WWOOF 1: Bear Valley Rescue

On day 1, and, every other day  we were up and outside by the most respectable hour of 9am. We began by feeding the animals right away.

The horse ‘farrier’ which I learned means: toenail clipper, Pat, was to be giving the horses pedicures over the next 3 days. He was French and spoke extremely loudly and brought us coffee and doughnuts. I liked him.

We’d been told it usually takes 2/3 weeks to grasp the feeding and medication schedule for the animals here, we both couldn’t comprehend how it could possibly take so long to master.

Communication was initially a little difficult due to our lacking knowledge of the language of ‘Horse’. I’d ask which horse was ‘Fancy’ and Kathy would respond in ‘horse’: “the large, sway-back sire gelding mare with a dish face”, I’d stare at her blankly and she’d eventually offer: “the grey one”, OK cool, I know what grey looks like.

Common sense was a must and luckily we three had enough to work things out.

Peekaboooo!

By day 3 we had the feeding routine nailed, I knew most of the on site animals by name (better than the animals themselves did). By the end of the first week we were administering the medication as well and my skills at catching and haltering a horse  and injecting it in the mouth with liquid gloop were coming along quite nicely thank you.

The only thing slowing me down was the 20 cats which I could not walk past without at least several minutes of meggle time.

The work wasn’t difficult, it just required a little initiative.

A lot of the horses were elderly or injured so had special medication or diets.

Bambi mixing up horse porridge 

It was unclear what was expected of us, what hours and whether days off we’re a thing or not.

Luckily Snakes likes order, so she soon created a colour coded schedule and ensured the ‘to do’ list was full of jobs.

Snakes in her office writing the schedule 

The feed, we were told would take 2/3 hours twice a day. We managed it in 30 minutes some days, an hour on others.

Some horses needed food and medication, so we cleverly worked out a genius system whereby we took both the food and the medication to the animal at the same time, rather than at different times, because that would be stupid and inefficient.

Yet ANOTHER cute cat to happily distract me from whatever I was doing

This left us plenty of time for that job list, for cleaning poop, moving hay and for reading all my Agatha Christie novels. Little did I know, Kathy was a mega fan and actually had all the novels herself. Oh well. I like to keep a copy anyway. I soon forget whodunit and like to read them again.

The farm was tidy, I liked that about it. Mike, who built most of it was clearly a genius and kept a very tidy tool shed. He spent the first few days putting a clutch in a tractor. I wish I could put a clutch in a tractor.

We soon got to grips with the routine of never really being asked to do anything but rather asked what needed to be done. Expectations weren’t really a thing and I think the general idea was: whatever you can do would be great. this was a perfect set up for us, fresh off the trail and in need of some down-time.

Cat and me, meggling

Hey horse, smell my hand

The days were sometimes relaxed and we often took a lengthy lunch break. I made flapjacks brownies and banana bread like a good little housewife. There was the odd day where we’d receive a knock at the door saying we were leaving to go and get some horses right now and we’d be gone for hours and hours.

I’m the kind of person that requires forewarning to be comfortable with such things. I don’t like surprise jobs. I like to finish reading at the end of a chapter and the thought of skipping lunch makes me sad.

Horse capture

On our second and third Thursday we three made the weekly journey to Cochrane to get bread. We took the bigger 4×4 car, which didn’t have heating, properly working headlights, a seal around the driver window,  and looked like someone had buried it underground then dug it up again.

My father always taught me that cars run better if they are kept clean, though this is mechanically impossible, I cannot shake that it must be true and so I felt this particular vehicle was due to fall apart at any moment. Of course Snakes gave it a good hoover…

Regardless, we made it to Cochrane, we’d decided to go early for, as Snakes referred to it, “a few hours out of the pen”. We spent some time wandering around before landing in a bar. Sandra normally drinks Schnapps or Vodka (she’s Austrian) but we’ve already persuaded her onto Ale. She’s on her second pint, ever.

Me, in a 52 TV sports bar, looking like I belong

We ate in town before arriving at the bakery, 5 minutes before closing which is all the time we needed to raid the shelves and load up the car full of perfectly delicious, freshly baked bread. The bakery offer every night of the week to a different charity to come and have their unsold bread, and pastries, and rolls. We take a small amount for the week and the rest feeds the pigs. Lucky pigs.

Except that at the end of our second day I spent some time with Mike and his bobcat, extracting a huge dead pig out of the sty. That pig wasn’t so lucky. She’d been ill for a while. It was a rather unpleasant job, I was on the pig end, and had to tie a rope around its incredibly heavy legs so Mike could pull her out at a 90 degree angle, then lift her in his scoop (after three of us rolled her onto it) to be buried. Poor little piggy.

Moe the Llama quickly became my favourite, though I had to bypass Dennis the dick goat to get to him. Dennis is an arse and was king of the goat and llama pen, pushing everyone else out the way and sticking his fat head clean through the gate to try and receive all the love and all the food all the time. Beans and Tinker, the smaller goats also had to put up with his tank-like behavior.

Moe, the gentleman

Dennis, (the Dick) and Tinker (not a dick)

Snakes became madly occupied by Grover the mini pony who was under loved and pushed around by the other minis. He was basically a small puppy and Shelley treated him as such. His pen was outside our bedroom window and Snakes felt comforted by the fact he was ways close by.

King Grover

Sandra took a particular interest in Ruby the horse who had a massive puss ridden gash on her shoulder which Snakes and I wouldn’t touch.

Puss wound Ruby

Mouse the dog who belonged to the neighbours would arrive every morning to get a bread bun from the pigs feeding trough, which he’d take back home to eat in front of the other dogs. Sometimes he’d treat himself to a full loaf and it would last him days.

2 skunks were lurking about the farm. Kathy being the mother nature type insisted on feeding the skunk, which I’m pretty I sure encourages them to stay. He likes to spray outside out bedroom until my eyes pour and my nose stings. They’re slowly digging their way into the hen enclosure. One of the hens is a walking pom pom. I like that one.

We soon worked out how to stick the face-string (halter) on the horses and move them about when needed. It’s quite a skill and impressive to watch Kathy swiftly rope them. I managed to lasso one of the harder to catch miniature ponies which would have been super cool if she wasn’t the size of a dog and extremely close to me when I threw the rope.

We’re now the kind of people who continuously smell of farm, and always have a pocket full of horse treats.

Did someone say treats?

The first Saturday we were on the farm, a woman came for a positive behaviour clinic. It was aimed at the horses but I enjoyed practicing on Dennis the Dick who needed it most. I’m sure all the lessons were applicable to anyone. Including me, as Snakes demonstrated later on.

I want a goat, please

After the initial snow melted we had some hot sunny days. Then the snow returned. Snakes got up early for fear that Grover might be cold. She went outside, found him covered in icicles and lured him into the clinic for him to warm up. After his breakfast he ran back out to roll about in the snow. Needless to day none of the other 7 minis ponies had the same treatment.

Kathy and Mike look after 150 horses, most of them are out on pasture and some are fostered by locals. The furthest away are 50ish horses a 40ish minute drive from the house. After the snow we loaded up a truck of hay and delivered it to them for fear that they may not be able to eat the grass when covered.

They would soon have to be loaded up and returned to the farm for winter as the river freezes and they don’t have access to water. Unfortunately this doesn’t mean riding out on the back of a horse and rallying them up like Brad in Legends Of The Fall. No, Its pretty much three women blundering around flapping their arms trying to lure them into a self made pen which they are smart enough to avoid.

The horses who can be caught (halter-broke) and have the face string put on them can easily be lead into the trailer, but there are only about 20 of these so the rest require luring via hay, treats, begging, pleading, arm waving making deep guttural noises.

The better we became at tricking them into the coral we’d made, the more satisfying the job of loading them was.

Snakes the horse whisperer

Over the weeks many trips were made back and fourth to bring horses and cows home from pasture.

Farm gals

There were 25 horses at the neighbors, who all needed bringing home. We eventually found them in the woodland, then walked them in groups of 5’s and 10’s through the woods and up the long driveway, across the road and into the pasture where the main herd live. This was most exciting.

We each (4 of us) had one on a lead and the idea was that the rest would be interested enough to follow on. Given that these horses are mostly untrained, a lot have had minimal human contact, or only negative contact it made for a fairly anxious 4 trip walk.

On the second trip, one horse managed to cross through a fence and the rest followed, this lead them off the driveway and on to the public road where they began trotting up in the wrong direction. Make and Kathy impressively had them back in no time.

Horses beginning to meggle now back in the hay-filled land of home

Generally the evenings were spent watching films in our cosy cabin. We took it in turns to chose a film each night and indulged in the copious amounts of popcorn that had been left by the previous volunteers.

Because we are horse people now, we also spent one evening playing Horseopoly which was most educational and enjoyable. Snakes won, as she always does.

Horse education

We spent a lot of down-time wedding planning, and when I say ‘we’ I don’t mean me, as I was busy helping Poirot solve crimes. The farm did create a perfect space for such things. We were miles from the nearest town.

Occasionally we went to Sundre Town and one night we took Kathy and Mikes son, Pete. We were all drunk on 2 beers. None of us get out much anymore.

The animals quickly became intensely loved by us all. Sandra was in tears when Barry and Tank left for Tiny Tail Pony Snactuary.

Bye lads!

Sandra was most amusing and quite Austrian. She found us hilarious, all the time. Even when we weren’t doing anything, she’d be in fit’s of laughter. Maybe it’s just my face.

If anyone feels compelled to sponsor an animal, visit and volunteer here, donate to Bear Valley or move to Canada and adopt one of these beauties I can vouch first hand that your money or time would not be wasted. Kathy and Mike do amazing work for animals who otherwise would be slaughtered or would continue to be mistreated and neglected. They work everyday, year round and cannot seem to say no to any new offer of an animal needing a home. Their website is here:

http://bearvalleyab.org/index.html

There are pages on sponsorship, adoption and donation.

I’d sponsor Grover for Snakes but he is just temporarily here as he was a little unwell. He’ll be heading home soon. And of course she is fully committed to getting a Grover of her own when we return to the UK.

Becoming a mad cat lady has never appealed so much.

We leave here, with Sandra in tow for Banff, where we will spend 4 days before out next WWOOFing placement in Revelstoke, British Columbia.

Hopefully we’ll get out into the mountains and spend some time on quality meggling too, not to mention the Banff Mountain Film Festival coinciding with our visit!!