montreal to burlington

day one:

once again i chose the pleasure of practicing yoga at one of elise's classes. this time she taught it in french only, which i enjoyed. afterwards i spent some time at essenteillement sol until elise was done with her second class. i got to use her computer during that time. the guys gave me a free smoothie! i really felt like part of the family there. it was really hard to leave all the wonderful, loving vibes i had found in montreal. but somehow i managed to stick to my resolve. thinking of all the wonderful opportunities ahead helped.

after riding out of montreal to the south and east, mostly on bike trails, i hitched a ride with the owner of a diversified CSA farm called "warm welcome farm". i could tell she is a passionate, hardworking farmer. i was happy to hear that one of her sons wants to follow in her footsteps. he is seeking learning opportunities and i recommended green string farm. she feels "there are more and more people aware of the changes... at least in this province." i think she was specifically referring to positive changes in the food industry towards local and holistically grown.

because i had not had good luck hitching, i had to stop for the night north of the border.
i was accepted at the third household i approached. yes, i could sleep in their yard and they even had a tent to loan me! only one of them spoke english, and since i don't know much french there was little conversation. i decided to play mbira for a while as we sat around the table outside. the young girl there danced her stuffed animal around. i accepted the ham sandwich i was offered.

it was next door to a big goat farm. i had first gone to their door but the man did not speak english, so i simply asked to fill my water. i could hear the bells around the necks of some of the goats into the evening, and the hubub of morning milking when i arose.

day two:

the bike trail was very pleasant, passing through large corn fields and partially shaded by trees.

an old man in the little town of lacolle, quebec, as i was unloading my bike to begin hitching, offered water and invited me to join him for a rest on his porch. the woman who was with him, who only spoke french, brought us out some lemonade. "the best thing tot drink on a hot day like this." he said. then she brought out two kittens and let me hold one. they were squeaking for their mother so she brought them back inside after several tender moments. the man and i chatted, enjoying our lemonade and the sights from the porch. "look at that tree", the man said at one point, directing my attention to an old cottonwood in a yard across the street. "it's a very old one."
i departed suddenly when i saw a VW bus approaching. thought they might heed the thumb. but they were not turning my direction. the guy who did pick me up just a little while later was on his way to kaiser cheese shop, which was near to where i wanted to cross the border. he got a lot of fine cheese, and i got a little. goat brie from local goat milk.

i rode about a mile to the border and found that this road i had taken did not lead to a checkpoint, but instead to a barricade where i was warned by a sign not to cross. i noticed the surveillance camera too. but it looked so simple just to walk around the weak barricade and be back in the U.S. and on my way. the other option, i thought, was to ride many miles to a checkpoint farther back west. so i went for it, hoping that i would be shown some mercy. well of course that was an empty hope. i mean of course the border patrol came, as it is their job to stop people crossing illegally. so i was arrested, detained while they searched my stuff, processed, and told i would receive the paperwork in the mail that would instruct me on how to proceed in receiving further punishment. they were nice enough to not mess with any of my stuff, putting it all back just as they found it, and to release me after not too long.

the border patrol had given me the ride i needed to the city of swanton, where i hitched a ride onto the interstate and got all the way to burlington. the man who picked me up grew up farming in jamaica, and works for a company now that has nordstroms as a client. his family grew many things, including calalu, ackee, and other fruits. he was a very good listener and appreciated what i had to say, and felt similarly, about my hope for humanity. he said, "we need to get back to [coming together in gratitude]." i had mentioned the dinner circles at hostel in the forest and deer isle hostel.

i spent over an hour in quality conversation with rrahke (pronounced 'rocky'), who was attracted to my hula hoop when i locked up my bike near where she was sitting. she said she had recently tried hula hooping in her somewhat pregnant state and found that it does no harm if the hoop is not too heavy.
one of the bold statements she made was, "i think everyone, inside, wants to be a farmer."
she also told me how she had gone on a big bicycle journey to the NW when she was 17 and hiked up into alaska with a dog, about 300 miles on the alaskan highway. she had been a farmer for some time in her more recent life and is currently in massage and other healing work. she is one of a few very beautiful pregnant women i saw while in burlington. seems to be a place creating hope for this coming generation.

i explored the coop a little while yuko finished up her shift in the produce department. i did some grazing in the bulk department and decided to buy a little bag of a variety of bean i had never seen before. 'vermont soldier bean'. i felt like there was something else i needed to get... walked around the store a couple more times, and finally found it! a small, dense loaf of dark rye bread from bread and butter farm! it was a perfect match for the goat brie i had purchased earlier that day.

there was a nice sharing of dinner with yuko and greg after going to the community garden together. i got to deposit the compost! the pile looked alright, but we added a lot more cover material. the skin of the pile! very important.