Wanderlust and WWOOFing: Farm 6...

Farm 6 was actually 50% vegetable gardens, 50% bakery. And that was ok by me. Time spent weeding and harvesting was interspersed with peeling apples and serving customers. I found my bakery niche in customer service - I loved chatting to the customers, leaving the rest of the staff very happy and free to get on with their baking. The working atmosphere in the bakery was always upbeat with music and laughter filling the air.

The bakery is located on the Bruce Peninsula, about 3 hours from Toronto. Tina and Graham, the hosts, have been living there and running the bakery for 17 years, and hosting wwoofers almost the whole time. The wwoofers have their own wooden "bunkie" set away from the house, and meals and chores are assigned out on a rota. The family are very involved in the local community and have a busy social life, that they enthusiastically invite the wwoofers to join in on. Weekly pot lucks on the beach, evenings spent by lakes with friends, regular trips to a variety of awesome swim spots... I feel like this is the farm where I've been the happiest.

There was one minor incident that almost ruined it all though. I was out picking choke cherries (a sour berry that grows wild) on my second day, and was focusing on not hitting myself in the face with some branches, and stepped onto what I thought was a large piece of wood. Well, as well as being a piece of wood, it was also a bear deterrent. Which meant there were about 200 nails sticking up out of the piece of wood. The nails went through my sandals and into each foot (yes, I managed to step on it with both feet!), the worst going in about 3/4-1 inch deep. A quick trip to hospital later, I was back on the farm, resting my feet and with my hosts rushing around looking after me. I managed to find plenty of jobs that involved minimal standing up and my feet have healed well.

All in all, a great experience. Less of a "farm", more an experience in self sufficiency (and baking!). I did a bit of everything during my stay - harvesting (tomatoes, beans, ground cherries, tomatillos), canning tomatoes, making jam, clearing out sheds, serving customers, braiding onions, drying and jarring herbs. I also got to swim in some of the beautiful water around the peninsula (see the photos below) and spend a lot of time with the family and their friends. If I'm back that way, definitely somewhere I want to go back to...