How'd I Get Here?

A number of people have asked how I've arrived where I am today.

It all starts with horny parents. Errr, sorry mom & dad.
It all starts with a girl (that's not my mom). Heck ya! Now that's better. Kickin' back PG-13 styles.

There's this girl, a real cutie, who went to the Yukon. Originally my summer plans were to fly to Vancouver and cycle my way home, leisurely, over the course of the summer. Well, as life would have it, a wrench was thrown into the plans when said cutie and I started spending lots of time together. She was going to the Yukon. "The Yukon, eh?" I thought during the 10-day Vipassana mediation retreat I did last month (I'll post a link). "I've never been there. Sounds groovy."

So when I got home, I started looking into volunteer opportunities in and around the Whitehorse area. I wasn't having much luck, so I started to narrow my focus. If I was going to work or volunteer, I wanted to work outside, and close to the earth, close to my food. Farming was the natural choice.

Enter my good friend serendipity! Luck would have it that I stumbled upon an Organic Foods Yukon website, while looking for WWOOFing opportunities in the Yukon (I am not sure where I originally heard of this concept, probably one of my hippy friends). On the site, they had listed a number of farms that participate in the organic farming initiative in the Yukon, but only three had websites listed. So I checked them out. Where I write you from now, based on my very crude estimates using google maps, looked to be at least in the same general direction as the place where said cutie was working. I wrote them an email.

Before I knew what I was going to be doing when I arrived, I'd booked my bus ticket. There's a significant discount ($171 vs $411) if you book 7-days in advance, and a slightly bigger discount if you book 14-days in advance. A few days before I was scheduled to leave, I received an email back from the one and only place that I'd contacted, saying that they'd happily open their home to me for the time that I was in/around Whitehorse.

Since then, I've learned that they were thinking, at about the same time as I was, that they could really use some help. When they came home that night, there was an email, from me, offering help. It's a beautiful life. Manifest what you want.

Of course, there are much more traditional routes also. There's a book that you can buy for approximately $45 (depending on your location) that lists all of the farms that have registered with WWOOF Canada as accepting WOOFers (I'll post a link). I simply didn't have time to go that route, as it takes a few weeks to ship the booklet, or you need to be in a location that you can pick it up (and surprisingly, there wasn't a distribution centre in Madoc). If I had, I wouldn't be here, because this place isn't listed in the book.

Okay, I've spent enough time on the computer for one day. Take care, be happy :)