April was quite a varied month. We spent a lot of time on community building activities and a bit less on the house itself.
Our friend Harry, from Block Island and Vermont, arrived just in time to attend our one year anniversary party. We invited 20 people who had been involved with us in the house and community for supper and the evening. It was a diverse group and we enjoyed getting them all together.
Soon after that, our neighbors, Gary and Judi, decided to bring parents here to live with them. This meant they had to tear down a barn and build an addition to their house. Taking down the barn turned into a real community project. We built a shed for storage, cleaned out the barn and moved the woodpile in just a couple of days. When the barn was pushed over we then salvaged the best of the remaining wood. At times we had nine or more involved in the neighborhood 'job' working and eating meals together. It's a pretty neat feeling to be in a place where this happens -- not just on big jobs -- but every day in small ways.
A big event that was unexpected was that our neighbors, Vaughn and Charlie, decided to sell their house. These are the guys who operate the cheese factory. The good news is that our friends, Nina & Harry, decided to buy it. Besides the house she got about a dozen sheep. She will be moving next door in mid-May. Harry is buying part of the property and will be building his house at the back of te properlty down by the Cheboque River. This will give all of us a wonderful 'core' community of neighbors within 'across the street' distance. The planets certainly lined up on this one!
In our house the big projects have been finishing up the downstairs bathroom/utility area, getting a new floor in the kitchen/daybreak room, building a fence, starting the decks, and clearing trails on the berry patch. Sue did a nice job of painting the trim and wainscoting in the bathroom area and about all we have left there is the floor painting and a couple of shelves. The kitchen/daybreak floor, birch, was installed in early April and looks very nice. That was the only area of the house where we needed a new floor so we decided to go with a nice hardwood. It is a pretty dramatic contrast with the old wide boards. We built a fence using old lath with a left over siding cap between what will be the deck and the parking area. It came out very well. Have started the deck and walk area in the back. We got all the substructure material from Gary's barn so just have to buy material for the deck surface. I have been working on clearing trails on the berry patch. Some are for general walking and others are for better access to the acres of blackberries, apple trees, and mountain ash (fruit edible) that grow there.
On the social side, Sue went to Halifax with her friend, Ann, and got her wedding outfit. I am now working on what mine should be. We went to the big social event of the season - a variety show at the local theater with Sue participating in several line dance acts. We also went to a theater performance about Yarmouth's past by a local playwrite. We are still doing couples line dancing once a week and Sue does some other nights single. She is very good.
We went back to Connecticut for Easter getting to see my sister, brother-in-law and mother for a couple of days. We also picked up a big load of my furniture and books to bring back to Nova Scotia. While there I sent in my application for permanent resident status in Canada so we are in the final phase of that process.
This has been one busy, crazy month here in Yarmouth. We have been trying to finish up odds and ends on the house, get ready for the wedding in July, and help our old friend, but new neighbor, Nina, move in. The neighborhood also gained a flock of 11 sheep and a German Shepard dog.
Sue did a great job of describing the 'human interest' side of the story as it unfolded:
"It's 6 am and Dan has just risen to start his usual morning routine. "Wake up!" comes the startled cry from the bathroom. "There's a flock of sheep on our back deck!" There were two reasons for the panic. Firstly, the sheep should have been securely enclosed in Nina's barn next door. Secondly, Dan had just completed the construction of our new back deck and now 15 sheep were pooping all over it. I'm not really sure in what order Dan would arrange those issues, if we asked him. At the moment, I just knew I had to get up.
I raced to Nina's barn for a bucket of feed while Dan kept them off the deck. I had learned the hard way recently that herding sheep from behind does not work. Running out in front carrying a full bucket of food, works much better. (We're not too different, after all) I quickly returned, banging the bucket to get their attention. The leader spied the food and started toward me. I started for the barn. Soon I was surrounded by a moving mound of wool, with 15 heads all trying to get at the food. Running into the corral with my entourage soon brought an end to the excitement. They got their breakfast, I secured the gate and headed back home to start my day.
This brings us to Charlie. My friend, Anne, had told me about a new man in town...Charlie. He arrived in Yarmouth under difficult circumstances and the Salvation Army was looking for a place for him to live/work. Anne was not able to help this time, and talked to me. One of the complications was that Charlie came complete with a 4-year old German Shepherd named Max. Since our community is expanding, I thought someone out here could use Charlie's help as a maintenance man. So we had him out for supper one night. He certainly liked the look of the area, and Max enjoyed his walk up the back lane. Harry, the co-owner of the house next door, thought he could use him to help get the barn ready to live in while he builds his own home. So I drove to town to pick up Charlie and Max. All was well. Max was tied to the sheep fence and behaving beautifully. Charlie and Harry got a lot of heavy work done in the morning. We felt we had found a really good hired hand.
That was until the Royal Canadian Mounted Police car drove up our lane. Apparently Charlie was wanted back in Ontario and they were here to arrest him. He left in handcuffs....without Max. Charlie used his one call from the local jail to tell Harry he could have Max if he wanted him. So we now have in addition to the 3 cats, 11 sheep and one horse....Max, the German Shepherd.
I drove to town to pick up dog food, Harry took him for an evening walk, then we had to decide where he was to sleep. The garage was the place of choice for us.....but not for Max. Seems he is used to constant human companionship and started crying the minute we left him alone....at 11 pm. By one a.m., Harry and I were setting up a sleeping situation for Harry in the garage so he can be with Max. I am happy to report that both Max and Harry got a good night's sleep from 1 a.m. on!
So Max visited the Vet, Harry plans to keep him and the Universe has added one more living being to our community. Stay tuned. Oh, yes, in case you were wondering, the most we know about Charlie's past is that the charges against him were for making a verbal threat 10 years ago before he started AA. Who knows, when this all gets cleared up, we may yet see him back in these parts. We can always use a good hired hand."
As you see from Sue's report our community is expanding. Nina is an old friend from our early Permaculture courses who bought the house next door and has just moved in. We have been helping her move in. Our friend, Harry, is from Block Island and Vermont. He came over for a visit, liked it here, and is buying part of Nina's land on which to build his house. He stayed with us for about 3 weeks. Our good friends across the street just moved Gary's father and Judi's mother in to live with them and are putting on an addition. We 'parent sit' for them as needed. Our friends down the street just got their horse. Since we all get involved in each others stuff and in helping out each day unfolds as it will. We eat many meals together which makes cooking, eating and cleaning up lots of fun.
Some things got finished on the house. I worked on windows, drawers and cabinet doors; got the upper and lower decks done, built stairs between them; built about 60 feet of rubble stone rip-rap walls; cleared trails and cut access to fruit trees and blackberries on our berry patch site; and finished the fence between the parking and deck area. Just have a few more outside things I want to finish before the wedding. The place will still be a 'work in progress' for sure.
Progress on my 'permanent residency' is coming along well. Got the medical examination done so the only paperwork left is the report on the wedding.
Wedding plans are going well. We both have our clothing picked out and ready, we met with the caterer for the reception and that is going smoothly, we have a good list of 'things to do' and it all seems manageable. In any case, July 8th will arrive, ready or not.
This has been a pretty hectic month as Sue and I have started to move (temporarily) from construction mode to clean-up mode for the wedding.
Got a lot of odds and ends jobs finished including the wall surface, window and light on the front porch; steps and stain on the decks; finish of the fence and gate; all the lights and plugs finally installed; and walks built in front out of old brick from chimneys.
We finally got the sheetrock and painting done on the bay window room in front. This was the first room we lived in but over the winter it was the shop space for other construction. So, it ended up being the last room finished. We had the floor there and in the halls sanded down and sealed. Old wood looks great. Other rooms will have painted floors.
All rooms are finally shaping up with throw-rugs, furniture, and art work hung on the walls. They are quite liveable. Our plan is to take one room a month and just work on it. When it is done we wait until the next month to start another. All the rooms have finish trim and painting that need doing but it can be a leisurely process now. We need to get out and do some boating while the weather is good.
Speaking of boating, we found some wonderful put-in places for sea kayaking nearby. They all put us out in bays with lots of islands and great scenery. Since lobster season here is during the winter their is little commercial traffic during the summer.
On the community side of things we have sheep and chickens next door at our friend Nina's. The sheep are hers and we have half the chickens. But, we share in taking care of them all. Built a brooding area for the chicks that are growing very rapidly and will soon be able to go outside. For that we built three 'chicken tractors' which are moveable cages 3 feet high, 6 feet wide and 10 feet long. The chickens go in the cages, scratch the ground, eat seeds and bugs, and fertilize as they go. The chickens are the tractors. As one area gets cleaned up the cage is moved ahead for the next round. Pretty neat.
The berry patch down the street has had its trails cleared for access to the site and to the various apple and mountain ash trees, the major blueberry bushes, many shadbush, and the blackberry patchs. If we get some rain we should have a very good crop of berries and fruit this year.
All is going well and we are looking forward to the week of the wedding and some time off in July when we go to the Adirondack Freestyle Symposium at the end of the month.
The biggest event since the last month is that we are now husband and wife. Most of the last month of activity was taken up by getting ready for, hosting, having, and unwinding from the wedding.
We took the last part of June and first part of July to finish up odds and ends around the house to get it looking as presentable as possible for the wedding and reception. This mainly entailed hanging pictures, doing some arrangement of furniture and washing windows. We were pleased at the progress we have made in redoing the house and felt good about where we were for receiving our wedding guests.
Susi Beck, Dan's daughter, and her family arrived on Wednesday evening, July 5th. Thursday, Dan's sister, Dianne, her husband, Bob, and Dan's mother; Sue's sister Brenda and here husband, Neil; and Karen, Sue's daughter and her family arrived. By Thursday night we had a full house for a buffet supper. Both daughters' families stayed with us. We turned the house over to the nine of them and we moved out to the garage loft.
Friday we had a nice day just visiting and mostly relaxing. In the evening we had another buffet supper after the wedding rehearsal and then hosted an Open House for wedding guests who had arrived from out-of-town. It was nice to see so many of our good friends again.
Saturday, July 8th, the Wedding Day, started out cloudy and cool - a not unusual Nova Scotia summer day. We were all up early picking flowers from our fields for decoration of the church and making of corsages. We had yarrow, daisy, lupine, dock, viburnum, ferns, rose, vetch and several kinds of grass heads to start with. We added alder branches as a background. A good sized group met at the church to help with flowers and to share refreshments. We were done there by noon.
We had a leisurely time to get ready for the wedding and at 2:30 the first horse drawn carriage of family rode over to the church. Sue and Dan and the immediate wedding party left the house a little after 3 to arrive by carriage for the ceremony at 3:30. We were piped to the church by Megan Stewart, Sue's niece, and met by all the guests in the church yard. That was a nice beginning. The ceremony and register signing went well. Sue's grandniece, Morgan sang a special Gaelic Blessing, and Sue's brother-in-law, Ian, sang for the register signing. Wade Reppert, a long-time friend of the Stewart family, presided as Minister. Dan and Sue's daughters were attendants and Sue's granddaughter, Sherry Lynn, was the flower girl. Steve, Karen's husband, and Tim, Susi's husband, took care of the usher duties. After a short receiving line at the church after the ceremony, we arrived back at the house by carriage for the reception. By the time we got back the guests were well into the mussels, smoked fish, and other local refreshments. Our caterer, Joan Semple, did a wonderful job on the reception picnic buffet. It was an informal gathering with plenty of time for people to relax, chat, and just enjoy the occasion. Mark Molina, a good canoeing friend, took photos of the wedding as a gift to us so we will have a wonderful record of the event to share and as a keepsake.
Sadly, Dan's daughter, Susi Beck, and her family had to leave on Sunday morning. It was all too short a time for their visit with us. We had a bit longer time to visit and share meals with other family members. By Tuesday, we were able to take a day to go sea kayaking with our friends Dale and Rita. The morning of the 12th found the rest of the families heading for the ferry at Digby and by that evening we were eating left-overs with our neighbors, Nina Hvoslef and Harry Spruyt.
That left just the realities of cleaning up to face us. This was mostly a retrace of steps in the opposite direction as we re-rearranged rooms again, took borrowed tables and chairs back to owners, got food into freezer, and put the house back in order. By Friday we were having a chance to relax, visit neighbors, and feel like things were back to the normal, restful pace, of life on Chebogue Point. We can see why the bride and groom traditionally leave for a honeymoon and leave the cleaning up to others!
The rest of the month's activities revolve mostly around animals. Early in the month we watched Nina's sheep get sheared. That was pretty straight forward. But, on the 16th we were invited to a sheep round-up and shearing on Cape Negro Island. We got up at 4am to catch a lobster boat down the coast to take us over to the islands. On board were shearers, sheep dogs and owners, helpers who knew what they were doing, and guest/helpers like us. There were 400 acres of islands with about 200 sheep to be found on them. Fortunately, they stay mostly in flocks. The most amazing thing was watching the sheep dogs bring the sheep in and keep the flock moving toward the shearing pens. We helped by forming lines of people along the sides of the flock to help the dogs keep them together. By late afternoon all the sheep had been sheared, the lambs treated, and all released back to their island home. These sheep just live off the land summer and winter. They are sheared in July and the lambs are taken off in the fall to go to market in November. Had a great day. Came home exhausted but pleased with the day and sharing it with so many knowledgeable and friendly people. We also met two more new neighbors who just bought another of the old farms down our road and are remodeling it.
Our other job was chickens. The chicken tractors (outdoor pens) got finished at the end of June. We decided a neat idea would be to build a little portable chicken house to go on the back of each pen. We built three of them. Six feet long, 2 1/2 feet wide, and 39 inches high at front with a sloping roof. The house for the layers each have 6 brood boxes and a perch. The meat birds just got a perch. The houses 'dock' into the pens and will be useable inside the barn during the winter. Worked out pretty neatly, we think, and the chickens seem to like them too.
That gets you pretty well up to date on our lives. We will be heading out for the Adirondack Freestyle Symposium (canoe stuff) and visits to friends in NY and family in CT at the end of this month.
Last month the wedding! This month the big news is that Dan is now an official permanent resident of Canada. We started the process in July of 1999. A year's turn-around really isn't too bad. We sent the last form in the week after the wedding and the final papers were waiting for us at Dan's sister's house when we arrived there in early August. We came back across the border at St. Stephen, New Brunswick, on August 7th and in less than an hour had all paperwork done and the car imported. Good work, eh?
At the end of July we took off for a short trip to the States to see friends and family and just relax a little. We made a leisurely camping trip through New England before going to Paul Smith College for the annual Adirondack Freestyle Symposium. We spent three days taking classes, eating well in the cafeteria (did you really write that, Dan!!) and relaxing with our canoe friends.
After that event we drove down to Cragsmoor NY to visit Chris Campany. Chris ran the Farmer's Market and Community Garden program in Baton Rouge and is now working in a position to promote sustainable agriculture at the national level. Cragsmoor turns out to be an art colony type place on a limestone ridge just south of the Catskills. What a charming place to live and work!
On from there to Connecticut to pick up another load of Dan's personal belongings that have been in storage since June of 1998. It is always like Christmas morning, opening the locker and seeing what goodies remain. On the way north to Canada, we tried to find an inexpensive motel. Not to be had in Maine! What we did find, however, was a gorgeous B&B in Eastport not far from a wharf-side restaurant serving great seafood. A nice way to end the trip. Sue is sure I planned the whole thing as a nice final-night surprise. I hate to tell her we just stumbled onto it! Stopped at the Raye's mustard factory on the way out to get a few gifts for friends. It is worth a visit if you are in the area. They still grind the mustard on real stones driven by belts and give a nice tour. The next morning saw us at the border to do the the 'immigration' border crossing. We were back to Yarmouth by dark.
The rest of that week was spent unpacking the car and getting all my Canadian paperwork done. Sue spent a week trying to match my whats-it with her whats-it. Every time we come home with a load of stuff it sends her into a complete reorganization of the closets trying to stop the ever-present question..."Where is the ......?". She'll be glad to get the last load here.
Dan has been working on reclearing the trails on our berry patch land so we could harvest blue and black berries as they came along. Sue has learned she loves picking berries...must be the promise of good things to come later. Our freezer is filling up with lots of good stuff. But this harvesting thing gives us a glimpse inside the world of large scale food producers. How do you get large amounts of this stuff to market? We are getting a taste of life as a migrant worker as we work through our berry supply. Food doesn't wait. When it needs to be picked, it needs to be picked.
At the end of the week we went harvesting mussels at the Point. That was the easy part! Then we had to figure out what to do with them. How do you keep mussels alive overnight till the guests arrive? Do they live in fresh water? Do they have to purge? What recipe shall we use? The harvesting took an hour...the rest kept us busy for 2 days. (We ended up suspending them in net bags off the end of a friend's salt water dock. They would die in fresh water. Yes, they are better if they can purge as it gets rid of all the grit.) But the party was worth it. We fed 14 neighbours on steamed mussels, salad, bread and wine...all home made or collected from the area.
Since the middle of the month Dan has been working on finishing the six windows that didn't get done before winter set in last year. Each window takes about a week to do from taking it out until it is reinstalled. There are about three days of full-time work on it then partial days for finish and paint.
Along with usual things we took some time do some environmental work, looked after chickens, went to a play at the local theater, and spent a number of hours processing blueberries, blackberries, and currants into fruit roll-ups and juice . Berries and apples coming in fast so will be spending much more time at that in the next couple of months.
So, all is well in Yarmouth. Life is pretty well back to its usual pace. We are enjoying the end of summer and the coming fall weather.
This past month has been dominated by chickens, sheep, windows, wood, barns, berries, bushes, environmental action, theater events, yard sales and making wine. Reading that list I see why we have felt pretty busy.
Dan's biggest task has been to finish the restoration of the remaining house windows before the cold weather sets in. He can do one a week from taking it out to getting it back in as a restored and painted unit. Fortunately, that job is now complete.
Sue's focus has been helping Nina get her wood and barn in order. Seven cords of wood were delivered and dumped on the lawn. It all had to be split and stacked. Other neighbors helped with the splitting but Nina and Sue did all the moving and stacking. They also sorted a big pile of junk lumber, cutting some for kindling and stacking the rest in the barn for later, creative use. The barn was rearranged so we can house the chickens in there for the winter.
Our eight acre 'berry patch' down the road came into full production. We have finished harvesting blueberries, and are now working on blackberries. We have so many that we can't keep up. However, we do have many in our freezer. Apples are still ripening and we will have thousands of them. The wild raisins and mountain ash are also getting ripe so we will have lots of work to do there this month. We planted six currant and one black gooseberry bush in our front yard area, so look forward to a good juice supply next year. Anyone feel like a farm holiday next Fall?
We decided we would let the chickens out of their pens to free range. They took to it like ducks to water. At first they stayed near the pens but each day managed to explore a little further out. Now they are under the porch, in the barn and even ventured into Nina's house one day. The first day we were worried about getting all 35 chickens back inside the pens for the night. Well, come nightfall, they all go back to the roosts by themselves. Good thing , because they don't herd well!
Howard Jenkins, a local farmer and neighbour, paid a visit this week. Upon seeing the 'fat boys'....meat chickens...he informed us it was time to 'do the deed'. By postponing it, we were risking them getting so large they would develop leg problems. The actual killing of the meat you eat was a new experience for all 3 of us. The thought of being a vegetarian looms large, but since none of us choose that path, we would prefer to know what we are eating. So Howard's visit brought us face to face with the event.
Howard volunteered to teach us, so the 4 of us, plus 4 chickens, headed out to Howard's nearby camp in the woods. It felt like a scene right out of Little House on the Prairie. Howard started a wood fire in an old adapted oil drum, and we women got the hot water boiling. He and 'Danny' went back in the bush with the axe. I simply couldn't participate in that moment and felt happy to have a productive job around the fire to keep me busy. I understand the headless chickens actually did some running after they came in contact with the axe...but you'll have to ask Dan for details. We delivered the boiling water to the scene when called. The bodies were dunked in to loosen the feathers. Nina and I plucked, while 'Danny' got a lesson on how to do the gutting. It seems like Howard is getting great pleasure out of sharing his skills with we newcomers who are willing to learn and participate.
The following night we had our first chicken dinner. The whole meal had been produced on Chebogue Point. The vegetables came from Howard's garden, Dan had made the wine, I had made the bread and the chicken, of course, had been raised next door. A great feast...and yes, it was delicious..
On the 23rd, we made our second trip to Cape Negro island to work on the sheep herd there. We helped in the round-up of about 150 sheep from the fields and woods of the big islands. Fortunately, the sheep dogs do most of the work on this. What fun to watch them work. Then we separated the ewes from the market lambs and put the lambs on the boat to take back to shore. ( Sue and Nina convinced themselves the lambs were going to a wonderful new home.) It was a full day of work but the weather was balmy and bright so we had a very good time. By late afternoon when we got back we were all ready for a bath and bed.
This has been the month that saw us kick-start our environmental activism. The Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources presented its Integrated Management Plan (the wicked sister of Ontario's Lands for Life program) at 28 public meetings around the Province. It was evident that they see their main job as figuring out how many acres of Crown Land they can lease to the extractive lumber and mining industries. They were supposed to develop a plan for these public lands that 'balanced' the interests of preservation, wildlife, conservation, outdoor recreation and tourism groups. They got blasted at every meeting they held in the Province. Our organization, the Tusket River Environmental Protection Association, led the fight in this area and Sue and I were right in the middle of it. That will be a continuing battle.
(Sue's note: Dan posted his12-page Critique of the plan on the Web. It got picked up and quoted from by many of Nova Scotia's environmental activists. His presence here is getting discovered.)
We actually managed a social life this month. Two Sundays in a row saw us driving up the coast for afternoon concerts at the church in St. Bernard with a stop at the Graff Brothers, an architectural recycling shop on the way. Bought some windows for Nina's barn, some big thermopane for our greenhouse and some 'gadgets' for Sue. (We are going to love that apple-peeler-gadget in a few weeks when the apples are ready!) On the way back from the concerts we stopped for a picnic along the coast.
Sue and Nina tried to get tickets to hear The Platters-- a group of one original "Platter" and his new group of singers. Since it had already been sold out, they volunteered to usher and got in free for a few minutes of work. They said it was a real trip down memory lane.
Sue and our other neighbor, Judi, held a yard sale over labor day weekend. It was nice to get quite a bit of stuff moved out. Sue made about $150 and managed to bank more of it than she spent on getting new "stuff" to replace the "old stuff" that she sold.
Dan is back in the wine making business. We made four batches for the wedding and it all came out well. That supply is going down so it was time to start again. We like the home brew much more than the store wines and the cost is considerably less.
We are having a lovely fall with mostly clear weather, warm days and cool nights. Have had enough fog and rain to keep things interesting, help the plants and keep the cistern full. But, we can tell the days are getting shorter and the weather cooler. Don't expect it to get to "deep cold" until the end of November so we still have some wonderful days left for outside activity, gardening and harvest.
We are expecting Harry to arrive any day now, so that will add another life to our community.
Dan put together this month's report without the benefit of Sue's good editing. She adds all the good "social" stuff I often forget. But, she is off in Toronto helping Karen, her daughter, get packed for her family's move to Ottawa. Steve, Karen's husband, changed jobs so they are moving closer to us and will have a house with a big lot and more room for the kids and dog to run. Sue went for two weeks, has been a big help in packing and watching children, and is looking forward to getting back home on Halloween.
My big news is that the windows are finally done. Yea! You won't have to hear about that job anymore. I guess my window fame spread. My neighbor, Gary, volunteered us to rennovate several windows from the church down the road where Sue and I got married. He has them in his new, and heated, shop space waiting for us for a little work on them during the winter.
We "did in" the rest of the meat chickens. Did 10 in one morning just to get the whole messy job out of the way. I don't like the "harvest" part of raising animals very much but the quality of the meat sure is good. We had one for Canadian Thanksgiving along with a goose. We bought the goose ready to cook! We had a neighborhood potluck with 10 of us helping out. It was a cheery event and we had plenty of food left over for sandwiches and stew later in the week.
It has been a big month for fruit harvest. The apples trees were loaded this year so we have been having pies, drying apples, making apple sauce, apple juice and cider. The most fun is the cider. Our friends have a cider press that we borrowed. We dump the apples in the top, grind them up, and then screw down the press. Out comes delicious, and very fresh, juice. Kids love doing it too. We have several big jars of it frozen to make mulled cider on winter days.
The mountain ash, known here as rowanberry, did well this year too. We harvested them and tried a few recipes. In unmodified form they have a bit of a bitter, astringent, taste but cook up well with other things. We have a batch of rowanberry vodka working, a batch of rowanberry mead in progress, and several batches of roanberry chutney that we are using. The vodka and the mead take about a year to make and age so will let you know results next fall. Can also make jelly out of them.
Wild rasins, one of the viburnums, are also ready to harvest. They dry on the plant and do have a rasin-like flavor. We picked cranberries in the fields near our house. Some we froze and others we dried. Got plums and nectarines at a local orchard and dried them. We should be in good shape for fruit over the months ahead.
We spent a lot of time on environmental work this month. Early in the month Sue and I went to the annual meeting of the Canadian Environmental Network for a weekend of presentations and discussion. We led a hike out to the islands in the marsh near our house as a Tusket River Environmental Protection Association event and had a potluck in our garage after it. The event was well attended. We have been working on setting up a process for saving 200 acres of land on a penninsula at the head of Lobster Bay; we want it to become an environmentally and economically self-sustaining property over the next five years. I have also been working on the battle over the Department of Natural Resource's plans for public lands - usual extractive industry vs conservation uses. I have also started to be more active in the Gulf of Maine Institute Without Walls project, a program set up for elementary and highschool education with a community and bioregional focus. Most of this stuff gets done on rainy days!
On the days when it isn't rainy or cold we have been doing lots of "exchange" help around the neighborhood. We finished closing in Nina's barn by fixing windows and adding doors; we finished the chicken coop just in time for cooler weather. So, the sheep and chickens are happy. In fact, the chickens were so happy that they started to lay eggs. We get about a dozen a day now; it's great! Helped another friend stack move and stack wood and did an addition a barn.
My turn comes up next. I have started to construct post and beam structures for our greenhouse and a shed. Once the frames are up I can do the infill using materials left over from work on this house, what the neighbors may have around or what we can find on the beach. It is an artistic challenge to take all these old pieces of things and make them into something that is nice to look at as well as being functional.
I was also able to get one more section of the Permaculture section of the web page finished. You can see it at http://home.klis.com/~chebogue under the Chebogue Point Permaculture Center title. It is mostly text but covers important topic for designers to consider.
Mostly, we are all well and happy. We are enjoying the variety of fall weather and getting ready for the deeper winter ahead. Much of the pressure of getting the house finished is now off. We can take the rest of the rennovation at a comfortable pace and do some of the other things that were the main reasons for moving here. Will have Sue give you a report on her time in Toronto in next month's edition.
Best, DanI (Dan) am putting together this month's report without the benefit of Sue's good editing. She adds all the good "social" stuff I often forget. But, she is off in Toronto helping Karen, her daughter, get packed for her family's move to Ottawa. Steve, Karen's husband, changed jobs so they are moving closer to us and will have a house with a big lot and more room for the kids and dog to run. Sue went for two weeks, has been a big help in packing and watching children, and is looking forward to getting back home on Halloween.
My big news is that the windows are finally done. Yea! You won't have to hear about that job anymore. I guess my window fame spread. My neighbor, Gary, volunteered us to rennovate several windows from the church down the road where Sue and I got married. He has them in his new, and heated, shop space waiting for us for a little work on them during the winter.
We "did in" the rest of the meat chickens. Did 10 in one morning just to get the whole messy job out of the way. I don't like the "harvest" part of raising animals very much but the quality of the meat sure is good. We had one for Canadian Thanksgiving along with a goose. We bought the goose ready to cook! We had a neighborhood potluck with 10 of us helping out. It was a cheery event and we had plenty of food left over for sandwiches and stew later in the week.
It has been a big month for fruit harvest. The apples trees were loaded this year so we have been having pies, drying apples, making apple sauce, apple juice and cider. The most fun is the cider. Our friends have a cider press that we borrowed. We dump the apples in the top, grind them up, and then screw down the press. Out comes delicious, and very fresh, juice. Kids love doing it too. We have several big jars of it frozen to make mulled cider on winter days.
The mountain ash, known here as rowanberry, did well this year too. We harvested them and tried a few recipes. In unmodified form they have a bit of a bitter, astringent, taste but cook up well with other things. We have a batch of rowanberry vodka working, a batch of rowanberry mead in progress, and several batches of roanberry chutney that we are using. The vodka and the mead take about a year to make and age so will let you know results next fall. Can also make jelly out of them.
Wild rasins, one of the viburnums, are also ready to harvest. They dry on the plant and do have a rasin-like flavor. We picked cranberries in the fields near our house. Some we froze and others we dried. Got plums and nectarines at a local orchard and dried them. We should be in good shape for fruit over the months ahead.
We spent a lot of time on environmental work this month. Early in the month Sue and I went to the annual meeting of the Canadian Environmental Network for a weekend of presentations and discussion. We led a hike out to the islands in the marsh near our house as a Tusket River Environmental Protection Association event and had a potluck in our garage after it. The event was well attended. We have been working on setting up a process for saving 200 acres of land on a penninsula at the head of Lobster Bay; we want it to become an environmentally and economically self-sustaining property over the next five years. I have also been working on the battle over the Department of Natural Resource's plans for public lands - usual extractive industry vs conservation uses. I have also started to be more active in the Gulf of Maine Institute Without Walls project, a program set up for elementary and highschool education with a community and bioregional focus. Most of this stuff gets done on rainy days!
On the days when it isn't rainy or cold we have been doing lots of "exchange" help around the neighborhood. We finished closing in Nina's barn by fixing windows and adding doors; we finished the chicken coop just in time for cooler weather. So, the sheep and chickens are happy. In fact, the chickens were so happy that they started to lay eggs. We get about a dozen a day now; it's great! Helped another friend stack move and stack wood and did an addition a barn.
My turn comes up next. I have started to construct post and beam structures for our greenhouse and a shed. Once the frames are up I can do the infill using materials left over from work on this house, what the neighbors may have around or what we can find on the beach. It is an artistic challenge to take all these old pieces of things and make them into something that is nice to look at as well as being functional.
I was also able to get one more section of the Permaculture section of the web page finished. You can see it at http://home.klis.com/~chebogue under the Chebogue Point Permaculture Center title. It is mostly text but covers important topic for designers to consider.
Mostly, we are all well and happy. We are enjoying the variety of fall weather and getting ready for the deeper winter ahead. Much of the pressure of getting the house finished is now off. We can take the rest of the rennovation at a comfortable pace and do some of the other things that were the main reasons for moving here. Will have Sue give you a report on her time in Toronto in next month's edition.
At the end of October Sue was still in the process of helping her daughter's family get ready to move from Toronto to Ottawa. She finally got back on the 31st. It was really nice to have her back here after a two week absence. The dishes had really piled up!
On the building front the big job has been creating a greenhouse and a storage shed. We bought rough lumber for the structure and have been using as much recycled material as possible for the infill. The greenhouse uses all recycled windows and the shed will use old doors for part of enclosure. The roof and other infill will be shingles to make the units fit in well with the house. It has been cloudy and rainy much of the month so the project moves slowly. Greenhouse is all closed in and shed has roof but no sides. Hoping for some warmer and dryer days to be able to finish it this month.
We had three big environmental projects going. Dan has been working on critique and action plans related to the Department of Natural Resources plan for public lands. The plan opens up most of the public lands to forestry and mining industry uses. A public lands coalition is fighting the plan and we are a part of that. Dan is also working with a project called the Gulf of Maine Institute Without Walls, an educational program. This was the month to give away grant money to schools so we had to review proposals and decide who would get what. On a more local level, Nina, Sue and Dan have started work on a project to save a 200 acre historic coastal site, MacKinnon's Neck. We held numerous meetings on it and are pleased with progress.
Sue is on the Boards of both the Tusket River Environmental Protection Association and Th'YARC, a local theater and art center. She has been very busy updating the membership list for TREPA which was over 10 years old and not on a computer database. She transferred data from card files, checked addresses, made phone calls and finally did a mailing. Her hard work paid off with a reliable list of members. She has been going to board meetings on reorganization of Th'YARC and helping out at performances. She also has a regular line dancing schedule.
Over American Thanksgiving we took a trip to Connecticut to visit Dan's family and pick up another load of goods from his storage shed. We did a good job on that and think we will get the rest with one more load in December. Our friend, Harry Spruyt, was ready to head back to Yarmouth from Vermont so we did a little caravan on the way back. He is now in his own apartment nearby and working on getting his house plans ready for construction in the spring.
Our chickens are doing well, providing 18-24 eggs a day. We eat some but most go to town for sale to regular customers and people in Sue's line dancing groups. At least the chickens are creating enough income to feed themselves.
Things are going well for us. We are looking forward to a trip to Ottawa and Connecticut over Christmas and being back here for the New Year.
Thanks to everyone for the Christmas cards, e-mails, and year-end letters. We have just come back from our Christmas trip to ON and CT and are happy to be settling back into our life here in Yarmouth. Our biggest blessing was that we managed to squeak all of our travel in between competing snow storms and blizzards.
Dan has spent most of his time in December working back and forth between "in the garage" projects and working on the greenhouse and garden shed project. The greenhouse is done and the shed is finished except for a few more cedar shingle panels. Sue worked on community and environmental projects, worked on plans for painting/decorating the inside of the house in January, buying Christmas things, and keeping the house running. We make a good team.
On the Enviro-activist side of things, we attended a big meeting between the Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources and the Public Lands Coalition at the beginning of December in Truro. We have major concerns over the plan the department has developed for use of Crown lands. The DNR plan is heavily slanted toward lumber and mining interests and the Coalition is asking for a more balanced approach, more wilderness areas, and the taking into account of recreational and tourism interests. We will have to wait to see if we have had any influence. The Coalition is well organized and we are all in the fight for the long term. Nova Scotia's powerful 'old boys' are about 20 years behind the times, so it can be frustrating.
As we got closer to Christmas, we had lots of get-togethers with friends and neighbors, and went to the Christmas gathering at the church where we got married last summer. The bell choir sounded particularly delightful in those historic surroundings, with us all sitting with lap robes over our knees to keep warm. The church has no lights nor heat. The smell of the Christmas tree boughs and candles, and hot apple cider from the Coleman stove Judy had brought over, helps make it one of our favourite Christmas events.
Nina's responsibility for the Front-of-House at the local theatre keeps her busy, and when volunteers can't be found, we all fill in the gaps as ushers, ticket takers or bar tenders. We get to see lots of productions that way!
Harry has settled into a small apartment on Chebogue Road and has found a contractor interested in helping him construct his 'cob' house in the spring. He will visit family in Mass. and Vermont for the holidays, then return for planning in earnest.
On December 21st we left on the early morning ferry to head toward Ottawa to visit Sue's daughter, Karen, and her family for Christmas. We had a glorious 2-day drive across Maine and through the NH mountains with clear roads, blue sky and a white world the whole way. It is nice to be able to freely choose which route we take, now Dan has finished his Immigration process. Dan gets treated like a Canadian at the border now, so that makes it easier to move back and forth.
We had a wonderful Christmas in Ottawa. Karen and Steve have done a magnificent job of turning their newly built house into a warm home within a month! It looked beautiful. The grandchildren, as any grandparent will tell you, were the central focus for much of the time. It has been a while since I played with helicopters, puppies, trucks, a real outdoor rink and a gingerbread house! It was good to know my inner child is still alive. (But I could have done without the 2 stuffed Rudolf's which sang their theme song--constantly. Will someone please tell Santa to stop making those musical things?!)
We took a scouting trip up through the Gatineau Parkway to Meach Lake in Quebec. Next year plan to take X-country skiis and take advantage of some wonderful trails. Unfortunately, the Rideau Canal opened for skating the day after we left. But Santa gave Dan a pair of skates, so he is sure he will get to use them eventually. We were also able to visit John and Leslie Harvey, Freestyle canoeing friends, and more of Sue's friends/family while there.
We left Ottawa on the 28th for a drive to Connecticut for a short visit with Dan's family and to pick up the last of Dan's household goods. It was a very short trip as we wanted to be back in Yarmouth for New Year's Eve and there was a big storm threatening. We left on the 30th about two hours in front of the big snow storm. As the guy on the radio said, "if something happens in New York then the whole world just has to know about it". So, we assume you know it snowed in New York and the northeast on December 30th. Well, we stayed ahead of the snow and decided to take the 11pm ferry to get back into Nova Scotia before we got stranded on the wrong side of the Bay of Fundy. Dan was smart and took a gravol before sailing and managed to sleep the whole crossing. Sue, in contrast, did not take a gravol, and spent the better part of the trip dealing with sea sickness. (Megan, remember those midnight crossings?) Once the horizon is no longer visible, many people are in trouble! But this got us home, snug in bed, by 4 a.m. the morning of the 31st.
The rest of the 31st is a blur for us. We unloaded the car, got ready for a New Year's Eve get together at Nina's, had one more wonderful feast and woke up to the new year about 10:30 am on January 1st. Happy New Year everybody! It is nice to be recovered (from the travel, not the party) and looking forward to what the next year will be bringing us.
This January in Nova Scotia turned out to be a lot colder than it has been in the past few years. We received flurries quite regularly and had one big storm that caused us to do some digging out. But our house was nice and snug, our pantry was full, and we did just fine.
We spent the beginning of the month getting caught up from our trip to Ottawa and Connecticut. The big job was unpacking the last of Dan's household goods and placing them around the house or in storage. We also had regular environmental group and computer club meetings on the first week of every month so those had to fit into the schedule. Dan had to get out the TREPA newsletter as well. To complicate matters, Sue found Myst, an old computer game, in Dan's stuff so that killed a number of nights until we finished the game.
By the middle of January we decided to get busy on giving the house a more 'finished' look. We started with a tile job around the stove and sink. This gave us a direction for color in the kitchen/daybreak room area. Let's put it this way. It has been an adventure in color. The back windows have had four coats of paint, each a different color until we got it 'right'. Most other surfaces only required two or three trys. The problem is that the color on the paint chip is one thing, the color when applied is another, and the color under different light conditions can be several different colors. We have one colour that goes from whitewash to mustard yellow depending on the time of day.
After we finished the first room we made a deal. Dan gets to strip paint, fill, and sand the woodwork to get it ready for painting. Sue gets to paint. That works well for both of us. Dan with a paint brush is a recipe for disaster.
During the month we went to several environmental and fund raising meetings, went to the local theater for a great Acadian music/comedy event, gave a talk at the local Nursing School on health/environment issues, played cards with neighbors, and kept up our contacts throughout the community. We aren't quite ready for winter to be over yet but it is nice to have the sun coming up each morning a little earlier and setting a bit later. We will see big changes in February.
What can we say about February? It was cold. We kept warm,
but the oil furnace ran constantly and we used up all of our recycled
wood supply. But...
It was a month in which we made a lot of progress on the house.
We finished painting the kitchen area, finished preparation and
painting of both the guest bedroom and bay window room, put in
the final section of counter in the kitchen, and backtracked on
many finishing details. Our general pattern is that Dan does the
paint stripping, the filling of holes and cracks, caulking as
needed and a final sanding. Then Sue moves in with the paint and
finishes things up so they look good. This division of labor works
very well for us.
The paint colour scheme has been 'flexible'. Some rooms have had a trial of several (4 in some cases!) colors. Sue found out she could mix her own colors to get nice tones that go together. She now has a batch of recipes for paint we use made from the cans of paints we originally hated. Mostly we are in the taupes, moss greens, and an off-white whitewash. We sure are learning a lot about paint colors. Number one, don't trust those chips you get at the paint store. Number two, no colour stays the same in all lighting conditions.
What Sue has learned about painting a room:
1) An old house has no straight edges. 2) When you are at the top of a ladder, the tool you need will be at the bottom. 3) Any two things in a room will constantly collide. 4) If you move anything, it will be in your way within 15 seconds. 5) A long piece of quarter-round will solve many problems. 6) No edging invention known to man can beat a steady hand and a good brush. 7) Cutting is an art form. 8) If you paint a flat surface, a cat will jump up on it immediately. 9) The phone will ring when paint is being applied to the most awkward spot. 10) Looking sexy and painting a room are two irreconcilable states.
We have been getting more confident in our choices. We started in the bedrooms with the standard light walls and darker trim. Nice, safe, but not very exciting. So as we moved to the more public parts of the old house we got braver. The newly finished baywindow room (dining room) looks smashing. The walls are dark moss green with all trim, including the mantle, a creamy whitewash. The green makes a great background for Sue's early pine pieces and every piece of art or pottery we bring in to the room looks wonderful on the mantle. After two years of work, it is really satisfying to see the rooms reach completion.
We made a two day trip up to Halifax at the beginning of the month to shop for building supplies and futon covers. On the way up we stopped at some antique stores and explored the back roads. In the evening we went to an Environmental Action Center get together and got to meet some environmental e-mail friends face-to-face. Nice to know who you are conversing with on the computer. During the evening, we witnessed a performance by The Raging Grannies, and Sue got all excited. Expect her to start a Yarmouth chapter once the painting is done. We stayed at the Queen Street Inn, just a couple of blocks from the center of town. The owner is a collector of Nova Scotia art so it is well worth looking around the house. Managed to work our way around the snow storms and had a good trip.
We have now finished our pottery class. On the last class day we put glazes on all the work we had created. The glazes are just shades of gray when applied, so one takes on faith that there will be some color when fired. It worked! The next week we actually had a nice collection of pottery. Our different styles became quickly evident. Dan got really creative with pinch pots, coil construction and slab work. Sue eventually got good enough on the wheel to create pots which were relatively centered and not so heavy they could be classified as weapons! The best of each of our efforts now sit proudly on the newly painted mantle.
On the environmental front we have been dealing with local legislation to control factory farms. There is one hog farm here now and it is causing problems. Proposed legislation makes a good start on control of hog, fowl, mink and fox factories but we need much more accountability to resolve odor and water pollution issues. I thought fur "ranches" were a thing of the past but evidently not, at least in Canada. It is a real not-in-my-backyard issue so a difficult one to resolve. There is, however, lots of good information on the web.
This month could be summed up very quickly...it's still snowing and we're still painting.
As the novelty of painting every day began to wear off, we fell back on that time honoured plan...invite lots of people over so you will stay motivated. With our second anniversary of our arrival in Yarmouth looming on March 24, we decided to celebrate that occasion with an open house and invite everyone we knew. And so the "Two Years in Yarmouth and Still Rennovating" openhouse event was born and did its job wonderfully. We now had a real goal to meet. Dan concentrated his efforts on stripping, sanding, filling and priming. Sue did the finish painting. By March 15, all the planned painting was done but the house was in shambles.
We had to finish all the work before March 15th so we could attend the ACORN Conference in Charlottetown, PEI (Atlantic Canada Organic Regional Network). It was a pleasant one day drive to Charlottetown and the downtown hotel where we stayed. We had three days of great speakers and events and outdoor hot tub visits. The main speaker was Elliot Coleman, an organic farmer from Maine who grows vegetables in unheated greenhouses from October until May. As you can imagine, he has a great market for fresh local vegetables all winter. We are going to try his techniques here next winter. There was plenty of good organically grown food and maritime music 'kitchen party' to top it off. Dan got inspired and bought a Concertina on which he is now practicing. Sue bought earplugs! As always, at these things, we met a lot of great people and made some useful contacts.
Our friend and neighbour, Nina, also came with us. She organized a tour through a small wool mill that processes raw wool into yarn in a very small shop area. She is looking at the possibility of doing something like that in this region. We have lots of sheep here and most of the wool goes out of the province to be processed. It could be a very worthwhile cottage industry if we could collect the wool, process it with natural dyes, and get it to people to make knitted items to be sold in local and maritime stores.
We were back in Yarmouth the night of the 19th and immediately started cleaning up the mess we had left. Vacuum, vacuum, vacuum - sweep, sweep, sweep - wash, wash, wash. Then rearrange all the rooms and get the new picture hung. By the end of the 24th we were exhausted but ready.
The 25th was a sunny day and a good one for a Sunday afternoon drive. We had a steady stream of visitors from 1 until after 5. Our guest book registered over 40 people. It was interesting to us how many of our friends already knew each other. We just hadn't put them together before. It was a nice mix of people and fun for us to show them around our clean house.
Monday morning we were back in the swing of prep and painting again. But, we are determined to keep things cleaned and picked up as we go. No more of those cleaning marathons. (Says Dan) We have been concentrating on the hall with its new center piece, a 4x4' painting of Big Bend National Park, (where we found our cat Ben) by our friend Anne Cain. We picked the colonial blue for the hall walls from the painting which also has oranges, burnt umbers, and greens that go with it. The blue also goes wonderfully with the antique quilt that hangs in the stair well. By the end of the month the downstairs hall will be pretty well finished.
During the month we got to a canoe/kayak club meeting. We may even get to paddle this year! We started our new job as bartenders at Th'YARC, saw Grace and Glory, went to an Ashley MacIssac (fiddle player) concert, attended our monthly movie club group, and went to a fund raiser for the local museum where the Director had his beard of 36 years shaved off. He said he would do it if people would donate $100,000 to the museum. How many $100,000 beards are there in your town?
Well, that's it for this month from our snowy little patch in Nova Scotia.