Happy Holidays

Zoe and I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! We hope you all enjoy time with family and friends. May 2019 bring you health and love and peace.

We appreciate you following our adventure. We are excited to see what next year will bring and hope you continue to read about our experiences, mishaps and, hopefully, meet our first farm animals with us!

I'll be back posting in January, so until then, look for, acknowledge, and appreciate the joy in your life everyday!

From our family to yours - Happy Holidays!

The Future

This week Zoe and I have been quietly picking away at getting ready for Christmas. Baking, Creating (I can't say more as I don't want to tip the recipients off on their gifts!) While we have been working we have been talking about the future. In January I will need to get a job. And while I knew I couldn't avoid it forever,  it has reminded us that we had a page and a half full of "how to make money with/on the property" ideas.

We have read about sheep, which we are very interested in. Our community does have coyotes. While I have not seen any, I do understand they are quietly lurking in the background. We have read that llama's will herd and protect sheep while running off, or even killing, coyotes! So a herd of sheep and two or three llama's? Why sheep? I understand they do not need barn space but an outside life with a lean-to is sufficient for them. I have also done some exploring through craft markets, and it appears the wool is quite valuable and sought after. We like this idea of sheep.

Breeding dogs. It is our goal to get a dog in January, and while we were set on getting a rescue from the humane society, we reminded ourselves that dog breeding had been on our "list". So we will be looking into that after the holidays.

I had a long conversation with Kate about fostering children. That is still on our minds, but we have also heard of two families in our community who house Asian high school students for the school term. Once we get the bedrooms renovated, we will have four bedrooms with the option to expand that to six bedrooms, so both fostering and housing students could be options.

In the summer, we had thought of doing Air B'n'B for camping. Set up a compostable toilet and tent platforms in a more private area of the property.

We have started cleaning out our chicken coop. So that's a given. Laying hens to start and possibly expand to broiler chickens or hatching chicks.

We were also talking of pigs and cows. We had always planned on a cow for meat for ourselves, but are thinking about a dairy cow for milk and making cheese?

And of course, we have always wanted our marketplace with "for sale" items. We are thinking everything from our garden produce, to cuttings and seedlings, drop apples we had seen advertised this fall, fire starts, refinished furniture and home crafted woodworking, my knitted items, eggs, really anything we can think to grow or create.

I would love input on this. Anyone have other suggestions? We are obviously not stuck on "farm" only, so any ideas would be appreciated!

One Week To Go

We have been keeping busy. Every morning I spend 1-2 hours out in the forest gathering firewood, we have started putting up a wall in the office, and we have been spending every afternoon getting ready for Christmas. This year we wanted to create homemade gifts and are using materials from our house, our property, and our surrounding area.

One of the things we had not done was unpack any of our decor items, or hang any pictures. We were waiting until a room was finished, and then we planned to decorate it. Zoe got tired of living in a house, and wanted to at least make our bedrooms homey. Over the past two days she first tackled her bedroom then mine. I got to help along the way with her bedroom. She hung lights around her bed, put up her pretty things, her candles and perfume bottles, book ends that she had painted over the summer, pictures, and she made sure to display her cowboy hat! But when it came to decorating my room, she kicked me out and didn't let me in until it was finished! I absolutely love it. Zoe knows me so well! She surrounded me with pictures of my family and my children growing up and finished it off with a reading nook including fireplace

(yet to be hung.) Zoe was right. I hadn't realized the difference between loving my house, and feeling like it was home!

Tonight we went out to try and see the meteoroid shower. Could be that we were out too early or that our bonfire was too big and too bright, but we did not see any!!

Leaving on a pretty note-I get to see these freeze dried roses out my kitchen window every day. I am so lucky for all the beauty that surrounds me.

Family Visits

We had another whirlwind of a work cation as my brother Bill and my sister-in-law Jennifer came for two days of work. They arrived in Nova Scotia on Thursday afternoon but took their time travelling to our house doing some shopping, wine tasting and micro brew exploring. I think they had read my blogs about previous visitors and recognized that once someone arrived, they didn't leave until it was time to catch their flight home!

Zoe cooked us her now famous fresh caught haddock in pesto sauce - yum!! We had a fire in the wood stove -thank you Bill and Jen for showing me not to be afraid of big fires - had some Nova Scotian wine, and called it a night.

Friday morning we set out to do all the small jobs that I was too short for, or needed extra hands for. Bill and Jen secured a light over the garage, changed a fuse in the old lawn tractor, trimmed the "mohawk" I had been unable to reach whiling trimming a hedge, helped me lift two concrete pads to investigate under them. We cut and split some firewood, but the best thing we did was walk the property. Now that so much foliage had fallen and it is possible to make our way through the under growth, we could explore more of the property! I love our land so much!! I have tried to draw a map of the areas we have now been able to identify. (Obviously I am not an artist, but I think you can get an idea of the potential our land has to offer)

While we were on our walk the Reverend at the Baptist church next door came out to introduce herself, offer us a welcome basket and invite us to the church breakfast the next morning. We took her up on this offer and went over Saturday morning for a delicious breakfast and walked away with some goodies from their bake sale! I had only one large job left on the wish list for my brother: change a window. We were afraid that if we didn't have the all the materials we needed, we would be left with a gaping hole in the wall when it was going down to -14 at night. So...we decided not to proceed with that job. Instead we opted to remove the ramp leading up to the back door (which Zoe and I have always felt was an eyesore and restricted the access to our garage) and replace it with three simple steps. This was harder than we expected due to the wood being frozen haha, but we managed. In the end we were left with two intact ramp sections that Zoe and I are hoping to use at the chicken coop and enough recycled wood to build three platform steps. I love the way this opens up the side of the house!

Finally, we got to introduce Bill and Jen to Bistro East and had another delicious meal there. I am so grateful for their visit, their help, their generosity, their conversation, the delicious meal they made, and all the tips they gave me from fire making, nail removal, sump pumps and well submersible pumps for irrigation!

Waiting....

My brother arrives today!! I am very excited to see Bill and my sister-in-law Jennifer, to show them around the house and property and to put them to work (hehe)! It's the waiting that is hard. House is cleaned, groceries are bought, wine is chilling, now what? Seriously, I remind myself, there is always work to do so...

First, I realize the view of St. Mary's Bay through the trees is lovely this time of year with no leaves to block my view. Ahh, nothing like waves to calm me down.

Second, I had mentioned earlier that a tree had fallen down during a wind storm. As I drove into the driveway yesterday I felt that there was not as much as there had been previously. I think maybe someone has been coming and taking a few pieces here and there. So Zoe and I amped up our muscles and lugged them onto the back of the truck and rolled them off at the barn. We seriously felt like He-Women. These were bloody big and heavy! The picture does not do them justice but to describe the size, when laid side by side we could fit only two at a time in the back of the truck! So proud of us!

Third, we have wanted to start on the chicken coop. We cleaned out the little treasures. A child's homemade whip, an exacto knife, a light fixture, a cat carrier and lots of little feed dishes. I have a feeling chickens had not lived here for a while! With shovels in hand we took three wheelbarrow fulls of old soggy sawdust out and lifted the rotted plywood floor. And just like that, it is looking so much better!

All in all, not a bad way to spend our time waiting. We bought more of that fresh caught fish to make for supper tonight because we had loved it so much - so off to the kitchen I go!

Saturday

We had a terrific day on Saturday. Zoe and I ventured out to the neighbouring community for a Christmas craft show. We have always enjoyed the Thanksgiving sale in Vineland and were excited to hear about this one so close to us.

The craft show was held in Annapolis Royal between three locations (that we could find). I had heard there was a fourth location but we couldn't find it so....we started with the indoor farmers market. This does run every Saturday and is a smaller version of the summer market. It was lovely. We have a neighbour with a farm market at their house which we have not been to yet (bad Zoe and Shannon) but they were at the market so we got a peak at what they offered and we will be going to their market! Lovely vegetables, home canned goods, honey, everything looked so good. We also got to purchase our first fresh fish direct from the fisherman. More on that later.

Second we moved to the firehall where there were many many tables displaying crafts from knitting and sewing to soaps and candles to baked goods. We found many unique items that we purchased and  some items that gave us ideas for our own marketplace when we get it up and running. It has been an ongoing struggle for me to decide what calls to me when it comes to art. So when I find a piece that does, I try to afford it!! Luckily for me there was a woman with some beautiful pieces that I loved that were reasonably priced! I now have my third piece of Nova Scotian art for my new Nova Scotian home! (When my parents were here they bought us two Maud Lewis pieces-Maud lived about ten minutes down the road from my house during her married life.)

Our third stop was an elementary school. This seemed to have more professional artists. There is a community between Digby and Annapolis Royal called Bear River which is known for its artisans. I think many of them were displaying their art at the school. I was very happy to find a local farmer here who harvests his seeds. I was able to get a jump start on my garden with seeds that are proven to grow in this climate and this soil! But our favourite, yet to be tested purchase, was tooth soap! I had never heard of it before, but it is a soap that is a substitute for your toothpaste. It is all natural and has "proven effects for the positive health of your teeth and gums". We'll see!

 Then to wrap up the evening, Zoe cooked our fresh fish for us for supper. Not only is Zoe an excellent chef, she does such a beautiful presentation including some fresh herbs from our window sill herb garden! She can cook for us any time-please!!