The Farm.
The orchards are located in a small town called Oyama, BC—a valley tucked between hills, gravel pits, and two massive turquoise lakes. The town has two grill joints, a fancy-ish cidery place, a small general store, a trailer/RV park, a public park, and a couple of beaches. Other than that, the rest is The Farm.
The farm (I’ll call it the farm, because that’s what we call it here) looks just as you’d imagine. Right by the road, there’s a local produce shop—selling honey, jams and candles, eggs, and baked goods. The kind of place people stop for. As any decent storefront should be—it’s cozy, quaint, and abundant.
Attached to it is a surprisingly fancy restaurant, nestled under thick grapevines and fairy lights. There’s a little windmill on a pole. And then, behind the shop—that’s where the real farm begins.
A rugged, messy building with a massive wooden table on the terrace, two dirty sofas, and two equally dirty reclining armchairs. There’s a dusty, slightly out-of-tune piano by the wall. Fruit signs are scattered everywhere—nailed to the terrace railing, propped above the piano, lying on the kitchen table. One saying “PEACHES” is nailed to the wall. That sign is the reason we started calling our place “peaches”. It is also the reason people keep casually walking up to our place trying to buy peaches. A Jamaican flag hangs lazily from a nail, accompanied by a dreamcatcher, a horseshoe, and some fishing rods. Tomatoes and lettuce grow from what looks like old washing machines.
Everything is coated with a healthy (or perhaps not-so-healthy) layer of dust, rust, and grime.
Near the kitchen is a row of tiny wooden cabins and ancient trailer homes. There’s a greenhouse in front of the communal space, and next to it—another row of trailers, slightly newer. Only one has a permanent tenant: a carpenter Cody and his dog Gypsy, a black lab and border collie mix so fat you might mistake him for a small bear from afar. Gypsy shows up, without fail, every time someone starts cooking.
In the evenings, a sparrow comes and pecks crumbs off the kitchen floor, which no one ever sweeps. Two resident bats fly in one door and out the other from time to time, then squeeze into the little space between two planks in the terrace beams to sleep for the day. A flock of quail squeaks and dashes around the place with tiny quail babies, always running in panic. Deer come into the orchards, munch on the trees and fruit, and lie down for a nap.
