I’ve had an amazing time here in Central Saanich, Vancouver Island for the past 10 days on the Three Oaks Farm. I live a pretty simple life in a tent outside and share my meals with everyone else on the farm - Rachel, who owns the farm and is part of a three person organic produce company called Saanich Organics, Lauren, Rachel’s farm apprentice, and Stacee, an employee on the farm for about 4 years. Everyone has their own cozy living space around the farm, which is really beautiful with tall trees, blue skies and rolling green fields around.
what it do
Well, the farm is currently in planting season, this being late spring/early summer so I’ve been taught how to transplant various crops, including leafy greens like kale, cilantro, basil and others, cucumber, squash, tomato and tomatillos. Rachel and the others have taught me how to setup a piece of land for planting crops by spading, tilling, creating a topsoil mixture using manure and seasoil, and determining appropriate number of rows, distance between plants, topsoil configuration etc. I’ve enjoying every aspect of it as this is a great respite from my usual desk job life. It feels pretty nice to do physical labor 9-5 in great weather and this has been exactly what I needed as some time-off from city life.
what have I learnt
Tons of things about alternative living. I’ve learnt so much about the small communities of people that live in Victoria, BC, who invest their time and effort into environmental and social justice causes. Lauren the farm apprentice, who is a staunch supporter of Native American rights, tries to live a life completely devoid of giving money to capitalist entities. She dumpsters her food, rarely ever buys clothes or trinkets new, and believes in community/collective based approaches to governance, social services and hoards of other things. She used to live in Victoria before coming to work on the farm and knows tons of people living a similar lifestyle in Victoria. This was a big eye-opener to me, as someone who has spent most of their early adulthood living in the mainstream - going to university, doing internships, giving no thought to governance, the environment or social issues. Here, I got exposed to a whole plethora of people that not only care about causes, but also spend inordinate aounts of time supporting them and in essence, acting their life out in close proximity to the causes they care about.
I want to say farm life has made me a tree hugging hippie, but that would be a false statement. I’ve, however, seen a marked difference in the way of life that pervades this farming community. It’s a collectivist way of life, in stark contrast to urban life, which I’d describe as a rat race to the top of the corporate world with each individual caring about themselves, and only themselves - a gathering of self-absorbed humans so large, it’s a wonder how they never help each other grow personally and not in terms of material possessions.
That’s all for now.