Category: Fall 2010

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”

October 31 part 2

Well that certainly was an adventure! We took the “Shortcut” to Fosterville from here, then the long way back. The bush road, number 630, was very rough. So rough in fact, that somebody spray-painted some of the bigger rocks protruding from the road surface with orange spray paint to make them more visible!! Never seen that before!
We had a very pleasant visit with Sarah, her husband Len, and their daughters Rachel and Jessica. Our Jessica fit right in with the girls. She has a few things in common with them, former Nanaimo girl, transplanted out into the deep country, having to take the school bus every day. Sarah and Len fed us a nice lunch and we had some good conversation and a few laughs.
They live in Fosterville, NB which is in Lake and Cottage country about 30 KM from the Number 2 Highway between the NB/Quebec Border near Edmundston and Fredericton. Their exit is about 75 KM west of Freddy. It is quite rural, but they have a fairly tight-knit community of year-round residents, which is supplemented in the summer by cottagers from the City.
Sarah’s family bought a 25-acre farm and have dibbs on a neighbouring property to expand their “operation”. They have plans to farm organically there.
They moved out from Nanaimo in the summer this year after their girls were done with school.
Their trip was as also marked with vehicle breakdowns and other adventures, similar to ours.

As I was saying, the trip put to their place was quite rough and bumpy. Our backs were starting to hurt from all the shaking. It was hard on the truck too.
On the way back, we too the long way, along the #2 highway, then the #3 to St. Stephen. It took about the same length of time, even though it was literally 100 kilometers longer on this route. All things are trade-offs. Less fuel consumption versus less wear and tear on bodies, both human and vehicle. Hmm.

October 31/10 First Snow Dusting

So here we are, October 31, Hallowe’en and we woke up to a sugar dusting of snow out there. Not the first time I’ve seen snow this early. In Nanaimo, in 1986 I think it was, Hallowe’en was a brilliant, sunny day not a cloud in the sky. and the next morning we had over 30 cm of snow. I was driving a Stretch Ford 3/4 ton Van at the time, and had ben hauling firewood in it. I thought the suspension had broken, the way it wallowed around on the road. I realized later that it had the snow on the entire length, 17 feet times 6 feet times 1 foot on the roof, so it was quite top-heavy! Lucky I didn’t flip it over.
Anyway, that’s my one “Ancient History” story for this posting.
At Kingsbrae Garden, we’ve been busy putting things “to bed” and putting up storm windows and storm doors on the house/Cafe. A lot of this is different work to what I’m used to doing in Nanaimo, I gardened, and the Utility Crew did all that kind of work.
Weather permitting, I will be showing a Grade 3 class from the elementary school in St. Andrews about compost. They learn about this in school, then they get to do a “field trip” to see how real compost is made. Cool!
Up here on the Ridge, we don’t have a lot of things to put to bed yet this year. The garden crops are done now.
We discovered a company that uses plexiglass to make various plastic products including windows and skylights. They bring the sheets of Lexanin on huge pallets, 6 feet by 10 feet. These make a great base and walls for sheds. We are buying a handful of them to start building outbuildings here on our land. We need housing for the chickens we want to keep, and tool sheds and and and….
We are going to go visit a family today that moved from Nanaimo in the early part of the year, just as we did, and settled in Fosterville, about 100 or so KM northwest of us here. I knew the woman in Nanaimo, through my volunteer activity with the Central Vancouver Island botanical Garden Society, and hers with the Vancouver Island Exhibition. They also had quite an adventurous trip across the country, complete with vehicle breakdowns. Funny how that works.
Oh and yesterday we drove to Fredd’icton (Fredericton in NB talk) and found the Boyce Farmer’s Market downtown. This market is open Saturdays from 6 AM to 1 PM We arrived just after noon, in the lunch rush. It was quite crowded, but it looks like a really nice place. Some prices are a bit high, but the produce is fresh off the farm.

Fall 2010, October 20

Fall is in the air and a lot has happened since my last posting in the summer. Our house is in place and sheltering us nicely from the sometimes heavy rains and very blustery winds up here on St. David ridge. Recently, I cut another significant tie to BC. My ICBC insurance expired and now I have NB plates on my truck. A bittersweet day.

And then there’s Kingsbrae Garden. After the initial job offer advertisement I read in the newspaper, I applied for a job there. They did not respond to my e-mailed cover letter and resume. After almost a month, I e-mailed them, asking if they had even received my application. Next day, I received a very embarassed-sounding e-mail back, saying that they had been busy and that the job was filled, apply again in Spring. Three weeks after that, Another e-mail arrived in my inbox on a Friday afternoon. Due to a change in circumstances, they were taking applications again. They had taken the liberty of slotting me in for 10 AM on the following Tuesday. Was I still available? I replied that I was and was looking forward to seeing them then. The interview went well, Andreas, the manager and Bob, the assistant manager were the “committee”. Next morning, Wednesday, at 8:10 AM I got a phone call, asking if I would start the next day , Thursday, August 20. Well, that was easy.

So I’ve joined to the ranks of the semi-retired, working on average 3 days a week. In the winter season, after November 5, I will be working 1 or 2 days a week. The garden closed officially to the public on October 9, but does still allow visitors, if they are willing to brave the hustle and bustle of putting the garden to bed.

My workmates are all pretty good people, like to work there, but also like to have their winters off on EI. Different sort of lifestyle. It’s all about getting enough hours to qualify, then it is a kind of happy atmosphere as the cutoff days come close.

The Garden is an interesting place. It was originally conceived in 1996, the same year that the Central Vancouver Island Botanical Garden Society was formed, with a very similar aim. Construction began in early 1997 and was completed in late 1998. It is comprised of several themed, formal and informal gardens. It shows how you can make an extraordinary place with a lot of normal garden plants, with relatively few exotics. Part of the reason is of course, the cold climate zone. This is at around 5 here, with some warmer pockets in Saint Andrews, where the garden is situated.

All in all, I like working there, “Keeps me off the streets, not like my last job!”

There are several alpacas, some goats, chickens and peacocks as part of the displays here. Also, there are 2 resident cats and 2 resident dogs. The cats have the run of the place and often greet visitors. the dogs are confined to the Works yard by a buried wire system

One dog, Bubba, is quite old and some days doesn’t feel the shock of the collar and ventures out. This makes for a cute, interesting situation on some days. There are also resident foxes in the garden. On fox apparently likes to play a “chase me” game with old Bubba. He is seen running up a pathway with Bubba in “hot” pursuit.
When Foxy gets too far ahead, he stops and waits for Bubba to catch up a bit so they can resume the chase. Guess they probably know each other on a first-name basis, and the fox knows he’s pretty safe doing this.