So, we are back in BC, have been here for 3 months already. As of the end of November 2016, we have been living in our RV for 7 months.
It’s been quite an experience for us, travelling about 18,000 kilometers, between 13,000 and 14,000 towing our trailer.
Category: Daily Musings
Thoughts, observations
Blogosphere vs. Social Media
My not being online here in our Blog and not posting makes it appear that I am not “here” at all. Yet, I do spend a fair bit of time.-some days too much time, on Facebook. Sometimes I even post photos. Marie certainly does. It just seems that somehow Facebook makes it easier, and I know that I am actually reaching people with what I post there. I need to do some more research into how the two can mesh more smoothly.
Communications
I am currently in negotiations with Rogers Wireless. Their service out here is TERRIBLE. If I want to make a call, I have to walk out to the road to get a reliable signal. If the breeze blows the wrong way, the signal drops. Also, they have the “Edge” or GSM service out here. We are paying for “3G” or “4G” which seems only to be available in the bigger cities. Bell, on the other hand, has the higher speed service everywhere. HMMMM.. This all started when my iPhone died a premature death. The repplacement phone they sent me, a Motorola Quench, was “quenched” –that is to say–died– after all of 3 days usage! I can’t be that hard on phones, can I?
Laid Off from Kingsbrae
Well, now I am a “gentleman of leisure” once again. Well sort of. I was laid off from my seasonal job at Kingsbrae Garden and have, for the first time in my life, applied for Unemployment –or rather– Employment Insurance. It remains to be seen if they actually grant me this, with my pension and all. We shall see. In the meantime, I am spending more time finishing off existing projects and starting new ones. Hen House, Snow shelter for the “tractor” and snow blower so they will be more easily accessible in the coldest parts of the winter.
This weekend, we had a pre-taste of winter here on the Ridge. A couple of inches of snow actually stayed put. Down in town, everything is nice and green still. Today, it felt like spring, with melt water dripping off the roof everywhere, on your head, down your neck….
The joys of country living.
Fall 2011
A gardening friend just recently told me somewhat reproachfully that I am not keeping my blog updated. “Guilty as Charged!”
Not like I don’t have time. If everything I have thought about posting was here, the blog would be much fuller.
So..here goes.
It has been an very busy summer, with many “learning moments”
Working at Kingsbrae has been a good experience. It is serving to keep me humble, but more about that later. I have met many new, interesting people. The more people I meet, the more connections I discover back to BC, and even to Vancouver Island. I was chatting with a woman, who told me she has a place in Ladysmith, the next town south from Nanaimo. Turns out she knows, and has had visits from the young man who took over my job when I left the Parks Department. She even knew that the man he replaced had moved to New Brunswick…. Again, “Guilty as Charged”. Small World!!
I am finding that I am making more connections in Saint Andrews than in the Saint Stephen region though. Contacts with the various Garden Clubs helps moderate that.
Now, about Humble Pie. I find that, like many of the students who came to work at Parks, I have felt the need to challenge some of the practices at Kingsbrae, because they were not in my nearly 30-year long “Rule Book”. I have to reflect on the changes, sometimes almost daily. I realize that just as the students learned things “by the book” and didn’t understand why we didn’t do things that way, I have to review some practices of mine. Keeps life interesting, if nothing else.
The homestead is developing reasonably well. Spring was kind of chilly this year, and the blackflies came out in maddening force early on. This made planting a garden challenging here. Marie planted a number of plants in containers for her Straw Bale Gardens. These were planted out, with some losses to slugs. I planted seed for squashes and corn, later in the season, thinking in mynaivete that they would surely all grow anyway. Not so. We last many plants to a harsh frost in the first week in October. The pumpkins she planted did exceptionally well though. the Squashes I planted had a few good “fruit” but many died on the vine from the frost. The corn…well now, there was another big serving of Humble Pie. I set a lot of seeds, and planted the plants in different sections of the developing garden. I have NEVER had such an embarassing harvest of corn. Stunted, poorly developed, barely fit for the chickens. Clearly lacking a few things in the soil. Marie first asked me what army I was going to feed with the corn. I replied, that we could freeze what we didn’t eat right away and if it got too ripe, we could feed the chickens. HMM….
“There’s always next year”
We are working on plans for the 2012 season. I will be building a Sugar Shack down in the woods so we can cook off the Maple Syrup from the trees we have identified as tapping candidates for Spring.
I hope to have a functioning greenhouse soon so we can have a sun room to sit in on those sunny but bone-chilling winter days, and still get a tan. That will be fun. Then we can get a better start on the tender plants so they will have a jump on the weather, and get out sooner and give us more garden bounty!
Oh.. the German Butterball potatoes I mail ordered from Eagle Creek Seed Potato Farm did quite well for us. Delicious, and definitely worth ordering more for next season!
Marie has been crocheting sweaters for
Country Crafters Woolens in Saint Andrews since summer now. Very satisfying for her! She has started giving Crocheting Lessons at the Wool Emporium in Saint Stephen. That is going well for her. She gave a well-received talk on Herbs at the Social Gardeners Club in Saint Stephen yesterday (October 17). She has been invited for repeat performances at 2 other garden clubs. I am PROUD of her!
May 15, 2011
Well now, here we go again! Feels like we are back in Nanaimo these days….wet, drizzly foggy, mixed in with a few sort of sunny days. A former workmate in Nanaimo called their weather there Mayvember.
One good thing is that things are finally greening up. Daffodils are almost done blooming, as are the forsythias. These things are 2 months later than Nanaimo, as previously noted. Native plants and flowers and trees are beginning to bloom.
We ended up tapping 7 maple trees and they gave us between 3 and 4 liters of yummy syrup. We’ll be tapping quite a few more next year. I am making plans to build a sugar shack in the bush so we don’t steam up our house and so we don’t have to haul so much water up the hill. As I have learned now, this will need to be built before the snow starts flying or it’s not getting done till next year.
It is now a year since we arrived in New Brunswick, May 7, to be exact. We were parked at the end of what seemed like a long lake, but was actually a driveway with many potholes and huge puddles, allowing the water to flow across it. Good thing we aren’t there now.
We have been exploring, going to the Garden Club meetings, and meeting other gardeners. Recently, we went to Cambridge Narrows, east of Gagetown/Oromocto to meet Howard and Marilyn Erb. They run a(n) Herb Farm that they call H.Erb’s Herbs. Good name, eh? We found out about them from the Tourism New Brunswick book last year and decided we HAD to go meet them. It was about a 2-hour drive, but it was definitely worth it.
They are such nice people and they had most of the plants we were looking for.
Marie has been planting seeds in the house to plant in her straw bale garden outside. It has been king of chilly so outside planting has been iffy at best. May Long Weekend is still the best time to plant.
The frogs have been “tweeting” for a couple of weeks now and the bugs are starting to fly again. Soon the Lightning Bugs will be doing their magic show again. The kids are doing okay. Sadly, they won’t be moving into “their” house because the relationship between our daughter and her partner self-destructed. He kept the house. Hmm. Now they are talking seriously about moving back to BC. Before we even started our plans, we were aware that it was always a possiblility that they might move back, and we determined that in any case, we were doing this for “our” adventure as much as to be near the “Kidlets”
The Ides of March, 2011
It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade. ~Charles Dickens
This quote nicely sums up the weather today. In the last 2 weeks, the snow has shrunk dramatically and we are almost out of the worst of it now. Weather forecast says there may me a couple more minor snow storms on the way, but nothing much to get exercised about.
Since my last posting, I have come to the realization that maybe this weather here isn’t quite so bad after all. Sure you have to shovel it. The morning after a bad storm, the sun is usually shining and the roads are cleared early. Life looks not too bad in the sun.
Now, we are starting to see open ground, for the first time since the floods of December 13 and 15. 3 months of snow…
We have taps on some maple (I hope they are maple) trees in our bush. Two of the taps are actually producing some sap. We just have to see which are the best trees for the purpose, mark them for next season, and look out Aunt Jemima, no more maple-flavoured syrup from you! I think we will even plant a handful of real Sugar Maple (Acer saccharinum) trees on the place so eventually they can be tapped when they are big enough. Either by ourselves or by others after us here.
We are making active plans for gardens, vegetable, herb and other, for the upcoming summer season. Our hens made it through the winter. Right now, two are laying, the others are taking a winter break. Don’t blame them, they need to conserve resources to live in that cold. We have ordered more birds for later in the Spring.
We’ll be building a barn and a garage to get things stored **inside** next winter so we can find them. and where they hopefully don’t freeze solid to the ground.
Yep, things are looking up! Working one day a week at Kingsbrae right now, may be working a couple of days more at the Plant Center there in April, and then 3 days a week in the garden, and 2 days a week in the Plant Center (Garden Center).
Life’s getting better all the time! Now to file my last year’s Income Tax. With the move and all, it isn’t as simple and straight-forward.
Baby, It’s COLD Out There!
Forgive my rant.
Soo here’s the wet coast guy, “Come From Away”, telling the Kingsbrae gardeners all about working through the winter. They don’t get me, and I don’t get them, saying they want to have their feet up by the fire.
No WONDER they gave me these strange, pitying looks. They’ve lived here all their lives.
We lived a bit north of the 49th parallel and here we are just north of the 45th!! How cold can it get?? So it gets a bit chilly! Deal with it!
Ahuh.
Well, now we know a little better.
We have a whole new appreciation for the term cold now, living here. At least I do… Marie has lived in really cold places in her adulthood. I don’t remember the cold from when my family lived on the prairies when I was a child. Probably blocked out the memory.
Here’s another rub: When we situated our home here, we put it at the top of the property. Awesome views. Spectacular sunsets. Nice, cooling breeze, keeps the heat down in the summer……..
Oh, did I mention the Nice Cooling Breeze? Keeps the heat down in the winter too! Roars around the trailer, parked beside the house, partly as a windbreak……at the WRONG side of the house, as it turns out! Next winter, it is not gonna be parked in the RV parking spot!
I’ve been down on the lower part of the property when it was kind of cool and breezy at the house. This was at the NORTH end of the property. I had to take off a layer of sweater to keep from overheating. It was sheltered and pleasant down there.
Of course, we have our well and septic field on the top of the hill. It would cost us another $18,000 to install another well and septic field at the bottom of the hill. HMM. Guess we won’t be moving house down there for a while, even though this is a “moveable” house.
Adding to this, is the following: At the top of our hill, we can watch the sun shine DOWN onto the lower portion of the land, a good hour or more before it even starts to touch our house. So much for Solar Gain first thing in the morning. The sun does shine on the house longer in the afternoon, so it partly makes up for this oversight. Down below, the sun sets a lot earlier too……I guess you just. can’t. win..
Now we better understand significance of the question, “Why EVER would you want to move HERE??”
I guess we will be buying snowshoes some time soon. That way we can walk around and see the various animal tracks in the snow before they blow away or get snowed on again, and not sink into the snow up to our knees or beyond and fill our boots with snow.
The Sun, the Golden Sun!
Sitting here in the afternoon, basking in the warmth of the sun that has been shining into our living room, while it is -10C outside, got me thinking. AGAIN. This is getting dangerous, this thinking!
Solar energy is such a wonderful thing that needs to be further harnessed in the winter while it is available……..Or isn’t it all solar energy?
On a cold day, the electricity heats our place. Others use heating oil. We are planning to install a wood stove soon to curtail the use of our electric heaters. What is it all but stored solar energy?
Think about it. The trees capture solar energy through photosynthesis and store it. We dry the cut trees –in that same sun– then, burn them to release the energy stored within.
The heating oil, drawn from the ground, was at some point in the distant past, produced by the influence of the same sun, storing its energy.
The electricity, however it is produced, is originally a product of –solar energy.
Even the materials that produce power from nuclear energy were originally formed in a nuclear fusion reaction, where, but in either our sun or another star that had the potential for making them.
We humans have developed the ability to make all that energy more readily, conveniently, and cleanly available to more people, at a cost.
We lament not being able to use the sun’s energy directly. But we are, we all are! It’s just how we do it and how much money it costs us. This doesn’t mean to stop trying to devise other, simpler ways of capturing the energy produced by the sun. It’s just that nature has already dealt with the problem for many eons and has perfected mass storage systems.
January 2011—-Depths of Winter
Winter is much colder here than on Vancouver Island, even though we are 4 degrees latitude farther south. We have had snow on the ground since early December, actually since the week Marie had gone to Nanaimo after her sister Cathe’s unfortunate death. Except for the couple of days when we had the huge rainfall and flooding in the area here.
Mercifully, we do get more sunshine than on the Island, so that brightens it up.
Sunrises are not bad, but they are hidden behind a hill from our place. Sunsets, on the other hand, are truly spectacular.
We had a “Sun Spike” sunset a few days ago. Hadn’t seen that before.
Breathtaking! Apparently, this occurs when ice crystals in the atmosphere reflect the sunset light upwards into the almost flame-shaped spike.
Our hens seem to be doing well in their henhouse. Clucking and crooning, and laying eggs. They are 6, and they lay between 3 and 5 eggs a day. Some days, they even lay 6 eggs. Keeps us going, and they have paid for their feed now since we got them in mid-December.
The henhouse is build out of recycled pallets, new plywood and OSB strandboard. The walls and roof are closed in with plastic tarp and Particle Board Sandpaper Belting.. Makes for a good, solid and effective house. We light up the inside with an incandescent (GASP! How Old School!) light bulb from 7 AM until 9 PM. We need to change out their water 3 times a day at least so they can drink. We usually give them warm water so it lasts longer before it freezes again. Besides, they like it when it’s warm.
We are thinking a lot about the next growing season and what we are going to plant and grow, and where on our land we will do this.
We have been walking around and “surveying” to see where we want to make more trails, where to clear, and where to build bridges across our creek and “pond”. Bits of orange ribbon are beginning to appear all over trees on the place.
Time is stretching out…watching Star Trek TOS reruns on DVD, and Mythbusters on Netflix. HMM.
Work at Kingsbrae is scarce due to the weather and the money is getting scarce at the end of the month…
This too shall pass. The first winter is the most challenging.