I suspect that, as we move forward, I will post less and less on this subject. After all, how much can you write about moving to the country from the city?
There are many things that are different. Example – there are critters out here that we never come in contact with in the city. Example – The other morning we woke up to find holes dug in the lawn. That upset Charlie since he’s working so hard cutting, trimming and so on. As we stood there staring at the dozen holes in the grass, a neighbour out on her morning walk, stopped to chat. She told us it would be either a racoon, skunk or mole. In any case, her sister had that problem and used a concoction of fly bait and Pepsi to kill the culprit. Charlie flew to the store and that night he mixed the concoction in an aluminum plate and set it on the lawn. The next morning, one dead skunk.
Somehow I was sad looking at a lifeless PePe lePew. I’m not much on killing things. Well, except rodents, roaches and other disgusting things.
Chatting with another neighbour, I discovered there is other wildlife that can be seen occasionally such as deer, coyotes, wolves, and even a bear. Well, all I can hope for is that I have my camera at ready when one of these should cross my path.
So far, it’s been pretty mundane, for the most part.
The furnace in our house was oil with a big ugly oil tank. Well, first of all the price of oil went through the roof and second of all, it’s kind of dirty. So, since the government has an incentive to go natural gas, we had the eco-assessment done and had a new high efficiency gas furnace installed.
For those of you reading this who live in warm climes, this won’t mean a thing to you. For the rest of us, you know what I’m talking about.
Seems that everything is a bit messy. Contractors traipsing in and out of the house and up and down the cellar stairs. They were good, though. It took all day to finish the job. The oil tank is still there and I’m waiting for the neighbour to come and move it out since he wants it.
That’s Charlie sharpening his chain saw. It’s a far cry from Madison Avenue.
The other night, that huge storm from the US Midwest came roaring through Southern Ontario. There were reports of four tornadoes having touched down. We got a lot of rain and a lot of lightning but, thankfully, no tornadoes.
We were watching TV and, being true to form, I fell dead asleep. At some point Charlie woke me up to say there’d been thunder, lightning and two power cuts. Well, I didn’t hear a thing. Apart from having to reset all the clocks as well as the security system, we were none the worse for wear.
The next day being Friday, it was sunny and so pleasant. I did laundry while Charlie went shopping. Again I ran out of water. Well, I knew that couldn’t be true so I went across the street to my neighbour who came over and had a look at the pump. He reset it and it worked fine after that. Seems that was another thing the power cut did. This gives me something else to worry about. What to do if power is off for some time. The pump won’t work, ergo we have no water. The cistern has not yet been connected. Should I get a generator? Seems many people do have generators in case of such an emergency. (Note to myself, start pricing generators).
I’ve added some videos again having to do with felling trees. I’m sure I’m boring you. Maybe I’m boring myself. Like anything else, the first couple of times it’s facinating, then slowly we lose interest and want to move on. In case you’re wondering, it’s all our property but it’s hard to see due to the dense vegetation.
I do the front porch thing and get all the accolades. Charlie is in the back chopping down trees and clearing the jungle one limb at a time, risking life and limb. Nobody sees what he’s doing so they think he’s not doing anything.
Because of the heat, he decided not to wear his overalls but just some old shorts that, believe it or not, I bought him many years ago. Today he looks like he’s been in a fight. He’s all scratched up. Not only that but he’s hurt his knee and so he’s having to wear a tensor bandage. He has a cut on his arm where a tree fought back so he’s got a bandage on that. Oh, he’s a sorry sight alright. And he’s only scratching the surface. I’ll bet he’ll be glad when winter sets in so he can stay indoors and heal.
The porch is done. It took two days to stain and two days to dry. I also repainted the benches with white Tremclad. I felt they needed to be a stark white for it to work.
Friday night we went to the village for the festival. Which one, I forgot. Seems that they have a lot of festivals in this area. Anyway, the winner of the Elvis contest – that’s a celebration they have in Collingwood every year at the end of July – sang Elvis’ greatest hits. He put on a good show. We watched it from across the river. Although we sat there accidentally – we should have been at the Marina – we were glad we did. It was such a lovely evening with boats gently gliding up and down the river that we sat back and enjoyed the music and the ambiance.
Here are a few shots of the finished porch and of the river.
