hello from Sorrento, BC

So I have a reputation, apparently, for not doing a very good job of keeping in touch with people. I don't really know why people say that about me. Possibly because in the four years I went to sleepaway camp (for two months at a time), I wrote my parents a total of maybe two or three letters.

In any case, while this reputation is clearly unjustified, I figured I might make it easier on myself this time around and instead of keeping in touch with each person individually, I'd create for myself one of those new-fangled blogs to keep everyone up-to-date on my whereabouts and activities during my gap year. So here it is, the official source of information on everything that Ben is doing on his gap year. Enjoy. Bookmark it. Check it obsessively two or three times a day when you're bored and sitting at your computer and have nothing else to do.

I will warn you, though, that due to the fact I'm going to be in some remote, relatively un-Internet-ed places this year, the posts may be somewhat... sporadic. But I'll do my best to keep it up.

The name of the blog, "Off the Edge," is a reference to those maps you saw back in elementary school that showed the United States as if it were an island, floating in a void, as though Texas and Maine were peninsulas jutting out into the vacuum of space and the world ended abruptly at the forty-ninth parallel. Well, I can now report to you that there's a whole 'nother country to the north. In fact, there are many other countries out there, and I intend to see some of them. Hence, going off the edge of the map.

Now that that's out of the way...

Where am I, you ask? I am in British Columbia (for the geographically challenged, British Columbia is the province on the west coast of Canada), working as a WWOOFer on a small organic vegetable farm. Sorrento is a small town and fairly rural, as is most of BC once you get off the coast, and it is located near Shuswap Lake. Apparently this is a big tourist town in the warmer months, but since the months are getting colder, most of the tourists have gone home to their jobs and schools and whatever.

The farm is, as I said, a vegetable farm, owned by a woman named Sue, originally from the UK. In addition, there are three paid workers on the farm: Colleen, who grew up a few hours' drive from here, and Sophie and Arnold (I might not be spelling that right) from France. The farm is beautiful, set in a small valley beside these mountains which remind me a bit of Vermont, except they have more conifers and are more bumpy. I'd love to take some pictures and post them here, except I discovered that my brand-spankin'-new digital camera, which I got for my birthday, was broken the day before I left for Canada. My parents are going to ship it to me after it's repaired/replaced, so the photos are going to have to wait till then.

The only not-so-pretty part is the railroad tracks at the bottom of the farm, which happen to be part of the main train line that goes all the way across Canada. So there are trains going by at all hours. But it's not so bad and I think I'm getting used to it.

It's been a little bit of an adjustment, getting used to the routines on the farm. The work starts at 8:00 in the morning and goes until noon, during which time we are usually working in the fields, harvesting squash or weeding the carrots or pulling beets. Then there is a break for lunch, and we start up again at about 1:30 or so and work until 5-ish. In the afternoon, we are often working inside, washing and preparing vegetables for sale and packing them into boxes. Then dinner, and then I usually stay up a couple of hours writing or reading before collapsing into bed.

I'd write more, but I have to get back to the farmers' market now, where we're trying to unload all of the boxes of corn we picked yesterday. There's a lot. A lot of potatoes, too -- the blue ones are the best, in my opinion. It's kinda funny being on the other side of the table, and I'm really not very good at calculating prices or making change, but I'm getting (a little) better. Well, I'm not really getting any better. Let's just say that I'm discovering that mental math is not one of my strengths.

So leave me a comment if you get a chance. I hope everything is well with everyone, and I'll do my best to post again before the end of the week.