Wee Bonny New Scotland

The Wonder Year

2010-05-26T10:53:00.000-07:00

It was a year ago that I arrived at my new house here in Nova Scotia. Well, technically it was a year ago yesterday but if we are using May 26th as an anniversary date then today is a calendar year. Time is a real enigma and plays tricks on you. It makes you believe it's moving slowly but when you reflect on the past it seems like everything happened in a fleeting moment.

Remember the rig? Well, I wondered why everyone was so worried about me before I left and while I was on the road. I felt perfectly safe at the time, like it was a totally reasonable prospect to drive 5000km with 4 dogs, 3 cats and all my stuff jammed into an unregistered trailer. Now I think "No way I'd let my daughter do that!"

My parent's house was a welcome sight when I arrived in Nova Scotia. And for the dogs too since they'd been trapped without a good run for 3 or 4 days.

It was great to see my little house again, I hadn't seen it since I bought it 6 months prior to my arrival.

My parents helped me move in and let me tell you, it took way less time to unload that trailer than to pack it! The mess took much much longer to address though.

It took almost a year to get everything arranged the way I wanted it but finally I think most rooms are pretty well as I like them. One day the laundry room will have a wall to separate it from the kitchen but that's on the list of future projects, along with painting the ceilings(still), the house skirting, fascia, a patio and a few other small projects. Those will have to wait until I can afford them!

For now though, I couldn't ask for a more contented life. It is everything I wanted and more. I took such a chance on moving out here, knowing almost no one, having no job, travelling with so many animals ... and every single moment has been worth it. Huge thanks to everyone who helped me along the way; my parents Terry & Stephanie, my brother Ben, Tanja, Phil & Joanne, Bill & Donna, Liana, Adine, Erin, Kim, Jeff & Danielle, and everyone else who had some hand in seeing me safely to my new life. The dogs, cats and I can never thank you enough! Now ... come visit dammit!

Mulch Ado About Nothing

2010-04-12T16:45:00.000-07:00

I know it's been a ridiculous long while since I last posted. I have been procrastinating about painting the ceiling and the final step in not procrastinating is buying this special thing called a Point 'n' Paint I saw on TV. I haven't bought it yet because if I do it will mean I no longer have an excuse to not attempt the absolute least favorite thing I want to do with my time.

Instead I've been preparing the garden for the summer and so far the front is pretty much complete. The weather has been quite warm so far so I'm ahead of the game. The front garden last year was nice but not nice enough for me so I decided to ensure that I never needed to weed again. I got that black cloth for gardens and installed it on a windy day. I won't sport with your intellignace and describe that adventure except to say ... wait for a not windy day. The little plot you see here is the right hand side of the deck when you are facing it.

And this is it finished with a layer of cedar mulch on it. I'd like to get some more brick to put along the right side but I ran out. That little white blob in front there is a hound dog who needs some paint.

The other side is larger but was not too difficult to tackle. Here is the point at which I was laying out the brick to see how much I needed and where it would go best - the bricks are actually from along the path that leads from the driveway to the front door. They were almost completely covered in grass so had clearly been there a very long time. I like reusing things that already exist on the property because they have lived here longer than I have and deserve to stay. There were these huge rocks that bordered the front of the garden but I didn't like them because they can't make a clean line of delineation between the graden and the grass.

The biggest rock was a *bitch* to pull up but I finally managed it. I decided that instead of dragging it across the grass and giving myself a hernia, I'd only move it a foot or two and make it a nice backdrop for my little lion cub who came all the way from Alberta. He still needs to be painted but he's made it through two Canadian winters without a coat so I think he can go a few more days.

I never did get a photo of the larger garden area with the black fabric but really, how interesting could that photo possibly be? Here it is with it's new cedar mulch facelift. It looks a little sparse right now because the plants haven't grown in but that big round area in front there turns into a montrous lily thing in the summer. I want to wait and see how much room the plants take up before introducing any new vegetation into the mix. Where the ground is uneven in front of the brick will be filled in with some sod from the backyard. Wait til you see what I'm doing back there.

The front of my house, isn't it pretty? I'll take another picture again in the summer when I have had a chance to repaint the front step(what is UP with that?) and the plants are in bloom. Everything is budding happily and it looks like all my 2009 new plants survived the winter; even the lavender which, until a week ago, I was convinced was dead. Next stop ... raised vegetable garden ...

The Doors

2010-02-23T12:12:00.000-08:00

As spring is coming on and the Home Renovation Tax Credit ended with January 2010 I have several projects lined up that I am planning to tackle. I finally have the spare room door replaced, it was not is any great shape as you can see. When I moved in this little hole was on the livingroom side of the door. The day I arrived we had to go out and buy some supplies and get lunch so I shut the dogs in the spare room for a couple hours. They made short work of a small hole on the other side of the door.

So I bought a new door and My Amazing Dad came over to install it. He cut the handle hole, chipped out the hinge spaces and we hung it quite easily. More easily than I'd have thought actually. It really is amazing what a difference something new and fresh can make. I think the total replacement cost for this door was about $60. But ... you can't beat the bargain basement price of this next renovation. I discovered partway through December that when I was sitting in the livingroom I could feel a draft. I thought it was coming from under the spare door, that room isn't heated, so I put a draft stopper along the bottom. Still a draft. Thought it was the front door, another draft stopper. Still a draft. The draft was coming from the entrance to the livingroom. I hung a sheet and voila ... no more draft. Well, a sheet isn't very nice and an annoying PIA so I decided that a French door would do the trick. I figured I could shut the dogs behind it if necessary and to stop the cats annoying the crap out of me I'd take out a pane of glass so they could go back and forth without demanding I open the door.

I went French door shopping knowing they cost about $100. I knew I wanted a simple finger-jointed pine door, unpainted and pretty standard. I was perusing the door aisle of our local DIY and came across their 'no returns' section. Always with an eye tuned to a bargain I started looking through the doors. What's this? A 32" finger-jointed pine French door with a DAMAGED - NO RETURN sticker on the side. Well, what is wrong with it? It had one single broken pane. It was $20. I bought it on the spot. I explained to the HI employee that the broken pane was perfect as I intended to remove one anyway from whatever door I bought. He then expressed his concern about removing the pane, "I wonder the best way to get that pane out?" Uh. Break it?

I discovered upon getting the door home that the pane of glass that was broken is actually the second from the top, not the bottom, so I ended up hanging it upside down. I think, unless you actually knew it was upside down, you'd never know. My Amazing Dad, with his circular saw that is literally older than I am (but with a new blade so it still cuts marvelously), cut off some of the bottom/top of the door because it exactly fit the space it needed to be put into and all doors need room to swing.

Last week My Amazing Dad and I spent the day hanging this door - actually My Amazing Dad hung the door, I watched and held various tools and made lunch. It is quite a process. You never realize how important 'square' is until you try to hang a door. The entry to the livingroom was 36" and the door was 32" so we had to make up the space with 1x4 pieces of wood. Here is a terrible photo of the door partially painted and the wood(kinda) inbetween the original frame and the new frame. The handle hole was an absolute bitch when we tried to put the handle in it but we finally manhandled the thing so it would work properly. It does now thank doG. I also moved the desk from the kitchen, where it was increasingly annoying me, into the livingroom where, conveniently I can now surf online and watch TV ... the stuff of dreams. You can see the internet cable strung up and over the door. And now you can't. I painted the cable the same color as the walls and I think it blends beautifully. This is obviously the livingroom side. When this door is shut it takes about 10 minutes for the room to warm comfortably and stay warm. And this is the kitchen side of the door, the bathroom is off to the right and my bedroom is off to the left. The hardwood still needs refinishing but that will wait until warmer weather and I can open all the windows.

But wait! What about that pane of glass that was to be removed? Why ... I did remove it. I had to shove the cats through a few times each to show them where the hole was located and only Ceilidh jumped into the wrong pane once - she leaped into the middle pane, slid down, shook her head, looked to her left at the correct hole and hopped through. Here is Archer demonstrating which pane is missing. Raimi's head does fit but he doesn't like putting his head through and Leeloo refuses to lower herself to such monkeyshines.
In all, this door cost about $90 total including the hardware, casing and paint - a pretty good solution to a cold winter draft! I also expect in the summer, with the monster fan going, that the room will cool down quite nicely too ... can't wait to test it!

Floored

2010-02-06T04:37:00.001-08:00

Over Christmas I took a break from renovations so that during the holidays I wasn't dealing with paint and dust and clean up. Now that we are well past the festive season I have no excuse to not work on various outstanding reno projects. This year will see the floors finished, the ceilings painted, screens replaced, the spare door replaced, a french door installed, and I will start replacing the fence with preserved boards.

My first project of the new year was the lino for the laundry floor. With the layers and layers of plywood and vinyl pulled up it was simply a matter of smashing the nails in a bit more, levelling the dips and holes with a patching agent and laying down the flooring. I had a day in mind to do the whole thing in one go, went to pick up my supplies and discovered they were out of flooring adhesive. So I bought what I could but didn't get the lino as I didn't want to be stepping over it for the week it would take to get the adhesive in.

Once the adhesive arrived I went to pick up the lino. I decided that since the space I needed to fill was 8x11 feet and the end rolls sold pre-wrapped were 8x12, what better solution than to just choose one of those? So I get the roll home and it sits for a couple days before I have time to get it laid out. While still in it's wrap I slid it into the laundry area by the back door. Huh. That's odd, did I mis-measure? It's 2 inches too short. Nope, *my* measurements are correct, the lino, however, is too short. So the day I was going to spend doing the lino turns into yet another day of not.

I take it back and have the guy measure the other rolls to see if any are actually 8 feet as it says on the package. Nope. None of them. So there is a sale on, thank gawd, of a lino I like and I say, gimme 8 feet of that(they are 12 feet wide). It gets rolled, jammed into my truck and off we go.

I prepared the area by vacuuming as much dog hair, cat hair, dust, and whatnot as I could. Around the back door I ran into a little problem. Obviously the back door has been leaking at the bottom and soaking into the plywood, this caused it to rot a bit. I used a screwdriver to scrape up as much of the wet wood as I could and lo and behold, now there are holes down into the crawl space through the floor. Fabulous. I vacuumed up the excess wood bits and left it overnight to dry out. Now I need to go back to the hardware store and get some spray foam insulation to fill the holes.

I mixed a little of the plasti-patch and get started. It was a relatively easy process to fill all the little nail holes, screw holes, and level up some less than exact plywood. While it was drying I headed to Home Hardware to pick up the spray foam, stuffed the holes full of that miracle substance and then did another layer of Plasti-patch. There was a section where the difference in height was about a quarter inch so I had to smooth that into a little ramp so the lino wouldn't get ruined in that spot. Once all that was dry I swept again and the real ordeal began. I forgot to ask, and still don't know, whether a person is supposed to cut the lino to fit before or after you glue it down. I cut it before. I am thinking now that was a mistake but ... I digress. I had the lino rolled up at one end of the floor and the lino adhesive out with a trowel ready for action. I smeared a bunch of glue down and fought with the lino to get it into the space I needed it, namely the corner under the window. Alone, this was not easy. I then accidentally dropped the loaded trowel onto the floor where I didn't want adhesive so that while I was fighting with the roll, half unrolled into one corner, it was sliding across and sticking to the adhesive where I'd dropped the trowel.

Then I dropped the trowel handle-first into the adhesive. Take a moment to imagine how that went.

I then stuck the other corner down and realized, too late, that is was not lining up properly, it was curled at the corner a bit which meant the whole roll was about a quarter inch crooked. Since it was taking so long to get the roll down the first corner was mostly dried and there was no moving it. I just sat for a moment and despaired, then carried on with a shrug and WTH.

I spent the next 45 minutes spackling down adhesive, unsticking my hand from the trowel, unrolling the lino, spackling down more adhesive, unsticking my hand from the trowel, and unrolling the lino. At about the three-quarters-done mark I dropped the trowel handle-first into the adhesive a second time. I was almost beyond sanity.

Eventually, I won the battle and managed to get the whole sheet stuck down to the floor. I put cans of paint along a couple edges to get them to lay flat to dry, gave the whole ordeal a sticky finger and went to bed.

The next morning things looked a lot better. Although I intend to refinish the kitchen floor I put down the threshold so that the edges of the lino don't curl up and get ruined.

I also put in the threshold, at last, across the dining door. The next project to finish off the laundry area and back door is to put in the baseboard. That will mean the entire area is relatively complete. I put a piece of plywood under the expen because I don't want it to mark up the flooring - especially after what I when through to install it. I hope one day to build an actual laundry room, which there clearly used to be, but for now this will have to do. The dogs give it their stamp of approval anyway.

It Was the Month Before Christmas ...

2009-11-28T14:07:00.001-08:00

I fought the Christmas lights earlier this week and won. It was a close call though. This is my cute little blue house with my cute blue decorations. I'm so proud. The lights around the door are lit but they didn't show up very well. That lattice on the ground in the garden is to stop the neighbour's cat from using it as a toilet. I won't go into detail what will happen to the cat if I catch it but it won't handled with much Christmas spirit. I hope Santa ignores the 'Caution: Ridgebacks' sign. Now my Christmas tree is up, the dog and cat stockings are hung by my electric fireplace and the house is ready for Santa. That's my new 4 foot pre-lit tree, it's on a box and I expect it to hit the floor at least once this holiday. This coming week I'll be taking photos of the dogs in their Christmas torture devices! Can't wait!

No Wonder They Call It Hard

2009-11-21T06:14:00.000-08:00

As suspected underneath layers and layers of old flooring was hardwood. The entire floor of the original house looks to have been hardwood that was installed even before the walls went up. First removal, of course, was the hack job installed laminate. The laminate was easy to remove and present no problem except being grossed out by the amount of dirt underneath it. Remember the layer photo? So there is hardwood, plywood, two layers of lino, a laminate cushion and then laminate. While the laminate was easy to remove the lino ... not so much. Ignorance is bliss as I did not know what was coming. The two layers of lino for the most part peeled up quite easily, it was a sheet of lino with tiles stuck to it, but handling it was a huge pain in the ass since it's awkward and heavy. I stopped at the laundry area because I was reasonably sure that is where the hardwood ended and I just wanted to expose the hardwood. I suspected there was just plywood under the laundry floor. The lino, once up, exposed the plywood. The plywood, I didn't realize, was secured to the hardwood by screws. Hundreds of screws. My Dad came to help and show me how each piece of plywood was secured to the floor by screws set in every 8 inches or so in a grid pattern. Over a 4 x 8 sheet of plywood ... that's a lot of screws. And not only that, each screw was hidden by a levelling compound to prevent the lino on it from showing the screw over time. What color was the compound? Why, the same color as the plywood of course. We had to find, dig out each screw and then remove it. Fortunately the first sheet was small and came up pretty easily. Ta da! Hardwood. Dirty, covered in paint splatter, screw holes and drywall dust but there it is. It had some sort of coating on it and when I washed it I realized it was ...newspaper. I couldn't read any dates but using newspaper as a sound insulator or just insulation hasn't been in practice in quite a few decades. This hardwood hasn't seen light probably since before I was born ... 29 years ago(cough). You could only see the newsprint when it was wet like so ... So, buoyed by the success of the first sheet I set to the second one on my own and managed it fairly well without too much trouble. I discovered that there must have been a leak under the sink at some point because the hardwood behind the stove is in pretty bad shape. I don't think it's unsalvagable but it will need considerable sanding and filling to fix. I don't mind too much since it's under the stove and once it's sanded it should come out okay. It looks worse than it is really. That's Ceilidh - she's my helper. After this sheet I ran into a problem. The other two sheets were under the laminate running into the laundry. I either needed to rip up all the laundry laminate as well or cut along the plywood to remove it. The W/D and the hot water tank are difficult to remove so I opted to leave them where they were for now and just remove the rest of the laminate. My Dad cut along in front of them and I removed the laminate in the laundry area. Problem. Once the laminate and lino were removed I spent some time on my own trying to remove the plywood. Thus ... I killed my drill. Or thought I had. Dad to the rescue. Again. He came over one day and we spent several hours cutting, swearing, sweating, drilling, undrilling and finally just forcing some of that plywood up. Apparently the first two sheets of easily removed plywood were put there to lull me into a false sense of security of 'this will be eeeaaasy'. Ya right. It was a dirty frustrating job and I don't recommend it. Turns out I didn't kill my drill - I just don't know how to use it properly - there it is sitting on the floor.

So here is the kitchen. Finally. My Dad spent ages trying to get the plywood cut from underneath the cabinets. It was brutal. The plywood goes all the way under the cabinets so he had to cut along the kick plate to get it out. Once that was completed we had all hardwood in the kitchen. It doesn't look so hot now but once I sand off the years off neglect it will look pretty sharp. The laundry did end up being plywood so I will carry on the barnboard lino strips from the dining room into the laundry. Right now it's a hodge podge of plywood and laminate pieces to keep out drafts and bugs. There are holes drilled into the plywood right in the middle of the laundry and they lead directly to the crawl space under the house. We suspect there used to be a wall leading across from the left side of the the kitchen to about where that single piece of laminate is screwed down and then to the back wall. This is something I think I want to reinstall at some point to make an enclosed laundry room.

And so ... we are halfway done the floors. I have to sand, fill, sand again, lacquer and also put in the balance of the lino in the laundry. Should be a good long winter project ... anything to avoid painting the ceilings.

Bath Bomb

2009-10-06T13:01:00.000-07:00

The bathroom, is 99% complete. I have a new shower curtain planned but that won't be for a little while yet. The main thing that's been bugging me is the vanity. It was clearly a cheap option and while cute was not intended for a main bathroom, probably a half bath under some stairs or something. As a reminder here is the bathroom when I first saw it.

And here is the bathroom now. Repainted, new baseboards, over the toilet cabinet, window insulated, casing installed, new mirror and a new vanity. In all I the bathroom reno cost about $300 which I think is pretty good. Big thanks to my Dad and his endless patience with the vanity! I am so proud of the way it looks now ... the previous useless owners wouldn't recognise it. Probably because it displays a modicum of taste.

Get a Handle On It

2009-10-04T15:36:00.001-07:00

What's worse than having a door handle that you can't open from the inside? A door handle you can't open from the outside. It's truly distressing when you are outside in your backyard preparing to mow the lawn and you realize that not only are you and four dogs locked in your backyard, but that the front door is also locked and you have no way to get into your house.

It's about this time that you curse the people who made the POS door handle you've been struggling with since you moved in. It's also about the time you remember that you removed the screen from the dining window and that the window itself is not locked. So you climb through the window, struggle with the back door handle and then realize it now won't open from the inside.

So you get a screw driver, thinking you're clever as shit, and take off the interior handle, pop the exterior handle off and now what? Now you have a peice of metal that runs through your door and into a hole in the frame that you can't do sweet eff all with. The dogs are on the outside thinking 'We're thirsty' and you're on the inside thinking 'Very. Bad. Words.' So you decide today is the day you will go and get the matching handle to the front door which has never given you a stitch of trouble in the 3 weeks you've owned it.

So, have a shower(because you're all sweaty from the lawn mowing), get dressed, load dogs in truck, buy handle, take dogs for walk in the rain, get home and stare angrily at the still sealed door. Think more bad words, suppress the rage and pry that sucker out of there doing as little damage to the door and frame as possible. Voila, one open door.

So now the handle is installed and guess what? It works ... beautifully. There is something to be said for a door handle that will let you in your own house.

Dining Out

2009-10-02T10:27:00.000-07:00

I am a naughty renovator. Well, blog updating renovator anyway. I have completed so many tasks now I don't know where to begin. How about the dining room which has taken on the most dramatic change in recent weeks.

The dining room was rough, ugly carpet (gak) over lino on plywood. All four (yes ... 4) plugs in the room had been painted over multilple times so you couldn't really plug anything into the holes anymore, and the walls were a vibrant shade of lime green. Gag me. It was used as a bedroom in any case although I'm not sure how anyone could possibly have slept in there with that color. Must have been a teenager.

I removed the door, the carpet, the lino and the light and got to work. Since I wanted to compliment the several pieces of black and white artwork I possess I decided to paint the room a shade of grey with a soft lilac/purple hue so the room wouldn't be so cold. I then installed strips of vinyl flooring called barnboard which picks up the shade of the walls. All that is left, as with the rest of the house, is the ceiling.

So ... come on by if you're in the area and I can burn you some dinner.

Knock at the Door

2009-09-27T15:46:00.001-07:00

Even if I've recently mentioned how much I'm beginning to hate renos it bears repeating. I've painted, trimmed, siliconed, spray foamed, taped, sanded, drilled, and painted again to within an inch of my life and I'm so over it. I've been sort of over killing the renos recently because I wanted them done and out of the way.

The back door was in dire need of attention when I moved in so I finally tackled it not really knowing what I was doing. Here it is when I was looking at buying the house, it looks pretty shabby huh? Look like crap actually.

The frame was bent for some reason (probably been kicked at some point and while we're on the subject WHY do people try to kick in doors? If you're not a fireman or a policeman DON'T DO IT - framing up doors sucks a lot and no one likes to do it) so I had to hammer it in so it was straight, insulate the holes and replace the casing. Sounds easy right? In my dreams. The only thing left is to replace that total piece of crap door handle.

That cat there is naughty Ceilidh who got out of the house(my fault - actually Weasley and Mallaig also got out but didn't manage to impale themselves on anything) yesterday and cut both her hind feet trying to get back into the yard after finding her way out. I chased her through the house for about an hour last night to put a bandage on it and to stop her leaving a blood trail which covered not only my easily cleaned floor(and table and counter) but also my bed, the livingroom carpet, all but one of the throw rugs, both cat beds and a blanket. Thankfully I managed to contain the bleeding using copious amounts of paper towel and purple hockey tape plus a baggy over top to stop stray blood from being tracked anywhere. She looks like she'll be fine and is of course asking to go out again. To that I say "Forget it!"

Bathing Beauty

2009-09-22T05:56:00.000-07:00

I have been hard at work getting a few of those fiddly things completed that sit in the back of your brain and poke away until you say FINE!

Let us begin ...

The bathroom had a medicine cabinet that I hated since it looked like crap and was off centre. This isn't a very good photo but it will do.

And this is what I replaced it with. May not look like a lot of work but after the removal of the medicine cabinet I realized that I didn't have the right tool to get the silicone out of the tube I'd bought to put up the mirror. I had to go two days without a mirror until I bought a silicone gun. That border is hand cut by me with the flower corner detailing - I bought those at the tall ships - they are from Bali. Basically the mirror replacement was a much more complicated process than I had imagined ... standard operating procedure for house renovations.

I didn't realize I hadn't gotten a good photo of the bathroom window which was missing insulation and casing around it. Pretty much it was a rough cut out hole in the drywall as though the window had just been installed. I bought some expanding foam and sealed it and then put up the casing. The corners are hand cut so not perfect and there was a minor issue about things lining up but in all I think it looks pretty darn good for a girl who has never installed casing before. Now the bathroom only needs a new vanity and some baseboard. I'm waiting on the baseboard until vanity is in because it will be installed after the vanity. I can't do the vanity on my own and will just wait until my Dad has time to come and help install it. That is the bathroom so far. I have a few other things to show but it's too much for one post - I have a lot to catch up on!

There Must be Cucumbers in Heaven

2009-09-08T13:27:00.000-07:00

The garden is beginning to bear fruit ... er ... vegetables. Today I popped out to check on my cucumbers and lo and behold there sat three cukes ripe for the picking. There were a couple I'd had my eye on but it seems I missed the picking boat and they are now 'expired'. There are more beginning to grow so hopefully I'll see a bountiful harvest before the season ends. I was a bit late on the planting so I'm hoping they don't all get killed by the cooler temperatures.

So I was all excited to try my very first ever cucumbers. I gave it some thought and settled on crackers with cucumber topping. Thus my creative juices were flowing and this little morsel is what came of it. For the record; cucumbers straight from your own garden are spectacular.

There were more that I ate but since this was the most esthetically pleasing cracker I'd made I decided to let it live long enough to take a photo. See how I speared the olives with the cucumber slices? Clever no? And the feta cheese was a great little addition. I will hold back on the olives next time since they slightly over powered the flavours of the rest of the snack - I think one olive per cuke slice will be just fine. Want a closer look? Magnifique.

Curtain Call

2009-08-31T16:43:00.001-07:00

I had a stroke of brilliance. Sometimes a solution is right in front of you and you don't even know it. I had been planning to put up a laundry room and close it off so it would essentially become a dog room. There were a couple problems with this since the only light to the kitchen besides track lighting was the southern windows. The laundry room would effectively cut off all natural light to the kitchen. Also, it would make the kitchen very small. Added to which, Raimi has a problem with being enclosed. I just know a room like that would bear the evidence of his anxiety in no time.

Stroke. Of. Brilliance. I have extra curtains since I got an awesome sale on a few super great quality ones(as in $4 price tag on $90 curtains) and was not sure what to do with the cheap(er) left over Ikea ones. I also hauled three curtains rods from Calgary and had extra brackets. See where I'm going? So I hung the curtains in front of the washer/dryer/garbage/water heater. Voila. I also had some netting curtain material as well so I put that across so you can't really see the washer at all.So there is the expen where the two naughty younger dogs go when I'm out and Halo and Raimi are left loose but blocked off from the livingroom. There's even space to put a small kitchen table. I wonder if I can get one of those small round pub tables so I'm not dealing with the inevitable dog-chin-on-table-while-I-eat.

I also managed to get my hands on a nice little desk for my laptop, pens, envelopes etc and then, in a stroke of luck, I got an awesome deal on an Eastlake chair for $25. I love that chair. I think the desk and chair look great together particularly when decorated with a Mallaig.

Hurricane Shmurricane

2009-08-24T07:58:00.000-07:00

We survived our very first hurricane yesterday. Hurricane Bill was heading up the coast as a Category 2 but by the time it got to Nova Scotia it was down graded to a Category 1. In the end it passed 75km south of Halifax and never really made landfall. Warnings were issued for Pictou County for heavy rainfall, high winds and a tropical storm. To see the path on the news would have you think it was much worse than we actually experienced.

Sunday morning started out eerily quiet and still. There was almost no movement in the air and the sky was a weird sort of green/grey color with no depth at all. You couldn't tell how high the clouds were and although it wasn't raining the humidity was the worst it's ever been.

By about 11am the winds had picked up and were heavily gusting but not dangerously so. It steadily increased in gusts which seemed to come from all directions. The gusts stayed high, mostly up at the tops of the trees and sometimes the top of a tree would be bent in the wind but its lower branches weren't moving at all. A bit eerie I must say.

The rain started about noon and gradually got heavier and heavier until it was just a steady heavy downpour. It doesn't look too impressive but a rain storm normally lasts about 20 minutes to a half hour and tapers off. This kind of rain kept up for hours.

The wind and rain continued and was probably at it's worst at about 3pm when over the next hour it began to taper off. By the early evening the rain had died almost completely stopped but the wind continued gusting and blustering from various directions with some force.

The clouds started to break up and we had a little sunshine for about a half hour - just to give you a good clear look at the tree litter on your lawn I guess! The sun went down and the wind remained pretty steady out of the northwest blowing away a lot of the humidity.

Today the skies are overcast and it's steadily raining. Hurricane Bill brought a low pressure system so we'll have rain for a few days to come. It's sort of welcome after the blistering heat we've been through these past couple weeks but the dogs don't get out as much! It was our first hurricane and we got off light ... I'm sure there will be more on the way - 'tis the season!

Mellow Yellow

2009-08-21T10:32:00.000-07:00

I have still been slaving away at the house but now am on to the boring fiddly things that do not offer great blog content or much in the way of really good photos. So far for the past few days I've been painting trim and baseboard heaters, dapping some gaps in miders and casing joints and finally digging in the last of the stepping stones.

I did repaint the hall area with yellow and it looks much better - it's more appropriate with the house color scheme and now it feels very warm and cozy when you move from room to room. More organic ... look at me all designer minded!

Bake Me A Cake

2009-08-12T05:56:00.000-07:00

I have been bragging for the last week about my kitchen transformation and since I finally finished it (for the most part) I took some photos. It took me 2 and a half days of constant work to get this completed and by now I'm more sick of painting than I ever was but I think the effort was worth it. And imagine if you will that this transformation cost me a mere $60.

Here is a photo reminder of what the kitchen looked like before I moved in. Not terrible, not great, just a kitchen that needs a little attention. Right after I moved in I painted the walls green and it made a huge improvement but I knew I wanted to work on the cabinets because the wood on the sink wall was stripped of lacquer and didn't match the other cabinets. In fact none of the cabinet stain matched each other. Still - it was livable although I wasn't in love with the green.I'd been giving some thought to what I wanted to do - restain the cabinets with a lacquer or just paint them. Because of the headaches of sanding to get all the wood to the same shade so the stain would be consistent I decided to paint them and this was the result. Notice the backsplash. Really notice it. What a pain in the ass. I didn't realize that wanting the tiling at an angle would be such a headache. I asked my Dad how to do it and he told me but what he was thinking was that putting tile on an angle is really hard to get right. Thank gawd it was vinyl tile and I could easily cut it ... plus it was super cheap.

For whatever reason I forgot to include the backsplash of the stove in my tile calculations so I had to go back and buy some more but now everything is pretty much complete. The only things left to do are to refinish the floor which is hardwood under a few layers of old flooring, change out the light which is pretty basic and ugly right now and finish siliconing the seams of the tiles to stop water getting behind them. I think it's pretty cute and I actually like being in there now ... I even baked some muffins yesterday but as it turns out when the recipe says to add baking soda it really means it.

Fan Club

2009-08-06T15:24:00.000-07:00

Fans are so nice when they blow cool air down on you while you sleep. I wouldn't know. There was a fan here yesterday, I even posted a photo. At about 7pm I was sitting in the living room watching TV and heard what I thought was a bulb bursting in the bedroom. The cats shot out of the bedroom and I got up to check. The fan was spinning like crazy held only by its little safety wire. I called my Dad and he said to just take it down. It's a goner. The fan base was really hot and the gimble the fan pedestal sat in was shattered. Huh. It wasn't happy about being moved that's for sure. Fans don't cool you much when they look like this ...

This Little Light of Mine

2009-08-05T14:24:00.000-07:00

My Dad was here today to switch a few light fixtures since I have never put in any kind of electrical fixture. We moved the living room fan to my bedroom, installed a new fan in the living room, installed the dining pendant and replaced both the front and back door lights as well.

This is the living room fan - it is SWEET. It's huge, beautiful and can be run on high speed and doesn't wobble(wobbling makes me nervous). It normally retails for over $100 but I saw it by chance on sale for $40 and bought it although I didn't intend to.

The livingroom fan was moved to my bedroom so that I could have some air flow at night for the dogs and myself covered with dogs. I plan to paint the fan blades white since I really don't like the fake oak look much.

The dining pendant was a steal at Walmart for a whole $20. When I see sale like that for something I'm looking for (without a determined install date)I definitely buy. I have also done a lot of research on the various things I want to upgrade so I have a pretty good idea whether I am paying a good price.

The front door light was not working at all - probably because there was no bulb - but the original light looked sad, had no glass in it and was a poor example of a welcoming porch light. This one fortunately is intended to be mounted hanging because one that needs it to be pointing up would not have worked. The back door light is one that points up. Seems kind of like planned the exterior lights doesn't it? Not so. I accidentally bought an up light and a down light without realizing it and we spent a few minutes puzzling over the difference in the models since the photo on the boxes are almost identical. I bet I'm not the only person who has two of these lights and was confused by the difference in assembly. I also have some new house guests that are making themselves quite at home. Sadly they need to be evicted and by evicted I mean killed. Some hornets or yellowjackets or whatever the hell they are have selected my front porch as the ideal location for a new nest. I can see the appeal, it's sheltered, quiet and probably seems very safe - location location location. Not so much when one Tamzin comes at them with a big can of Hornet Nuke.

Ship to Shore- Updated!

2009-08-02T07:15:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the last day to see the Tall Ships in Nova Scotia. We headed up to Pugwash with Bill & Donna who have Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retrievers and a couple of Pulis - they live in Trenton which is about 15 minutes from Pictou. The day started out overcast and threatening rain but turned into a gorgeous blue skied, sun bathing day.

I finally created an online album - Tall Ships Pugwash.

Here's me on the Picton Castle at the stern where the wheel is. Behind me is Pugwash harbour which carries on out into the Northumberland Strait. Like my cute hat? It was $5 at Walmart - I'm not usually a hat wearer but with all the outdoor activities we've been doing I have suffered a bit of heat exposure and the hat helps prevent headaches.

And my parents on the Picton Castle. We'd been on several ships by this point - Roseway, Pride of Baltimore II, Fair Jeanne, Mist of Avalon- but the Picton Castle was the neastest because it was the largest and is a three masted square rigged sailing ship. Very cool. More cool because they have a ship's cat named Chibley - we didn't see her. My Dad recently got a hair cut but you can't really tell since he's a bit windblown - they even trimmed his chops and eyebrow!
Picton Castle is the ship where in 2006 a deckhand was washed overboard just south of Nova Scotia - I read the TSB final report on it and it sounds like it was a case of human error and circumstances. As with anything involving humans there will always be the chance of fatal errors. I believe it really is impossible to completely avoid accidents simply because people are only human no matter what precautions you take. It was a sad result of human error but to my mind ... not entirely unexpected. I mean you're on an honest to goodness sailing ship with sails and masts and rigging and out in the ocean ...not to put too a fine a point on it but it's not beyond the realm of possibility that someone will end up in Davy Jones' Locker. You know?

Sail Away

2009-07-30T10:54:00.000-07:00

Of all the events this summer I have to say the Tall Ships are far and away the neatest thing going. In fact, I'd be hard pressed to think of another comparable event in Calgary or Alberta. After Halifax some of the ships headed to various ports around Nova Scotia and Pictou happened to be one of those ports. On Saturday the ships that were in Pictou sail up the Northumberland Strait to Pugwash before heading out across the Atlantic. I volunteered yesterday morning at a breakfast put on by the Hector Quays for the crews of the ships in Pictou. It was kind of a waste of my time since they didn't actually need me but you never know until you get there.

I did go onto the Pier to see the ships up close and took some photos which are posted in this online album since there are too many photos to post here.

If you follow my dog blog you'll already know that today I managed to capture some photos of a couple of the ships heading up the Northumberland Strait with the dogs playing on the beaches. Here's that link just in case you missed it.

Facelift

2009-07-28T07:33:00.001-07:00

For all intents and purposes the garden is complete for this year. I managed to put in the new path and while I have a couple rocks to replace(I broke a couple thin ones) and I have one large rock to add in the corner by the blueberry bush, it's pretty much just going to be allowed to grow now and try to survive my weed whacking forays.

The vegetable garden is growing well despite the downpour and flooding it suffered in the last few days. It's finally drained and things are flowering and sprouting happily. Next year I intend to build up the dirt more so I don't have the drainage issues again. I don't have much hope for the carrots since for some reason they didn't take very well. I am surprised to see the spinach growing although only about a quarter of the seeds took and of those only 4 are doing really well. I will have to get the spinach in earlier next year since it likes cool wet weather.

The bushes are quite small to start but over time they will grow in and fill up the spaces and it will look, as I hope and intend, like a nice full garden oasis. One day I want to be able to let the dogs in there to relax while I lounge(as long as Raimi does NOT lift his damn leg on any plant at all ever). I also hope to get in a couple fruit trees but I'm not sure where since any fruit tree's bounty will be quickly stolen by one Leeloo and make her sick. Planting fruit in the front yard is doable but you run the risk of neighbours(or teenage no-good-nicks) stealing your crop.

Given what the yard looked like two months ago I think it's come a long long way.

Time Warp

2009-07-25T09:04:00.000-07:00

Last weekend my parents and I headed down to Halifax to see the Parade of Sail in Halifax Harbour. It was the last day of the Tall Ships Festival and from there some ships head to various ports around Nova Scotia (they'll be in Pictou this coming Tuesday and Wednesday I think) and also up to Pugwash at the end of the month. They then head out into the Atlantic in a race to Belfast, Ireland. Only a few ships will be visiting the Nova Scotia ports but at the Parade of Sail there were more than 40 ships. It was a nice hot day with clear skies, a light breeze and a good view. Rather than posting them I have them in an online album for your perusal ... hope you enjoy! We sure did!

Tall Ships Nova Scotia - Parade of Sail 2009

Stone Cold

2009-07-24T04:23:00.000-07:00

At long last I can post photos of the garden in progress. It's taking some time to complete because the weather has been blistering hot and pouring rain in turns. I have just a few more stones to lay and the garden itself will be complete for this year. I also want to put in some statues, fence decoration and a garden bench but that sort of thing can wait until next year after the plants have been allowed to grow in a bit.

These stones were a bitch to lay. I could only do about 10 at a time and then had to stop for a break because it was so hot the day I did it. Digging up this grass is hard labour, it's thick and deep and hard packed at the surface however given the result I think it's worth it.

I still have about 20 to lay yet in the garden and another 15 or so along the side of the house. I hope to do that today and then mow the lawn since the rain over the past two days has caused the grass to spiral out of control.

Carnivale

2009-07-22T17:41:00.000-07:00

I finally got the computer back and instead of putting a zillion photos on here I'll simply provide a link to the events we've been to in the past couple weeks and you can look at the photos there.

On Saturday July 11 my Daddy and I headed to the Pictou Lobster Carnival - my mom stayed at home because she wasn't feeling well. It was a damned hot day - I got another layer set in on my tan and think I was suffering from mild heat stroke at the end of the carnival.

There was an exciting encounter between a lobster boat and a helicopter. It was a conflict between what I have come to refer to as Nova Scotia time (as in *not* on time) and military time (as in *precisely* on time) and a fundamental lack of communication between the two entities. I'll try to get that video uploaded if I can - it's pretty neat.

We also went to the Fishing Museum which was kind of neat - it was a history of the fishing in Pictou and the surrounding area.

I've also got some photos of the garden which is coming together nicely so I'll put those up in a day or so and we just went to the Parade of Sail in Halifax so I'll get those into an album as well.

License to Thrill

2009-07-08T14:52:00.001-07:00

About 10 days ago my Dad reminded me that the plates on my truck would expire June 30th. Huh.

I've been here just over 6 weeks and I hadn't made headway to getting my new license and registration for the truck because I was waiting for my name change certificate to come. I finally called last week to find out where it was.

Well, as with anything government there's just no way it can go smoothly. Apparently, besides almost naming me Tazmin Hart, the Registry also got my address wrong. I used to live at 1820 but he put 1802 so my mail went nowhere. It was not returned and they though that was odd. Ah innocent government employees who don't break the law perhaps don't realize that non-gov't employees don't give a rat's ass about tossing other people's mail.

So the Registry *finally* called to let me know to send a letter asking them to request a Legal Name Change Certificate from Vital Statistics on my behalf. I was starting to panic a little so today I decided to just go and get my new license anyway and hopefully I could get my truck registered in the next week or so rather than risk a ticket for driving an unregistered vehicle.

The only registry here is in a most ridiculous location but I found it easily thanks to my mom's directions. The parking lot was full to the brim and not surprisingly the waiting area was packed. I asked someone what number was up, she pointed - number 133. Ah well, I went to the number dispensing machine and was about to press the button when I noticed a ticket sitting on top of the machine. Thinking someone had just dumped it there as garbage I picked it up. 137. Hmmm. I doubled checked the number on the "Now Serving" board and it had just flipped to 134. Sweet.

I waited about 10 minutes and my number was called. I'm pretty sure there were some surprised people who'd been there longer than me. I sent a silent thanks to the person who got sick of waiting and instead of taking their number with them, they put it back on the ticket machine.

Turns out I could get everything I needed today. New driver's license, registration for the truck, and a new license plate. No more driving illegally.

Now I just have to get my insurance sorted, get the truck inspected and I'll be completely legal in this province. Then I just have to get all my documents changed over to my new last name. I bet that will be another round of fun and frustration with various institutions.

Tattoo

2009-07-06T15:50:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my 5th 29th birthday and yes, I'll keep going with that as long as I can pass for 29(as determined by me so it's subjective). My parents treated me to a trip to Halifax where we stopped at the Bluenose Restaurant for a really super yummy lunch (although their decor could really use a spark or two - pretty boring interior design for a place called The Bluenose - practically decorates itself don't you think?) and then we headed off to see the Royal Nova Scotia International Tattoo. The kind of Tattoo that has nothing to do with ink.

It's a military tattoo of company formations, marching, bands and extra-curricular performances. Something to be seen especially the massed pipes and drums ... stirring to your very soul.

The Halifax Metro Centre is not quite so large as the Saddledome ... in fact I think you could fit at least two Metro Centres in the Saddledome! This is the Copenhagen Police Band and they were very good - a little weird but were pretty fantastic and funny.

We all know the French are a bit different so it should come as no surprise that the Paris Police have a gymnastics team. I mean, they demonstrated extreme precision parallel bars and it was a neat thing to see but ... gymnastic police?The French do not have a lock on the bizarre because Germans can also be a bit off the wall. The Hamburg Police Motorcycle Team was zipping around doing death defying stunts. Waving flags, balancing - I missed taking a picture of their finale because they had 3 motorcycles side by side with about 20 people stacked on top as they drove around the arena. Pretty neat stuff.

No Canadian performance event is complete without the RCMP. They did their usual formations with flags sans horses. No final charge though ... pity that - it would have been cool. Easily my second favorite performance was by the Middlesex Volunteer Fife & Drum Corps (Massachusetts) - they were simply spectacular. A fife - for those who don't know - is a little teeny playing pipe. Enmasse they are pretty darn cool but the drums ... wow. The whole group was dressed in period costume and they looked completely fabulous.

There were some military demonstrations and this one involved an obstacle course that had two teams competing - one for each side of the arena. The other side won but I think it was too close to call.
Later they had a Jeep dis-assembling and re-assembling race. These guys literally disassembled a Jeep and re-assembled it in what was probably under 5 minutes. Granted the mechanics seemed a lot more simple than your modern car but it was cool just the same. At least in this race our side won.
The ended the performance with a general salute and all 2000 performers were on stage for it. Quite a spectacular sight. No photos of that - I was paying too much attention to take one. I did however, get a video of the Nova Scotia Massed Pipe & Drums which I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to have but I like listening to it. Once I figure it out - if ever - how to get a video onto Youtube I'll put it up ...

Wind at my Back

2009-07-04T05:07:00.000-07:00

Currently it's raining here a little again and it's overcast. Not the kind of overcast I'm used to where it's just plain dark out but the kind where the clouds are high and it's just a wash of pale gray across the sky. Much brighter 'overcast' than I'm used to. It's been like this for about 4 or 5 days now and ... I love it. I much prefer this gray to a bright sun. When the sun is out here at above 20 degrees it's almost unbearable.

The air is soft ... there is just no other way to describe it. It envelopes you and clings you your skin And it's almost still quite often. So still the leaves don't move. Even during rain there is rarely more than a very slight slant - just enough to indicate the direction of the clouds. For several days there has been almost no wind or a very slight breeze which is almost eerie if you're used to gusty Calgary. Even when it is windy it's a warm wind ...

Rain varies widely also. It can be incredibly heavy downpour where it comes straight down like so:

Or it can come down in what seems like a spray bottle set on mist. There is a regular rain with actual raindrops and whatnot but even then it's a warm rain. When Calgary rain hits your skin it's like an icicle of pain stabbing into your very bones. Don't miss that.

I have done some work in the garden. I got all my bushes for my garden at half price. It's only the beginning of July and yet things are going on sale. They must start their season much sooner than I'm used to. So I bought two rhododendrons, two more peonies, an elderberry, a tiger eye, two clematis, three sad but hopeful burning bushes, two hydrangeas, a very pretty dreamcatcher, a satin chocolate, and a little tiny bush who's name I can't remember. Why all bushes you ask? Well, because I also have the veggie garden I needed to be able to plant things that wouldn't cast large patches of shade over it. The only thing missing really is the stepping stones because right now it just looks like a bunch of little plants without any direction. Oh and some annuals in a window box in the wheel well of the trailer ...

Get Growing

2009-06-30T13:58:00.001-07:00

So my garden has had a few days to think about what it's going to do for me. As it turns out it was all eager to get growing. I have little cucumber leaves popping up already!

There is also evidence of some peas making an appearance so I'm pretty excited. It said 10 days to germinate and it has hardly been a week. Things are so jazzed to grow here. That right there is a little pea brain.
Back into the house I decided, on a whim, to see what the heck was underneath my kitchen floor. I suspected that all of the original flooring was hardwood except the bathroom. Turns out I was right. Sooooooo ... what the hell?What I'm seeing here is the laminate floor, the foam backer, a layer of lino aaaaaaand a layer of plywood and then the hardwood. Oh, don't forget the carpet glue along the threshold. Someone glued and stapled a carpet down(in a kitchen?), someone else pulled the carpet up, put plywood down, then put lino on it. Before installing the plywood they decided not to pull the carpet underlay staples out of the hardwood. That will be a fun project. Then the last person(I presume), put laminate down overtop of the lino on plywood on hardwood. While the hardwood is in need of some TLC, a sanding and relaquer, it boggles my mind why someone wouldn't just refinish the hardwood rather than very poorly install some laminate. I guess I'll find out why when I pull up this crap job of a flooring installation.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

2009-06-25T06:09:00.001-07:00

I am finally making progress on the garden. Now that the fence is up I can start planting things knowing they won't get mashed, dug, chewed, stomped, ripped or dragged anywhere. I kind of have a layout of what I want to plant in the garden area and what my eventual vision is but it will come with time. I'm waiting for a few things to go on sale, should be within the next month that the bushes I want to be reduced in price and I can plant like crazy in the hope that the new stuff has enough time to get established before winter. What I did need to get in right away was the veggie garden because the season is high.

Okay, so the ground here is a bitch to dig when you're pulling up the sod. It's like ... 8 inches thick. Comes up easy but it's heavy and hard work. Originally my garden was going to be 8 x 8 feet square but as I was pulling up sod I realized that I was running out of time to get the ground seeded soon enough to ripen.

I cut the size down by half to 4 x 8 and am satisfied with that this season. If this garden is successful I'll dig out the balance next year but start sooner than June in the cool weather! It's not immediately impressive I know, it looks kind of small and pitiful but I tell you, I could only work for about 20 minutes at a time before I was dripping in sweat and had to take a break. It was about 20 degrees and humid too ... no fun doing yard work in that.

I because I had to dig out a chunk of ground I knew I'd have to fill in the hole I'd made. I bought some black earth soil to mix with the red soil to fill in the gap - 10 bags for a $1 each at Walmart. Easy peasy. So now it's seeded, marked, and ready for little sprouts to appear. This is my very first tomato plant. Apparently they are so easy to grow here it's laughable. None of this crazy covering, frost danger, greenhouse/hothouse crap you have to deal with in Calgary. Plant it, cage it, walk away. I never tried to grow tomatoes in Calgary because it sounded like way too much work. We'll see what this little sucker yields.

There's also peas, carrots, lettuce, cucumber, and spinach. I'm not sure about the spinach, I think it might be too hot now to grow because it likes cool wet weather and we have warm wet weather. Whatever, if it doesn't do well I'll just plant something else. Maybe peas ... you can never have too many fresh peas ...

So what did I do with all that sod? Why, I filled in the drop at the back of the concrete pad so it's easier to mow. If the grass dies no big loss, I'm sure it will grow in again one day. That brick is marking where I want to put the maple tree I plan to plant there. I have to drive to my parent's house (or to Bill and Donna's - they are closer in Trenton) to choose some trees to plant. I think I know where, now I just have to actually go and get them. Soon too, I think Raimi is at a loss for something to pee on.

Dirty Business

2009-06-23T03:43:00.000-07:00

Last night I woke to pouring rain at about 2:50am. As I listened to it fall heavily on the grass I thought "Wow, it's raining really hard" so to showboat a little it increased it's efforts and rained even harder. In Calgary it doesn't really rain like that. The only time it did was a few years ago when everything flooded and most of the province was in a state of emergency. It was the year Fish Creek Park suffered devastating damage and the entire community of Okotoks was facing a disaster - it truly was the worst flooding I can remember in 30 odd(29) years in Calgary.

That's because water there doesn't drain since the land and rivers are not designed to handle that kind of volume. Here, it rains and rains and and rains for days and the water just ... disappears. I keep expecting to wake up to ditches full, garden washed out and my house floating in the middle of the harbour. Even digging in my lawn yesterday (to remove the top layer of sod to put in a veggie garden) the dirt was wet but loose even though it had absolutely poured for the previous 12 hours and there was still a heavy sprinkle.

The soil here is red or brown and kind of loamy and soft. It is hard packed the deeper you go but the top layer is relatively loose and easy to shift - even when wet. It's a little heavier when wet of course but not harder to work with - it's ideal gardening soil which becomes obvious when you see how things here grow. Just try and stop things from growing.

To me dirt has always been shades on the gray scale. In Alberta it varied from region to region in quality and color - the slate colored hard packed clay north of Cochrane grew hardly enough grass to keep a horse alive on 5 acres whereas the black soil of Crossfield grew enough thick green grass to founder a horse in a couple days. Here, dirt is shades of red and brown and has been strangely hard to get used to seeing. Maybe it's because when smeared on your shoe, or pants, or hands, to a Prairie bred girl, it looks like dog pooh.

... Or Get Off The Pot

2009-06-21T07:00:00.000-07:00

I realized recently that along my street there seems to be a strong representation of the demographics of this town ... something you'd only see if you came from 'away' (which is how a lot of people here refer to outsiders - in Scotland I'd be a Sassenach).

The town itself seems on the verge of tipping one way or the other. It used to be a town of industry with a shipping yard, mills, strong fishing grounds and large factories close enough for a commute. Within the last couple decades a lot of those industries faded away and that the town launched a large venture toward tourism. They gathered funding to create the Hector Quays Heritage Centre, built the Hector replica in an attempt to revitalize the town and did a large improvement project on the wharf and businesses. It was the town's concerted effort to ensure it's survival. Because of the timing of these events we are now in a rift between what people remember as 'the good old days' and what the town is trying to become.

The neighbours on my west are your average work-a-day folk, no savings, no prospects, not old enough to retire, and what I would easily refer to as white trash. They are nice enough folk but the man has a huge chip on his shoulder which is all-encompassing. He is not smart enough to be successful, and not dumb enough to simply accept his lot in life. He is stuck somewhere between.

The people on my east side are retired folk - he was born in Pictou, grew up here when the land our houses sit on was a farmer's field. He worked in Antigonish most of his life and then retired to Pictou. He and his wife are extremely pleasant and quiet. A vast majority of the people here are retired or very close to, I would put the number around 40%.

The people across the street are idiots. Oh, did I say idiots? I meant to say there are 4 people living there all under the age of 22. No offense meant of course, to anyone I know under 22, living on your own responsibly, not driving your car into the boulder in your front yard, not stumbling along the block at 6am yelling and giggling in a drunken/high stupor, not mowing your lawn only when it gets to 10 inches high, and respecting the people who live around you. These punks see no future here, are angry about it and spend most of their time and money in methods of escape. All they see is a dead end but choose apathy instead of forging their own new paths beyond the end of the road. It's simply easier to acquiesce. No crystal ball required to see their future ... they just have to look across the street and see my resentful neighbour.

The woman directly across from me is a single mom with a teenage son. I only ever see her to drive her son places, run errands, put out the trash, and mow the lawn. A perfect neighbour.

By far the vast majority of people here are happy, pleasant, and working hard to ensure that the town survives, prospers, grows into a tourist trap. A town that doesn't evolve and change with the times dies. From what I can tell the people who are content with those changes are happy here and embrace the future whatever it brings. People who are not content do nothing to change their own situation and simply bitch about how it used to be or how it just isn't good enough. Those are the people I welcome to leave.

My guess is everyone here thinks I'm totally insane to be in my early thirties and moving to Pictou ... I think it's one of the sanest things I've ever done.

The Great Barrier Fence

2009-06-20T13:07:00.000-07:00

This should be the last fence I ask my Dad to help me build. I use the word 'help' loosely here because most of what was done yesterday did not actually require two people. I held things on occasion, carried stuff and will not be getting my journeyman carpentry ticket any time soon.

During projects things always look like an unholy mess. We did decide that should there ever be a next time we will need at least 3 power cords so we're not constantly unplugging and replugging things.

It actually didn't take as long as I'd feared and after a lunch break down on Pictou Wharf (where I sampled Thai food for the very first time in my life) we installed the gate which, by the way, you can make from scratch if you know what you're doing by gawd. The lattice came through with shining colors despite it's rough start in my possession and I hope to enjoy years of it's dog/garden separation advantages in the years to come ... along with a good anecdote.

The Grass is Greener

2009-06-19T05:39:00.000-07:00

I'm going to be a cheater today and post a link to my dog blog for the house post today. It's both dog and house related so I don't want to repeat myself ... but mostly because I'm just lazy that way.

Don't Fence Me In

Washer Woman

2009-06-18T12:50:00.000-07:00

I have been steadily working on my house with various activities inside and out. First, the laundry area which will one day be sectioned off with real walls and whatnot but for now we'll have to make do with expens. The dogs were being kept in the spare room but Raimi's anxious destructive behaviour was taking a toll so I was happy to have the fence up and able to assemble the expens in the kitchen where he is safe and secure.

The laundry area was just white with a window and a door. The door, you may notice, has some issues with part of the frame - that will be fixed in the coming weeks.

The washer and dryer space is shared with the water heater - once I get the walls up all this will be hidden but for now I can live with it. So can my pocketbook. I went with a darker color because this is a south facing area and hell ... I had left over paint. This is a busy wall - it holds the washer/dryer combo, the water heater plus it's the garbage area as well and soon I'll have shelves up to store dog towels. Let's not forget the expens - there is room to walk behind them to get to the garbage and to do laundry. There's the back door again. Still not repaired but ready for it just the same. And a cat asleep on a chair. I like the dark colors because it makes the room feel warm and close instead of stark and cold. The dog collars are all hung with care on their hooks, ready for walks at any given moment. Plus there's an extra hook for a towel to dry wet dog feet as they come in from the backyard.

A better view of the expens - who else but the crazy dog lady would have expens like this practically taking up her entire kitchen?

A Series of Unfortunate Events

2009-06-16T17:55:00.000-07:00

I swear I have new photos of various things painted and built but I just haven't gotten around to posting them. Then the following event happened and I just had to get it down before I forgot the minute details.

Often I find myself doubting the work of others. Could be I’m controlling, could be they know better than me, could be I just prefer doing things myself to ensure that should something go wrong at least I know who to blame and not fuss with suing anyone. Also, when someone is nice to you I think you tend to let things slide, perhaps thinking that their nice vibes will prevent imminent disaster.

Today is a good example of that to which what I refer. I need to put up a garden fence to stop the dogs digging in the non-existent garden. It’s a pretty simple affair, 4 foot by 8 foot preserved wood lattice (in keeping with the natural wood of my backyard) held up by posts , a simple gate and voila – safe garden.

I saw a great deal in a flyer for a store I’d never heard of - Central Home Building Supplies - and flyer in hand I marched into the store, got my good deals plus a few more and went round back to pick up my wood. Everything slid easily into the back of the truck save four 4x8 sheets of lattice. Hmmm. I already figured they’d need to go on the roof so I brought along some bungee cords.

Young man who was helping me turned into three men helping me and with testosterone brimming over they put the lattice on the truck. I secured it with my bungee cords but didn’t feel it was tight enough so young man #1 said they’d reinforce it with twine at my request as I drove out of the yard.

Older, nice, helpful guy cheerfully told me all about how some customers don’t appreciate the effort the staff goes to and I nodded and tutted at appropriate intervals all the while thinking “I wish he’d just give me the damn twine so I can do it properly”.

The load finally battened down I waved goodbye to the nice guy and was on my trepid way. I eased out of New Glasgow, going a cautious 80km/hr and felt things were going reasonably well. I got on the highway to Pictou, maintained speed and kept an eye on the rearview for any AWOL lattice.

Turns out I needn’t have been watching the rearview because when the lattice was abruptly ripped from my roof I heard it loud and clear. I did glance in the rearview to see the truck behind me swerve to avoid the now dangerous addition to the highway and the 6 other vehicles behind him also managed to avoid driving over top of my goods.

I hit the brakes and coasted to a stop. Put on my hazards. Popped the truck into reverse and carefully eased my way back to the debris to assess the carnage. I glanced up and realized some concerned citizen in an SUV had pulled over to stop and was reversing … with his lights flashing. It was a police officer.

Just my damn luck. Now I’ll get a ticket or something for an insecure load.

So I dragged everything to the side of the road and realized that while the lattice had done a spectacular swoop-de-loop in the air behind my truck it was all still in one piece. All four sheets of it. A corner here and there was a bit road rashed but otherwise it looked salvageable.
The cop reaches me and gets out. A pleasant looking fellow who’s first question is “Is everything okay?” Uh … yes? Well, no … I’m retrieving my lattice from the middle of the highway halfway to Pictou. He was very concerned the lattice was all broken and beyond use now. How nice … no
mention of the incredible good luck that it didn’t hit the truck following me, causing him to swerve and drive himself into the ditch where his truck bursts into flame and explodes. His concern was sweet though.

Turns out (are you ready for this Albertans?) *he stopped to help*. He insisted on helping me load the wood back onto the truck, secure it MY way with dog leads of all things (he asked if I really had enough dogs leads in my truck at any given moment to secure a load of wood onto it - stick around pal and you’ll learn all kinds of damn things about me) and battened those suckers down like my life depended on it.

Turns out Officer Phil Oliver just moved to Pictou from New Brunswick about a month ago and he has 5 cats. Huh. The things you learn on the side of a highway in Nova Scotia. Once he was satisfied I had the load secure he introduced himself, shook my hand, took my name and said ”I’ll probably see you around in Pictou.” Probably now you know the make and model of my truck you will be scouting for it to ensure I don’t have anything else strapped to the roof waiting to release itself from its earthly ties and scythe the top off someone’s vehicle. Maybe next time he’s driving behind me a dog will fall out of my window …

And that … was my day. The lattice is now safely earthbound in my back yard waiting for more Daddy help to put in yet another fence. The moral of this story is: always take your Daddy to pick up renovation supplies. Always.

Beyond Baths

2009-06-10T13:48:00.000-07:00

It's safe to say I'm sick of painting. Too bad I have three more rooms, all the trim and doors, ceilings and exterior painting yet to do. I have completed the main rooms though and that is a load off.

I love the bathroom now. Of course, it's easy to love something when you worked very hard to erase this:

My gawd who chose that color? I hope I never meet them. I had to paint over it with tinted primer which did effectively cover the hideous pink and I ended up with a more livable, for a few days, gun metal grey bathroom - like so ... Like my duckies? A couple days ago I painted the first coat of the pretty blue I chose and then today I finished the final coat. It's safe to say I love the bathroom now. The dragonflies are so cool. You push metal pins into the walls and then the magnetized dragonflies just stick to the pins. It looks neater in person. You can't see it but there's a starfish pendant on the cabinet ... so pretty. Please ignore the 'over paint' on the ceiling ... it's getting painted over one day so I wasn't as careful as I am normally. (AAAHA HA HA ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ... and so on)

It only took me two tries to get the toilet paper roll where it was supposed to be. I miscalculated the height of the towel bar which the toilet roll is underneath. Then I had to move the hook my bathrobe is on because the drill snapped off the drill bit in the hole.That picture was bought in Pictou today at a gift shop. I'd driven by the picture in a store front several times and thought I'd better get it otherwise one day it will be gone and I'll kick myself. I have enough bruises. And I love the sailboats. Why is the towel bar so high? Easy - the cats can't reach it.

So the bathroom, for now, is complete. Only things left to do are: insulate around the window, install window trim, paint the ceiling, install baseboard, replace vanity, paint the trim and door, replace the door handle. No problem.

On the seventh day ...

2009-06-09T15:13:00.000-07:00

The fence ... is finally ... complete. It's been an educational adventure.

This is the fence with upper and lower rails installed. The rolled up package there is actually the bamboo waiting to be unfurled.

This is the fence at the back of the yard - look how straight. That's my Dad's handiwork.

There's my Dad preparing the air gun to staple, rather than hammer in, the staples we are using.
This is the neighbour's house on the east side. We had some debate over where the property line actually lay but the neighbour didn't mind, he just didn't want his cherry tree affected. Yes .. cherry tree. Nice.

My mom came out to help too. Here she is holding up the expen and admiring the view of the water tower a few yards down. She was very helpful, infinitely patient with delays and we could not have accomplished the fence without her help. Thanks Mom! Check it out. Cool huh? I love it. It literally is split bamboo pieces wired together like a mesh. Hardy, doesn't rot, hard to break, flexible and attractive ... and cheap. Sold.

It is see through to an extent but it allows light in, it's not challenged much by wind, and most importantly it keeps the dogs in.

I let the dogs out at long last into their very own yard and they first did the perimeter check and then spent quite some time rolling around in the grass. That damn Leeloo ear again. Halo seems to like the yard ... ample opportunity for hole digging which I put a stop to. She looks innocent enough here but looks can be deceiving.
And Raimi and Archer enjoying a quiet moment in the yard. Leeloo's ear thing is catching I see.
The fence was way more complicatd than I could have imagined and my Dad's help, unbidden, was invaluable and I could not have done it without him. Thanks so much to my Daddy and thanks to my Mom as well for giving him up when he could have been doing work on their house for the past few days. I can't express how much I, and especially the dogs, appreciate both your support and help!

Hard Truths

2009-06-08T16:28:00.000-07:00

The fence ... is complete-ish. We were so bagged on Sunday afternoon that we opted to leave the final step - the gate - for another day. It was a long process which actually didn't present us with too many road blocks ... except one which didn't really turn out to be a block - more of an inconvenience.

Because the ground here is pretty moist they strongly recommend you put concrete in the post holes to secure the fence. We were trying to work out how many bags we required. My Dad guessed about 14 bags total.

I had a couple errands to run and needed to pick up the concrete so my Dad stayed to level all the posts. I went to Home Hardware and between myself and the customer service rep we figured that I'd need 52 bags. Huh. It said on the bag that it would fill a 6" diameter one foot deep hole. We had twenty six 2 foot deep 8" diameter holes. That equals 2 bags per hole according to the directions. It sounded like an awful lot of concrete to me and in fact it had to be delivered as it was over 3000lbs. My truck would have had a coronary.

My Dad was skeptical when it arrived. The bags themselves are 66lbs each. Brutal. Back breaking. Exhausting. Mix a wheelbarrow of one bag, tote it to the hole, pour it in the hole, tamp it down, back to get another bag ... it took almost 3/4 of a bag per hole so ... we had a clear 34 bags too many.

Anyone guess why? Because the pole takes up about 60% of the hole. Spatially adept I am not.

We hemmed and hawed a few moments over where to store the balance of the cement until the next day when I could return it. We were warned, and in fact my Dad was already keenly aware, that you *cannot* get cement wet in the bag. Like ... even a little bit. We debated between storing it on plastic and putting a tarp over it or putting it in my truck despite the weight. We ultimately decided on putting it in the truck because with my luck it would rain and I'd have a cement bunker outside my house. Moving 34 bags of cement into my truck was the absolute end ...

Good thing we did though because it POURED that night. Phew. So the concrete was returned by splitting the weight between the truck and my parent's minivan and all is well. Those posts aren't going anywhere. We were so tired I forgot to take any photos but trust me ... there was a lot of cement.

Good Fences Make ...

2009-06-07T05:46:00.000-07:00

We started the fence the other day and it has been an exercise in exhaustion and sometimes a wild goose chase. We picked up the supplies on Friday morning only to discover that Home Hardware didn't have enough rail brackets - you nail them to the posts and insert the 2x4 cross rails into them. As it turned out we didn't need them that day.

We rented a gas powered auger and it only took about 40 minutes to auger 25 holes - we had to go back and re-auger most of them because they are about 2 inches too shallow but at the end of the day this is what we had.

The dogs have been very patient as I haven't been able to get them out for a run for the past few days. It's too bad I can't explain to them all this effort is solely for their benefit.

This is the other side of the back of the house. This part of the yard will eventually be sectioned off so that I can garden and put in some nice flowers. The west side with the concrete pad and some grass is for the dogs.

The trailer is now retired as a trailer, it will become my garden shed once the fence is up. I'll secure it and put in a ramp at the back. It's certainly not staying where it is right now. Is it really any wonder Raimi hopped out of this expen set up? They are truly so sick of this space.

And my Daddy thinking about how much I owe him and totting up all the favours he is going to ask over the next 20 years.

Room with a View

2009-06-04T03:50:00.000-07:00

I painted the bedroom at long last. I sleep better knowing I have pictures on the walls and things are where they should be. It still smells of paint but at least it's pretty. This is the main bedroom window which is west facing. The color is not apparent but it was sort of a pale green color.

This is the bedroom door which needs a coat of paint but the trim is all getting done once the rooms are complete so I can do it all at once. I sure do like to torture myself. There's the livingroom in the background .... hideous.

This is the south wall. I painted it a dark cranberry color and the other walls are a sort of rich golden color. The room is Scottish themed which is only interrupted by a collage of Petal and that painting above the bed - I actually chose the wall color really so that painting would really be showcased. It's my very favorite piece of original art in the whole house - my friend Tanja gave it to me out of her dear departed mother's collection. I just have to look at it and it draws me in. It's one of those painting that is a mish mash of blobs close up but further away you stand the clearer it becomes. Very cool.

This is the north wall with my new wardrobe and my dresser. The hanging on the wall is a tea towel(I think) of Scottish landmarks that my mom gave me when I arrived in Nova Scotia. It sort of sticks out in this photos but it's not actually that BAM in the room.
They say your bedroom is supposed to be a haven ... this is my Scottish Haven in New Scotland.

Living is Easy

2009-06-02T07:32:00.000-07:00

When one is without internet one must find other ways to occupy one's time. Thus the painting began. I've done a couple rooms so far and next on the docket is to at least prime the hideous pepto bathroom and paint my bedroom.

Here's the livingroom before painting last October. Some kind of army green color - I was so busy unpacking etc I forgot to take more recent photos. The color didn't change in 6 months tho ...

Although it looks brown it's actually a kind of green - very dark, very gloomy, and dirty. So I chose a bright neutral paint that would lighten up the north facing room. This is the northeast corner of the room.

And the corner with the front door with the new closet my Dad assembled for coats and shoes. A few things have been re-arranged since this photo was taken but otherwise it's pretty much as you see it. Nice and bright.

And the south wall of the livingroom complete with dogs ensconced on the couch. Typical. The mirror over the couch actually was supposed to go in the bathroom but as it turns out the mirror is 4 inches too large to fit so it ended up over the couch to enlarge the room. That worked out well.
And that is pretty much the livingroom completed. The baseboards need to be replaced and the trim needs painting yet but so far it's starting to feel more and more like home.

Green Day

2009-06-02T04:24:00.000-07:00

The kitchen is almost complete. I intend to restain the cabinets and change the hardware at some point but for now it's pretty much as it will stay for the next few months.

Here it is in October of 2008 - no appliances and some wildlife living under the sink. I opened the sink cabinet to find a spider staring back at me. He is gone now as are several other tiny spiders who needed some convincing that they were no longer welcome in the house.

I had a soft green paint from the place I was renting - I was annoyed by the issues I'm having with the landlords so I brought the paint I'd bought with me. Take that suck-ahs. My parents found a little apartment sized stove for me and so far the oven cooks up pizza nicely. For some reason the sink wall consists of a backboard and not drywall - I'm not sure why but don't care - that's how much I care about kitchens.
I also painted down the 'hall' which is really just a passage way to the living room. This is my tiny little linen closet and atop that sits a container with some pussy willows from the park I went to almost every day for 4 years. The linen closet has some assembly issues which need to be addressed at some point but for now ... it's fine. The plan for the next few days is to paint the bedroom, bathroom, possibly the spare room, the front and back doors and to get that fence in!

Organize This

2009-06-01T06:01:00.001-07:00

Arrival of the trailer and unloading went reasonably well and it only took about an hour to actually unload everything.

The cats were happy to get out of the crate and truck and into what will be the dining room. They were especially happy to have their cat post back. The green of the dining room will one day be replaced but for now the room is being used as storage since a dining room is the lowest room on teh priority list.

We assembled the new bedframe and as soon as the mattress was on it this happened:

Weird.

We had to go out to pick some things up and I put the dogs in what will one day be the guest room. This is what happened. There was a box in there for one of the closets and they tore into the box and removed the styrofoam.

Also weird.

At one point this is what my kitchen looked like. I took a photo of the livingroom but the flash didn't go off and it didn't turn out well. Here it is anyway ... a jumbled mess. That was the house last week. It is now is some semblance of order and my brain can relax instead of churning at 100 miles an hour with everything that needs to get done. It still churns but it's more like cruise control now.

This Old House

2009-05-30T17:10:00.001-07:00

Now that I am actually in Pictou and have internet access after four days of being off the grid I find myself so busy trying to get things done and have little time for writing.

We made a $500 purchase at Home Hardware and armed with paint, tools, and plumbing I have spent the last couple days banging, painting, washing, moving, lifting and generally exhausting myself to the point of coma like sleep.

So far I've primed and painted the livingroom, painted the kitchen, assembled at least 5 pieces of furniture and unpacked most of my belongings. My Dad, who is a godsend, has assembled the more complicated pieces of furniture, replaced my kitchen tap, smoke detector and front door handle, and started helping lay out the very big fence that's going in. My mom has helped a lot too and her organized brain thinks of things I often miss.

I do have photos but they are on a camera who's USB cable is non-functioning. I'll upload and download them tomorrow and update the progress. It's quite remarkable what a little paint and TLC will do. A new/old couch was bought today and that almost completes the livingroom.

So far I love this place. The house is coming up with small roads blocks which are not insurmountable and with a plan of action and knowlegdable help I'm confident this little house will soon be a great little home.

Over Canada

2009-05-25T17:41:00.000-07:00

Woke up early at 6am today in Riviere-du-Loup to a brisk windy day. Didn't mind the early start since I wanted to get on the road and arrive at my parent's place in good time. Got everything loaded quickly, realized I'd forgotten to do my hair and had to unpack hair product after it was in the truck. Sigh - can't meet the day with bad hair.

The dogs hopped in for the last leg of driving and after a bit of a wrong turn in what turned out to be quite a pretty little French town I headed toward New Brunswick, missed the highway signs and had to double back ... twice.

According to the "welcome to' sign New Brunswick was closed but they let me in anyway. I suspect they mean the tourist info place is closed ...

New Brunswick is littered with hills. Not twisty winding hills but long gently sloping hills that kill your mileage and your time. I think those hills added about 2 hours to my day. And they are hills of solid rock. Solid. I do believe it it s wonder of human tenacity and engineering that they managed to cut highways out of this solid solid rock.

So all day I'd be bombing along at 100 with a tailwind and when I'd suddenly be down to 80 and listening to the truck growl. This went on for hours. I could not wait to get out of that damn province.

It turns out that New Brunswick also has moose.

According to the signs they are kind of goofy looking, a little crippled and they freely approach cars - perhaps to take your order for poutine.

New Brunswick is very treed, riddled with hills, made of almost solid rock under just a foot of dirt and bilingual. Can you tell?

So far along the way the Nova Scotia border sign has been the most welcoming - or perhaps I'm biased.See the light house and the pretty design all around it? So nice. And as an added bonus Nova Scotia was not 'closed'.

Driving into the province and along the coast toward my parent's house was a true pleasure. What a gorgeous countryside.

My first glimpse of the ocean, or the Northumberland Strait for purists, and it was an exciting moment I can tell you. That's the water waaaaaaaay in the background there beyond the farm.

So here I am ... 5000km across the country from all I have known. It's been a relatively easy drive and for far, with just under 100km to go, it's been almost entirely problem free. What an adventure. I was looking last night back on the roads I've driven and thought "I actually drove that my very own self." Tamzin, 4 trusting dogs, 3 patient cats, an amazing truck, a cheap trailer and all my worldly goods. Yes ... I'm damn proud of myself.

The French Connection

2009-05-24T17:17:00.000-07:00

After a year of forgetting I finally am getting around to uploading the photos from my trip through Quebec and New Brunswick. This time last year Archer chewed through the camera cable and made loading these last few photos onto my computer impossible on the trip. Here are the missing photos from those two days ....

Archer tried to get me up at 5am this morning. I said no way and he let me sleep until 6:07am. It was a beautiful day in Pembroke, Ontario and we hit the road after a quick stop at McDonald’s for my breakfast and a much needed coffee.

After Leeloo tried to kill herself we got safely on the highway again. One major stress for much of this trip has been anticipating Montreal. I wasn’t too worried about Ottawa since the highway was pretty much a straight shot right through and I’m used to travelling on the Deerfoot 500 in Calgary. Montreal was a little more serious.

The French, as we know, are a bit of a different breed. All along the way I was watching for the provincial signs on the right hand side of the highway. Every single province put them on the right hand side. The French? No chance. I almost missed this sign because it was on the left hand side between the two highways. Honestly ... what are they trying to pull?

I saw nothing of Montreal except a brief impression that most of the road I was travelling on was elevated. It was incredibly stressful, fast, confusing. I was in a heavy, awkward rig surrounded by busy Frogs in a big damn French hurry. There were signs that kept indicating the highway I wanted but way earlier than I intended to get off the 40 I was on. Fortunately I trusted my instincts and managed to get to Highway 25 without getting lost.

A tunnel! I didn’t know there was a tunnel! The Somebody Lafontaine Tunnel. Did I mention Montreal is in Quebec? Just as in Alberta they make no provisions for French, in Quebec they make no provisions for English. You can’t read French? Shrug. A great bloody warning sign as you enter the tunnel told me to be aware of something: Watch for stopping? Don't stop? Whatever.

Through the tunnel and out the other side and we safely survived the Montreal gauntlet. It was a cool tunnel, I rarely get to drive through tunnels so it was a real treat. Please ignore the fact I was taking photos in the tunnel while driving ...

Also, what the heck is this guy supposed to be? He was on quite a few of the silos in the Quebec countryside ... man the French are so weird.

It really is a totally different culture – may as well be a different country really. Not that I want Quebec to separate as they continually threaten – just that the cultural difference is so marked that it seems like the only common ground is our currency. You know? At the restaurant I stopped in to get dinner a girl who’s English wasn’t very good had to get another waitress who had only slightly better English.

This is the St. Laurence River. It. Is. Huge. I followed it all the way up from Montreal to New Brunswick. Did I mention it is huge?

Finally here is the photo of the ‘French moose’ sign I took in Quebec versus the ‘moose’ sign in Ontario. Hysterical. The Quebec moose has its nose in the air and is walking with dignity across the sign … not like the Ontario moose who seems to be involved in some sort of performing arts. Even French moose are different.

Tomorrow will see me in Nova Scotia if all things go smoothly. I’ll be staying with my parents overnight and then a quick drive to my new house. Phew – we’re almost there.

Country Canada

2009-05-23T16:50:00.000-07:00

Saturday dawned beautifully. I got quite possibly the best sleep I've had in weeks. A good solid 8 hours. It was glorious.

Things always take longer than you expect and although I wanted to be on the road by 7:30am I didn't get gone til almost 8am. I had to put a tarp over the expens on the roof because the humming of the wind through them yesterday was making me insane. That done I loaded up and off we went.
Sault Ste. Marie to Sudbury was incredibly beautiful. I could have looked at that scenery all day. Oh wait. I did.

I stopped to run the dogs at a school yard in some small town where I got gas and saw one of these for real. Sadly, the photos I took of the horse and carriage with the Mennonites(?) in it are still on the camera. When I have them I'll update this page.

The countryside was like a postcard.

I have way more pictures than this but again - the camera cord thing has me stumped. I'll fiddle with it and see if I can get it to to work. I *have* pictures ... and they are really nice so just imagine these green fields, old dilapitated barns and big open sky for like ... 5 solid hours and that was my day.

I arrived in Pembroke ON just before 5pm to find out that the motel I'd made my reservation at almost gave my room away ... fortunately I am now ensconced in room number 3 and the dogs are once again comatose. Just the way we like it.

Travelling Roadshow

2009-05-22T16:55:00.000-07:00

Woke up to a beautiful day in Thunder Bay. Much better sleep last night ... up again at 5:11am on Archer time.

Once on the road the lake made itself pretty apparent right away.

Apologies for the angle of the horizon, I was driving you know. Don't tell my parents. I like how the lake just disappears into the sky.
Two Canadian icons in one ... the Canadian Shield and Lake Superior.
The entire drive pretty much looked like this so there wasn't an awful lot of scenery besides trees, rock, and glimpses of lake.

Mustn't forget hill after hill after twisty road after bendy 7% grade down slope after chugging up endless inclines. It was a long damn day.

Safely arrived in Sault Ste. Marie - The Soo - to those in the know. Tomorrow I will be calling it 'in my rearview mirror.'

The Littlest Hobo

2009-05-21T16:14:00.000-07:00

Thursday morning. 5:18am. I’m beginning to get worried about how little sleep I am managing to get. I get to bed in plenty of time but as soon as my head hits the pillow my mind starts to tick over. Very frustrating.

After a gas up and cuppa joe I got out of Winnipeg in good time and headed into the sunrise of a gorgeous sunny day. Anyone remember grade 4 social studies? Canadian Shield ring a bell? I’ve never actually seen it. This prairie girl kind of thought ‘what’s the big damn deal?’ Look. Neat! I was quite excited. It’s a thick, giant, sheet of rock covering most of northern Canada … really. Doesn't look that exciting does it?
Ontario was very welcoming. And threw me right into Ontario construction. Thoughtful.
Oh look, in case you forgot, or missed the first sign, you have a reminder that you are still in fact, in Ontario. They splurged a little more on this sign too. Money saved not fixing the actual roads with all that construction.
Check. It. Out. When I say that Northern Canada is covered by a sheet of solid rock … seriously, I mean it. You can see where they’ve cut into the roc and there is about a foot or two of dirt and then *solid rock*. Granite. Crazy. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of acres of it. Rock.
The infamous ‘bump’ warning. Sometimes I’d see six of these leading up to a bump that I would barely have noticed, other times there was one sign right at the bump, one of which I was pretty sure nearly sheared off all my tires. Thanks for nothing.
And the moose. The *hackney* moose. I’m 100% sure they don’t really move like this.
And apparently hackney moose are more dangerous at night. Do these ones inflict more damage than daytime moose? How can I tell the difference between these moose? Very disturbing.
Did I mention the water? Lake after lake of it. Bee, Longbow, Foot, Falcon … lakes and lakes. Names seemingly plucked out of a hat full of nouns. So many lakes ... likely because the meters and meters of rock means they don't drain.
A lucky moment. Loons. Hence the name ‘loonie’ for our dollar coin which has none other than a loon on it.
The rig at a pee stop for the dogs. The truck is handling this trip very well. I’m so proud of it. That there is a photograph of everything I own … except the house that waits for me.

Corner Gas

2009-05-20T16:00:00.000-07:00

Due to lack of internet access for the last couple days I'm a bit behind but still alive. I'll start from the morning of the second day ... we successfully hit the road leaving Swift Current at about 7:30am Wednesday morning. The wind was once again at my back and the road was as flat as one can expect from Saskatchewan.

I’ve never been through southern SK, only the middle bit to Yorkton(don’t recommend it) and Saskatoon(recommend it as a pretty little stop).

Since we were in grain country I thought I’d take some photos of ye olde grain elevators. A prairie icon. I remember the one Cochrane had decades ago when I was growing up – I think it burned down actually – a dying icon.

This is what they look like now. Oh. Ew.

This is what delivers the grain to the elevators for the trains to pick up and ship across the world.

Saskatchewan is known for the fields of flat. They grow stuff there. Canola, barley, wheat, sunflowers, corn … whatever. But if you can believe it there is a lake in this photo – super flat, super wide … water.

This is pretty hill type things … fascinating stuff. I swear.

Speaking of fascinating … this is not snow. What is it? No really … what *is* it? Looks like snow, banks and banks of it.
Regina has rabbits … it seems. The road to Regina seemed to perpetually slope upward which killed my mileage and made me like the prairies less than usual. Deceptively not flat.
Manitoba put some real effort into their ‘Welcome to’ sign. And yes, I’m totally photographing each province’s sign. Proof of crossing.

Approaching Winnipeg I saw this sign and had to take a picture for my TLOTR peeps out there.
Trees used as wind breaks have always seemed kind of cool to me. Not sure why.
I arrived in Winnipeg in pretty good time and got on the perimeter road that felt like it would never end. I easily found Jeff & Danielle’s (of Jahina Ridgebacks) lovely house where the dogs could run safely in their 2 acre fully fenced yard and then ...

Blessed sleep.

On the Road Again

2009-05-19T19:47:00.001-07:00

If you're following my dog blog you know that I'm in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, about 5 hours east of Calgary in the middle of the prairie. We got on the road after my walk through which was the cherry on the top of the shit city Calgary is. They are complaining about the state of the grass in the backyard ... well duh. Maybe I shouldn't complain - they don't know I had 3 cats and 4 dogs plus three litters of puppies in that place when they thought I only had Halo and the one cat.

So we set out and the truck seemed to be handling the load very well except for the wind. Calgary couldn't get rid of me fast enough with a stiff ass northwest wind pushing me along. I turned slightly south and the truck was like WTF? I knew i had to stop in Brooks for gas and could not wait. Between the wind making the expens on the roof hum, the flapping tarp on the trailer and the water bucket handle clattering against the bowl I was going round the bend. We stopped, gassed, peed, secured things and hit the road again.

From then on it was gorgeous driving. Flat smooth incredible roads. The truck hummed along easily and we made great time and it was easy on the gas. Nice. Here's some clicks I took along the way ...

Ominous clouds to the north which fortunately were heading away from us. Clouds like this are is quite common on the horizon on the prairies. You can see them coming and usually a stiff wind precedes it. Gives you time to alter your picnic plans.

The most interesting thing about the prairies is the sky. Constantly changing, rarely the same two days straight and cumulonimbus is very common, incredibly beautiful and is the rainmaker. Quire serious about it sometimes too. Yes, I did just use cumulonimbus in a sentence ... grade 5 science - thank you Mrs. Miller.

I was heading into a heavy shower for quite sometime. It must have been travelling east a little more slowly than me as I caught it up in Medicine Hat. It's the heavy, cold raindrop kind of cloud and sweeps along drenching everything.

If you can believe it this is a buffalo. I think when I was in school they were almost extinct or endangered or something. Maybe they still are. Here's two of them. I think they are making a come back. Ever been near one? Think cow only twice as impressive ... and scary.

Legitimate wildlife. Antelopes or gazelles or whatever. I think this is what Leeloo is crossed with.
Entering Saskatchewan. Goodbye ... riddance ... whatever Alberta. Cedric - my travelling gnome - was also unmoved by the Alberta exit. I'm not sure what 'Saskatchewan, Naturally' means unless no one shaves or uses personal hygiene products. Could be they are environmentally inclined. I hope it's the second one.

I won't bore too much with Saskatchewan countryside. This is pretty much it. Not all the landscape has a train in it but if it doesn't have a train or something else of note it can get kind of monotonous. Don't believe me? This is sans train. Yawn. Okay - it's a little pretty. These are the Cypress Hills. Impressed?

And this is the direction we're headed. Hard to believe at the end of that road is the ocean and my new home.

Hills of Green

2009-05-14T07:14:00.000-07:00

If you've ever been to Nova Scotia, or met anyone who has, the answer to the question "What is the landscape like?" will always be "Trees". It's hard to get an idea of just how many trees there are unless you get to the top of a hill that has been partially cleared.

Such a hill exists in Pictou County and happily enough it's called Greenhill. It offered a 360 degree view of most of the County. And the county, in the fall, is spectacular.
It's interesting to see that the trees are solid up to the point where the land has been forcably cleared and I imagine it is an ongoing battle with saplings to keep the farm fields tree free. I'm not sure what they grow but I hope it's worth it!

Trenton Park in the Fall

2009-05-12T07:43:00.000-07:00

Everyone, and I mean everyone, who has ever seen fall colors on the east coast just raves about them. Seeing pictures of the Autumn does not do it justice but I can try.

Canada's national symbol is the maple leaf. Admittedly I never understood the significance of using the maple leaf to represent the entire country because the maple does not grow in the prairies. I understand that the prairies is quite a bit younger than the founding provinces which are overrun with maple so I can forgive this little oversight. For anyone who does not live in the prairies and doesn't know ... the fall colors are a flash of mostly yellow and gone before you know it. On the east coast the colors turn slowly and and make a big damn deal about it. That allows for some pretty cool leaf patterns depending on the kind of tree and how cold it's gotten at night.

The tips change first because that's the part that gets colds first, the inner leaves remain green for some time into the fall while the outside of the tree is all red like so ...

There are different kinds of maples, at least one of them gives up maple syrup - I think that's called a sugar maple but I don't know what it specifically looks like. Maybe it's this one:

Some of the trees seem to be put on a deliberate display of color in an attempt to out-perform their neighbour.

When I arrive the trees will be just leafing up and everything will be a brilliant green. It will be a different perspective of the foliage there but I'll leave you now to drool over this ...

Beaches

2009-05-10T05:49:00.000-07:00

There's a sandy stretch of coastline called Melmerby Beach about 20 minutes from my house that is apparently very popular in the summer. My hosts last October, Bill & Donna, looked at me skeptically when I said I was going to the beach to take some photos because it was sort of raining a bit. I didn't realize what their skepticism meant until I got there.

The rain in Nova Scotia is not the same as Alberta. When Alberta rain hits your skin it's like little droplets of ice no matter how hot out it may be. It wasn't really windy but the waves were crashing in quite seriously and it was a great day to be out in the weather ...perhaps an umbrella next time.

The bad thing about that mist is that you don't realize how wet you are actually getting. Fortunately I was wearing a leather coat but my pants got absolutely soaked in about 10 minutes. It was an usual sensation to be wet through but not feel like it - although driving was a bit uncomfortable - hope they managed to get the water stains out of the rental car.

I returned the next day and took some more photos in the sunshine. Most of the shore along that northern side of Nova Scotia allows you to see Prince Edward Island on the horizon . It looks really close but is about an hour ferry ride away across the Northumberland Strait. At night you can see the lights on the distant coastline. The waves were much calmer the next day and I was pretty much alone on the beach. October is not really a beach bum month I guess. The rolling waves illicit a sort of internal quiet that is hard to find elsewhere.

Being from the prairies and all I was constantly fascinated by the beach itself. There is plant growth on the east coast I have never seen, or rarely seen, or have only seen in photographs. Just as I take the Rocky Mountains for granted I'm sure many Maritimers take for granted the simple beauty of the sand of the beach or the colors of their fall. That is a post all of it's own ... probably several actually!

Land & Sea

2009-04-29T07:09:00.000-07:00

So where is it that I'm moving? What does it look like? How far from the Northumberland Strait(referred to as the 'ocean' by most people) am I? The town of Pictou is located on a gently sloping hill that overlooks Pictou Harbour which empties into the Northumberland Strait. Just beyond the harbour is Prince Edward Island which you can easily see on a clear day.

If I turn right out of my driveway and walk 40 feet and look right again I can see Pictou Harbour. My house is located at the top of the hill so I better have good winter tires! I think I'm about 800 metres from the water proper but the town sits between me and the harbour.

I was in Nova Scotia in the fall of 2008 right at Thanksgiving which is the prime time of the year to visit because of the colors. It was the end of the tourist season and there were lots of tourist shops still open but not bustling.

Some of the buildings were built from the stone ballasts used in the Ship Hector which brought the Scottish settlers to Pictou in the late 1700's. Those buildings still stand. How's THAT for preserving your past? (Calgary? Hmm? Hmm?)

The Ship Hector was rebuilt and now sits at dock at the Hector Quays( pronounced 'keys') Museum where you can go aboard and explore the replica of the ship that made the journey across the ocean over 200 years ago. Hard to believe in this day and age that almost 200 people would have lived on that tiny ship for weeks on end. It's actually not as big as it looks.

The wharf itself is really cute - it's a pity that the view across the Harbour is spoiled by the paper mill - there was talk when I was there that the mill is being shut down much to everyone's joy since the smell of the pulp is pretty potent some days. I didn't mind it too much which I suppose is a blessing.

Some of the town on hill up from the Harbour. The buildings in the foreground are mostly businesses with the homes sitting behind at the top of the hill.

I'll post some pictures of the beaches and the surrounding area next time. The colors ... spectacular and must be seen with your own eyes to believe.

Under One Roof

2009-04-20T16:56:00.000-07:00

I have been lazy updating what with the puppies and all. Now that I am no longer employed I have OODLES of time to devote to this blog and various other pursuits such as raising puppies, packing and planning a cross country adventure.

My parents have been checking on the house for me for the last few weeks to make sure it's okay. So far so good.

The most pressing two things when I get there are a fence and the roof re-shingling ... oh and the appliances of which there are absolutely none. The most important of those is a fridge!

Must remember to call the company doing the roof to book a date this summer. I'm going to ask that they install a chimney vent so that I can put the woodstove of my dreams in the livingroom. The roof is in rough shape - it probably needed doing about 5 years ago.

Fortunately it shows little to no damage inside so it's a simple re-shingle. There was a section which had been repaired at some point where newer wood is evident but it was a good patch job and is holding up well.

Also, the back half needs a vent installed to allow the attic to breathe and prevent moisture build up. You can see where the lack of ventilation has caused this piece of wood to rot - it will get replaced and I'll put up fascia instead of painting it.

There is the overhang which I want to extend at some point to the edges of the deck but as it stands right now the wood braces just need replacing and a coat of white paint to match the rest of the trim.

In all the roof will be the most major repair made and I'm told will only take the roofers a couple days to do. A blessing when it comes to home renovations!

Bathroom Diva

2009-04-02T18:07:00.000-07:00

This is the bathroom right now. Calm down.

The toilet has been 'sealed' to stop potential buyers from using the toilet since the water is off. Trust me - after working in construction for the last few years you DO have to tape it and seal it to stop people from ignoring the sign.

My big plan is to prime the crap out of that hideous pepto color and paint it a very soft blue. My current bathroom is a rubber ducky theme and I want to carry that through to the new house. I have purchased a large new mirror to go over the medicine cabinet, an over the toilet cabinet and I intend to eventually replace that teeny tiny pedestal sink with something more suitable for the space.

Ultimately the bathroom will be mostly white with soft blue walls and little duckies swimming everywhere. So cute.

This Old House

2009-03-29T09:43:00.001-07:00

So now I own a house in Nova Scotia. I flew back to Calgary and waited for all the financing etc to go through and eventually the closing came and went and voila! I am an official house owner! Now ... to the important things - planning the move and renovations ...

The roof shingles need to be replaced which is a simple enough process since this is what the interior of the attic looks like. Perfect. There are a couple areas outside that need the wood replaced but that was worked into the quote I got.

The house skirting is currently plywood which I will change to a white vinyl skirting so it doesn't rot from water damage - it was raining when I took this picture and you can see the water in the wood. This is the southwest corner of the house. Yes ... it's a south facing backyard. The dogs will just DIE.

I'm also planning on putting eavestroughs on the house. You may notice there are no eaves or soffits except over the front entrance. Not sure why in such a wet climate but eavestroughs will keep a lot of the water away from the house.

The window frames need painting and the front and back doors need a coat as well, they are newer doors but have never been painted. I'm thinking a royal blue actually to accent the blue of the house itself. The frames of the windows will of course be white.

The decks, both front and back, are incredibly well built. I'm debating painting them or leaving them natural. Painting means maintenance but it will look so darn nice, a pale blue house with a royal blue door and white accents? So cute.

Searchlight

2009-03-22T08:27:00.001-07:00

I flew to Nova Scotia in October 2008 having found a realtor - Debby - and together we made a list of the houses I wanted to see. I had narrowed it down to about 8 and upon arriving in Halifax at 7am I drove the 2 hours to Pictou to meet her.

We set off and the first place we looked at was just outside the town on 3 acres with a house that needs condemning. Scratch that one.

We then returned to Pictou and headed into an area that almost entirely consists of post war homes. They are those older wartime pre-fab homes - the little boxes with roofs on. A few had been allowed to sink into disrepair but most were in very good shape, well kept and some had additions but just needed a little TLC. I looked at 3 or 4 and was hopeful one would eventually come out on top because I liked the town so much.

We still had a few more properties in the nearby communities of Trenton, Westville and Stellarton. We were inside a house that we felt would collapse any second, a couple had two stories but the roof was too low, and there was one I really liked but it was pushing 100 years and the amount of work required was just too over-whelming to consider for a first home.

As the day came to a close I thought about the houses I'd seen. Always one came to the top of the pile. It was 825 square feet, a good sized yard with a concrete pad in the back, three bedrooms and it was in very good shape - just need paint and some TLC. The roof shingles needed to be replaced but the roof itself was in excellent shape. This was the one. Plus there was an oak tree in the front yard ... and the address is Oak Street ... can't get more quaint than that can you?

We put in an offer, they countered and voila, I had been in Nova Scotia for barely 48 hours and I was now the proud owner of a house in Pictou. Isn't it the cutest? That's my oak tree in front there.

Location Location Location

2009-03-21T08:14:00.000-07:00

Choosing a town to live in is no easy task. I had criteria; most of which centered on proximity to dog shows, dog bylaws, and dog accessible places for the beasts to burn off steam. I wanted a good sized house that I could afford but not one that was so large I’d ramble around in it and end up losing a cat. It also needed to be structurally sound and not require a lot of work since I’m kind of an indoor girl.

The first thing I noticed, looking at the homes for sale online, is that there are very few fences in the Maritimes. The neighbors will get a big surprise when I move in since my first renovation will be a 6 foot fence around the back yard. Then they’ll see the dogs and say “Oooooooh. Can you make the fence bigger?”

I jest of course. I think.

Many of the houses stated they were in need of work which was fine with me as I planned to do some renovations anyway to personalize and dog-ify it. The houses needed to be something I could tackle and not over-whelm me with my very first house purchase.

So the western most tip of Nova Scotia and along the Bay of Fundy was out – too remote. The bottom of the province would suffer the most from southern storms and hurricanes coming up the coast. The house prices near Halifax rose according to distance from the city and I was not interested in living in or near a major centre again(despite the hundreds of thousands in population difference between Calgary and Halifax). Cape Breton – the bit that sticks way out up into the North Atlantic was also mostly rock and exposed to the winter weather coming in from the ocean. I’m tough but not that tough. Plus the dogs would never forgive me.

In April of 2008 I was drawn to a city called New Glasgow because of the name. Can’t get much more Scottish Canadian than that can you? It’s located in what I call the ‘elbow’ of Nova Scotia and protected by various land masses but is still right on the water. Also, a town called Pictou kept coming up in my realtor listing searches as being within my price range and after more research I discovered that Pictou calls itself “The Birthplace of New Scotland”.

Bingo.

If you’ve checked out the links to Pictou you’ll see how charming and quaint a tourist town it is. I grew up in the charming and quaint tourist town of Cochrane in the foothills of Alberta (even though as a teenager I’d just refer to it as lame) so I knew I’d feel right at home. The Pictou website is updated frequently and well presented, something that not all small town websites manage and gave me a really good idea what the town was like.

So that was it. I settled on the town and began researching homes there. I’m the sort of person who trusts when something clicks – it’s not all about logic. My gut was telling me my new home was in Pictou. I just had to get there to find it.

Crusoe

2009-03-20T08:41:00.000-07:00

Once I decided that I was going to move to the Maritimes I had some research to do. I knew that I wanted to be in one of the three provinces but not which one. They all had their positives and negatives. I had some exploring to do via the internet.

Prince Edward Island of Anne of Green Gables fame is more temperate, smaller, and the house prices were slightly less depending on what you were looking for. Unfortunately a lot of the jobs seemed to be seasonal and the 'real' jobs were close to major centres which meant you had to live near one which affected the house prices.

New Brunswick, which borders Maine and Quebec, had good prices, several major centres and had house prices that I was really impressed with. The downside is that half of NB is bilingual which I'm absolutely not.

Nova Scotia. Latin for New Scotland. Several major centres, lots of job prospects and rooted in Scottish tradition. I haven't yet come across a negative. Time will tell.

So Nova Scotia it was. I was pretty candid in my assessments of each province. A decision to uproot my life had to be grounded in good research. But a lot of it had to do with intuition and knowing that I wanted to get as close to the Scottish feeling as I could.

So now I know what province. Now where within said province?

Travel Travel

2009-03-18T08:15:00.001-07:00

In 1976 a redhead was born in Calgary, Alberta at the Holy Coss Hospital. (All of the photos in this post are from Scotland not NS)

Thirty years later she would head to Scotland for a couple of weeks to visit her best high school friend who had moved there a few years earlier. This visit would plant the seed for an idea about where home is, what happiness really means and why there was always an inexplicable desire to get away from (almost) the only place she'd ever lived.

I got home from that trip and immediately decided that if I was going to live anywhere in the world it would be Scotland.

The following months saw me all over the internet doing my research, making calls about the cost to ship my junk overseas, and even began the process of obtaining my dual citizenship.

I finally came to the conclusion that although I felt Scotland was in my blood (even though it's not at all, I'm Irish/English ancestory) it was going to prove too expensive, especially with the dogs and cats who I would absolutely never leave behind.

As it happened, while I was in Scotland, a friend of mine was in Nova Scotia for a wedding. She had also been to Scotland in years past and said "If you like Scotland you'd probably also like Nova Scotia since that is what a lot of their culture is based upon." I dismissed the idea since the western stigma against the Maritime provinces was in the very hemoglobin of my Alberta blood.

One day I was online at work, not doing my job, and decided to check MLS(multiple listing service) for homes in Canada that I could afford. I knew I'd never buy in Calgary, too expensive, and I didn't want to stay in the city or province anyway. On a whim I clicked on Prince Edward Island.

$35,000 for an older house on an acreage.

And that, in June of 2007, is when the real research began. Employment, house quality, location, topography, demographics, renovation costs, moving costs, lifestyle, animal bylaws, dog show circuits and all the things you need to know before you pick up your entire life and move it 5000km.

So here's the continuing story of how a grain fed, beef loving, country raised girl from Alberta decided to leave all she knew and head east with four dogs, three cats and two dogs in spirit.