I have been having an extremely depressing month. Seriously depressing. And while I am not one to think “dark” thoughts, I do feel like getting away from it all. I am in a situation where I can just pack up and leave, not really having any friends or family on this continent.
I want to work on a farm in the middle of nowhere and have that job include room and board. It must happen. It happens all the time in the movies. I’d either hitch-hike my way there (if this is legal in Canada) or get there somehow but I really need to just get away.
Does this happen or am I going to be forced to endure the endless drudgery and despair that is my life? (Only kidding…it could be a lot worse)
Thanks for your help. But does it say something about my life that I would rather do farming? I’m not talking long term but it is something that appeals to me where I can sort out my life and do some hard work in the meantime. I’m serious…I want to do this.
Ok I grew up on a farm in a rural part of Michigan. Although it was not the “Middle of no where”
All of the farms in our area were family farms or related families set up in a corporation. Many did hire people full time, but I know of none that paid in room and board(Some may have a house you could rent)
There was seasonal work, but most of this was taken by high school and college kids with the occasional migrant worker. I gather from your OP that you didn't mean seasonal work though.
Anybody that wasn’t known simply showing up and looking for work would be looked upon with suspicion. Those farmers that I knew would only hire you if they knew you.
What skills do you have? A good mechanic? Good at reading commodity markets? Have a truck drivers license? Experience with farm animals? If not why should you be considered?
There is much more automation and less drudgery on a modern farm than is seen in most movies. There are also in almost all farm towns I’m sure enough people with farm experience and known reputations that are looking for work. Why would you an unknown from the “Big City” be hired?
In this area (central Wisconsin) there used to be a large migrant farm worker population in the summer. Most of them were Hispanic people who came up from Texas; they brought their whole families and lived in little shacks or old mobile homes provided by the farmer. I don’t know whether board was provided, but I’m guessing not. The work was mostly hand labor such as picking beans and cucumbers, detasseling corn, and so on. (Mr. S knows more about this stuff because he lived here, but he’s resting and I’m not going to bother him.) I’m not sure how they were paid, but I don’t think it was much, and it may have been tied in to the profits at the end of the season.
There are still a few migrant workers around here, but nowhere near the numbers in decades past.
You might try “migrant farm work” as the keywords to start your search.
There’s a Cider House around, but I hear they have lots of Rules.
Seriously though, if you want a farm job where you can work your ass off doing manual labor to forget your worldly troubles, I recommend you go to South Georgia (the State; not the country and not the island in the Atlantic).
Migrant work in the summer and fall is plentiful. You can pick tobacco or cantelope or cucumbers or watermelons or whatever.
You can also probably get a job working in a cotton or peanut mill if you have an skills.
Room and Board certainly won’t be included, but you can probably get a room in a trailer in Little Mexico. It would help if you spoke Spanish.
I’m reasonably certain you can pick fruit in B.C. for cash on a daily basis. No idea what you’d do for lodging and such but I’d wager a campground would be one solution.
I knew a guy long ago that claimed to have done this for a couple of days near Salmon Arm. He didn’t make much money but I don’t know if it was because he was not cut out for such work or if the work itself didn’t really pay well. I believe it was a certain amount of cash per basket of whatever fruit you are picking. Seasonal work obviously.
Funny…but I had a similar idea. Actually it was my friends idea. We were both out of work MBAs and had the idea of saying “screw it!”, stealing this old beat up Cadillac parked outside and driving cross country getting into adventures like saving small towns from evil developers or some such shit, thus escaping the disapproving looks of our girlfriends and the drudgery of our lives - kind of like a hetero version of that Mike & Gary show. (in the real world they call this two aimless drifters in a stollen car).
I suspect your fantasy is similar except replace “drifter” with “migrant worker”.
As luck would have it we both landed jobs so now we’re really happy.
:rolleyes:
I wanted to get in my car and drive off into nowhere and find a dairy farmer and be a housewife. I’d stay inside all day and watch tv until he got home and make him so blissfully happy he would insist I stay home all day and watch tv.
I was taking Microbiology and Physiology and Nursing Math and if I never opened another book it would be too soon.
You could be a nanny for room and board…