Hi there! Sorry to keep you waiting; I’m just really busy around here :)

I’m exactly one week at the first address now, and I really like it here! When I arrived at this place, the two other girls (from Germany) were ready to show me around the place. Sarah (18) and Miriam (19) told me they arrived three weeks ago and that they stay about two weeks more.

First, they showed me the house. It’s pretty big, but it doesn’t have any stairs; there is just the ground floor. After that, we walked around the family’s property. It’s a large 5 acre terrain with a lot of cars, a bus, two trailers and some buildings on it.

The girls showed me the chickens, the garlic field, the wood workshop, the horse pasture- and stable, the greenhouse and the trailer I will sleep in. The trailer looked old from the outside but the inside was really clean and cozy: it’s nice to have your own place, separated from the house.

After that, we got inside ‘till the kids got back from daycare with Jenn. Ruxton (4) and Ophelia (3) were shy at first, but after less than 5 minutes they already wanted to play. The kids are super energetic and running around all the time, but they are adorable!

On the farm, they’ve got four horses, a lot of chickens, two roosters, and two dogs. One of the dogs, called Cholla is really old. (She’s blind and deaf.) The other dog, Bodie, is only three years old and is always willing to play, cuddle and go for a walk. They’re so cute!!

A normal working day is roughly like this: at 8 am we wake up in our trailers and we go feed the chickens and put them outside. After that, we go to the barn. We prepare the food and the hay for the horses and we put them in the meadow. After that, we go back to the house where we can have breakfast. That’s where Will or Jenn will tell you the tasks for that day. The tasks you get are very varied: some days it’s ‘light’ work or general maintenance, like cleaning the house, babysitting, or doing the dishes. One day I needed to help Jenn with the accountancy for example. Other days it’s mostly working at the farm, like planting or watering seeds, cleaning the barn, or working in the gardens. Sometimes it’s heavy, like the time we had to remove a large fence and couldn’t find the right tools, or when I had to dig up a large field with the rake like today. But most of the time the work is doable. Between the tasks, I have lunch with the other girls and after that, we finish our tasks. Around 3 or 4 pm we put the horses inside and prepare the food, and then our ‘working day’ is over.

After I finished my tasks from that day, the kids are home most of the time: They go to daycare about 3 times a week when the parents are ‘on call’: Will is the chief of the fire department and Jenn also works at the ambulance here on Gabriola Island. On the days they are working they need to be available for calls 24 hours a day, so someone has to be ready for the kids when they both need to go. Mostly that’s Todd, a distant relative of Will who helps the family with babysitting the kids. But when he’s not around,one of us needs to be home (last night I had to sleep at the house because Todd is on vacation and the parents were on call).

When the parents aren’t on call and we’re done with our tasks, we can help them with babysitting. But we’re not obligated so we can mostly go wherever we want. We’ve been to the beach, went on a walk with the kids and Bodie, stayed at the house for a movie night, and did a bunch of other things. (I found out they have guitars here!!) I’ve been on a bike ride a few times now: they’ve got a yellow bike which I can use. (It’s really old and way too small for me but it’s nice to have a bike :).
So I’ve been to the Malaspina Galleries, a beautiful cave at the beach, and I made some cool pictures here. I sat there for almost an hour and then I rode back to the house (in the middle of the island). It already got dark so I saw a lot of wildlife, there are a lot of deers here on the island: they just walk along the road or eat the grass from people's gardens. Yesterday I’ve been to ‘the village’, a bunch of stores (the only stores here) on the west side of the island. Todd told me there were a lot of walking and biking trails on the island so I tried them to get to the village. I got all dirty ‘cause of the mud and the water: it rains A LOT here, but most of the time the sun decides to come through in the midday. But it was fun to ride through the woods!

Will even took us out on a boat trip twice. I can tell you a lot about the trip but the blog is getting long so I tell you about that in the next blog.

Well, altogether, I really like it here: the tasks are very diverse, the people here are nice and there are a lot of things to do on the island.

Thank you for reading my blog! And don’t forget to check out the photos I posted!

~ Sophie