Make Your Choice: Me or the Hoop

“Nothing is plumb, level or square:
the studs are bowed,
the joists are shaky by nature.”
–Alan Dugan

One of the big projects on this farm is the construction of a hoop house (a greenhouse with an elastic plastic covering instead of permanent glass panels). Claire and John received a grant that allowed them to afford one, but they have to build it themselves and will not be reimbursed for the cost until the plastic is stretched across it. All the supplies had been lying in a heap on their lawn for months, but time is becoming an issue because the hoop house needs to be finished before the big apple harvest begins in a few weeks. Apples dominate everything around here. They’re the farm’s biggest source of income and it takes a lot of time and work to stay on top of their harvest, which lasts until the chilly Montana winter sets in. I’ve been warned that nothing else matters once apples start falling from the trees.

This hoop house will measure 30’ wide by 72’ long, and will have a gothic arch ceiling some 15’ high, held up by 19 arches. Construction began a few days after I arrived. We couldn’t do much until a family friend known as Johnny Oatmeal—no lie—showed up in a bobcat with an auger attachment and drilled holes for the posts (big déjà vu to prepping a grape field in Utah earlier this summer). Once that happened, all my time was committed to helping Brian put the thing up. The original plan was to have it finished within a week, five days being ideal. Now, three weeks later, it’s very close to being almost halfway done.

We started by cementing post mounts in the holes J. Oatmeal drilled. That turned out to be a frustrating task that occupied all of our original 5-day outlook, mostly because Brian wasn’t happy with how plumb the posts stood and kept resetting them. Lots of swearing was involved—at the tools, not at me. No problem, I understand the importance of a good foundation. Learned all about it long ago through this story about three pigs. I’ll connect you with my mom if you want to hear it yourself.

Next, we built all the arches and raised them up onto the post mounts, which went by pretty fast. At this point, we could really start to see the progress of what we were doing and joked about how quickly the rest of the project would go. That joking lasted about a day and promptly ended when we started attaching purlins to connect all the arches together.

The instructions seemed simple to me: put up all the purlins then go back and tighten clamps on each of them so that all the arches are four feet apart. We spent a whole day doing exactly that. The next morning, Brian took one look from the side and decided the arches didn’t look plumb enough. To fix it, we spent all of that day loosening, readjusting and retightening every purlin clamp—roughly 110 of them. This time, Brian insisted on throwing away the tape measure and just eyeballing it. The day after that, Brian took one look at the structure, decided it still wasn’t plumb enough and we spent all of that day doing the exact same thing… as well as the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that.

I’d say we spent five or six entire days undoing and redoing everything we did the day before. Mind you, these were 10-12 hour workdays we were pulling.

At some point, it occurred to me that Brian’s standards for plumbness might be a bit higher than necessary. Sometimes he'd pull out his level, spend several minutes adjusting every arch post within millimeters of its exact plumb position, then tell me to tighten all the purlins connected to that arch while he held it in place. Thing is, these are thin, lightweight, 15-foot tall arches that are all bent, swaying in the wind and attached to other wobbly arches that are all bent and swaying in the wind. As soon as we’d adjust or even touch one post, the whole structure would move.

What can I compare this to… imagine setting up a camping tent in a windstorm, only to have someone pull out a level and declare that you had to undo and redo the whole thing because the tent posts weren’t perfectly plumb. Even after almost a week of the same pattern, Brian still seemed surprised to find that not one of the arches stayed perfectly plumb. Not only surprised, but expressive—throwing down tools, cursing at them like a sailor, then stomping off to cool down.

Around day three or four, I decided it was time to express my thoughts. I didn’t have much construction experience, so I wasn’t eager to be critical of Brian's judgment. He was, after all, the owner of this thing. Still, I was having a tough time staying motivated to work another 12 hour day when I knew we’d be undoing everything the next day. And it seemed to me that a golden retriever would have realized the futility of our efforts in less time. I finally chose my moment, waited for him to finish a swearing rampage and cool down, then explained to him very politely that I didn’t think this structure was meant to be as precise as he wanted. I also pointed out that it only had to hold up a sheet of plastic and was already more than strong enough to do its job. He only shook his head, sighed and said “It’s gotta be plumb. It’s gotta be plumb.” Then he walked into the field to pick up the level where he threw it (a dented level likely didn’t help the situation).

After day five, I decided to figure out what “plumb” meant and looked it up in a dictionary.

We went through this same routine a couple more times, and I had a couple more useless talks with him. Eventually, I started feeling less guilty about ending my work day after only eight or nine hours to hang out with friends from my last farm. I also decided that if this was all I had to look forward to at this place, then I'd find another farm. When Claire pointed out that apples were starting to fall, I wanted to kiss her for the perfect excuse to escape the construction project. Picking apples with Claire is very meditative and calming, and it reminds me what it feels like to do work that’s actually productive and worthwhile.

I don’t remember exactly when it happened, but Brian finally cracked. After telling the entire hoop house to gratify itself over and over (probably audible from Idaho), he shocked me by asking for help mounting baseboards and struts to hold everything in its place so we could move on to the next step. We finished that job quickly, but now apples are the highest priority.

The good news is that an inspector from the grant organization came to check on the progress and gave Claire and Brian permission to wait until after the winter to put up the plastic cover. That means the hoop house progress won't delay them from getting their grant, and we can concentrate our efforts on the harvest.

Every now and then, Brian goes out to the construction site with his level, loosens the baseboards and struts and tweaks the end arches ever so slightly. Sometimes he walks away quietly, sometimes we can hear him from across the orchard. I already have sympathy for the poor soul who happens to be WWOOFing here when he decides to finish the project next spring.

Plumb [pluhm]:
n.
1. A weight on the end of a line, used to determine water depth.
2. A weight on the end of a line, used especially by masons and carpenters to establish a true vertical.
adv.
1. In a vertical or perpendicular line.
2. Informal Directly; squarely: fell plumb in the middle of the puddle.
3. also plum Informal Utterly; completely: plumb worn out.
adj.
1. Exactly vertical.
2. also plum Informal Utter; absolute; sheer: a plumb fool.
v. plumbed, plumb•ing, plumbs
v.tr.
1. To determine the depth of with a plumb; sound.
2. To test the verticality or alignment of with a plumb.
3. To straighten or make perpendicular: plumb up the wall.
4. To examine closely or deeply; probe: "Shallow ideas are plumbed and discarded" (Gilbert Highet).
5. To seal with lead.

I’ve Been Adopted… or Abducted

My new farm is an apple orchard is run by Claire and Brian, a couple in their fifties, along with Dylan, their ten-year-old son. This is the type of struggling organic farm I expected to find more often when I first started WWOOFing. To supplement their farm income, Claire works as a midwife and Brian picks up carpentry jobs whenever he can. Brian also makes deliveries for the local Montana Growers Cooperative once or twice a week, but these side gigs aren’t making anyone rich. Claire and Brian both work long days to scrape by and make ends meet, and WWOOFers are the only other support they get.

For me, this means long work days—and lots of them. My last two farms each required four to five hour work days five days a week. Here, I work anywhere from eight to twelve hours every single day.

To be fair, we rarely reach the twelve hour mark, and Claire and Brian have had no problem with me cutting my workdays short every now and then so I can meet up with friends from my last farm up the road. On the day I arrived, I asked Brian what kind of schedule was expected of me and he told me they don’t hold their volunteers to schedules, adding that as long as he feels I’m regularly putting in good work he’ll be happy. They both thank me often for working so hard, so I feel I’m fulfilling their expectations.

The long days are definitely taking their toll on me; my energy drains fast and I feel worn out and exhausted all the time. I don’t doubt they’d be okay with me working less, but it’s hard to stop when I know they really need the help. For example, when apples start to fall off a tree, that tree needs to be picked fast to avoid losing the fruit (apples that hit the ground are unsalable because the fall causes them to bruise and spoil easily). Losing that crop means a lost profit for an already tight budget, so when Claire needs to spend the day making apple butter for the farmer’s market and Brian has to put in a few hours moving irrigation pipes, I find it difficult to stop working instead of picking that tree.

By the way, it’s a heck of a lot of work to pick an apple tree.


It helps that Brian and Claire are so appreciative, and they do take good care of me here. This is the first farm where I really feel I’m part of the family. We eat all our meals together, take bike rides together, watch movies together and spend most of our evenings just hanging out together in the house or playing games. They even took me to the Western Montana Fair so I could see Dylan’s award-winning 4-H chicken—paid my admission and insisted on treating me to a big plate of sweet potato fries, and Dylan was really excited to show me his prize bird and blue ribbon. I did happen to notice that every single animal in the room had a blue ribbon on its cage, but I decided to keep that to myself.

It didn’t take long for me to fall into the routine at this place, and more than once I’ve caught myself about to call Claire “mom” or fight over Legos with Dylan like I once did with my brothers. That’s pretty cool to me, especially considering that at my last farm it was awkward just walking into the house for the food I was working for.

Then again, I have considered the possibility that Claire and Brian are employing some complicated brainwashing tactics to gradually convince me that they really are my parents so that I feel obliged to give them free labor for the rest of my life. Although I haven’t found any evidence yet, I have a sinking suspicion they may be part of some freaky apple-worshiping cult. I also think they may be after my hair.

Just to be safe, I keep a secret stash of my mom’s famous pumpkin cookies in the tipi. That taste is a jolt back to my childhood their mind control techniques can’t even begin to compete against. Yeah, I’m that clever. One step ahead, all the time.

Being a WWOOFer, you learn to be prepared for situations like this. There are a lot of weirdos out there.

Cookies of the Gods

On my last day at Glacier, I made the long, lonely trek to the far northwest portion of the park, which led me through the North Fork town of Polebridge. To get there, you have to drive down a long unpaved road that leads you far away from any sign of civilization. I had heard of Polebridge from a few Montana friends who all just grin when they hear the town’s name, as if it were some inside secret that made everyone happy, so I was curious to check it out. Also, Anna was very insistent that the ride was worth the cookies I’d find there—and even more insistent that it would be wise for me to bring some back to her.

To call Polebridge a town is something of an overstatement. The main strip consists of a gravel lot with two buildings: the Northern Lights Saloon and the Polebridge Mercantile (also known as the Polebridge Bakery). Drive a few miles up the road and you’ll find the funky Polebridge hostel with a lawn full of tipis. The saloon was closed when I arrived, but I scoped out the Mercantile and found myself rummaging through shelves of food, housewares, t-shirts, wine, crafts, antiques and some of the most mouth-watering baked goods I’ve ever seen. Yeah, Anna was dead-on about the cookies.

The place definitely had character. I’m sorry to say it, but you really need to visit it yourself to understand. I enjoyed spending some time on the Merc’s porch watching hippies and old timers come and go. It would have been easy to spend the whole day doing so, but I had hiking to do.

My campsite that night was at Bowman Lake, another long stretch down another unpaved road, this one very windy and narrow. The trip was totally worth it. Even though this campground filled up, too, it was much more spacious and much less crowded than those at the center of the park. Far less tourists make the rough trek up here, and that left a huge blue lake all to myself and a handful of kayakers. I considered staying a second night, but I was actually getting a little tired of hiking around mountains and lakes every day. They were starting to seem less than incredible. Also, I needed to find a farm.


When I emerged from the mountains the next day, I stopped at a library in Columbia Falls to get online. Still no word from the farm I was seeking. I had been holding out for an organic apple orchard in Arlee, Montana, but was tired of sending emails and leaving phone messages with no response. I kicked myself for waiting so long and for putting all my eggs in one basket when I had no place to stay, then spent a couple hours at the library calling and emailing other farms in Montana. I figured that if I didn’t hear from any in the next day or so, then I’d start sending messages to farms in other states. That was my original plan—to keep moving and see new regions with every change—but I didn’t feel I was done with Montana yet.

I knew there was free camping at the reservoir near my last farm, so I decided that was as good a place as any to stay until I found my next host. I enjoyed two days of swimming and lounging by the water, often watching lightning in the distance, before I found an available farm—and it turned out to be the apple orchard I originally wanted! They called me at ten o’clock Saturday morning and by noon I was moving into a tipi on their property. An hour later, I was thinning apple trees.

Yep, I live in a tipi now. How cool is that?

Incidentally, Anna was ecstatic when I gave her a bag of Polebridge cookies. Watching someone eat those cookies is like watching someone become brainwashed with pleasure. I think she’s in my debt now. Wondering if I can get a car wash out of it…

This Is Me Not Being Eaten

My time on Julie’s farm ended before I confirmed a spot on another farm, so I loaded up my camping gear (along with everything else I owned) and headed up to Glacier National Park.

I made the mistake of telling my parents my plans, because a grizzly bear attack in Yellowstone last week was still all over the news. My folks love to worry, and they were now 100% convinced a bear would eat me if I even stepped foot into a national park.

The ride was smooth and short, only 2-3 hours. I took some time to hang out in Kalispell because there was a nifty little organic grocery there and I get sucked into them like a kid in a candy shop. I always have to see how their products and procedures compare to the co-op where I worked in Oregon. Since I was the merchandiser there, I pay a lot of attention to things like sign formats, end aisle displays, shelf arrangements, store layout, etc. (I know, I know… you can take the boy out of merchandising but you can’t take the merchandising out of the boy). Before leaving, I stocked up on oats, trail mix and veggies—my typical camping fare.

Glacier was, of course, incredible. Every turn in the road let to another amazing view of glaciers, lakes and snowy mountains as far as the eye could see. Since it was a Monday, I expected the crowds to be minimal. Not so—the place was packed! It didn’t sink-in how many tourists were there until I started looking for a campsite in the evening. That’s when I learned that every single campground in the park fills up by 2pm, even on a weekday. I ended up having to settle for a site outside the park on Duck Lake, slightly less scenic but far more private. For the rest of my time up there, finding a place to camp became my first morning priority.



On my second night, a friendly Chinese couple approached me as I ate dinner by my tent and asked if they could share my campsite. They had been driving from campground to campground all day with no luck, and now it was too late to find anything open. I could relate to their problem, so I let them pitch their tent next to mine.

The three of us stayed up late talking. The husband, Fei, was studying law in Missouri. He and his wife (whose name I never learned) were hitting almost all the National Parks in the West before school started again in late August. They were close to visiting all 50 states, and I pointed out that they’ve already seen more of America than most Americans do in their entire lives. Fei was interested in my WWOOFing life, and when I told him I’d like to do it abroad, he ran to his car to get a business card for me. Told me to send him an email if I ever ended up in China because he knew a lot of places I could stay. I can’t say China is one of my top destinations, but who knows? I like to think that things happen for a reason.

I spent a total of three days at Glacier, hiking and swimming every day at different points in the park. Saw seven bears in that time and didn’t get eaten. Not even once.

Monster-Proof Farm

A big reason this farm uses WWOOF volunteers is the need for help during the big garlic harvest in late July, and that’s exactly what we did this week.

The harvest went smoothly. First, a tractor drove down the lines of garlic with an implement that turned up the earth without damaging the crop. Then the rest of us walked down the lines with armfuls of twine and tied up bundles of the upturned garlic. After loading the tied bundles onto the back of a pickup, we drove them to the barn and hung them from the rafters to dry. Anna and I spent a few hours last week hammering nails into those rafters for this very purpose, and we used just about every nail we put in.

We’re talking about a lot of garlic here—at least more than I’ve ever seen at once. I now feel very assured that nobody on this farm is a vampire. Didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but whenever the sun comes out, everyone here covers up with long sleeves, big hats and gallons of sunblock. You never know…

We expected the harvest to take a whole week, but with so many helpers we were able to finish in three easy days. That seemed like great news until Julie, the farm owner, pulled me aside and told me they were unusually ahead of schedule and wouldn’t have much work for me in August. I very much enjoyed my experience on this farm and hoped to stay here a few more weeks, but I also learned it helps to take on an attitude of accepting what comes without holding on to expectations—I think that’s a big secret to enjoying life, especially if you’re drifting for a living.

The good news is that Julie is happy with me and is helping me find another farm in the area. She’s made some calls and given me good references. I’m hoping to secure a spot on an organic apple orchard a few miles south of here, but the owners of that farm are out of town until next week. There are other WWOOF farms nearby, but I want to hold out for my first choice before settling for something else. Julie offered to let me stay here longer if I had no place to go, but I don’t want to feel like extra weight or wear out my welcome. I also like the idea of using some down time to do some camping and explore the area. Glacier National Park is only an hour drive away, and that seems like too good of an opportunity to pass up.

I just hope the werewolves up there know to keep their distance.