Category: Daily Musings

First,  some news.  The preparations on the  home site are done till the delivery date of July 8.  The septic field is usable, and has been approved.  The well has to have regulatory approvals finished, including water testing.  It will be completed after the power is connected…………….whenever that happens, hopefully on the 9th.  The drillers went down to 270 feet depth, and we have 2.5 gallons per minute flow.  Not huge, but adequate.    Permits and NB Power bureaucracy on top of  Health bureaucracy and and and…..

Then, I called to confirm if the truck was really going to be ready on Friday.   In a word, Non!  Rappelez (call back) Lundi ou Mardi .  The body shop guy also wants to be sure he gets paid for his work.  Understandable.  This whole process has been somewhat of an adventure in and of itself.  ICBC in Surrey, BC contracted a company in Quebec city to deal with the French-speaking body shop.  Quebec City contracted an insurance adjuster in Grand Falls, New Brunswick to go there because he is closer to the site.  Nice guy on the phone, Nelson Paradis, aka Butch.  I keep having to ride herd on everybody because they are all busy and now and then one person doesn’t sent stuff on the the next one, and then the last one in the chain went on holidays.  Fun and games.  Better that though than being confined to a hospital or having not survived the accident and leaving Marie with all the hassles to deal with on her own.

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Confined Spaces

This is not about entering underground chambers or manholes filled with toxic or noxious gases.  This is about living in a trailer for two and a half months and still staying sane and getting along with your partner.

Before we left on our adventure, I wondered how this would work out.  We had been camping for a night or two in the trailer.  We had been camping in tents in the past. We slept in the back of my 3/4 ton stetch Ford van years ago. We even spent a night together in the back of our little Ford Escort Station Wagon, bcause we could.  Now THAT was cozy.
Sure, I have read about other couples who have lived and travelled in much smaller trailers than ours. We always had somewhere to go back to.  Early on in the What IF phases of speculation, Marie had suggested selling the house and going Gypsy for a year or two or….  I emphatically said NO because I was concerned about this concept.  I now know I was right.

While we were travelling across Canada, it wasn’t too bad, because we had somewhere to go, a goal to distract us from the size of the space.  Even when we were stopped in Merritt for the week after the truck broke down, it wasn’t too bad yet.  I was in a bad state of mind in Saskatoon, after the tire blowout, I was nearly ready to turn back, more due to the mechanical problems, than the space issue.  Mostly the trip was smooth sailing after that, every day was another goal to reach, then to rest up for the next leg of the trip.

Once we got here, we thought we would be moving on to a property fairly quickly.  Days turned into weeks, as we dealt with the banker, realtors, careful lawyers.  We had the grand kids over one at a time for their traditional “Overnight” with us.  As I said, we were parked on a quiet, dark coountry road between fairly tall trees.

We had had others stay in the trailer with us last summer…. but during one stuffy, VERY dark night on Jessica’s Overnight, with our bedroom exit door blocked with luggage and laundry baskets, and the pass-through doors to the bathroom closed, found me waking up,. unable to breathe in the pitch dark.  I felt trapped, like I was drowning in the humidity and non-moving air.    I had to calm myself and carefully make my way through to the front door of the trailer and go outside to catch fresh air. Not good.  Made me think of prisoners locked in small cells, even solitary confinement.  I couldn’t imagine being locked up like that.  I had toget outside several times that night.  I have since put a solar light on the back bumper outside our bedroom window as a “night light” to orient myself in the dark.  We have other small lights here and there in the trailer as well.

I know, I know, City Kid out in the country, used to a street light every 100 feet, freaked out about the dark….here the street lights are about 1 or 2 km apart.  The NB Power guy, who came out to check our place for installation of an electric hookup, asked if we wanted a “Dusk-to-Dawn” light in our yard.  In spite of all that, we turned him down on the suggestion.  I guess they give this option to customers, at their expense, since it is before the meter.

After the Overnight with the third kid, Joe, the oldest,  the grandkids actually suggested that we postpone the Overnights till we were in our house because they didn’t like the small space and the tension they felt from us.  At first, we thought we would be heroic, but on reflection we decided that this would be the best option.

Marie also has had a couple of tense nights, not so much about space, but about the “no-see-ems” that get through the bug screens, and mosquitoes that sneak in when we go in and out of the trailer.

We certainly have the dodging to get by each other down pat now.  Moving three things to get at the one thing we need, well, that’s getting old..Stepping over Bella and having her react nervously like we were going to step on her, that can be irritating.  Our cats, Pi and Snoopy bounding over everything, including us, like it’s their personal jungle gym, that is really unnerving and at times painful when they are moving at top speed.  I think even they are feeling the strain though and do try to be accommodating.  We will all be very happy when we are in our new home, small as it may seem, it’s still nearly three times the size of this trailer!  AND Brand New! We are living in about 240 crowded square feet.  Apparently the rule of thumb for minimum space for a couple is 540 square feet.  No wonder.

It’s not quite the same as building our own home, having this one delivered.. but we do understand that living in this trailer is sort of tolerable in the summer, but being confined to quarters in this space as a construction shack, through the winter, could get to be quite intolerable.  Not to mention cold and expensive, since the insulation in the trailer is not up to temperatures close to minus 20 C.  That would be a serious challenge!

We are “dry camping” at the end of Lynnfield Road, 25 KM outside of St. Stephen. Geographical co-ordinates of 45deg 4′ 41″ N ; 67deg 3′ 51″ W.   If somebody were to set up a roller coaster from here to town, it would be quite the thrill ride. Some of the hills nearly make your stomach drop out when you clear the crest!

Google Maps “Live” version of the map.  Opens in  new page.

We are at the road end of a 300-meter driveway, that is more like an obstacle course, with deep potholes and huge puddles. This leads to the hunting cabin where the kidzz live. This is not the location where they are building their home, but the price is right for them right now till their place is livable. That is in Canoose, about 20 km by road, probably 5-7 km as the crow flies, on the next ridge over. Our new place is also about 20 km away by road, and maybe 15 km as the crow flies, on the next ridge in the other direction.

“Dry Camping” can be fun for a weekend, even fun for a week or so, but it is getting kind of “old”, making us look forward even more to our new place in July. When we first arrived, our trailer batteries ran out of power after 3 days of careful use. NEW golf cart batteries costing $400 and a couple of skinned knuckles for the pair, no less! But I guess that’s what they were designed for. A weekend or so. In the summer, when you don’t much use the furnace, they can last longer. The solar panel is old and gives them at best a trickle charge. So we drove to Fredericton and bought a generator at Home Depot. $1,000 for one that can pull up to 5700 watts steady and can put put up to 7500 surge watts. We use it a couple of hours a day, to run appliances as needed, and charge up our “toys”. Phones we can charge in the car. But you can’t really justify going for a drive just to charge up the old iPhone..

On hot days, we’ve even run the air conditioner in the trailer. Ahhh, now that’s roughing it! Not for long, just to cool it off a bit, because that really makes the generator use fuel quickly.

I have to haul water to the trailer on an almost daily basis, down the bumpy driveway in a wagon, 4 20-liter bottles at a time and pour them into the trailer’s fresh water tank. Grey water can be drained on site, it isn’t much of a hazard and doesn’t smell too bad either. We don’t use harsh chemicals. The highlight of my week is taking away the “black water” in a “tidy tank”, 25 gallons at a time and dumping it at a campground dumping site some 20 km from here. Right now, with my truck still in the body shop, I have to enlist Mitch and Christina’s help for this job.

Now the fridge situation is a whole different ball of wax. When we first bought this trailer, we discovered that the RV fridge was leaking ammonia. WHOOWHEE! What a stink! A replacement would cost about $1600, and even replacement coils cost $800! So I removed it and we bought a little bar fridge for $199.00 at London Drugs on sale. It stays kinda cool with the intermittent electricity. Can’t keep easily perishable stuff in it for long though. We’ve even given up on the plug-in cooler box too because it can drain the batteries on the trailer or even in the truck over night. It’s embarrassing you have to ask for a boost because you left the cooler in the truck to keep supper cold. As long as we were driving, it was great, we had frozen water. Mike’s Hard lemonade and beer turned into slushies! That was fun.

So now we buy supper for one day, or at most two days at a time. There is NO Cell service where we are, and we aren’t set up for internet either. Consequently, we HAVE to go into town annnyway to get our Internet fix every day -except weekends- at the public library. The nice ladies there are going to miss our smiling faces when we don’t come down every day any more. They were among the first people we met when we arrived here in town.

The kidzz have a landline with unlimited Canada-wide long distance. This is okay for now and then, and for emergencies, but we don’t want to abuse this either.

Now about an essential service (for us anyway) — Internet Access. In New Brunswick, the Provincial Government has decided to subsidize high speed internet access to all areas, especially rural. A company called Xplorenet is making this possible. They are setting up towers in a sort of grid pattern to allow for “fixed wireless” access. In areas where this is not done yet, they have set up satellite dish access. This has the disadvantage of having a distinct time lag. Weather conditions at either your location or at the base station can also affect the clarity of the signal,. so we’ve been told. We have already ordered the Fixed Wireless for our new place. Apparently, a new tower was set up on St. David Ridge just recently, “just in time” for our arrival! Th customer end of the system consists of a beige coloured box that contains the wireless antenna and a modem. It is mounted on the outside of the house and points toward the tower. Cable runs into the house and we hook up a wireless router to it, and Presto! We have High Speed Internet at home again! Can’t wait! I even brought our 0ld wireless G router along, but I want to get a Wireless N longer range router actually, so  we can mess online  around away from the house too.

All in good time.

UPDATE HOT OFF THE PRESSES

The home site is almost ready!  The well drillers are on site today.  The setup for the septic system will be done tomorrow, then the house pad can be finished.  Friday I am going to Quebec to get my truck back from the body shop, then Saturday we are moving the trailer over to our place!  When the house gets delivered, all we have to do is back the trailer out of the way for a short while till it is set into place, and we will be done!

This part of New Brunswick has been a friendly place for us so far. The most common question we get–and got back in BC– has been “Why New Brunswick and why here?” “Grandkids” usually suffices as an answer.

The people are helpful and informative.
We have a lot to learn about the history here.

According to the Tourism books we have gotten for free here, there is a lot  going on all year round in New Brunswick

People in coastal BC and on Vancouver Island shudder at the cold and snow that happens out here. New Brunswickers have embraced winter, getting right into winter sports of various kinds. Many yards have a grass-bound skidoo or two parked beside the house –or sheltered from the weather in a shed or barn. Ski hills are not very common, but there are a few where the terrain allows it.

One impression that we have gotten from the drive across Canada, is that east of the Rockies, you can see the effect of the aging population, and in some ways, the migration of people to the big cities. So many farms have old, falling-down houses on them. Clearly, the family farms are not being kept much any more. On the prairies, the land is still being used to grow crops, and the cropping often just goes around the ruins. Here in New Brunswick, the land is often abandoned,and allowed to grow over into trees again.

I had the opportunity to be present when New Brunswick’s premier, Shaun Graham, was in St. Stephen, on a campaign tour for the September 27 election. He pointed out that last year, the population decline in the province has been reversed for the first time in a while. 6,000 people more live here now than the year before. Doesn’t sound like many, but over all it’s the equivalent of a community like St. Stephen.

The terrain here is all rolling hills. Lakes and streams abound. The forests have largely been cut over several times since the first settlers arrived in the 1600’s.

The trees growing are very diverse. Birches, aspens, including the quaking aspen, alders, spruces, firs, various types of pine, tamarack (larix) are the most common species. Cottonwoods grow in places, as do the Eastern Red Cedar. Dogwood shrubs grow in the underbrush. We have found Virginia Creeper growing up power poles and creeping over some roads and buildings.

Bunchberry or Cornus canadensis abounds in the Spring on the edges of forests. In the past few years, the roadsides on the highways and country roads have not been mowed regularly. We have been finding that Columbines, Valerian, daisies, Lupines, Black-eyed Susan, even day lilies and many other plants that we out west would have to pay good money to buy, grow wild as roadside weeds. Conversely, apparently, people going “out west” are finding some of their garden plants on the roadsides there. Of course, there are the common ones all across the country, buttercup, dandelion, various clovers for instance.
Many fields, like our blueberry field, have lines of rock walls, with the occasional pile of boulders that were moved, mostly by horseback I would guess, to make them more easily arable. It’s fascinating to follow these rock walls into the trees to see where they lead.

We are going to have to do a fair bit of “weeding” to clear out small trees that have started to take over our blueberry field to begin to make them more productive again. This will be a challenge.

We finally decided to rustle out our passports and drive across the river to Calais (pronounced like Calluss) Maine.  We drove down the coast a bit out of town and were able to look back across the water to see “our” part of the world.  Interesting sensation.  Cross-border viewing at its best!.   Then we went touring around town and found Walmart and a place called Marden’s, a large surplus and liquidation store a minute’s drive from the border crossing. Shopping places that everybody raves about, especially since the next Walmarts in Canada are in Fredericton and St. John,  one hour and one and a half hours drive, respectively.

The ladies at the Tourism Maine place were also very friendly. They looked like they had had a quiet day and were glad to see someone actually come in. We were immediately able to hear the “Maine” accent which is quite different from the New Brunswick accent.

We weren’t really sure what to expect when driving over. The border agent was polite and firm. She closely scrutinized our passports, and Marie’s driver’s licence. She took some notice that Marie’s hair was longer than it was in the passport photo. After a couple more questions, she allowed us to pass. The American border agents all look quite intimidating with their large, deadly-looking side-arms that they carry in a holster in plain view on their belts. No messing around there!! On the way back, the Canadian agent simply asked us how much we had spent–around $20.00 plus lunch, at MacDonald’s. no less!–then sent us on our way.

The other day, Marie and I were shopping in the Atlantic Superstore, when a woman stopped us and exclaimed that she had just been discussing “that cookie” called Nanaimo Bar and then she saw me wearing my City of Nanaimo shirt. She had seen Bird’s Custard Powder in the store, and had remarked that this custard was one of the ingredients in the Nanaimo Bar. She hadn’t seen the powder in Maine,where she lived, for years, and then here we were.. what a coincidence! We had a nice chat in the aisle of the store, then parted ways.

Ohh and did I mention the fireflies? This is pretty magical., hundreds of little lights blinking on and off, starting at dusk and going through till the middle of the night. Our cameras aren’t sensitive enough to record videos of any but the very brightest of the flashes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefly

Work is progressing at our “New Age Homestead”.  Driveway is being compacted, septic service will be installed soon,  as will the well.

My truck will be ready to be picked up from the body shop in Cabano, Quebec a week today,  on July 2.  An entire month since the accident!  I’ve been told over and over again how lucky I was not to be even injured.  Everybody seems to have a story about a friend or acquaintance who was not so lucky.

I was looking through the local newspaper, the Charlotte County Courier yesterday and found a job posting for an Experienced  Landscape Gardener at Kingsbrae Garden in St Andrews, the next town up the Fundy Coast.  I hadn’t really considered going back to work so soon, but here’s an opportunity and I could use a bit of extra cash since moving and setting up a new place always takes a bit more money than you anticipate.  HMM  I guess we’ll see.

So that bird from yesterday woke us up at 5:58 this morning by tapping and banging on the window. Seems it is annoyed by the “Other Bird” it keeps seeing in the reflective covering of our trailer windows. He keeps trying to drive THAT BIRD away, with no success! I ended up hanging a tarp over the window–up on the roof ladder of the trailer in my housecoat and slippers at 6:30 AM!! What a sight that must have been……
In the mean time, we’ve ben so busy and excited about our place that we (well I) forgot about our 21st wedding anniversary till last night… OOPS! Guess jumping around excited about the construction is going tobe our anniversary celebration today. HMM

Gray day, I woke up very abruptly this morning because my cat Pi used my forehead as a launch pad to the trailer bedroom window to see a little bird that was dining on bugs in the bushes out back.  Kept Pi and Snoopy totally absorbed in trying to get through the window for more than two hours!  I have a goodly sized scratch to show for it.  So lucky she didn’t get my eye!

Marie researched the bird on the internet and found out it is a Chestnut-sided Warbler.

There’s more progress at the property today.  The driveway’s done, gravel in the home site.  The Septic tank was delivered and the power pole was set in place.

I guess the one thing that is a bit sad about building a house anywhere, is that the site has to be disrupted from its previous, green status.  When asked about changing out gardens while working at the City of Nanaimo, I used to say, “You’ve got to break an egg to  to make an Omlett”  Big egg, big Omlett.  The one good thing about this site is that the disruptiion doesn’t take up the majority of the land, as it does in smaller lots.  It’s still nearly an acre by my estimation, but we still have nearly 16 acres undisturbed (that we will disturb in other ways as things progress)

This photo shows the size of the machine, and some of the disruption on the site… ah well.. we still have LOTS of blueberries left on the land!

The other day, we set up our mailbox on the road side, and sure enough, the next day we already got junk mail in it!

Here we are, Summer of 2010 is finally upon us.  Things are really happening in our “Change of Life”  The driveway and “door yard” and the pad for our home is being installed as we speak.  Septic system and well will be installed within a day or two!