Fraserbench Farms and the Cariboo (My thank you)

So fall has hit and the leaves are changing and it is all beautiful and all that. The changing of the season has a new meaning for me though because my time in the Cariboo and the Chilcotin area has come to an end, for the time being anyways...

It was a very special time for me and a a lot of people have contributed to that awesome experience. For everyone and anyone that I have met and actually reads this... THANK YOU!!

First and foremost, Naomi has been my connection and travel partner and positive spirit that was needed to experience everything the past few months, basically my in. (p.s. sorry Naomi, had to post a picture of you without your permission..... I think it's a good picture though)

Of course a biiiig thank you! to Dave and Diane Dunaway (Naomi's uncle and aunt) at Soda Creek! Naomi and I stayed with them for a few weeks in August and helped with various stuff around the farm including bee keeping which I would never had imagined doing! The picture is of Diane passing a couple of frames, notice me being tough in the gloves handling the frames with Diane doing the bee keeping without any gloves. I got stung a few times but not near as many and it probably hurt a lot more to me as well. The other picture is an aerial view of the ranch and surrounding fields and the river is the mighty Fraser River that empties out near Vancouver.

So that connection allowed us to meet Charlie and Lynda at Fraserbench farms down the road. They needed a farm sitter for a few weeks and so what else were Naomi and I going to do? Our time at Fraserbench involved getting up early to record the temperature, harvest vegetables, bake, cook, pickle, jam anything possible, and of course the Williams Lake farmers market on Friday mornings! A biig thank you to Charlie and Lynda if you read this, and sorry about the bear getting in.... I think I saw it crossing the river a day before we left. In the morning I was just looking out at the river and thought I saw a log in the river. I watched it for a bit and realized it wasn't following the current of the river. It was going against the current. After a few minutes this black shape got to the other side, got up onto the banks and walked into the forest. It was big, black/dark brown, and while I couldn't see very well.... it kind of looking like it was on two legs... I am thinking sasquatch, but most likely it was a bear swimming across to the other side. Well, where it got up and ran into the forest is about 1 km down the road from the farm...

Of course it was great to meet everyone else in Williams lake, Jean (Naomi's 95 year old grandma with the spirit of someone in her early 20's) and Connie (Diane's mom). And Chris and Terri who were trying to make a go of an organic farm in Williams lake and experienced a ridiculous thunder storm out at their farm one evening.  And everyone else I talked to, saw, or whatever else the connection. It all contributed to a very memorable experience and left a great feeling about the area in my mind. Thank you!

So that is it for the "north" for now. Where to now? I haven't quite formulated a plan yet, but then again I rarely have a plan, but I don't even have an idea so it is wide open. All that I know is that I haven't experienced the Rockies, okanagon, interior, kootney's and that whole area of B.C. so perhaps that will be the next place to go. All I know is that I want to ski/snowboard/snowshoe basically anything outdoors in the winter... So I suppose that is an idea, plan, whatever you call it.

But I'll leave this post with a few pictures of Soda Creek townsite, the cemetery with bones on the ground no less, the prison, and of course the social house with a movie theatre still "in tact".