General life on the farm

The life on the farm is pretty fantastic. There’s been countless times when I’ve thought “I can’t believe we’re actually living this way”. Our time off is mostly spent at the beach swimming, playing football or playing frisbee. At first we all sucked at frisbee but luckily for us Will is willing to teach us and Tom is a national champion at Ultimate Frisbee so we’ve got pretty good tutors. And Will has offered to teach us how to surf so we’re hopefully gonna learn how to do that too. The beach is a beautiful place and most of the time it is generally quiet so we have the place to ourselves. Lately we’ve been going to a mostly empty pub where we can play pool and ping pong, and the games are only a dollar each so everyone’s a winner.

Santa Barbara is a spectacular town. Although, it does take about 40 minutes on the bus and then another 20 mins to even get to the bus stop. SB and most of the town has a Spanish/European vibe to it with terracotta coloured roofs and white buildings. One of the many markets that Shepherd Farms attends is in this beautiful town, and we take full advantage of our association with the farm. Because we work for Tom we get vendor discount at the market and it ranges from 50% off to a dollar or 2 off, and it’s awesome. The guy at the cheese stand gives us half off and occasionally gives us whole bags of cheese for free.

Fiesta in Santa Barbara

SB looks so much like Spain because it’s history is closely tied to the Spanish influence in Mexico and south-west America. Once a year on the first full moon of August the town throws a week long party called Fiesta. Essentially everyone gets drunk and throws confetti filled eggs at each other which coats the street in multi-coloured paper for weeks to follow. We decided to join in with the traditions and get very, very drunk.

The night began with us all getting dolled up and ready to get drunk. Unfortunately, we fucked up and managed to miss the bus by 5 minutes so we had to sit waiting another hour for the bus. Eventually the bus arrived and we travelled into Santa Barbara and promptly started drinking in a place called London Road Pub which didn’t seem much like an English pub to us but they did serve pretty expensive drinks. We then headed to a place called Santa Barbara Brew Company where they serve their own brand of beer so we got  4 pitchers and began the process of getting nice and drunk. Cathy met up with us and took us to a club called Soho where we had to pay $14 to get in, but on the bright side there was 2 local reggae bands on which were pretty good (not that I can remember much of them).

Will got a bit lost and ended up somehow getting a sandwich. Because Carp is so far away and there was no busses on we chose the option of a taxi. This turned out to be the wrong option. The taxi cost us somewhere within the region of 50 bucks and that wasn’t even all the way to the farm. Sam called the driver a “thief” and we got out of there. Sam and George started to run home and then the police pulled them aside and started bugging them. Me and Will walked and were still given a talking to by the police but we somehow managed the 2 or so mile walk back from Carp, and I fell asleep in the spare bed with a towel for a blanket and my own underpants as a pillow. So all in all it was an incredibly dignified, and was cheap to boot!

Laguna Beach - 1 week at Shepherd farms


So im back. I have neglected my blogging duties for to long but i decided id update and give the other Sam from writing the blog, which i must say he did a good job at.
So as Sam said we spent a night at Laguna beach which is a really beautiful place, one of the best. The amazing coastlines are breathtaking, as well as the California babes!

We headed to our final destination with our little car, Los Angeles. I must say it has been a great week driving across the west. Some of the open roads were what i have dreamed of for years, however the traffic on the west coast is nothing like i have driven in before. People just seem to do what they want, no order whatsoever. It was like wacky races driving on the interstates which we tried to avoid. I just wanted to get the car safely to LA now and not have to worry.
It didn't take long to get to the "City of Angels" and we had to spend one night there so we decided to find the nearest place as traffic yet again was booming. We found ourselves in China town in dowtown LA so searched for the nearest motel which turned out to be a pretty nice find. "The Patagonia" was a classic chinese style building, was cheap and had all the basics so we checked in. We went for some cheap, really tasty chinese food then went to catch a movie which seems to becoming a habit over here. I dont know if alot of them are out in England yet which makes me want to see them in a weird way. We went to see "Brave". Its a pixar animation movie about a scottish girl who turns her mam into a bear. It was a little childish but we enjoyed it! On the way back we went to the shop to buy junk food then headed back to the motel.
We woke up early and decided that we would catch the earliest greyhound bus to Santa Barbara, two hours north of LA after we had dropped the car off downtown. After a little confusion finding the hidden car rental drop off place which was located underground we began our 2 mile walk out of downtown to the greyhound bus station to get some tickets. As you have gathered we didnt do any exploring in LA. Maybe we should of but it just didnt seem appealing in the slightest. There seemed to be alot of pretentious, uptight rich people around which wasnt good. Once out of downtown we all began to realise we were walking through what can only be described as a "Ghetto" on the outskirts of LA. It was horrible. All the building were closed down, closed up and covered in graffiti, people walking around looking like they were searching for there next crack fix. It would of been bad enough walking through on a normal day, but walking through carrying huge rucksacks and bags was the last thing we needed. It also didnt help we were the only white folk within the next ten blocks. We kept our heads down and plowed on through trying our hardest not to make eye contact with anyone.
Having turned away a few people asking for money and food we managed to make it to the bus station, and after 45 minutes of queuing we finally got our bus tickets and went for a quick burger before getting on the bus.
Two hours later we had arrived in the beautiful town of Santa Barbara. The golden beach stretched for miles with beautiful girls playing volleyball, long haired hippies riding skateboards and people sat outside bars playing guitars, pretty much heaven.

We hiked our belongings to the nearest bar and got a pint in whilst we waited for one of our wwoof host's to come meet us. After about 30 minutes she arrived and introduced herself as Katherine, the daughter of Tom Shepherd who owns the organic farm. We downed our pints and got on the road to head ten miles down the coast to see our new home for the next month.

Shepherd Farms 
 

The farm in California is a totally different deal from the Gold Bar Ranch in Arizona. It’s about 1.5 miles away from the closest town called Carpenteria. Carpenteria is a small little beach town and is right next to an apparently world famous surf spot called Rincon. It’s an incredibly nice place and it only takes about 10 mins to get there on a bike, and it’s about a 40 minute walk. Shepherd farms is a fruit and vegetable farm and they grow everything organically, they also only supply their harvest to the local county.

The work mainly involves picking fruit and vegetables, packing them for CSA boxes (a sort of home delivery type dealy), helping pack the trucks for market, helping out at the market and then just general maintenance stuff. The work is far less intense, due to the lack of sun, and we work 2 less hours than we did in Arizona. So far we have found it more difficult to develop a connection with our host, Tom, as we rarely work directly with him. However, he’s a pretty cool guy and is really respected in the local community. Although I think this will change over time as we get to know the family.

The WWOOF’ing experience here is phenomenal. Our current living space is a bunch of tents set amongst the avocado trees about a 2 minute walk from the warehouse, and the other WWOOF’ing accomodation is inside the warehouse where there is a kitchen, 2 beds and 3 sofas. We are allowed to help ourselves to any fruits and vegetables we want, and because the work day is relatively short we have a lot of spare time. I think Paul influenced all of us in the way that he taught himself and so me, Will and Sam took it upon ourselves to learn Spanish. There is an amazing series of podcasts called Coffee Break Spanish which everyone has been listening to. This helps us get to grips with speaking and pronunciation, and it makes for a strange work environment out in the field; if you happen to take your headphones out you’ll realise you’re stood in a field in California with 3 other guys who are randomly spurting out Spanish phrases. There’s also Duolingo which teaches you spelling, grammar, reading and also speaking.

Boys Beach Tour 2012

A day after work all of the WWOOF’ers decided to go down to the local beach. There are 2 other WWOOF’ers here at Shepherd Farms: there’s Paul who’s a 32 guy from Irvine, CA who has taken it upon himself to strictly eat only organic foods and even then only specific kinds of organic foods. He has spent a lot of time researching topics he finds interesting such as law and health. And then there’s Will who’s a 22 surfer guy who’s originally from Philadelphia, PA and now lives in Santa Barbara, CA. He’s currently spending his Summer WWOOF’ing before he goes to study Environmental Science at Santa Barbara University.

Anyway... we spent a long time debating which would be the best way to get everyone to the beach, and then Cathy (Tom’s daughter) said we could lend the truck. We headed over to the local beach with a supply of watermelons (Paul cannot leave the farm without a healthy supply of watermelons), and dropped Sam and George off at the Local Llama coffee shop. Paul was the next out of the car where we dropped him off at the laundry place. Me and Will went straight to the beach and chatted while we waited for everyone. Me, Sam, George and Will all went in the water and had a go on buggy boards and messed about with a tennis ball. Because the tennis ball was the only ball we had we decided to play a toe-snapping game of piggy (or monkey if you’re American) in the middle.

 
Will wanted to check out the surf at Rincon so he drove us up to a vantage point where Paul crafted an improptu tripod for his camera phone, out of a sandal and a stick, and we took a photo of us all in “heroic adventurer” poses. After that we decided to call it a day and head back home.

Paul’s departure

When we arrived at the farm on a Friday we were introduced to Paul who was supposed to be leaving either the next day or on Sunday. However, his ride fell through and he was stranded on the farm. This happened multiple times and it became a running joke that Paul would never actually leave the farm. Although, one day he actually managed to pull it off by arranging a ride share on a website called craigslist.com. It’s essentially a wanted ad website where people sell, trade and buy goods or services but for a much cheaper price.

Anyway, Will, George, Sam and I had decided that we were going to get a few drinks in the local town of Carpenteria (or Carp as the locals call it). So we got dolled up and ready to hit the town. But, there was one small problem and that was transport. Although it’s not a huge walk we were feeling lazy and decided to call a taxi. After a few companys completely ignoring us and a few others saying they weren’t available for another 40-60 mins we finally got through to one. They said it’d take 20 minutes for it to be there so we waited around and played a game of T-W-A-T as it’s known in some parts of England. Essentially T-W-A-T involves trying to keep a volley going between a circle of people and whoever drops the ball gets a letter. Unfortunately I was the first to reach the last T and so I had to face the punishment of everyone else getting the chance to kick a ball off my arse. Sam and George missed and Paul just managed to glance the ball off me.

40 minutes later the taxi was still nowhere in sight so we asked Will to give them another ring. The guy had no idea who we were, nor that we had ordered a taxi with his company, and told Will “we’ll be there in 15 minutes” to which Will replied “I haven’t even told you the address.” So without the prospect of a taxi we set in motion another game of T-W-A-T, just as things were getting tense (3 of us were on A) Paul’s ride arrived. 2 hippy-esque girls got out the van along with a dog named Onyx and another one who decided to stay in the van called Klondike. Paul loaded up his huge shipment of organic food, of course including many watermelons, and we said our goodbyes.

With sunken stomachs we returned to the warehouse and began talking about our favourite things about Paul where we realised we were talking about him as if he was dead. The taxi was still nowhere to be seen so we sacked it and jumped in the Yukon to go and get some beer! Unfortunately the decent bars were already closed so we just had one and went back home. We introduced Will to the Peep Show, which he loved, and then went to sleep down by the avocado trees.
P.S Sam and George got married!