We were offered the opportunity to sleep in after our ordeal and late arrival, but Snakes and I were keen to get into something after a few too many days floating.
Debbie is an ex-pat from the city, who decided that when her husband Shaine retired, she could finally get what she’d always wanted. Goats.
She and Shaine own 200 acres on a farm west of Toronto. It’s beautiful.
She began with 4 Norwegian Dwarf Goats. The ones that do back flips.
They soon realised more than just her family and friends wanted to spend time with her (now 40) goats. So, she began selling ‘Schmurgles’ to the public. She says ‘Shmurgle’ is the sound your heart makes when you cuddle a goat. So people come to do just that.
Rarely children, rarely families, mainly fully fledged goat loving adults.
Soon she expanded to include 9 alpacas, 2 of which had babies this summer. The public also come to walk the alpacas, this they call the ‘Knuffle’.
Bella and Obi
Chores begin at 8am every morning. During breakfast I met Bettina, (55) Pia (20) Celina and Luna (18) all German, all great.
I went with Bettina and met the aplacas first. The morning chores include feeding and poop cleaning. Alpacas have the decency to poop in only two places. They treat these spots as their toilets. Unlike the goats who happily crap everywhere.
Feeding time
The alpacas have three stomachs and will happily take festering Salvia from the third pass it through the other two, and rocket this into your face if you piss them off. And by piss them off I mean, touch them in a way they dislike, stand too close, stand too far away, look at them wrong or think about them unkindly.
My favourite is Feather. She’s the one who spits the most. She’s sassy.
Feather is easily identified by her big bangs and constant desire to be involved.
The farm is looked after by 6 dogs. 3 Tornjacks, also known as Bosnian Shepherd dogs, also know as big fat cuties.
While very emotional and calm inside a family, these fluffy powerhouses are a fair match to two wolves and will chase off a bear if necessary.
The first of these, Conan, guards the goats. Its very, very sweet to watch him on duty. He permenantly sticks the very tip of his tounge out. He knows he’s cute.
Another Tornjack, Teja, guards both the property, and the carpet under the dinner table.
The third, 8 month old Arjia, already the size of me, hasn’t a clue what what her name is, hunts down large lumps of horse turd and eats them.
The 4th dog, Khai is a boarder collie, who most certainly has ADHD and doesn’t yet have a role other than to be heavily loved by everyone and heavily bundled by all the other dogs.
The 5th, Jack an Anatolian Shepherd and the splitting imagine of my friend Nick, has the most placid temperemant, unless you touch him while he’s eating, then he will absolutely kill you.
Bakiri the Rodesian Ridgeback is Christa’s dog, he’s incredibly sensitive and always looks offended by everything I say.
Offended.
Offended
Christa was once a well-paid employee of Germany with a sensible job and life. She then became a WOOFER at Haute Goat and is now a full time live-in employee. She moved over from Germany, and is fully sumburged in a life of goats. She’s hilarious, likes structure and aslo likes to empty the dishwasher extremely loudly at 6:43 am every morning.
Jeff-and-Sue (one name) the tabby barn cat lives inside the goat barn in a bundle of Hay. She fails to catch any rats or mice, but manages not to be caught by Jack who would absolutely kill her if he did. She’s great.
After seeing to the alpacas, we went to the goats where Pia, Celina and Snakes had almost finished feeding and cleaning poop. The mothers (does) must be separated from the neutered boys (wethers) and the babies, who all must be separated from the rest (not mothers or babies).
Is that quite clear ?
Two of the mothers are taken for milking (they recently stopped feeding their babies, but must be miked to save them from painful mastitis). Debbie makes yoghurt with this milk. Milking is hard. Snakes is good at it.
Snakes enjoys doing things she’s good at.
Trying to ID the goats was almost as hard as learning the names of the dogs. I immediately learned Feta as she’s about 4 times the size of the rest and Sky, who I bonded with instantly.
Snakes normally just asks them in her teacher voice to “line up quietly please.”
Outside are the Billies (unutered males) who wee on themselves to become more attractive to the ladies. Needless to say they are sticky and unattractive. They spend the entire day looking at the ladies.
There are chickens and a couple of ducks too. No one comes to walk them.
Early this year the new addition of the cafe (The Screaming Goat Cafe) was completed, and next to this there is a goaty shop full of goat products.
We were informed today (day one) that tomorrow (day two) the owners of the cafe were absent and we (4 of us) were to run the cafe for the multitude of goat/alpaca walkers who were also booked in for lunch.
Riiiiight.
The Germans positioned themselves in the non-speaking/cooking roles which left me as front of house and Shelley as Chef. Pia was on prep and Bettina in the sink.
Bettina, Pia and Snakes
We had a trial run today for about an hour with the owners of the cafe, Rob and Alicia present. WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?
Well, actually not very much. Other than the grill (which takes around an hour to heat up) not having been turned on. Mild panic ensued.
I’ll spare you the details other than the most important one which was that the situation was expertly resolved by me. Well done me.
Lunch
After a busy shift we were all throughly bonded and feeling mighty chuffed with ourselves.
We didn’t get to keep the tips.
The work is extremely varied and all pleasant. We begin at 8am and finish at 3pm.
I learned to drive a tractor.
The chores in the morning are always set but the activities which follow vary widely. Some days we make the goods which stock the shop (bath bombs, felted soaps ect).
Snakes has been responsible for designing new posh labels for a fair few of the items, together we re-labeled and packaged goods.
Alpaca socks
We walk dogs, and horses.
Tiny Tim
Snakes and I became leaders of the Knuffle (alpaca walk) and lead a fair few Alpaca walks which includes a thorough speach on the individual personalities of the alpacas allowing punters to chose their preferred pal. We don’t tell them that feather spits.
The two babies, Shadow and Widget.
Monday is ‘barn clean’ and all the hay (food) water (drink) and straw (bedding) is replaced in everyone’s pens (except Jeff-and-sue who’s clearly spent time perfecting her hay cave/nest).
This leaves us with hay in all our orafices and blowing black soot from our nose, but it’s all worth it to see the chickens reaction when let back inside their pen, nervously and extremely slowly tip toeing back like I’ve planted a mine they’re afraid to step on.
We’d restock the shop, cut and wrap cheeses to sell.
Good lord, its perfect!
We’ve added the feeding of the horses to our repertoire. Debbie has two Icelandic horses Lucca and Fabina.
Lucca, snacking.
Lucy-May the giant, giant mule and Tiny Tim the miniature who of course Snakes is head over heels in love with. Scooter was her favourite but he was rehomed while we were there. Much to Snakes’ displeasure.
Lucie May, scared of the others, though larger in every direction.
Did you know mules are sterile, but they can be surrogates? No, why would you.
In the main house, which was both warm and clean, we’d take it in turns to cook, which when we arrived meant less than once a week as we were 9 people.
Sushi
Bettina and Luna left in our first week as they’d been there a while.
Christa also left for Germany for Christmas.
That left Pia, Celina Snakes and me to steer the ship, with Debbie as captain.
We’d be allocated one day off per week, and luckily Snakes and I could use the car. On our first day out the pen, we went to Port Hope (where Stephen King’s ‘IT’ was filmed) it boasts one of the best preserved high streets in Ontario and commemorates the historical flooding of the Ganaraska river with a 10km boat race known as “Float your Fanny down the Granny”
Our aim was to purchase cheap, second hand ski wear from the thrift stores as we’d been invited skiing with Tom and Chloe this January.
Unfortunately I fell into a book shop.
I need to stop.
Ooops
Lucily Uncle Paul (remember uncle Paul? He’s the one in New Jersey who we sent all our unwanted hiking gear to while on the trail) is going to the UK for Christmas and has VERY kindly offered to take all the crap we sent him while on trail, home, this opens up room for me to buy more books.
You’ll be pleased to hear Snakes did manage to get herself a rather fetching ski jacket and I acquired some gloves. Splendid. We rewarded our hard work with muffins.
The two weekends before Christmas were rammed, but Debbie tells me 35 people coming to walk goats is half what they get in the summer, they’ve had 80 regularly. 80 people coming to walk with the goats, every weekend.
Luckily I was on alpaca duty and we can only take 18 people.
We’d often land in the cafe helping out, a job which I thoroughly enjoyed.
The farm was only open to the public. Thursday to Sunday – thank goodness.
On our second day out the pen we went to the further town of Coburg (I’m not sure anything much exciting happened here, though it does have a nice beach, less nice in -19) still on the hunt for ski gear were were unsuccessful. It was ridiculously cold.
If you’re ever considering a visit to Toronto, or WWOOFing, I strongly urge you to come to this completely wonderful place. Debbie has made her dream come true and it’s pretty damn inspiring, also, the lunch is mega.
After just over 2 weeks of hard graft at the farm, we managed to get a lift to Toronto with Debbie.
Here we would spend 10 days over Christmas and New year before returning to the farm.
Tom and Chloe were now safely in the UK and the keys to their house safely in Snakes’ pocket. Not mine, because I would have definitely lost them.
Debbie dropped us at the door and we were welcomed by scenes of festivity.
When renting in Toronto your heating is paid for by the landlord. It’s an odd rule, but because the winters are so cold, tenants have to be assured warmth otherwise life would be comprimised. This made for a cosy Christmas, unlike the baltic ones we experience in our home village.
We spend the next day (23rd) on a tight schedule. We decided to walk to the further but cheaper supermarket for our Christmas shopping. On the return home, our rucksacks heavily laden with groceries, we both wondered how we ever walked from Mexico to Canada.
Don’t be fooled by its neat and compact exterior, this bag is mega heavy.
We enjoyed the next few days eating and hiding and watching the full third series of the Detectorists, The Crown and the new Alan Partridge. Pretty perfect. We were thoroughly spoilt with an unexpected amount of giftlets from dear friends and family. Including a box of homemade Christmas cookies from Family Size in Germany! (Family Size injured his knee so cut his Patagonia trip short to return to Germany for many Christmas cookies. I know you’re all eager to hear about his welfare).
Look at that saugasge!
Days after Christmas were spent with the mighty Nick and Liz, friends from the UK also currently residing in Toronto.
On our second date (boxing day) we went ice skating. Toronto has many free ice rinks, it makes sense for the resident to purchase their own skates, as Nick and Liz have, but for us onetimers, we hired a pair each.
Hire skates, I liken to foot binding in 10th century China.
I’ve been ice skating once before, when I was about 15, and I remember hating it. Not a lot has changed.
Me after 2 laps, exhausted.
Ice skating is almost entirely an unpleasant an exhausting experience.
Look at how much fun we’re having!
Toronto has the ‘communauto’ which is a car sharing company, much like the Boris Bikes in London, but for cars. We booked and took one of these cars to Niagra Falls.
There is also a separate lane on the motorway in which only carpooling drivers (people with 1 or more passengers) are allowed to drive, but no one else.
This blog gets more fascinating by the sentence.
I was prepared to be underwhelmed by the falls, in reality I was actually whelmed, which is a step up from my expectations, but only one step. They’re shorter than I imagened but wider. It’s certainly a lot of water.
That’s all I have to say about that.
We stopped off in Niagra by the lake, a small town which sits on the shores of lake Ontario. Our stroll to the lake was blocked by a ‘fuck off’ sign on the golf course, luckily we had Liz with us who’s 2019 new years resolution was to: ‘be more dangerous’. She lead the way as we trespassed across the putting green to a view of the lake which is definitely, actually the ocean. Liz is now known as ‘Dangerous Liz’ .
We returned via the brewery..
Naturally a trip to the Fairmont (my favourite hotel chain) was in order.
This was just before my ability to cope in a city was saturated with an inability to cope.
Traditionally I can last about 4 days before I start to feel unwell and incredibly frustrated. Mainly by people’s complete lack of awareness while standing, stationary in the middle of a busy pavement, or when people walk briskly, three abreast, spanning the width of the pavement, heading towards you with no indication that they plan to divert and avoid collision.
Remember this?
The farm was calling us back. So back we go.
Photo credit to Debbie, Christa, some unknown Instagramers Snakes and Bambi.
SONDER 