From Toronto Hoodie to Okanagan Cherry King
My buddy Kyle flew out to the Okanagan last spring with nothing but a hoodie and a half-charged phone, swearing he’d be back in Toronto by June. Still there. Sends me pictures every week of him knee-deep in cherry trees or fixing plastic on a greenhouse that looks bigger than an airport hangar. Says he’s making twenty-two bucks an hour now, plus they stuck him in a little bunkhouse for basically nothing. Food’s included half the time too, the farm cook makes these massive breakfasts that would cost you thirty dollars in the city.
It’s Proper Hard Graft – Don’t Let the Views Fool You
It’s proper graft though, don’t let the pretty valley pictures fool you. You’re up at five when it’s still freezing, picking fruit before the sun turns everything into soup. Fingers go numb, then they burn, then you can’t feel them at all by lunch. Greenhouse jobs are weirdly intense too. One day you’re planting tiny lettuce plugs for eight hours straight, bent over like you’re ninety years old, next day you’re hauling 50-pound bags of fertilizer or wrestling with rolls of poly that weigh more than you do when the wind catches them. Sweat just pours off you. And the bugs. Holy hell, the no-see-ums will eat you alive if you forget the bug spray even once.
Weirdly Addictive Once You Get Into It
But here’s the thing nobody tells you, it’s kind of addictive. You finish a row and look back and it’s perfect, all straight and clean. Or you pull the plastic tight on a new house and suddenly there’s this massive shiny tunnel where there was nothing yesterday. Beats sitting in traffic for two hours to push spreadsheets around, right?
Farms Are Desperate – Zero Experience Needed
Most places are desperate for people who actually show up. Some farms will take you with zero experience, throw you a pair of gloves and say see you at six tomorrow. Others want you for the whole season, like April to October, and if you stick it out they’ll sort your second-year visa no problem. Few lads I know have been bouncing around BC and Ontario for four years now, basically living on farms rent-free and banking almost everything they earn.
Harvest Overtime = Stupid Money
The overtime is ridiculous when it’s harvest. Twelve, fourteen hour days, time-and-a-half after eight, double on Sundays. Kyle cleared six grand in September alone picking apples. Six grand. In one month. For picking apples.
The Downsides (Yeah, They Exist)
Only downside is you smell like dirt and greenhouse the whole time, your clothes are ruined in a week, and dating is basically nonexistent unless you fancy someone else covered in mud too. But the air’s clean, you sleep like the dead, and you eat cherries or peaches or whatever straight off the tree all day. Hard to complain.
Final Verdict – Just Go
If you’re stuck in some dead-end thing back home and you’re not scared of early mornings or dirty hands, just do it. Worst case you hate it, fly home, and you’ve still got a story and a bit of cash. Best case you’re still there three years later with a fat bank account and arms like a superhero. Kyle says he’s never going back to an office. Reckon he means it
Allah Kareem
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