There's no going back

Now we've done it.  And really done it.  There's no going back. 

There was a time when I'd get up in the morning, stumble around the kitchen making coffee and then, clutching my cup in two hands, artificially introduce myself to the day while staring out the kitchen window at this:

All in all, not a bad way to wake up.  But then, this arrived:

And look what it did to a perfectly good chicken coop!

There aren't going to be anymore chickens in this coop.

Okay, so it wasn't actually a perfectly good chicken coop.  Admittedly it was in need of repair, to the point that even some rats who had previously taken up residence in it had decided to move on. Perhaps it was an issue with the room service and lack of regular meals. Anyway, we decided that the chicken coop had to go.  And the co-dependent green house.  It was definitely time for the green house and the grapevines to establish some independence from each other. Learn to stand on their own two feet (or collapse, as the case may be). And then, of course, the cyanide-leeching pressure treated posts for the fencing around our future organic garden had to go. And then some unfortunately located trees.

End result? A large open expanse of soil, turned over and awaiting tilling.  As I said, there's no going back now.

Enter the visual world...

Finally, some visuals.  A bit out of date, but here they are...

Waiting in the line up at the BC Ferries terminal in Tsawwassen, British Columbia for the ferry that will take us to Vancouver Island to begin this great adventure.

The happy campers arriving at their new house.  (Note the smiles. Clearly, issues with movers and faulty appliances have yet to come.)

Mike investigating the tangled wilds of the back of the property. 

On the road to self-sufficiency (or is it the equivalent of climbing K2 without oxygen?) Sorry about the orientation of the photo.  Any hints out there on how to flip this around?

Nothing like some good, honest manual labour. Start 'em young, I say.

That's it for now.  A little teaser on the place where we have landed.

Ladies Who Lunch

The women of East Sooke (which borders on Metchosin) give new meaning to the term "ladies who lunch."

I'm not sure where else in the world a group of 10 or 12 women would gather around a table laid with fern fronds and fresh flowers, a backdrop of the East Sooke basin rolling out beyond the floor to ceiling windows, and talk septic systems and drainage. 

Seriously. 

These are renaissance women. They are equally comfortable with dirt under their nails or polish on top of them. They can "talk muck" with the best of them, or politics with the worst of them. They are informed, informing, involved, opinionated, smart. And they are welcoming, so much so that I had the great honour of sharing a lunch with them and feeling right at home. 

I could learn much from this group. Conversation topics ranged from international emigration to septic systems to building permit acquisition to public forums on land usage to local history.  All in a two hour span. Should these women become fired up about an issue and decide to bring their collective force to bear, I would fear for their opponent. I'm sure that in the most eloquent of speech, they would make a lovely mince tart of the offending party, served up with a lightly spiced whipped cream. They break all stereotypes held by city folk of people who live "in the country." And if I'm lucky, I'll receive an invitation to the next gathering of "ladies who lunch."

What happened to August????

Did anyone see where August went? I seem to have misplaced it. Perhaps it got trapped out back in the thorny grasp of the blackberry bushes. I'll have to look for it when I'm next out there picking berries and rescue it with the loppers. But if I can't locate August, I'll move on. September is a beautiful month and I'm looking forward to getting outside and getting my hands dirty in the garden. And there are any number of outdoor projects with which to get my hands dirty, not the least of which is pruning back lots of plant material that has been left to its own devices for too long.

Some pruning has already gotten underway, thanks to the English rellies who have come to visit. It seems that change is as good as anything for a vacation. We've had willing volunteers to hack away at overgrown butterfly bushes and wieglea and underproductive fruit trees. And in fact, the pruning has revealed quite an array of tasty plant life already growing here. We've discovered:

• yellow plums
• blackberries
• purple plums
• transparent apples
• a few varieties of red apples
• hazelnuts
• blackberries
• walnuts
• Japanese plums (which look like big cherries)
• grapes
• fig
• rosemary
• blackberries
• oregano
• mint
• rhubarb
• blackberries

Not a bad selection to begin with.  Sure, most of it needs some attention, but we've been enjoying yellow plums and transparent apples and will soon to be harvesting a good crop of purple plums as well as lots of red apples. 

Those of you paying attention, though, will notice that blackberries appeared a few times on the list of harvestable plant life. That should give you an indication of the quantity of blackberries that we have on our property.  They're quite yummy and make a great jam (yes, I made blackberry jam!) but they are also capable of lifting the roof off of a shed. And they have totally surrounded our most productive apple tree. My plan? To pick the berries from around the apple tree and as I pick, to take loppers to canes and chop away. I figure that by the time the apples are ready for picking I'll have slain enough of the blackberries to have a safe passage to the apple tree.

And the blackberry canes that were attacking the storage sheds? They've already been acquainted with the loppers, though I understand they are tenacious beasts and, rather like aging rock stars, inclined to make a comeback just when you think they've finally gone away.

Now, I must sign off. I must save my strength for tomorrow's battle. I can hear the blackberry bushes rustling away outside. They must be strategizing their surprise attack, deciding which arching cane with particularly long thorns will wrap itself around my arm and which one will suddenly reach over my head and attach itself to the back of my sweater leaving me no chance of defense. But I'm on to them now. I've seen what happened to August. I'll lead the charge with my loppers and we'll see who comes out victorious.

Two week progress report

We have been in our new house for two weeks. We're still surrounded by stacks of boxes but now, instead of being of tsunami magnitude, the stacks are more on the scale of the wake of a BC Ferry - enough to cause trouble should you get caught out but not enough to bring about your demise.

So we are making progress.  We finally have all of our stuff from the moving company. No, they did not deliver. Instead we had to rent a van and Mike had to make a day trip to Vancouver to retrieve the final bits and pieces of our belongings. As well, we had to rope in the assistance of some friends who happened to be coming over for a visit and who also happen to own a minivan. But, no matter. We have our things. And, joy! We have our barbeque, for what is summer without a barbeque at least one a week.

Unfortunately, when we fired up the barbeque to get that warm, summertime feeling going, we had a hotter experience than expected. Halfway through cooking our halibut steaks, flames started spewing out from underneath the barbeque. So, fire down the barbeque and flip the the steaks into the fry pan on the stovetop. Somehow, it just wasn't quite the same thing. Another project for the list - if we ever get around to putting the list to paper, which we really don't want to do since we'd have to slay a small forest to produce enough paper to accommodate all the items on our project list.

Other items underway that we can check off that non-existent list?

Our team of manual labourers (Mike and Liam) have been out working on the septic system.  You'd be surprised how much dirt an almost-four-year-old can move when he think it's play. Our front yard cum septic field is now full of a bunch of 18 inch deep holes with which we are going to monitor septic field "activity." I think that when it comes time to do the actual monitoring which involves measuring liquid levels, I'll be busy indoors alphabetizing my spice rack. Don't laugh! When you're in the middle of cooking and the crucial moment to add spices is upon you, you don't want to be caught out unable to find your turmeric or cardamom.

Our new dishwasher has arrived and thanks to a generous offer from my brother-in-law to assist with the installation (okay, I admit it - do the installation) we now have the quietest dishwasher I've ever had the pleasure to not hear. When it's running you actually have to put your ear up to it before you can tell that it's on.

We've enlisted the services of a neighbour to come and cut our dandelion field for a small fee until we have a chance to do a comparative analysis of John Deere versus Husqvarna.

Garbage collection has been arranged. Yes, we must arrange private garbage collection. No city collection here. Up until now, our method of dealing with garbage has been to stash our bags in an old, defunct chest freezer outside by the sheds. Seems the perfect set-up. No hungry animals can get at it and any smell is contained. As I said, perfect. That is, until the chest fills up.

To do?  Get rid of the old dishwasher. Although, it kind of makes a nice set with the old chest freezer. And with our dandelion fields, all we're missing is an old, rusted car parked up on blocks in the yard to make us look like some kind of junkyard hillbillies. There's been a bit of a problem with home break-ins around here recently, so maybe cultivating the junkyard look isn't such a bad idea. Really, what are the chances that we'd have anything worth stealing?

Those are the highlights of the last two weeks. Stay tuned for a cultural experience report.

Perhaps we could get used to this place...

This morning I woke at 5:15, just as light was entering the sky. I got up to look out the bedroom windows and saw three brown rabbits sitting in the grass on their haunches, noses to the wind. Later on, in the full light of morning, Liam and I walked up the road to see the cows at a neighbouring farm. The sun was shining and the sky was that post-card perfect bottomless blue. Blackberry bushes stretched out their prickly arms towards us, showing off a profusion of hard, green berries, a promise of the harvest to come. Overhead some hawks rode a thermal updraft in lazy circles. An afternoon exploration of our property revealed several apple and plum trees in fruit. Tonight, we had dinner sitting on the back deck, from which all we can see are shades of green melting one into another as the sun sets behind the trees. I think we could get used to this place.

Irony of ironies

We received a delivery early today, an event almost unheard of in the world of large household purchases and cartage companies.

Let me explain.

For a variety of reasons (well, two mostly - Liam and Kai) we decided that we would invest in a new bed once we moved to our new home.  Our old bed was fine, just a tad crowded in the early morning hours once everyone had migrated from their own beds into ours. Throw a cat into the mix and we were in need of a bit more bed real estate.  But, to accommodate more bed real estate we needed more house real estate and, so, the decision to invest in a king size bed was taken.

And oh, we found a beauty. Upon my first test flop in the store in Vancouver, I knew I had reached sleep nirvana. Organic latex with an organic wool and cotton covering. Probably manufactured in the shade of a protected rain forest by indigenous peoples still wearing their traditional costume. When it wears out in 25 years time we can toss it on the compost pile. But I digress. It was a bit on the pricey side, but when we divided the total cost by the anticipated number of nights sleeping on it, we convinced ourselves that it's almost a bargain. Certainly a thrifty purchase. The only problem was taking delivery. Could we get it before we left Vancouver? Nope. But the sales rep assured us that deliver to Metchosin would be no problem. We could expect it to arrive a few days after our move.

So, upon arrival in Metchosin, we decided to set up our old bed (or perhaps I should still refer to it as our current bed?) in our guest room. No point in setting it up in our room only to have to disassemble it in a matter of days and move it downstairs to make room for the new, majestic King size bed. Besides, we needed the guest bed for my father who agreed to cat sit for us while we moved and would be arriving soon after our move date to deliver said cat and visit for a couple of nights. A few nights on a foamy on the floor of our bedroom wouldn't kill us.

Five days after moving we had taken delivery of our cat, Dad had been and gone and my hips and shoulders were starting to ache. And then the phone call came from the bed store. The bed would be a few days late in arriving. We were looking at sleeping on the foamy for another four nights.

Next thing, we were stripping the bedding off of the foamy and hauling the mattress from the guest room up the back stairs and into our bedroom. That was yesterday. Laughingly, I said to Mike as we flopped the mattress onto the floor, "I bet the new bed comes early."

This morning the phone rang at about 7:00 am. Considering that very few people have our new number yet, and that even fewer of them would call us so early, this was quite an event. So much so that we even answered the call. It turned out to be the delivery company for the bed store. They had our bed and would be delivering it today. Today! At 11:00 am. Tonight we could be sleeping on our new bed!

First task after breakfast was to clear out our bedroom to make way for the masterpiece. As we were about the haul our old mattress back downstairs Mike stopped us. "What if the new one doesn't arrive for some reason?" he asked. "What reason?" I said. Mike shrugged, but he suggested that we leave the old mattress in the living room until the new one was delivered and in our bedroom. Just in case. Very wise. I knew there was a reason that I married him.

Our new bed did arrive today. Not at 11:00 am, as predicted, but at 3:00 pm. By this time, I had gone out to do some laundry and order our new washer and dryer and dishwasher (we'll see when they get delivered!)

This new bed is latex, as I mentioned. As a consequence, it is heavy and floppy. Nothing like a conventional mattress.  And did I mention heavy?  It's got to be two hundred pounds. Two hundred very floppy pounds. The delivery man was, apparently, a nice guy but had his limits. Fighting two hundred floppy pounds up the stairs was not in his day planner. We need more bodies to move this beast. Friends are coming over later in the week for a visit so we'll do things the country way. Instead of having a barn raising party, we'll have a bed raising party. We'll play a little folk music to set the mood, I'll make potato salad to feed the crowd, and we'll herd that bed up the stairs. And, eventually, we'll get horizontal on our new bed and float off to sleep nirvana.

In the meantime, we've shuffled the old mattress back onto the floor of our bedroom while the new mattress is safely stored away on the floor of the guest room. Irony of ironies. A major purchase actually arrived early and we're still sleeping on a mattress on the floor of our room. At least Mike had the foresight to suggest that we wait to move the old mattress back downstairs.

One leaky faucet at a time, one bed at a time.