'Bigness' and 'Sweetness'

When I refer to 'bigness' (one of Rob's terms, picked up by my brain and now way over-used), I'm talking about the size of food products in this great and glorious continent.  It's not a criticism by any means, no sir-ee.  I'm really finding it all rather fascinating at the moment. Think Gulliver in Lilliput.

Walk into any supermarket and prepare to be overwhelmed, flabbergasted and amazed. Compared to what we were used to when we lived in Europe, everything comes in ginormous proportions over here. Take, for instance, some of our purchases last week.  Flour: 10kg  Peanut Butter: 2kg   Margarine: 1.81kg  Milk: 4 litres  Coffee: 925g   Dry Cat Food: A billion kilos. Don't even get me raving joyously about Bulk Barn, a place where you can buy almost any food product you like, in the exact quantities you like, without the unnecessary packaging.

It's totally astonishing and mind-boggling at first, to see such heftily-sized bulk bins and products lined up one after the other, on and on in a sea of tantalising come-hitherness (not to mention the number of bags and hands needed to lug them to the car). 

I think I'm going to love it.

Not because I have any ambitions to turn into a Very Large Personage anytime soon (more to love, more to divorce, according to my other half, jokingly). I love the economic - and hopefully more environmentally friendly - benefits of buying stuff in bulk.

Unlike in Europe, it takes the average non-city dweller more time to drive to the nearest town / city to shop than it does for the average European to drive through several towns and villages.  Rural Canada is such a big place - lots of highways, loads of trees, plenty of distance to motor along to reach the corner shop.

We haven't really been here long enough to settle into a routine yet, but when the novelty wears off, we'll probably head into town only once a week to pick up grocery supplies to last until the next trip.

Is that why many staple items are in such big quantities here?

And, is it just me, or does everything taste sweeter in Canada than in Europe?  I swear I can feel the sugar crunching between my teeth as I eat my breakfast toast.  Rob has something of a sweet tooth (well that's an understatement, if 3 tablespoons of sugar in his coffee is any rule to go by). I'm beginning to taste why...

Post by Christy



 

A Brook Runs Through It

When we found the house and learned that there was a small brook running through it, it seemed like a nice touch to put the place over the top. But the reality of living with natural flowing water on the property is something else entirely.

I've taken to taking my morning coffee for a stroll up its banks, while listening to its babble and watching the morning light sheen off its currents and falls. Yesterday, I sat on some boulders in the middle of the flow, close to the main falls at 'the wall', drank my coffee and just enjoyed my surroundings. I can't remember the last time I had felt so relaxed or at peace. Two of my cats, Shika and Jack, had followed me, and were joyfully playing among the rocks. After a lifetime of apartment captivity, they were getting comfortable with their new found freedom, not unlike myself.

Now that we've been here a few weeks, I'm getting used to the idea being out in the country, knowing that other than my unseen neighbors, there is not much chance of seeing anyone else, other than the two Jehovah's Witness who stopped by and offered to help us stack wood. I politely declined. No where else is this feeling of remoteness stronger than lost in the din of the brook. I can almost imagine farmer Hahn digging it out with his two oxen. It supposedly took him 32 years to do it. I'm sure that's 32 years on and off, when he had time.We've named it Oxen Brook it memory of those beasts.

Behind 'the wall' is what I think was a reservoir for said farmer Hahn to water his crops with, but I'm not sure. Now it's all quite marshy with a lot of fallen branches, leaves and silt, creating quite a bit of stagnant water. Come spring I'll clean it up as not to have mosquitoes and other stagnant water breeders.

Further back, the limit of my explorations thus far, the brook resumes its previous look, I stopped at the next falls as it was getting late. The only recent addition to the brook is a small wooden footbridge about half way between 'the wall'  and the house.

Scattered around the brook are 3 foundations to buildings whose original purpose is lost to time. I know one of them was a barn but the other two remain a mystery. One is on a rise, covered in growth, overlooking 'the wall', the other hidden by trees which are older than me.

The people who lived here before us unfortunately neglected the brook and the land around it. They just stayed on their manicured lawn, kept safe by their white picket fence. There is enough dead wood littering the floor of the woods to keep us in kindling throughout the winter and the poor brook was running badly; It almost seemed as if it was ill. When I look at it now, after the work I have done, it seems healthier, faster, and with a more pleasing babble than when I arrived.

Christy and I are looking forward to the spring when we can begin to shape the property into something beautiful and special, and the brook is the centerpiece of all of that.

Post by Rob

Let the Adventure Begin!

Dear Reader,

I don't know who you are, but I figure that as you're looking at this blog, you might want to know a bit more about me before reading further.

I can tell you right away that two of us will be writing this in future - me (Christy) and Rob (my partner).

We've decided to take it in turns writing entries, not just from a sense of shared creativity and division of labour, but also from an even stronger competitive streak that runs through (and sometimes over) our relationship. Rob's already talking of running a popularity poll at some point in the near future to determine who is the more favoured co-writer on this blog!

The inspiration for this blog is our recent uproot from Germany to Canada. We spent two years in Germany teaching English before deciding to toss corporate life in and start up our own English language vacation / consulting company in Nova Scotia.

Bravo, you might say. So did we. But, it seems that we're the first people to actually do this sort of thing out here. We've chosen a lovely 4-bedroom house on the LaHave River, minutes from the Atlantic Ocean. Locations like this would cost well over a million in some parts of Canada, without a doubt. We're a little off the highway here and it's definitely on the quiet side. Sad to admit, we now get really excited when cars drive by ('Hey, was that the garbage truck?', 'I think that was a car going past!' and that sort of thing).

We left Germany 3 weeks and 1 day ago, with four suitcases and our three cats. Relocating two people, four suitcases and three cats is surprisingly easy, except for the fact that we somehow lost our camera on the way, with all its last-minute nights out and memories.

The house is around 216 years old. It was built by a German immigrant family by the name of Hahn, who very soon turned the property's three acres into a farm. Farmer Hahn was also something of a project-enthusiastic, and allegedly spent 34 years (and probably quite a bit of cash) getting a pair of oxen to carve out a brook through the property. God knows what poor Mrs Hahn - not to mention the oxen - thought of all this.

So, back to our hopes for the future. We're busily getting both the vacation and the consulting wings of our business up and running, which means lots of running round meeting key business community players, purchasing hideously expensive office equipment (the fact that Canadians add sales tax onto the price at the till, rather than give you one price tag, will probably have the power to generate mini heart attacks in me for years to come).

Our company is called Story & Birch (www.storyandbirch.com). When the consulting side is set up, we'll use consulting.storyandbirch.com for this arm of the company. As per usual, our competitive streak got the better of us. Yep, Story & Birch is an anagram for Christy and Rob - no arguments can be had by one of claiming that the other's name is more prominent!



Now that we're here, I feel incredibly hopeful for the future. It's a great feeling to be your own boss and to grab a vision by the tail and try to make it work. First things first though. We've a bit of work to do to get the house and gardens ready for vacation guests. Kindling collecting, ordering firewood, looking for furniture, marketing, advertising, business meetings, polishing, driving into town, food shopping, raking leaves and getting to grips with the soapstone wood-burning stove fill our days at the moment. And hey, living right by the river, we even get our own private beach to walk on!

So, that's it from me for the moment. Besides, Rob's doing his best to sneak a peek at what I'm doing ('I'm not looking!').

I've no idea what the future holds - but right now it's pretty damn cool!

Until next time,
Christy