Catching up... whew...

Life in quiet Nova Scotia is too busy

First of all, a big welcome to the dozens of new subscribers in the last month or two. Admittedly few of you are paid subscribers, but still it’s lovely to see my audience building. These are times of great change, and every bit of support is very welcome.

Despite buying our lovely home in Western Head, Nova Scotia back in September of last year, the reality is that we’ve been on planes and in cars for a lot of the last few months, travelling between here, and Alencon, and Paris, and Montreal, and last week Quebec City.

And beyond that it has been a crazy year for illness, first with COVID back in France, and since landing in Canada some kind of really nasty sinus and chest infection, and some crazy muscle damage in my bicep which is also impacting my shoulder, and which needs a physio-therapist, which of course the NS Health does not pay for.

So if the posts here have been sporadic, it’s not for lack of intent, it just reflects a crazy and intense few months.

Finally it feels as if we’ll be here, at home, for a fairly long stretch of time, and just at the right time to start building and sowing gardens, re-siding the barn, and generally doing a ton of fix-up and repair work while also trying to keep the paying gigs coming in. All of this is happening while we’re working to get the mover’s insurance company to pay for the rather extensive damage they did to our stuff while in transit, while we figure out why Beatrice the Cat is also sick, and while we try to find a living, breathing doctor anywhere in the Queens’ Region who’s accepting new patients.

(Side Project: looking at per capita highways vs health spending in Nova Scotia over the last few decades. I suspect that it will look a lot like this:

… or not. We shall see. All that I know is, you can drive anywhere in Nova Scotia really quickly, but will find out that the Emergency Room is closed when you arrive.)

So current planning revolves around rebuilding the back patio that was removed for the new septic system. Aside from expanding it because it’s nice to have the space, it’s also a chance to hide the big green lids of all of the septic parts. All of which occasionally need to be accessed.

Gardens will be raised-bed for sure, and I’m getting quotes on topsoil to fill them. I’m also doing a ton of reading about how to make them feed us as long, and as well, as is possible.

I also sourced a great plan for a greenhouse. by “great” I mean “I could build this.”

Beyond that we’re looking at a new roof (much needed), a new furnace (also much needed) and about a hundred “would be nice to have” items. Anyone who has bought a house, especially a 100+ year old house, knows the drill.

(Parenthetically I’m also trying to find time to dig into archives and find out the history of this place. The house, or part of the house, is old, but exactly how old is a mystery. Late 1800s in any case.)

Oh yes, and we’ll also be sealing and insulating the floors…. although I did manage to spend a day adding little foam pads behind all of the light switches and plugs. And swear I can feel the difference.

And replaced a leaking bathroom tap, cleaned the insane tiny little dirt filters on the hoses to our ancient Maytag washer, replaced the vent from the stove fan to the outdoors, and added a chain to the back door to keep it from swinging open 180° every time the wind catches it. The list of projects, small and large, keeps growing.

And I like it. Manual labour, and fixing stuff with your own hands, is incredibly satisfying. Especially if you get it right the first time.

And that, when you get right down to it, is one of the things that I’m looking forward to in Western Head: having the time and space to slow down, think through each step, and do jobs like these carefully and successfully. I know that in anything - from repairs to writing - that I do my best work when I can slow down and spend an unbroken few hours on a project. Trying to squeeze things into bits and pieces of time never works for me.

In the meantime I can always stop for one minute, look out any window, and go “Damn, this place is so beautiful.”