Monthly Archives: September 2007

A Sample of our Piece of Paradise

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Our First September Here

So this afternoon I was wandering the yard waiting for Jeff to get home from work. I walked over the far side of where we park the truck. There is a railroad tie there going over the little drainage ditch. I was standing there thinking it would be nice to start a trail there up to the forest – we’d just need to clean out some of the alder brush that is so thick. Then I noticed I was looking at a SNAKE! The first snake I’ve seen all year. It was the smallest thing I’ve ever seen. I had to look at it really closely to figure out it was a snake. It was the size of a pencil. I ran inside to get my camera because I KNOW all my faithful blog readers would love to see a real live SNAKE!

Unfortunately I tip toed back and it was gone. So I was standing there. And I was a little on edge. I like snakes better when I know where they are and they aren’t moving. I stood still to survey the area and look for movement. When all of a sudden a chipmunk ran out from under the brush and across the rail road tie. Scared the beejeezus out of me! What a brave little bugger he was. I photographed him for probably 15 minutes. I have 50+ photos. Here are a few. His mission was to stuff himself full with the sunflower seeds that were under the bird feeders and then run back across the rail road tie into the woods.

Monty was on the porch and he kept jumping up on the railing because he wanted that little chipmunk BAD!

Our First September Here

Our First September Here

Our First September Here

Our First September Here

Our First September Here

Our First September Here

Our First September Here

Our First September Here

Our First September Here

Our First September Here

Our First September Here

There are 4 blue jays here now, 20-100 yellow birds, a few hummingbirds, many bunnies (although only one is ever in the yard at a time), and today Jeff said he discovered several grouse in the woods around the house.

Internet Trouble Already

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After an incredible first hour online this afternoon, it stopped working! Every time I restarted my browser, I was able to load about 5 pages and then it would stop working (except Gmail which kept working). Then I’d reboot Mozilla and it would briefly work. I set up our network to test Jeff’s laptop and the same thing would happen on his.

I couldn’t really surf for an answer because eventually it stopped loading everything even after a reboot of Mozilla (except Gmail which always worked). I called my brother Brian briefly and got an idea on a couple settings to fiddle with.

Then I took out the manual for the satellite modem and it says that to reboot the modem, it requires the power to be disconnected for at least a minute. I pulled the plug for a minute and then it reconnected to the satellite and bingo we were back in business.

Unfortunately it just did it again. Now thankfully I know how to fix it in just a few minutes, but I’m going to have to track down a better solution for this. We shouldn’t have to pull the plug on the satellite modem all the time.

Okay now that I have the internet restored again, and Big Brother is done for another night (Go Dick Go!), I will find some pictures to post for your enjoyment. Stay tuned…

Dew, Old Cars, Furniture, and Waves

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I don’t know if it is always like this, but this is certainly the moistest place I’ve ever lived. I was just outside enjoying the sunset and dusk and noticed by 7:30pm the truck was already covered in dew.

I like the quiet hours before dark. I just walked around the yard and looked at the plants and trees, pulled a few weeds, switched around some of the bird feeders, and picked up the poop-du-jour in the back yard. I heard a couple of loons calling, a squirrel up in the woods, and a new bird came down to visit – it was black and white and orange. Really cute, but shy.

Yesterday was hot and humid here and we worked hard. The couch got delivered!! After years of futon living for both of us, we have a gorgeous couch. We got leather so it won’t ever be covered with dog hair, but because we’re so scared of them scratching it we have it covered in blankets! I’m sure the newness of it will wear off. I was like that when I bought my leather recliner a few years ago and now it has paint on the arm of it.

We found a used furniture place a few kilometres out of town and I got SOOO lucky! We bought a used desk for me!! I’ve used a six foot long conference table since 1995. I’ve never had a desk with drawers. The one we got was one of several this used furniture place bought from the university. It’s brown – just the press board with the fake wood laminate, but it has two drawers on each side, and it’s huge! I think it’s around 5 feet long, but it’s much deeper than the table I used. I’m just so excited! Of course it was way too heavy for me to carry with Jeff so we spent hours taking it apart out at the truck, then carried the pieces in, and then we had to reassemble. All while dripping sweat from the humidity. Now my office just needs some shelves and I’ll be set. Okay shelves and high speed internet, but that is coming on Thursday!

Yesterday in the grocery store, Jeff ran into TWO people he knew! Two of the guys he works with were shopping so the four of us chatted in the bakery department. How odd is that we ran into people we knew already! One of them owns a golden and are active with the St. John Ambulance Therapy Dog program so we talked dogs for awhile beside the bagels.

Today we headed south to Sherbrooke and went to a Show and Shine they had for old cars. There were probably 150-200 old cars there! And a ton of people! Their planned parking lot was already overflowing by the time we got there. Two people Jeff works with were doing a bbq fundraiser so we stopped and chatted with them. The lady’s husband works for the woodlands division of the nearest pulp mill so I talked to him briefly about employment. I’m going to get an application in, however it is probably almost an hour drive from here so I’m not so sure that would be ideal, but maybe it will lead to something else, who knows.

After we left Sherbrooke we stopped at the lake south of us where there is a picnic area and took Monty for a swim. He came with us today – he needed an adventure. There were too many people at the old car show though so he stayed in his crate in the back of the truck in the shade.

Turns out Monty had never seen a wave before! He was so silly – pouncing on each little wave like it was a toad. We kept him on the flexi-lead because I didn’t have any cookies for bribing purposes if he didn’t want to come back to the truck. The flexi-leash is long enough for him to get out and swim in the deep water though. The water was cold! The husband of the lady Jeff works with today said our lake was incredibly deep. I bet it’s cold too but I haven’t even touched it yet!

Tomorrow is our appointment in town with the truck to bring it up to “code”. It’ll be a relief when that is done. Until next year.

Adventures with a Lawnmower

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Yesterday’s mission was to cut the grass but after I pieced the lawnmower back together I realized the lawnmower oil was in the back of the truck – the truck that was with Jeff at work.

Today I had my lawnmower adventures instead. We were worried a little bit that the lawn would prove to be too large and that we’d need a riding mower, but it was totally manageable. I used close to two tanks, but it was fun enough.

The lawn had been cut before we moved it with a riding mower and it was long when they cut it so there was already lots of dead grass under the thick moist grass. That made it slow going but I also tried to get the mower much closer to the edges which meant I was probably cutting areas that hadn’t been cut this year so the lawn mower stopped and clogged up many times.

I saw a mouse. It was cute. It was beside the house and stood behind a leaf trying to hide from me. I saw a few toads too. The neatest thing was my discovery of salamanders! When I first saw something slither away from the mower I wasn’t sure what the heck it was. Just it’s black tail was sticking up out of the lawn and it was slithering back and forth like a fish! Turns out it was a little black salamander. I saw a couple more before I done. They were only 2 inches long or so. Black in colour. Even cuter than the mouse.

I’m pretty good at doing stupid things but I got a little lucky with today’s stupid move. After I burned through the first tank of gas, I knelt beside the push mower to fiddle with the spout of the gerry can. Or is it a jerry can. Whichever. When I crouched down, the side of my leg, just below my knee, pressed against the hot muffler of the mower!!! Now I say I was lucky for two reasons. Number one, I had fast enough reflexes to pull my leg away fast to stop the sizzling noise. And number two, I only hit the edge or something that was raised up on it because I only have two burn marks on my leg that aren’t too large. It doesn’t hurt, but they’ve blistered up really good. Jeff thinks they’ll hurt tomorrow.

So at any rate, my grass cutting mission was successfully completed. There is a ton of cut grass sitting on top of the lawn so we may need to rake tomorrow (tomorrow’s mission is to buy a wheelbarrow).

The previous owners had outlined many of the flower gardens with rocks. They aren’t really big rocks so they were hiding under the grass. I hit them a few times with the lawnmower. When Jeff came home from work, he fired up his gas trimmer and tried to trim around and edge the gardens. I really don’t like the rocks and we are thinking of picking them all up so we can just edge the gardens with a shovel and them just keep it trimmed well with the weedwacker/trimmer/edger thing.

The Price of Safety

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When we registered Jeff’s truck in Nova Scotia last week, they gave us 10 days to get our annual inspection done.

Today I drove with Jeff to work, and then took the truck into town for its inspection appointment. There was another lady waiting for her vehicle to be worked on, so unlike Ontario were we’d smile at each other and then sit and stare at the tv, we chatted it up the entire time. It’s strange just how many people we’ve met here have lived in Ontario at some point. This woman lived in North Bay for awhile and travels to Sudbury regularly to visit her grand daughter. She gave me lots of information about living here. She said the winters are nothing – she hasn’t bought a pair of winter boots in the last 20 years.

Unfortunately the mechanic didn’t have such optimistic news. To pass the new annual safety here in Nova Scotia (which everyone seems to be really grumbling about), we need to spend $750 before the 10 days is up. Most of the work is with the parking brake, and a ball joint, and a seal for the rear differential, and new brake shoes. Then he said he noticed we had tinting on the side windows and that is no longer allowed. I booked an appointment for Monday and then had to go to the Apple Auto Glass folks to figure out the scoop on the windows.

At Apple Auto Glass he said he knew that they made the annual vehicle inspections much more strict and that they no longer tint the windows to the right and the left of the driver. He wasn’t sure if there was a degree of tinting that was allowed so he sent me to the Access Nova Scotia building to find out the actual law (it’s like a provincial government service building – that is where the license bureau is). There they said the provincial government put it all in the in hands of the mechanics and they are the only ones with the book of regulations. We decided just to remove the tinting so it wasn’t going to be a problem. It was added by the last owner of the truck. I think if it was original to the manufacture of the vehicle, it would have been fine.

So another wait while the glass technicians took care of it. They weren’t busy at all so they went right to scraping it off with a razer blade. It was only $22.

This new annual inspection program seems like a pain in the ass, but I guess it is somewhat comforting to know all the other vehicles with you on the road are fixed up every year. The lady I chatted with in the waiting lounge said it really has taken a lot of older vehicles off the road.

On the other hand, Jeff said the guys he was chatting with today said they know of mechanics who will give you an inspection sticker for $50 without the actual inspection. 88|

Sunday Drive… on Monday

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It was another beautiful day – windy beautiful day – so we went for a drive to see the ocean. We went south towards Sherbrooke. Just before Sherbrooke we turned off to the east. We stopped in Port Bickerton at their Lighthouse Interpretive Centre. For $3 each we got to drive up to the lighthouse and lighthouse keeper’s building. Port Bickerton seems to have a lot of proud people living there. Their fish processing plant is no longer in operation (other than their refrigerated area that is used to store shrimp for another facility until shipment). The government was going to use the area to store PCB’s but the town turned it down. Instead, together with the provincial government, they embraced their abandoned lighthouse facility and turned it into an interpretive centre. I imagine all of the people working there were probably volunteering. There lighthouse is operational, but all automated of course. The buildings where the lighthouse keepers and his assistant and both of their family’s lived were boarded up, but they opened them up, fixed them up, and rebuilt the top lookout above the big house where the old light was kept. I bravely even climbed up the extremely steep steps to look out. Our 70 year old tour guide told us of the shipwrecks he knew of during his time and when his dad was a boy. Luckily no loss of life. I have photos, but they’ll have to wait until I graduate away from this yucky dial up.

After that we headed to Country Harbour where we had to board a barge like ferry to cross the waterway. There are several of these little ferries around Nova Scotia. I imagine they’re much cheaper than designing, building, and maintaining fancy bridges. It was only $5 a car. We ate the lunch I packed while we sailed the few minutes across.

We then headed to Canso. The road goes through many small coastal communities. I don’t know what people do to survive in these towns now that so many of the fish processing plants and such are closed. Even many of the corner stores were long closed.

The highway follows the coast. It is very bumpy and very curvy. Great scenery though. Canso dates back to the 1600′s!! It has large old buildings, but overall the town seems to be on a drastic decline.

After Canso we headed up to Guysborough. This town was very nice looking – it even had pretty shops that were open today but we kept driving. We headed back north to Antigonish and filled up with gas (and finally remembered a jerry can for the lawnmower and trimmer!) before we headed back home.

The man who was acting in Jeff’s new position for the last year stopped by our house. Nice fellow. He lives on this lake, and so does the man who retired from that position after 30 years, and so does another colleague from the office to the north of here, AND two retired RCMP officers! Popular place!

So it’s evening now. I would love to share some photos with you but they will have to wait. I took some of the brown bunny who is often in our yard. You can get within 10 feet of him. I think he thinks we can’t see him or something. I don’t think the dogs have spotted him yet.

Jeff is busy polishing his boots and ironing his uniform for his first day on the new job tomorrow. I hope he can sleep tonight! Hopefully I won’t go too squirrelly being home alone all day with no Internet to pass the time. I’ll have to unpack more or something!

Good Deed

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I was just about to load up Jeff’s truck with more flattened cardboard when Monty started growling and looking towards the driveway. I ignored him for awhile – after all in the middle of the night last night he did have a barking marathon at the tall metal pole my cousins gave us for a shower gift – it has a birdfeeder hanging from it and I guess that was spooky in the dark for him.

Anyway, he persisted so I looked out on the lawn and there was a dog – it was a small dog – Shitzu type. It turned out to be friendly (I’m so leery of other people’s dogs). I went inside and got Jeff and then I got a leash and we walked him down to the road to see if anyone was looking for him.

Our nearest neighbour was out on his driveway with another fellow. We stopped and introduced ourselves. He said the rain on Friday night was like nothing he’d ever seen. He said it was 4 inches. He does construction work so they were repairing his laneway a bit. The dog wasn’t his so we went to the cottages across the road on the water.

Luckily that is where the dog lived! We met the lady that stays there. She showed us where the lake edge normally is and where is it now. Their firepit is long gone, their bench is under water, and she said they almost lost their dock.

Then we had to hike back up our cliff of a driveway. What a good way to get a good burning in your calves and buttocks. I had to stop 3/4′s of the way up to fake interest in an apple tree so I could recover. HA!

It’s a beautiful day today. I hear a blue jay screaming outside. So far he hasn’t been brave enough to come up to our freshly filled feeders. We saw 2 deer in a clearing across the valley (other side of the lake and up the hill over there) this afternoon.

Jeff has been busy in the basement most of the day. We’ve also hung some of our prints and photos on the wall. I vacuumed the main floor (around the boxes and piles and bags of paper). We set up the bed in the guest room for Mom or Julie (they want to come for Thanksgiving – they better hurry up and book a flight). I also brushed Monty outside and he’s still shedding huge tumbleweeds of hair. I need to go finish putting that load of cardboard in the truck.

Washout!

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We sure are fortunate here!

It rained yesterday afternoon and all night. We woke up to the sound of rushing water. There is a river of water that was coming down the hill in one spot and then diverting into the ditch dug along the back of the lawn. The yard was wet but we weathered the rain well. Our large drainage hole up front and to the side of the house is full of water.

But this afternoon we headed out to drive around. WOW! Most people around here had there driveways totally washed down, across the road, and into the lake. There were deep channels going down driveways and across them. There was gravel and mud and sticks all over the roads. The lake is full and brown from all the dirt going into it. By the time we got to town we saw that most of the waterways around here are totally full or have overflown their banks. By the time we headed home there were front end loaders out rebuilding laneways. We don’t actually most of our driveway so I wonder if the county is obligated to fix them. There are many driveways that are completely unusable right now. Ours is totally fine. We do have a ditch dug along the side of it but it was dry by the time we looked in it.

We hung some pictures on the walls today. There is still stuff EVERYWHERE. This is going to take forever.

We got an installation date for our satellite internet! Only it isn’t until SEPTEMBER 13TH! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH. That is a really long time. This dial up is so useless it takes me a good hour just to get in to read the headers of my email. I can’t possibly actually read the actual emails.

We bought a couch today!! After YEARS of futons we’re going to have a COUCH! And a nice one! It’ll be ready for delivery in a couple of weeks.

We put our outdoor kennel panels up to form a yard for the dogs off of the deck. It’s a good size with 10 panels that are 10ft long by 6ft high. We bought some t-bars and Jeff hammered them into the ground to secure them in place. Now we can put off fencing the entire yard until next year when we have a better idea what we want and how much it will cost, etc.

I applied for a job already at the University. I have zero idea of chances or anything like that. I have a few other places I want to apply so I will get to that over the next two weeks or so too.