Busing to bantam Buxton

   October 4, 2010 was the date I set the course to Buxton, Oregon from Seattle, Washington. 4 weeks earlier, while visiting my mom in Piers Island, British Columbia, and after the $30 membership fee for the online WWOOF directory was paid, e-mails were sent out to several participating farms in Oregon & California for the months of October & November, respectively.

   If I wasn't such a procrasinator and got on the ball writing to host farms earlier in the summer, more than 4 may have responded back. Out of the host participants who did, Harmony Farms struck me as the most alluring in Washington's south-adjacent, neighboring state. A workable 45 minute drive west of Portland, the 40 acre, partly forested, completely verdant property sustains 1 cow, 1 pig, 2 alpacas, 2 sheep, 7 goats, couple dozen ducks & geese, 50+ turkey, and well over the century mark for number of chickens. Oh yes, and an ivory mutt named Moon. With the abundance of its living creatures, Harmony felt like an unequaled crash course into life with livestock. As an added bonus in my wish for sustainable living, Larry Matthew, man of the Harmony household, also e-mailed that he hoped a solar panel system would be up and running shortly before my expected arrival date.

   Not fully registering in significance until after my arrival, Larry penned in his original e-mail to me weeks earlier, "I do have one full time employee, Carlos, who arrives around 7:30AM and leaves around 4:30PM. I  own a retail fireplace store and I am not home alot during the daytime. Generally my wife is home Sundays and Mondays and I am home on Wednesdays". As you will discover, my occasional neglect to detail has a great track record of making me pay justly.

  Wishing primarily to get a scope of the general Buxton area and secondly to get a relaxing taste of the outdoors before work commenced at Harmony, I chose to depart Seattle one day earlier in order to camp in the nearby L.L. Stub Stewart Park. To be fair, the term 'camp' is used loosely. 1) Cell phone service was a go. 2) I slept in the surprisingly comfortable makeshift bed in the back of the Vanagon vs. a tent. There was a campfire, though. Complimenting the alighted event was some Deschutes Jubeale; a winter seasonal ale well worth waiting the first 3/4 of the year for.

   Laying my head to rest that evening with my mind racing, wondering what was in store, never could my wildest thoughts envision what would take place at Harmony in the next three weeks. To be continued....

    Deviating from my usual Ipod shuffling while road tripping it, I decided to listen to my albums in full thru the VW's cd player. Below are the artists and their respective albums listened to on the way to Buxton. Additionally included is a selected track you can listen to via the link:


    Menomena 'Mine' (Dirty Cartoons)
    Queens of the Stone Age 'Lullabies to Paralyze' (Long Slow Goodbye)
    The Flaming Lips 'Transmissions From the Satellite Heart' (Turn It On)
    The Black Keys 'Chulahoma' (My Mind is Rambling)
    My Morning Jacket 'It Still Moves' (Run Thru)