When unrealistic dreams come true

When we were asked in elementary school what sort of job we wanted I always thought that being paid to sleep would be the best job.  I think I feared that my answer would be seen as a joke or unrealistic.  As I like animals I would instead say the generic kid answer of veterinarian (I knew even as a child that surgery and blood was not for me, but they wanted an answer).  As far as career development went, I could never really get past the back of my mind where the truth would be and the little voice of doubt that such a job could even exist.

Jump forward +20 years later, I have a BA in psychology, and I have my dream job.  I now work for an organization that transitions individuals who have been institutionalized for a variety of mental illnesses into group homes and independent living.  I love my job.  I work mainly alone but occasionally with great coworkers who care about and for the well-being of our clients on numerous levels.  I get to see my clients develop new skills and confidence, at the end of my shift I get up in the morning, go on random adventures for the day, and go back to work at night.

I have always seen that life becomes a question of money vs time.  The rich (like doctors and lawyers) who have no time to enjoy the money they have, or the jobless who have ample time but no money to do things... and then the millions who are working 3 jobs to make ends meet so have no time and have no money.  This seems wrong to me.

I have seen some depressing/unsettling graphs that show our lives broken down into dots, either day to day or month to month.  It really showed me what was lost when we dedicated our daily lives to work.  While it might not be the most lucrative job I gain 8-9 hours in my daytime life that would normally be devoted to work.  1/3 of my life has been given back to me.  I'm aware that my job is not for everyone, and frankly I'm glad or I might have missed out.  I have the luxury of not having kids at home to tuck in (so there isn't any guilt on that side of things) and I still have a body that doesn't care about sleeping on a cot.

Now it is just a matter of how to make the most of each day to the best of my ability.

Yukon part 2

The Yukon has a way of making you feel like you can do anything.  I climbed my first mountain there under the midnight sun.  We laughed the whole way.  We started our trek around 8pm laughing about how the warnings always say you should head back from mountain climbing before dark.  When we did head back down at about 11pm the sun was still shinning on us.

The constant daylight became one of my favourite things.  I got so accustomed to taking naps in the full sun like a cat.   Everyone told me it was going to be a struggle to adjust to the light but I had the opposit problem.  We went down to Skagway, Alaska for a couple of days and found the town surrounded on all sides by mountains.  I experienced full darkness at night again and became so disoriented that I had to fall asleep with a light on or I felt like I was falling out of bed.

Back on the farm, after about 4 days, the woman we were working for asked me to stay on as the farm intern and help her run things for the rest of the summer.  The pay would just about cover my flight home!  I accepted.  I fixed eavestroughs and a few other things around the house, I did some weeding and harvesting of the gardens and helping out wherever I was needed, but mostly it was tending animals (lots of chickens and 2 small pigs).

We went to weekly farmers markets where I met more organic farmers from the area and was invited to see some of their operations.  I went out a couple of days to a goat farm that made their own cheese.  Learned to milk some goats which was a lot of fun after I got over my initial feelings of unease at having those alien goat eyes watching me. Went to another farm that focused on turkeys and some 400 pound pigs.  Everyone really cared about their animals and shared stories of how they protect their farms from the grizzly bears in the area.

I took some time to go to Dawson City during the Dawson City Music Festival.  By this time Estelle was wwoofing elsewhere but we met up with all the thousands of people who had come for the big party.  With my first impression of the place being so packed with people it was intriguing to watch the numbers trickle away back to the regular population.  After the crowds had left I went on several tours of the famous town and for one I happened to be in the same tour group as Audrey McLaughlin.  It was a huge thrill to meet her.  She was humble and charming.  At one point our guide left us in Mrs McLaughlin's care who promised to not let the power go to her head.

On that same tour I met a gold prospector and inventor, from Northern Ontario.  We chatted a good while and it felt like I had met a kindred spirit.  I felt like he would have been my uncle had my family been from Ontario.  It worked out that after getting back from my run to Chicken, Alaska (on the Top of the World Highway) I met up with him again.  We went panning for gold together.  I now have a small speck of gold to call my own.  The Saskatchewan northern lakes trained me well for wadding into the icey creek water to dig up dirt to pan.  I gave him a ride back to Whitehorse, we talked about his inventions and swapped crazy stories the whole way.  

He gave me some of the best advice for how to deal with the little black flies! Skin so soft lotion from Avon.  Use it. Love it.  Flies will avoid you and you'll have soft skin, best of both worlds.

I went back to work on the farm.  When I got back there was a new addition to the farm.  Another wwoofer, this time from Germany.  The hay was harvested, the chickens were slaughtered and I watched as the Fireweeds slowly opened all the way, signaling the end of summer.  I loved my time there. I got to meet so many wonderful people, learned so much, and really left feeling like my 12 year old self could very happily put a check mark next to that dream.  

I am really looking forward to going North again.  Next time I am definitely going to make it all the way to Inuvik!

Animal Stories

I have a few stories that I like to tell over and over again because the telling takes me back to that wonderful moment and I get to relive it.

The stories that give me the most joy are the ones where I have some significant interaction with an animal.  Meeting an animal and becoming fast friends... or whatever the animal equivalent is.  I've had a horse follow me around.  Met a dog in farmer's field off the road and went for a walk together.  I've had a couple herds of cows run up to their fences, just really curious about why I was walking by. A swallow fly along side me for several blocks.  A tapir trying to nose my face.  A pelican that clamped down on my arm. Looked after some pigs last summer and got to know their personalities very well. 

The most resent comes from this past summer.  I went out to my friend's family farm with a bunch of other friends.  We had a great time and one night we played sardines.  It is reverse hide-and-seek.  One person hides and everyone searches.  As each person finds the hidden person they hide with them.  Last one searching hides next.  Fun game but I was having a terrible time finding everyone in one round.  I knew it was down to just me and one other guy.  Then I spotted the farm cat.  I said hello and said I was looking for his master.  The cat meowed at me a few times and walked a straight line to where the rest of the group were hiding.  I just followed along. I definitely didn't have to hide first the next round.

But my favourite was my butterfly.  I had been working at a green house when I saw a butterfly caught up in an old spider web.  I got the notion in my head that this wasn't going to serve anything to have the dead bug just get caught up in it.  Also there wasn't much going on in the way of customers so I took my time.  I got a small bit of plant and used it to give the butterfly some purchase rather than whip around.  I used a bit of twig to free his wings from the webbing.  I never touched the butterfly itself, I was too worried that its wings might be as sensitive as a dragonfly.  I merely got the web caught on the twig and gently pulled it off the wing.  I got most of it off and I knew his feet weren't stuck because he hoped off the bit of plant and climbed onto my hand and set up shop on my finger.  I left him there to get over his trauma and went back to work.  A lot of customers were confused and thought it was a fake.  Eventually my manager just told me to go for lunch as my new little guy was distracting to everyone.  I sat and ate, I kept a sharp eye on his wings because he hadn't opened them yet and I was worried they might be stuck together.  But over the course of the lunch he tested his wings out and flapped them a bit.  He went back to sitting and I went back to my lunch.  I ended my break and headed back into work.  Again the customers were incredibly confused and couldn't seem to function with him sitting on my finger.  I eventually just had to shoo him away and really force him out the door to try flying again.  He took off and seemed to have no troubles.

What is your best animal/insect interaction story?

Home discoveries

I look after homes around the city. From time to time people give me a call and I go and look after their animals or plants while they are away. Over the years I’ve realized a few things that are pretty essential when it comes to going into a new place.

Find out where the can opener, scissors and cleaning supplies are kept. This includes garbage bags.

Everything else you can kind of figure out on your own but if you don’t have a clue where to start looking for those 3 things it can be rather frustrating (especially looking for the cleaning supplies which are usually time sensitive). You might be asking why the can opener is first in my list? It took me an extra half hour one time to make a simple can of soup because I didn’t know that they had their can opener mounted on the underside of their cabinet.

Stepping into someone’s life is always interesting for me because I get to see what people take for granted as normal. I always ask what people can think of as a little quirk to their home, which has had some pretty interesting results. My favourite one has got to be the phones that didn’t work when it rained. Unfortunately I happen to be staying during a particularly wet summer.

On occasion I get to really enjoy something unique to the area. Most recently I was looking after a home and discovered the best idea for a residential area: loading zones.

The more time I spent there the more I wanted them on every street. I’m all about efficiency of use. Having the ability to run back into the house to retrieve something I had forgotten saved me a lot of hassle in terms of needing to find a parking spot. Additionally my pet peeve, people disrupting the flow of traffic by double parking to pick someone up, was eliminated.

For a while there looking after homes had become a fairly consistent thing. People going away for weeks leaving me to look after their place had friends of mine asking if I will ever give up my apartment to do house hopping full time. But that way there wouldn’t be any transitions. The feeling of a job well done comes from handing their home back to them in as close to the original state as possible with very happy animals. But it is actually by going home after that I get enjoy more fully the life I have and my own brand of quirks. And of course my own bed! You always appreciate your own bed over others… and if that is not the case for you I suggest you invest in a mattress better suited to you.

What is something unique to your home that you love?
What is a unique trait that you would warn people about?

Packing and preparing mentally

I'm going away soon and I feel both overly prepared and under prepared... I think it has something to do with getting things done but not being able to just go do the things I need to do. Parents. Mentally you think I'll get done this that and the other things... in reality you get pulled off to do three other jobs and then a reprimand for not taking your trip seriously... But who cares right? Oh how I wish I could stop caring.

I feel the urge to simply list off all the items I've set aside for packing to see if I've missed anything. But no, I'm going to take everyone's advice and just do what I need to do and if I forget something then just pick it up there.

Still to do:
Finish packing, read guide books, read emails of advice so I can act on them before leaving, check on restrictions and vaccines that might be needed, mow lawns... I thought I was done with that job???, send a thank you note, buy extra batteries and tech stuff, find my compass, return a whack load (technical term) of books I've borrowed over the year(s).

Best get back to it!