The Slow Life Revolution

Most of us have heard of the slow food movement of wanting to cook with local produce rather than pre-prepared meals from the supermarkets etc., which is great, but I want to take the concept to all areas of life. I feel like the best things in life come from making an effort. In London cycling was the best way to get around. Not only were you connected with your outdoor surroundings, getting fit, riding for free and potentially getting to your destination quicker but you didn't have the stress of traffic, cramped spaces and body odor which you paid for. To me it was a no brainer and to me living in the countryside is much the same. It feels great to do things yourself, which means not having to drive anywhere or buy anything - stuff which I generally don't enjoy. The best travel experiences I've had have been by foot hiking in the mountains or on my bike in the middle of nowhere! Bring back the middle ages, I say! Well, not quite. I do believe modern life has plenty to offer but there is a ton of stuff we could really do without and shouldn't have to work all day to buy. Our friends Devan and Charlotte built a tiny home and are avoiding all the issues of debt etc
http://www.livinglarge180.com/

We have plenty of tools at our disposal to live really comfortably. One of my old work colleagues from the Pedal to Petal bicycle collective in Victoria, BC called Matt used to talk about some Americans whose goal was to retire as early as possible. Matt hardly ever used to pay for travel and took freight trains all over and luckily I got to join him on one such journey. Hopefully we can follow this philosophy all our lives slowly and enjoying it all the way. We'll just have to build up our skills slowly before we buy any woodlots or pack horses!

All Grain Brewing

Now that we finally have settled we thought we should really pursue the self sufficient life. For Kris that means making bread, soap and generally cooking up a storm but for me apart from the fruit and vegetable growing it means getting serious about making beer. Finally it's time to have ultimate control over all the ingredients by brewing from scratch. At its essence beer is about four ingredients: water, malted barley, hops and yeast. Thanks to homebrewing legend Charlie Papazian I have a fairly good idea of the process in theory but as ever the practice isn't always the same.....My first brew involved some back breaking hauling of 9 gallons of water from the upstairs bathtub and some wort chilling in the snow. Thankfully Kris gave me the bright idea of filling the brewpot with a pitcher and our kitchen sink now has an adapter to the copper tubing that cools the beer before adding the yeast. Genius. Anyway I feel like I'm on the road to a lifetime of brewing. Yeehaw! Below is the brew in the bag technique on the go.

1899

This photo was on the kitchen wall when we moved in and remains there today. It's a bit like a horror movie with their expressionless faces, but they had to stand there motionless for a long time, whilst they waited for the exposure to finish, so smiles were out of the question! When we really know what we're doing we may have to get a couple of horses and trade in the tractor. Also gutted that the old upstairs windows are no longer but we're tempted to paint the outside trim like it is below. What colour do you think?

Smashing the sod

On Sunday we had the double fortune of having two experienced farmers come to the farm. I think I could write a blog just on local legends! Brian came from round the corner to plow up an acre of our land with incredible straight lines. Brian has an organic apple orchard and makes vinegar too. His father Keith made an apple juice machine from a photo he saw in a magazine and is still concocting various plans well into his eighties, like an apple concentrate machine - oh and he has a steam engine powered car which I was lucky enough to ride in last Autumn. Dave, another organic farmer, built his own house and lives off grid - need I say more? That was certainly my dream a few years ago, but now I know that building is not my forte!

Rhubarb and a Walnut tree

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of checking out a friendly retired Woodville resident David's property and returned with a couple of treats. David is a bit of legend. Not only does he grow lots of his own food but he refurbishes old tractors and has 1 of 6 1934 Massey Ferguson orchard tractors from before they invented tires. On top of being a grower and a mechanic, he also has done loads of the construction of his own house - the chimney, reupholstered furniture and he has all of the National Geographics ever printed! Anyway, he loaded up my truck with plenty of rhubarb and a walnut tree - go perennials!

Greenhouse Construction

One of the first challenges of spring was to get our 2nd hand greenhouse up, which sounds like an easy task: 32 feet long, metal arches sunk in the ground and one piece of plastic. Oh, and I've done this a few times before. But like most things to do with me and DIY, I generally don't make life easy for myself and this proved to be another addition to the catalogue of 'how not to do it'. It turns out that every greenhouse is pretty different. Londoner let loose with a few tools....watch out! Anyway, we got the anchoring posts in pretty quickly (not quite straight! and I morphed a few of the posts before realizing that putting wood on top whilst using the sledgehammer helps keep the metal poles in the right shape). I managed to find some replacement posts and learned that you really can go through steel with a drill. Yes, I'm learning! The frame was fairly quick to go up, but the Annapolis valley is windy so we  had to wait a long time to roll on the plastic. Thankfully our neighbours Greg and Mark (plus my beautiful tractor) came to the rescue and we got the plastic on during some gusty winds. Mark got in the bucket of the tractor and hauled it down to the end then it was time to hang on for dear life and fasten it quick before we ended up in Maine. Note to self: cover up all sharp edges with duct tape to avoid holes and allow for plastic tightening. With the help of my Mum (the blind leading the blind), we constructed the ends in a couple of days once the winds had died down, but the plastic was flapping around for ages - all the locals now have their premonitions confirmed - these guys are rookies! Kris and I just polished off the doors and somehow it worked out that we got them almost exactly the size of a piece of plywood 8ft by 4ft. Pure luck as our "blueprints" (sketched on a post-it note) didn't include any measurements. How long is it going to last? Place your bets. Put it this way, if we have some strong winds or a hurricane look out for random news stories of flying greenhouses! Those of you in England might even get a freebie.