In my ongoing quest for obscurity, I am working here for the month of June (or at least in the building that is out of sight behind me): It is spectacular, and beautiful, and if I hadn’t followed my staggering path, I never would have found it. I never would have found myself running this [...]
Filed under: Rural Living | Tagged: cape breton | Leave a Comment »
Where we went when he asked for the beach on a blustery day: The rail car in the front is an old coal car. The windmills in the background adjoin the Lingan coal-burning power plant, the largest power plant in Nova Scotia. The old schoolhouse is now the visitor information centre, at least in the [...]
Filed under: Rural Living | Tagged: cape breton, photo, PostADay2011 | 3 Comments »
Oooh! Ocean! I have one of those! (You know, the same way that one can have a sky, or a constellation, which is that I can look at one with a reasonable expenditure of energy) Our ocean is moody and cold: There is honesty in naming in action, at the Polar Bear Beach. I didn’t [...]
Filed under: Day-to-Day, Rural Living | Tagged: cape breton, ocean, photo, PostADay2011, spring | 3 Comments »
alternately titled: “Be Careful, She Might Have a Blog.” Today somebody walked up to my table at the market, picked up a jar of my spices, said, “That’s too expensive,” and banged it back down onto the table. This was the first time that somebody has been that abrupt about it in three years, and [...]
Filed under: Day-to-Day, Rural Living | Tagged: cape breton, cheap, local, peak oil, PostADay2011 | 17 Comments »
Sitting in the lounge at the mechanic’s this morning (don’t ask), I found myself in the company of a friendly sort, an older man who was definitely from here. I know this because as soon as I arrived, he asked me a question, I countered with a book, we chatted for about a minute, and [...]
Filed under: Day-to-Day, Rural Living | Tagged: cape breton, garden, local, PostADay2011, self-sufficiency | 4 Comments »
Right this moment, I’m waiting for the motor on my spice grinder to cool down so that I can make another batch of curry powder to take to our local farmer’s market. In a much earlier post, I wrote about the challenges we face balancing our desires for local, organic, sustainably produced, and healthy food [...]
Filed under: Home Skills | Tagged: cape breton, environment, food, PostADay2011, self-sufficiency | 1 Comment »
This post was written to participate in 2010 Blog Action Day. Today the world is writing about Water. Let me start with position. I live in a swamp (or possibly a marsh, according to one of my regular commenters). The photo in the header was taken in my back yard. My front yard [...]
Filed under: WorldView | Tagged: cape breton, environment, water | Leave a Comment »
Today’s post: a little more with the practical, a little less with the dilettante. Yesterday morning was entirely consumed with attempting to rescue the greenhouse from the dying throes of winter. Despite nigh-Herculean efforts, we were not successful. However, I think we kept our cool throughout most of the situation, and I was able to [...]
Filed under: Family, Rural Living | Tagged: cape breton, garden, greenhouse | Leave a Comment »
Yesterday was the first really warm day of the summer. Since we are primarily occupied with looking after children and growing plants, we usually spend the nice days trying to get the children to help us grow plants. Yesterday, however, we took the day off to go to the beach. It’s such a traditional summer [...]
Filed under: Family, WorldView | Tagged: cape breton, children, joy | Leave a Comment »
Local Buying
I have been lying awake trying to solve the economic problems of the island I live on in my head. I did this all day also. This is not a new activity; I grew up in Newfoundland. I spent rather a lot of my youth on this issue. Here’s the problem in a nutshell: Every [...]
Filed under: Essays and Musings, WorldView | Tagged: cape breton, cheap, economics, social commentary | Leave a Comment »