We had company for just over 3 weeks…. Rusty’s mom came for the warmth and salt air… and good homemade food and lots of family time and conversation ♡
Wordless Wednesday – August 22
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Category Archives: Around the Island
Wordless Wednesday Oct 12, 2022
It’s been a while…..
Just a little hurricane Fiona update
It’s been too many days since Sept 24th…. we are doing well, we still have lots without power…. most of our neighbors finally got power this past Monday. The island will never look the same:(
Thanks for your thoughts and prayers♡
Wordless Wednesday – October 6
Something different today.
This old house was once a very grand house. It’s falling down now this year because of neglect, and it is full of old furniture and possessions. This is 2 houses up from where we live.
We got a canoe again♡
We use to canoe a lot back in ontario and we used it a lot. We have missed having one here. So we are going to restore this one this winter and get it into the waters in the spring. It’s so exciting.
A Year in Review
Well suffice to say my blog efforts didn’t quite pan out the way I intended in 2015. Not to say that progress hasn’t been made on Our Old Island Home, I just haven’t been faithful in sharing our progress with you.
Vanessa and I have been working full time at our new jobs. I’m with Paul Davis Systems, an insurance-related restoration contractor on the island. Vanessa is working at Cavendish Farms, processing one of PEI’s grandest commodities.
The gardens did equally well for us this year as the previous year. We had greater success with some of our crops – our winter squash, pumpkins, tomatoes, garlic and onions were not only superior to 2014, but provided above and beyond our needs for the year.
Some of the successes in 2014 however, were failures in 2015. Our corn was one such crop. Between the dry summer, our neglect resulting from working full-time to just bad luck we didn’t have a single ear come to maturity. Most formed on the plant, but went directly to the chickens where the ears were picked (pecked?) clean. Our beets and cucumbers didn’t come to much this year either. I blame the new garden plots we haphazardly prepared in the spring for their lack of contribution to our table.
Otherwise, the remaining crops (carrots, potatoes, turnip, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, beans, peas, greens and zucchini) did as well as the previous year’s effort.
The hen house welcomed six new layers this year. We did lose a couple of birds, but the remaining nine hens are providing, on average, seven eggs per day. We’ve been selling our excess eggs to friends and co-workers. The sales cover the cost of feeding the birds, but even still as I’m writing this, we have thirteen-dozen eggs in our fridge. Vanessa has already frozen a couple dozen eggs for baking (yes, that’s do-able) and I’ll be pickling a couple dozen this weekend. No, I’ve never had a pickled egg, but a co-worker of mine suggested it. Hey, I’m game to try anything.
As the gardening season was drawing to a close, our attention was refocused on the house restoration. This year, we completed the insulation in the attic, installed several new windows on the second floor, started taping and seamfilling the drywall, started setting the piers for the new porch and framed the floor for the new mudroom addition. With fall coming to an end and winter bearing down on us, the added insulation, vapor barrier and windows will make for a much more, um, comfortable winter than last year.
That’s what’s been happening here. On a more personal note, here’s how we’re doing: good. Very good, in fact. Life is busy and looking back, I cant believe another year has passed. But we’ve made intentional changes this year. We’ve made time for each other. No matter how busy life gets, we take time to watch the moon rise over Pleasant Valley and the sunset at the beach. We go for long walks together with Murdoch along the trails behind our house and explore parts of the island we’ve not seen before. Ultimately, this is the one true gift we can give each other – time. Virtually every other gift will fade, tarnish, wear out or breakdown, and instead of filling our lives with stuff, we rather make memories and experiences.
And finally, in spite of my rather sporadic posts, we still get people asking how things are going here. For whatever reason, some say we inspire them, others just enjoy the read. Whatever the reason you find yourself reading these words, I make this promise (no it’s not a resolution): I will do my very best to keep posting and updating our progress regularly at Our Old Island Home. That’s all I can do: try.
Vanessa and I wish you all the best that this new year can bring. Blessings!
All work and no play….
….makes for a dull blog?
For what it’s worth, I’ve written several updates since my last post. Unfortunately they’re tucked away in the recesses of my brain waiting patiently for someone to shine a flashlight into the void, guiding their way out the darkness and onto your computer screen.
Until then, I humbly offer the following review of our summer.
My last post was full of anticipation for the upcoming growing season. Now we’re enjoying the early fruits of our labor and impending harvest.
For weeks now, the zucchini have been growing to mammoth proportions (which we’re processing into zucchini relish) and the zucchini we rescue from that fate end up on the grill with a little olive oil, sea salt and cracked pepper. Mmmm.
We harvested all of our garlic a few weeks ago, pulling them from their beds and hanging them to cure.
Each “leaf” of the garlic represents a layer of the paper surrounding the cloves. While the garlic is ready to use after harvesting, it’s important to dry the heads in order to store them for an extended period.
We let them cure for a couple of weeks in the warm, unfinished second floor bathroom of our home. Once sufficiently dry, we clipped the leaves and roots and have them ready to use for the next few months.
The beauty of growing our own garlic (aside from, you know, eating it) is that we have all we need to plant and grow next years’ supply. We’ll set aside the largest and best garlic heads and plant those cloves this fall for next summers’ harvest. Fresh food is awesome. FREE, fresh food is awesomer.
We’ve had a beautiful summer. Although dry, it’s been downright hot for weeks. The tomatoes are thriving and just starting to show signs of their maturity.
The peppers are plumping and the potatoes are nearing their harvest time. We’ve had one crop of peas already picked, another almost ready and a third crop growing for a fall harvest. Likewise with the carrots, beans and beets. Squash and pumpkins are flourishing in our lasagna beds and our second planting of cauliflower, broccoli, kale, collards and kholrabi will be ready in a few weeks.
Aside from the gardens, our flock of hens grew by six this summer.
Violet, Pansy, Dahlia, Sunflower, Petunia and Lily have joined the Golden Girls – and at 18 weeks of age, they should start fulfilling their end of the bargain and begin to give us a daily egg each.
We had the pleasure of having my Mom visit for the majority of July. As much as she was looking forward to a visit, I think we enjoyed it as much or more.
Well, we certainly enjoyed exploring and discovering new restaurants and shops that Vanessa and I intended to (but never have) tried. But more than that, we just enjoyed the company.
Vanessa and I both are working full-time at new jobs. I’ve been working for a disaster restoration contractor for the past several months. Although I have to admit, after a long day (or week) of working on other people’s homes and properties, it’s hard to find the motivation to do the same for ourselves. Vanessa is now at Cavendish Farms processing one of PEI’s most famous commodities: potatoes! It’s actually working out very well for us. I work a fairly typical work-week: Monday to Friday with occasional evening or weekend projects. Vanessa works two day shifts, two night shifts and then has four days off. Those four days have proven invaluable to us as she’s able to tend to things around the homestead (like curing garlic and raising chicks).
So. There you have it. Sort of. Its hard to wrap up three (four?) months in 600-or-so words, but I think I managed to empty out a few things rattling around in my head. I’ll do all I can to right-this-ship and resume my regular updates. It’s looking like an exciting fall around our old island home. Just do me a favor and let me know you’re still out there. I get a lot of my motivation and inspiration after hearing from you.
Thanks – and blessings from our home to yours!
Gardening. It’s cheaper than therapy.
There’s an old proverb that says, “no matter how long the winter, spring is sure to follow.” This weekend sure felt like it had finally arrived.
“I can smell it”
We took a short drive through Cavendish, enjoying the sun and fresh air, and spotted this guy on the edge of the ice at Wheatley River.
We actually saw three of these bald eagles on our drive today but this was the only one we managed to photograph.
With spring only a couple of weeks away, our thoughts have been turning to the gardens and our seed starting schedule.
Depending on who you talk to, our last spring frost is typically expected sometime in the last week of may or first part of June. So with about twelve weeks before the last frost of the year, we need to start some of our seeds in anticipation of planting out when the soil is workable
First up are our leeks and onions. We’ll start the seeds this week, giving us about eight to ten weeks head start before planting them into the gardens. Onions and leeks are fairly cold-tolerant, so we will transplant them two to three weeks before the last spring frost date – sometime in early May.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll also be starting our broccoli, cauliflower, pepper and tomato seeds.
We experienced a steep learning curve last year when planning and planting our gardens. Thankfully we’ve had far more successes than failures, but with everything in life, if we can learn from our mistakes, we won’t be subjected to repeat them again. Careful records of our seeding and transplanting dates last year has taken out some of the guesswork, and we can tweak our schedule to improve our success this year.
I think spring really is my favorite time of year. To me, it feels like the new year actually starts now – when the snow is melting, the soil warms and the trees and plants are waking up from the winter.
I know, I know – we’re not out of winter’s grip yet, but I keep reminding myself that there’s more winter behind us than ahead.
Making Peace with Winter
Call it the winter blah’s.
Last year, writing about our new life on the east coast came entirely easy. Everything was brand new and an adventure we wanted to share with our friends and family – and anyone else who cared to read about what we were doing. But now that we have a full year under our belts, the challenge is to keep writing about what’s happening and how we’re progressing without sounding too redundant.
Take this winter for example. We’ve had a pretty easy cold-season this year, up until last week that is. Four storms within a week-and-a-half dumped almost 5 feet of snow on our old homestead. Writing about the storms, the snowfall, shovelling out (and our good neighbor bailing us out with his snowblower) would sound too much like any of the storm posts I wrote last year.
I’m starting to rifle through the mail-order seed catalogues and could tell you about what we want to plant in our gardens this spring – just like I did in my post last January. But does that make for an interesting post? I’m not sure.
The one different variable we have this year is that both Vanessa and I are working full time. I’ve already written about where we work and what we’re doing – and the job itself holds no interesting stories I can share. We’re just doing our time there to pay the bills.
Sounds pretty winter blah-ish, doesn’t it? The truth is, I’m no fan of winter. I don’t really follow or play winter sports, I don’t care for the snow and cold and I’d rather be outside than in. By the time February rolls around, I want it to all be over. I’m sick of the snow and ice. Bring on the mud!
But as I write this (in front of our wood stove with the outdoor thermometer reading minus 18 degrees), I remind myself that spring is just over a month away and we have so much to do in anticipation of the upcoming year.
So I’ll say this much: at the risk of sounding redundant, I’ll simply post what’s happening and if there are still readers who want to know some of the (slightly) more mundane aspects of our adventure, then you’ll be happy to read-on in the upcoming days and weeks ahead.
Like I’ve said about the house renovations – it will be a long and arduous task to (essentially) demolish and rebuild our farmhouse, but it’s the memories that we will hold forever. Perhaps this blog will help remind us of every step we take.
Even if we’re up to our waist in snow.
“and how the heck am I supposed to poop here” – Murdoch
We’ve only just begun
“I make myself rich by making my wants few.” [Thoreau]
It’s that time of year when we look back on what 2014 was and what we hope 2015 will hold.
For Vanessa and I, we’re grateful for what last year held for us. The house renovations have been coming along nicely but slowed since we’ve been working full-time now. We’re still eating our own vegetables we grew last summer: potatoes, carrots, beans, peas, corn, pickles, onions and squash. The six chickens have started giving us about four eggs daily – even with winter’s cold embrace taking over. And we have each other. What else do we need?
We have our health, home, food and warmth – and with that, all of our needs are met. Then there’s the other stuff we take for granted that’s really a luxury for most of the global population: we have cars, hobbies, music, internet access and more clothes than we actually wear. I sometimes think it’s even too much.
One of the things I’ve loved most about our move has been our embrace of the concept of living with less. At one point it was a conscious decision to do without some of the luxuries we’ve always enjoyed. Dining-out together was a big one. So was buying things we wanted but really didn’t need – just because we could.
Now we just want to live a simpler, minimal life. Not militant minimalism, mind you – I don’t want to “make do” with two plates, two forks, two cups and two choices of clothes to wear. But we can do with less. In fact, it’s one of the more rewarding things we’ve done in our move. We sold or gave away a lot of items we didn’t need or want to move to PEI – and we’ve not needed to replace them as of yet, either.
We’ve found that very little is needed to make a happy life.
So for 2015, if we’re talking resolutions (and I’m not really), then it would be to stay-the-course. Keep our needs few. After all, things will never make one happy – it just creates a desire for more things or bigger things. We will unburden our lives by owning less stuff and doing more of the things we love.
For the past year we’ve been dreaming of our “big picture” together. What we want our house to be. How we’d like to farm. The wood lot we want to purchase and how we’d use that for our needs. But we realize a dream is just a dream without a plan. This year, we’ll be expanding our gardens and offering limited weekly eggs and vegetable boxes for sale. The woodlot we hope to purchase will be both an investment and a source of income.
As for you, we hope you have a wonderful new year filled with happiness. Dream big dreams, but don’t stop there, make a plan to see those dreams fulfilled.
Our New Normal
For the past year, Vanessa and I have spent our days working on the house and gardens. We managed to purchase our home last November and since then we’ve worked side-by-side renovating and restoring our home and tending our vegetables.
Now for the last couple of weeks, we’ve settled into our new jobs on the island. As I last wrote, I started a new job as a mussel grader in the town of Borden, about twenty minutes from the house. However my career as a mussel grader only lasted about two hours. After our first shift, my career path took a slight right-turn into the packing/icing/shipping area.
As mussel grading is probably the most mundane job imaginable, I had no objection to this slight detour. I’m quite serious. Trying to be clever, I was going to compare it to other boring jobs, but frankly I couldn’t come up with anything. Basically, when grading mussels, you stand in front of a conveyor belt as hundreds of the little blue-shelled molluscs pass by – and your objective is to remove any dead or broken ones, and of course, anything that’s not actually a mussel. That’s it. All day. Every day.
Thankfully, the company recognized one of my strengths right away – my strength. We produce, on average, 20-30 thousand pounds of mussels per day. Once bagged, the mussels are boxed, iced, packed and shipped daily. That’s my role.
So what about Vanessa? Since I was moved from the position I was hired for – mussel grader – I suggested Vanessa send her resume in to fill the position left from my departure. She was hired over the phone within the week. Her career as a mussel grader lasted a full day and was a little more eventful.
Although mundane, the mussels whizzing by your face from left to right, hour after hour can be problematic to those who suffer from motion sickness. Like Vanessa.
After a day of running to the washroom, the supervisor promoted her to one of the bagging machines – a complicated computer-controlled beast from Europe. I think it intimidates most of the workers there. Vanessa took to it in no time – so that’s her new role.
So our new-normal isn’t all that different. After a year of working side-by-side on the house and gardens, we find ourselves literally shoulder-to-shoulder at our “paying” job – she’s bagging, I’m boxing. Our non-paying job continues to be the house renovations – which are still progressing, but thankfully, the income now affords us to resume the renovations. The weekend weather looks like it will confine us to inside work so insulation and vapour barrier is on the agenda. Last week we got the chicken coop insulated – so the girls are ready for winter now, too.
Now, if we can just teach ourselves to actually like mussels….
Our Old Island Home 