Remedial Packing 102

My packing system has fallen apart.  I got lost somewhere in step two.  I now have boxes packed but without the requisite coloured stickers.  But that's okay as I haven't assigned colours to the rooms since I haven't been able to extricate the coloured markers from Liam's tight little fist.  And, I confess, while the final destination of the boxes is noted on all sides of the boxes, the contents are only noted on the top.  Too many boxes to pack and too little time to spend on listing contents.  I guess we'll be sipping our scotch from used paper coffee cups. Remedial Packing for me.

Advanced Packing - 401

In three weeks the moving truck will pull up to the curb and start loading up. Three weeks to get our mounds of stuff out of the corners and crawl space and garage and packed into boxes in some order and ready to go.  Three weeks of panic - maybe.

But not if one has a system.  Yes, a system.  Some would say "Karen?  A system for packing? But of course."  Others might say "There is a system for packing?!?"

So, here's the system:

First, either lay hands on or draw up a floor plan of the new residence. 

Second, gather up your sheets of coloured stickers. What? You don't have sheets of coloured stickers?  Off to the dollar store. Chop, chop.  Don't waste time.  We've got things to pack.  Okay, got your stickers?  Good.  

Third, assign each room in your new residence a colour that matches one of the sticker colours (for example, red for the kitchen, green for the living room).  Mark the colours on the floor plan, preferably in coloured markers that match your colour assignment (for example, use a red marker to label the kitchen red). If you have, perhaps, bought too large a house and have more rooms than sticker colours, you might run into problems here and have to run back to the dollar store for more stickers.  Just be sure to get different colours, not shades of the same.  (ie. No navy blue, royal blue and powder blue.  In the eyes of movers, blue is blue is blue.) Oh, and don't forget the matching coloured markers. Okay. More stickers and markers? Good. We continue.

Fourth, gather up your stock of boxes and packing materials (bubble wrap, tissue paper, styrofoam peanuts).  What?  Again with the whining that you don't have such things.  Well, alright.  Off you go again.  Moving companies will supply you with such things for a fee.  If you feel you can spare the time, do the rounds of the liquor stores and photocopy shops to see if you can snag some free boxes.  Just don't blame me if you're still rounding up boxes in three weeks and not a thing has been packed.  And don't underestimate how many boxes you'll need.  No point in having to repeat step four, especially since it's been scientifically proven that the hour at which one is most likely to run out of boxes is 3:00 a.m. and I can pretty much guarantee that you're not likely to find empty boxes readily available at that time. 

Fifth, pack like a demon.  (Note to those overly-confident types:  here's your chance to show your superiority to the rest of society.  Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to weed out the junk as you go.  No point in moving that old Beta video player or the collection of salt and pepper shakers that you haven't unpacked from your last move.)

Sixth, label all boxes and apply colour coded stickers.  This sounds straight forward, but for many, this is where system failure will occur if careful attention to detail is neglected. Not only must you ensure that all boxes are correctly colour coded (for example, all kitchen boxes are coded red) but that all boxes are labelled and colour coded on all four sides as well as on the top.  Top labeling alone simply will not suffice.  If you choose not to accept this little nugget of wisdom you will soon realize the errors of your ways when you are looking for the scotch glasses and are faced with a tower of boxes of which only the top box's final destination and contents can be identified.

Sidebar: alternate steps five and six.  Do not, under any circumstances, assume that you can pack half a dozen boxes and remember what was in the first box.  Believe me, you will never find those scotch glasses when you need them.  So, unless you like your scotch from a used takeaway coffee cup, label as you go.

And finally, the seventh and final step in the system.  When you arrive at your new home, post your colour coded floor plan beside the door so that the movers can match up the boxes to the correct room. Ignore the strange looks that the movers give you when you explain to them your system. Remember, these are people who are probably not even wearing matching socks.  You are the customer and, after all, it's just as easy for them to put a box in the correct location as it is for them to put it in an incorrect location, so why not get the kitchen boxes in the kitchen instead of the basement rec room?  Occasionally, the use of a referee whistle will be required to encourage reluctant movers to embrace the system.  A few short blasts directed at a mover about to deposit a lavender laundry room box in the middle of a sea of aqua mud room boxes usually brings the offender in line.

And that, my friends, is the system.  So now I must go pack.  Only first I must find my collection of coloured stickers, which, I think, might be packed away in a box in the garage from the last time we moved.  And then I must try to steal some matching coloured markers from Liam, who seems to think that colouring is an activity more approriate to a preschooler than his mummy.  And then boxes.... I think I know of a 24 hour photocopy shop on Broadway.

Septic 101

Pop quiz:  How many chambers are there in a septic system?

I never imagined that I'd ever need to know such things.  Or that I would be able to sustain a whole conversation on the subject while driving across town in busy Saturday morning traffic.  Or that a discussion of sludge and the role of microbes in its breakdown would qualify as suitable conversation over the breakfast table.

But there you have it.  For the last several days we have been fully absorbed with matters of sludge and percolation rates, and have learned more about gravity fed systems versus pressurized systems versus the Cadillac of septic systems, the treatment system, than any city girl should reasonably be expected to know.  But now I can speak muck with the best of them rural folk.

So what does all this mean?  It means that we are soon-to-be proud owners of a defunct septic system.  Yes, today we finished haggling over price adjustments and the septic system is ours. We take possession of it on Wednesday, 02 July.  As a bonus, it comes with a mid-seventies house that will provide us with endless hours of project entertainment.  Although we will have plenty of room for a big screen TV we won't be shopping for one any time soon (big or small) as I expect that we'll be challenged enough at the end of the day to muster enough energy to brush our teeth, let alone prop open our eyes and focus on a TV screen.

I'd list the projects that we've already identified after our initial walk-through of the place, but it's getting close to bedtime and I don't want to give myself nightmares tonight.  Let's just say, we'll be busy. Okay, here's a teaser, since you insist. I'm not entirely sure if the mature grapevine is holding up the green house or if the green house is holding up the grapevine.  They seem to have become one over the years.  But that's just a minor outdoor project that can wait until we take care of some of the more pressing indoor projects - such as installing an oven.  Yes, an oven, that basic of basic appliances. Not only is there no oven, but also there is no place to put an oven without renovating the kitchen. The current owners renovated in 1997 and for some inexplicable reason chose not to include an oven in the complement of appliances that they installed.  Curious, very curious. And then there's - oh, wait.  I wasn't going to get started.  I do need to sleep tonight.

The upside of this place? We'll be within walking distance of the metropolis of Metchosin where one can dine at the only restaurant in Metchosin, the My Chosen Cafe, have coffee at the one coffee shop, buy feed for your chickens, stop at the general store for canned beans, iceberg lettuce, rubber boots, teapots and gardening tools, check on your public services (police, volunteer firehall) and see what's happening at the community hall.

I shouldn't sell the place short.  There are other upsides. The house has the space we need and is structurally sound.  Sure, there are changes to be made to make the place more current and in keeping with our chichi tastes, but basically it's a good house.  The land is beautiful.  The Galloping Goose trail is just at the end of the road.  Everyone in the community with whom we've spoken has been very friendly and welcoming.  And they make great coffee at the coffee shop.  What more could we need?

Nevertheless, it's an understatement to say that this is going to be quite a change from our life here in Kits.  But perhaps not as big a change as this move could have been.  We've managed to get our hands on only one acre of land instead of the five or so that we had hoped to secure, so our farming operation will be significantly smaller than it might have been. Instead we'll take some time to develop some paid employment options to support us while we learn more about soils, micro-climates, crop rotation, green manures and all those other handy terms that I've read but never put into practice. Oh, and monitoring septic systems.  

A-farming we will go...

I haven't played pinball in years. Are those machines still around or have they all been snapped up and squirreled away in wood paneled rec-rooms in the 'burbs? Picture it, though: a silver ball pinging its way around a sloped surface, lights popping and bells jangling as it ricochets back and forth between flapping paddles and spring-loaded pylons, valiantly trying to avoid its inevitable descent into that little black pit at the bottom of the play surface. That's us in our effort to figure out where we want to live as July 15, the closing date on our increasingly attractive Kits duplex, looms closer.  It would be generous to describe our decision making process as non-linear.  Non-functional would be more apt.  

In the space of two weeks I have been absolutely certain that we should: 

1. live on Saltspring Island and run a B&B/organic farm
   
2. build a house on a small acreage in Metchosin (see the posting about the wind)
   
3. buy a property that required extensive excavation and the installation of drain tiles to deal with a swamp (or try rice farming)
   
4. rent an old, drafty farmhouse on an organic farm and embrace communal living, and;
   
5. buy a level, one-acre property in Metchosin with a perfectly serviceable house and start with micro-farming while we also attempt to line up some contract work.  After all, the financial returns on farming are poor at the best of times.  Living off of micro-farming may by a little, shall we say, thin???
   

I love Saltspring Island.  Truly, I do.  It's got a great "mediterranean-like" climate and no one looks at you twice if you wear something tie-dyed.  But those ferries.  You can only miss so many sailings and have to kill a couple of extra hours with two small kids in a crowded BC Ferries terminal before you think twice about signing on for the long term.

Building on a small acreage?  Or, more accurately, building in a wind tunnel?  Nope.

Excavation and drain tiles? Ka-ching, ka-ching.  And it wasn't even clear it could be done.  And a protected zone around a nearby creek ate into the property.  And the house smelled of dogs (Bull Mastiffs, specifically) and needed all new flooring - and there was a lot of floor!  More ka-ching, ka-ching.  Though I do like rice...

The old, drafty farmhouse option would have been like going to summer camp. This was no mono-culture operation.  Instead, it was an absolutely idyllic collection of gently sloping fields covered, seemingly randomly, in herbs, flowers, fruits and vegetables. As we walked through the fields with Mary, the farm owner, I brushed up against lush foliage warmed by the mid-afternoon sun and the scents of earthy sage, warm tarragon and lemon thyme, and countless others I couldn't place, engulfed me. Not a single mechanical sound could be heard over the chatter of birds and the steady hum of pollinators.  Mike could have done an apprenticeship with Mary. I could have learned how to make cheese. And Liam and Kai?  They would have had the best playground going chasing after the chickens. One catch:  the farmhouse is currently being used for daily communal lunches by the handful of apprentices working on the farm and Mary wanted to continue the tradition with us as participants. This involves a rotating schedule amongst the apprentices of cooking, serving lunch and cleaning up. So, daily, someone would be occupying the kitchen for several hours. And there was some minor issue about the apprentices accessing the high speed internet connection in the house.  And the laundry facilities. But, living there would have been an experience that stretched us and forced us outside of the warm cocoon of our independent, anonymous lives.  We would have learned so much about the practical aspects of farming. (I'm sure there was a precise order to those fields, even if it wasn't readily apparent to me.)  We decided to go for it; we were ready to throw open the kitchen door and embrace the farm, communal lunches and all.  Mike placed the call to Mary to finalize arrangements. In passing he mentioned that we have a cat.  Mary's response? An enthusiastic "Oh good, we have rats!"  Rats? Now, a little communal living is one thing. Communing with rats is quite another.  Mary confessed that they have taken up residence in the walls and between the floors of the house.  Sorry, can't do it.  At least not with Liam and Kai.  So the rat house is out.

Which leads us to option five: the smaller parcel of land with a very liveable house for quite a comfortable price.  Enough room to practice some very small scale farming but close enough to Victoria to establish some other, more financially rewarding options. So Mike went off by himself to Metchosin today to view the house.  Yes, I may be signing on for a house that I have never actually laid eyes on. This is either a sign of abject desperation or faith that Mike and I are on a superior plane of communication so that we fully understand each others dreams and desires.

Okay, we're desperate.

We made an offer today. Maybe by this time tomorrow we'll be homeowners. And today is only the 6th of June.  We've still got 39 days to spare.

We wanted something different.... but a commune?

Kitsilano, Vancouver's own little corner of paradise, has been good to us. Back in the early 90's when both Mike and I arrived here from our respective corners of the globe (mine: the Vancouver suburb or Burnaby, his: Newcastle on the north east coast of England), it was a little sleepier, less well-endowed with coffee shops and much less expensive to rent a decent place to live.

Over the years, Kits has evolved as we have.  By the time we met, Capers had replaced the car dealership and Starbucks was making serious moves into the  neighbourhood.  Sophie's Cosmic Cafe had line-ups down the sidewalk every weekend morning and you could still walk down Fourth Avenue without getting caught up in a stroller jam.

Fast forward a couple of years.  We managed to snag a decent place to live before half a million bucks got you a shoe box in a basement and we are the ones trying to fit a double stroller through the front doors of Capers, past the ill-situated display of organic mangoes jammed between the cash desks and the magazine rack.  (Lesson learned: don't try to get into Capers with a side-by-side double stroller unless you want to be the proud owner of many bruised mangoes.)

But life is good in these few square blocks.  The beach, community centre and library, all services that are required by those with small children, are close by.  We've met a great group of supportive parents and kids.  We should be satisfied with life.  And we are.  For the most part.  Except when Mike has to get on a plane to travel for work.  Except when we can't make it through the front door for the strollers lined up in the entry hall. Except when the living room becomes a serious hazard zone for the toys strewn across the floor.  Except when Liam at the age of three is pretending to be Daddy, chatting on his cell phone (a toy car held to his ear), typing at his computer (a puzzle box) and towing his suitcase (his backpack) behind him as he heads off toward the front door, announcing "My taxi is here.  I'm going to New York."

We feel the urge for something different.  Something more connected to the natural world.  Something that will offer Liam and Kai, our newest addition, a different perspective on life.  Something that will show them that there is life beyond a job in an office, beyond devoting two hours a day to sitting in a car, beyond squeezing real living into a couple of spare hours on the weekend.

But commune living?!?!

"The wind never stops blowing... "

"The wind never stops blowing.  It howls down the valley in the winter.  It NEVER stops blowing."  Okay, that was enough to put us off our latest potential farm plot. Are we city weaklings?  Maybe, but if so, I can live with the label.

In the benign late morning sun of the previous day, the site seemed to offer so much: a flat growing area, a well that won't stop producing, deer fencing in place, a good building site and - bonus! - a two bedroom trailer in which we could live while building a house.  All for an estimated purchase price of $450,000.

It was the next day's independent research that cooled our interest in the property.  Howling winds all the time?  Not for moi. I'm up for trying our hands at farming but I'm not up for freezing year round.  And, added bonus, that prime growing area is at the bottom of the valley and so receives all the cold air that rolls down the surrounding hillsides.  My six required credits of science for my writing degree slowly came back to me. At the time I couldn't imagine any use for the course information.  Now I was developing a new appreciation for that basic geography course. Yes, cold air rolls down hill and, well, makes everything it sits on cold.

So we've turned our back on that property.  Perhaps we'll take up commune living in Sooke.