers, taken with a timer. We didn't know where the top of the frame was so we overcompensated a bit.

Friday's weather was great so I headed into town. Anna had just finished her first day of work and offered to make dinner. She made pasta with tomatoes, onions, feta, and zucchini and it was great. I look forward to her cooking for us more. Saturday we woke up, made a hearty breakfast, and started flirting with the idea of traveling around Nice. There is a great bus system that makes the villages surrounding Nice really accessible, so looking through the guide book we decided to go to Eze. It is a medieval town on a mountain by the sea with a famous botanical garden. We made efforts to rustle up a crew, so Kelly and Claire headed down from the Caravan to meet us.

A communication disaster ensued, as Claire and Kelly had no phone, I forgot mine, Anna's could only send texts, and Eliza was left with a couple texts from anna but no way to respond. In response to the communication disaster, we left notes for people to find and left to have a picnic on the beach. Chips, oranges, and brie and apple sandwiches. Eventually we got everyone back together but by that point it was too late to go to Eze, so we decided to wait to go to Eze until Sunday, and stay in Nice and play golf for the rest of the evening Saturday. After golfing, I made falafel wraps for dinner. They were one of the best things I have eaten since my arrival here. I will be making them again. We eventually made it to the "pour your own drinks" bar, where the beer taps are in the middle of your table, thus removing the middlemen and streamlining the process.

The next day we took a bus to Eze. It was a very quick bus ride, only about 20 minutes. Eze was a genuine medieval town, with a couple 5 star hotels hidden about the city. There were some really great views, and on a clear day you can allegedly see all the way to Corsica.

We all clearly need to work on our french, because we saw a sign saying "Escalier sans issue" which we translated into "No problem stairs", but turned out to mean "dead end stairs". I think it's a tourist trap. 

I also got into the gardens at the student price, thanks to the charming lady at the ticket office. Thank you. 

Here is a Mirror Dragon, which was not in Eze. 

I went to Church Sunday night, and by the end caught about 1/3 of what they were saying in French.

Monday we worked about 10 hours in the grape field. There were 7 of us working, and we planted the entire field in a day. The reason for the rush was the impending rain, which was supposed to hit Tuesday or Wednesday. We needed to get everything planted ASAP, and couldn't do it once the rain started.

Tuesday Tarik and I got to work with the soil-cuber. It's at least 60 years old, and turns mushy soil into neat little cubes for planting seedlings. there is a hopper and then some moving/compressing/cutting parts and then a conveyor belt that feeds out the cubes. Joelle started managing the cubes and moving them to their respective racks, but then had to leave to do something so I took over. I immediately ruined everything.

The good news is that I get Wednesday off (because of the rain and the double shift Monday), and then Thursday I leave for America to come home and visit some family (and a few more grad schools).

So there may be a couple updates in the coming weeks, but they certainly won't have to do with farming. I'll try to catch up on photo/video sharing while I'm in the states.