Country eggs

Free range rooster

It was a lovely sunny day today, I spent the morning in my writing group and the afternoon running errands and walking along the Gaspereau Canal with Hapi. I think the canal was the first open water she'd seen this year and could not resist going for a wade. Later we walked along the river and by the time we got back to the car her fur was full of ice. The trail along the river was in the woods and completely icy. I could have put my ice grippers on but instead I just slid along the trail, almost like skating through the trees.

Spring lambs

I stopped at the Dabro Farm Market for eggs and took photos of the sheep. Lots of little lambs there now but they won't last long, unfortunately they are all doomed for Easter meals in the city. I took a picture of a sheep by the barn and could hear honking behind him, I looked around the corner of the barn and saw the lone goose amongst the sheep. The goose is alone because its partner was sat on last year by a horse and died of its injuries.

Sheep posing for photo

Goose with friends

After the writing group meeting some of us went to the Brown Bag Lunch downstairs from our meeting room. Every week there is a different speaker and people bring their lunches to eat while listening. Today the topic was immigration. there was a lively discussion. The speaker is part of an organization that helps immigrants integrate into the community and the country.

While running errands I met a man I hadn't seen in a while. He is in his late 80s and Hapi nearly knocked him down. I wasn't sure if he was who I thought he was but he remembered me. I'm the lady who bought yellow paint from him for my house. I asked if he was still selling paint. He said he was. He said he never advertised his business but people just knew about him and he had enough customers to support himself and his family all his life. His son refinished my hardwood floor, I called around and they had the best price and I knew that it was a family business and they took pride in the quality of their work. I know that he is also very active in his community and his church. He has such a lovely smile, it would be hard to dislike him.

For years I have been working on a fantasy story but have been having a lot of difficulty with it because I feel I got sidetracked with it, the story was going in a different direction than what I originally intended and I wasn't happy with it. This past week I just couldn't go on with it. I have been aware for some time that things were not going well but I thought that if I just persevered to the end then I could write the story that I intended in the first place, but this week I realized that while perseverance is certainly a virtue, it is not always the right path. I have decided to abandon it, at least for now. Instead I am writing something else, something I have been wanting to do for a very long time but didn't know how to start. Apparently the answer is, start at the beginning.

Two people at the local air force base are in quarantine, waiting for coronavirus test results. If positive they will be the first in this province. They had just returned from Italy and weren't feeling well. I read that the World Health Organization is saying not to use cash because it can be very germy, but I pay cash for my eggs at the farm market. I could pay by e-transfer I suppose, I know they are set up for that. I was talking to a friend who is a nurse at the local hospital, she said the hospital is chock-a-block full now, there is no room for the coronavirus. We were joking about how to greet each other instead of hugging or touching. She demonstrated a two-handed wave that she thought might be good.

Road trip afterburn

I found out more about the houses we looked at the other day. Turns out Mike did some work on the older house, he remembered it. In particular, he remembers that the oil tank used to be outdoors by the back door. I now have a theory that the oil smell at the back door is from an oil spill when they moved the tank indoors. There must be oil in the ground there. The real estate agent says that the present owner admitted that she occasionally caught a "whiff" of oil at the back door. This was more than a whiff though, it just about knocked us off our feet.

I told the agent my emotional reaction to the houses we viewed and that I wondered if I should be paying attention to that or not. She said that every client she has ever had knew immediately when "this is it". Every house purchase she says is an emotional decision, not a logical one.

I've talked to a couple of friends about it and they think I should go with the feeling not the logic. Except Lin, who fell for the older house. Later that day she even went back to look at it with her husband. He pointed out a few things we missed on the exterior of the house, a bit of rot on the back porch, no window sills or flashing on the front windows. She doesn't like the house that I liked, she doesn't like its location. I told her maybe she should buy the older house, maybe it is the house for her. She says no. She wants me to buy it.

My fantasy is to find or build a small place in the woods. I guess I would like to build it myself. But the reality is I am 62, and I hate the building code and I have limited funds. And I have a bit of a time crunch. The reality is I can't have it all, I have to choose. Everyone I talk to keeps mentioning my age, You're a woman in her sixties, you need to think about what's best for your age. Part of me feels like that kind of thinking will put you in your grave a whole lot quicker.

I just finished reading The Wayfinders by Wade Davis, the Massey Lectures for 2010. Among other things he describes nomadic peoples and the pressures they face to settle down. Something about modernity does not like a nomad. And part of me is very much a nomad. Besides the cabin in the woods fantasy, I have another fantasy of being homeless, of not being tied down to any one location. Like those RVers who travel endlessly in their motor homes. A very unsustainable life style given the amount of fossil fuel involved, but nevertheless one with a certain appeal to me. I sometimes imagine travelling in a gypsy wagon, perhaps pulled by a couple of horses or mules. What a romantic I am!

I hate having to be practical in my old age, it seems like there is so little time left to live one's dreams, one really ought to just do it before it is too late. But then I think about the practicalities, like, what does one do with all one's stuff? Just dump it? Buy an expensive house to store it in and then have no money left to finance the nomadic life? Rent a storage locker? What's the point of having all that stuff if it just sits in a storage locker?

Sigh...