Maysie's Travels

I've been staying with Kalihi and my nieces at Kalihi's sisters house - or rather her large deluxe house on a substantial plot of land.

It has been really hot here, 40 degrees most days (42.5 today) so we've been running errands in the mornings and then jumping in the pool in the afternoon. Delightful.

Kalihi and the girls left for England today. It was really sad, I've realized that I'm not good with goodbyes. I was the one who cried first - quite silly really as they are moving nearer to where I live, but it was the emotional situation that did it - she was leaving her mum and sister.

Annie (Kalihi's mum) said I could stay at her house for a while which was really nice. It's a lovely little cottage (i say cottage - don't think old Cotswold stone, but modern wooden, air-conditioned, lush place - I'd like to get me one of these) and she is working for the next three days which means I'd have the place to myself.

However the reason for staying on in Ashland (or rather Phoenix where she lives) is that I was waiting to hear from the boys (Felix and Francis Corbett - friends from school) about their proposed road trip north through California, Oregon and possibly even to Canada.

I wasn't sure it was going to happen, but it is and tomorrow!! I don't even know where we are going or anything about it which is really exciting, but I will be in good company. I have everything with me that I might need so I say bring on the exploration and adventure!!

Where do I begin? It's a long story!

This place is not what I expected. I thought it would be organised, friendly and nurturing for the children or 'campers' as they are called. However there is no structure or work schedule so with 8 volunteers it feels like they have too many people, or rather don't know how or what to do with us all!

First impressions; dirty, not just farm dirty, but real dirty and smelly.

I arrived on 30th June and saw Linda McDonald, the owner for about 2 minutes, then didn't see her again for 2 days!! In that time I heard lots of stories from the other volunteers about how she is a Jakyl and Hyde character and can be patronizing, irrational and even rude... I tried to wait and watch and see what she was like for myself..but not seeing her for so long or talking to her about what I'd be doing on the ranch kind of slanted this already!

To cut a long story short, I did things like; feed and muck out horses, ponies, goats and chickens. I also milked a goat and generally cleaned her house! There were lots of cats and dogs, which came down from her room into the living room and poo'd on the carpet! Four times in 2 weeks!! There were lots of other brown stains and 'water' marks, so it clearly was happening for a while!

The other volunteers were, Mitch 41 from Seattle, Ken 21 from Connecticut, Saphia 29 from Bolton, Tara 22 from Belgium (she left and got out early!), Sam 18 from Canada and Lucie 21 from France. All very nice, I'm still with Lucie, Sam and Saphia at Francis Corbett's house in Davis.... so how did we get here?

Lucie and Ken were caught smoking outside the ranch, beyond the gate and drive, but on the small wall by the road... drama! Linda came to speak to Lucie and Ken and was totally mad. She started ranting about fires, children and how Lucie had influenced Ken to smoke and now she couldn't trust any of us as we'd known they were smoking but didn't tell her etc etc. She went on for quite a while and said Lucie had to leave and then that she's have to talk to the board or directors.

The next day me and Lucie came back from Santa Rosa, as it was our day off to hear that volunteers can now smoke by the pool area and no one has to leave... rather a quick turn around so we still wanted to clear the air and address her ranting and accusations etc.

This conversation then escalating in 5 minutes to us being the worst volunteers ever and we all had to leave as she's never had so many complaints (she's never had this many volunteers) and it was clearly not working out for any of us!

So 6 of us left yesterday with minimal notice, hence Corbett coming to rescue 4 of us!!

The next day Linda said that I wasn't one of the bad ones... I had a home here in California with them if I ever wanted to return.. a proper head job, we joked that it was like a psychological experiment!!