Fifteen acres, 4 greenhouses nestled in the Pemberton Valley of British Columbia, Canada: Budgie and Kerry have owned and operated Laughing Crow Organics for fifteen years. It’s a small-scale organic vegetable farm, where I worked as a farmhand for six months. These photos chart a journey from farming outsider to insider.

I’d never seen corn in a husk before moving to Pemberton. I had no idea how Brussels sprouts grew. Growing up exclusively in cities, I never had cause to consider the grueling labour that goes into growing the vegetables I was grabbing from misted grocery store shelves without a second thought. The stiff backs from endless stooping, the relentless downpours that soak your feet through two pairs of socks. The bugs, the heat, the wildfire haze.

I didn’t know any of these things, but I could have guessed. Farming is infamously unforgiving, and unpredictable. What I couldn’t have guessed, was the unparalleled joy of seeing a tray of tiny green seedlings push up through the earth, or the unexpected beauty of noticing the tendrils of two neighbouring cucumber plants curling around each other in storybook spirals. I had no idea that the pressure and intensity of farm labour could turn a crew of strangers into a little family, huddled together under a tarp as rain hammers down, dunking shreds of bread into soup made from leeks we all grew together.

This series documents a six month reconnection with food, land and community. I had no idea what I was missing.