It’s a Monday afternoon and I’m in the Seattle airport. I’ve just flown in from Los Angeles, and I’m 70 percent confident that a man named Bob is going to pick me up and take me to Vashon Island. I’ve talked to Bob once on the phone, two days ago, and gave him my flight information. I notice that my phone is getting a call from someone with a Seattle area code. I answer it, then look up to see an elderly gentlemen also on the phone looking in my direction. It’s Bob.

When I emailed Bob about volunteering on his Vashon Island farm, he told me to tell him the dates I wanted to come up and let him know when I was flying in. That was it. I like his style.

It takes us a little while to locate his car inside the mammoth parking garage, but we eventually find it, an Acura sedan with a Bernie Sanders bumper sticker. Bob nearly hits an oncoming car backing out of the parking space, and I start scanning the traffic around us with amplified alertness. Ten minutes later we join a line of cars waiting for the next ferry to Vashon. We notice a black SUV pull a U-turn and cut in front of half the line. When we get closer to the dock, we see the SUV being asked to turn around by one of the ferry employees. Apparently, one of the other drivers informed the employee of the SUV’s dishonorable action. “Good job getting that guy,” Bob tells the employee when we go by.

It takes the ferry about 15 minutes to reach Vashon, and we drive off south toward the other end of the island. We stop by the grocery store so I can pick up some supplies for the week. Bob runs into four or five people he knows in the store and we guess the weight of a giant pumpkin that’s on display. Vashon Island, I will read later, is larger in land area than Manhattan but has 1/150th of the population (a little over 10,000). The median age is 50.

We arrive at Bob’s property, and he drops me off at the two-story barn at the back of the property. I meet him later in the garden, and it’s quickly established that my fruit tree identification skills need some work.

The next morning I get up 10 minutes before the rooster makes its first call and run my route up the country road, past the pen of geese and goats, and out along the southern end of Vashon. The sun hasn’t risen yet, and Mount Rainier is just a huge black prominence with an orange glow behind it. I start work on the farm a little earlier than 9 a.m. and end up weeding the strawberry patch for three hours straight. All this work for a fruit that I never eat.

A couple hours in, Bob approaches and asks, “Do you need money?” I’m not sure how to respond. “My neighbor says he’ll hire you to harvest his marijuana crop for $15 an hour.” As interesting as harvesting marijuana might be, I tell Bob I’m content to stay and get things done at Appleheart.

Bob is 89 years old, no more than 5 feet 10 inches tall with a significantly stooped posture, but he still moves around pretty fast. Occasionally I’ll have to help him negotiate some aspect of modern life, like how to get out of a paid parking lot or load staples into an electric staple gun.

On Saturday, Allie from Seattle comes out to the island to visit. We go to the farmers market in downtown Vashon, and it feels a little like a market you might find in a small hamlet in the days of Robin Hood. We stop at a stall of locally written books and flip through “The ABC’s of Vashon Island.”

“You know a 10 year old wrote that,” says the bookseller with pride. “There she is.” And there at the other side of the stall is young Sofia herself.

I ask her for activity recommendations around Vashon and then we head out. Our first venture is Island Center Forest. We walk through an enchanting valley of ferns and firs and take turns choosing which way to go whenever we come to a fork in the path. About a mile into the forest we begin passing people with bright orange reflective vests on, but besides them we see no other hikers. We come to learn that the individuals in orange are deer hunters, and the forest is currently closed to the public. Allie and I decide it’s probably a good idea to head back to the car.

We get lunch in town and then go on the hike that young Sofia recommended. There are actually other civilians on this trail and no deer hunters, and the forest canopy protects us from the light rain that is beginning to fall.

This is Vashon Island.

— Connor Hastings is from California and spent time on Vashon in October volunteering on a local farm.