First South Travelogue

Last evening, I took a walk.

It's been a grueling month. Twice a year, I do a BIG typesetting project. It's my bread and butter and pays for most of the year's expenses, but it's a grind with 45- to 60-hour weeks and one day off in the past 30.

I'm tired.

Yesterday was the very last day, and as still more changes came in in the morning, something in me seemed to snap. I burned out. My brain stopped working. I couldn't focus. I sent a bunch of things back with errors. I was done.

But no rest for the weary! With plenty more work from other clients queued up and waiting for me to be available, I slogged most of the rest of the day out at my desk – fairly ineffectively, but still.

And then, as evening hit, I felt the call of something bigger. The VERSE. Bigger than daily cares, bigger than fiscal responsibility, bigger than me, all humans and the entire construct of human endeavour.

I live surrounded by the most gorgeous landscapes I have ever seen. And as an added bonus, yesterday evening was 9 degrees (Celsius) and sunny.

If you are like me, plowing away at your responsibilities, burdened by worries and cares, I invite you to come along with me on this walk.

The view of the Town of Lunenburg from the top of the
hill by the golf course. The house I've been renting in this winter
is just off the left edge of the frame.

As I headed up the hill, I heard rustlings behind me and realized that my cat, Salinger, had decided to come along.

Here is Salinger, stalking me. This time of year our landscapes
are excellently colour-coordinated for ginger camouflage.

My handsome fellow stayed with me quite a distance – well past the Topmast Motel at the crest of the hill. Fortunately, he is timid of cars and stayed off the road.

Salinger <3

At this point, Salinger decided he had reached the limits of his territory. I, on the other hand, felt like really stretching my legs with a good, long, cobweb-clearer of a walk.

Heading down the hill and out of town.

In a couple of months, this will all be vivid green, but right now, it is a restful golden brown, which I think co-ordinates quite nicely with the blue of the ocean.

On the flat between Hill 1 and Hill 2, looking out to sea.

Coming down the second hill toward Corkum's Island:

The curve at the bottom of this hill always catches me by
surprise when I'm driving. It's a doozy!

About a half an hour out from my starting point, I decided to turn back. Having climbed two big hills on the way out, I knew I would have to climb back up two big hills to get home (unless I called my housemate to come rescue me in her car – LOL!)

I didn't want to overtax myself after a very sedentary month.

I took this picture at the point where I turned
around to come home. Absolute serenity.

Back up the first of those big hills:

Trust me, it's steeper than it looks!

And back into town at the base of the second big hill:

Town limits. Where First South ends and the
Town of Lunenburg begins.

When I got back to the spot where Salinger and I parted ways, I gave a little holler — and look who was hanging around waiting for me to get back!

Salinger, playing "keep away" by the side of the road.

My holler startled three deer who tore off into the trees behind the golf course. I wasn't quick enough to get a photo. 

As Salinger and I came back over the crest of the hill, there was twilit Lunenburg with the first of the lights beginning to sparkle on the boats in the harbour.

Home again, hone again, riggety-jig.

This is a blessed place. 

Its peace eases my heart. It fills my eyes with beauty, my heart with love and my soul with gratitude.

Portrait of the (very tired yet refreshed) blogger
with her cat, Salinger, upon being happily reunited.

Summer Cat Door

I want to install a cat door in my Tiny Home for Salinger, so he can come and go as he likes.

This feels like a complicated process which will involve making a hole, or enlarging an existing hole in the shell of my home and installing a cat flap (which I understand can be purchased, making that part easier, thankfully). Also, because my home is rather high off the ground, I will probably have to construct some kind of ramp for Salinger to use to get to the door.

As I believe I have mentioned before on this blog, I am not particularly handy.

Fortunately, I know lots of people who are handy and I'm sure one of them will be willing to help me. One of these days. It's not exactly a high priority for anyone at the moment.

So, with the warmer weather, I've made a "summer cat door". On a few occasions when I've left Salinger shut inside for an hour or two, he got busy clawing at the screen door at the bottom corner. So, yesterday, I cut the screen, freeing the already-torn corner from the edges of the door. Now, in fair weather, when I can leave the outer door open, Salinger can go in and out of his own accord. After showing him a couple of time how it works, he totally has the hang of it.

He is a smart kitty. 

Cats iz analog: 18 fun things you can do without electricity

I'm currently living in my Wholehearted House without a power system. I still have some battery-powered devices and an off-site, fully-wired office, so I haven't exactly broken up with electricity. One of my jobs is quite high-tech, I love social media and the ability to phone, Skype or Facetime with people who are far away. And I don't think any of that is going to change.

I thought about getting a big solar power generation system set up for my Tiny Home with an inverter and everything so I could use the trailer's existing AC system. But, I think I'm now leaning towards simply reducing my electricity consumption to what I can derive from a small solar panel, which I will hook up to one 12-volt battery (which I can also arrange with friends to periodically recharge on the grid, if the sun continues its cruel abandonment of Nova Scotia). The battery will charge the trailer's existing DC electrical system and hopefully provide enough power for a cellphone signal amplifier and occasional charges for my phone and for a rechargeable lantern.

So far, I've been quite surprised about the extent to which I'm not missing having power. I have a wood stove for heat, a propane stove for cooking and a propane fridge - though frankly at this time of year I don't even have the fridge turned on. I should stick a thermometer in there to see how cold it is, but the fact that the little bit of low-risk food I have in there is maintaining its quality is reassurance enough for now. I have a battery-powered head lamp for manoeuvring when I wake up in the pre-dawn darkness. My water is carried by hand, not pumped. My house is up off the ground, so I don't need a sump pump. I don't have running hot water, so no hot water heater is required.

It's amazing how, with some shared infrastructure, I should be able to access everything I need without having to OWN very much.

And I'm re-discovering that there are very pleasant things to do without electricity. Here are a few:

The might hunter stalks The Red Dot.

1. Play with the cat (Salinger is a frisky under 1-year-old who can spend literally hours being entertained with The Red Dot (laser pointer) or the stick with the pompom on an elastic string)
2. Enjoy the wonders of a MacBook Pro's long-lasting battery for writing blog posts, letters, stories, etc, (without interruptions from the Internet)
3. Play guitar
4. Sing
5. Continually monitor and frequently tend the fire in the wood stove
6. Do yoga
7. Play solitaire, you know, with a deck of cards
8. Do jigsaw puzzles
9. Cuddle, pet, brush and generally fuss over the cat
10. Stare at the fire and think
11. Make love (I'm flying solo these days, but you don't have to)
12. Nap
13. Read
14. Have visits with friends, possibly involving a game of cards, Scrabble or backgammon – or a discussion that is not resolved by recourse to Wikipedia
15. Make lists
16. Make things (i.e.: crochet, knit, sew by hand, hook rugs)
17. Look for the cat (I have been stunned to find that Salinger can successfully hide in 232 square feet! He has foxed me at least twice already, squeezing in to spaces I never dreamed he could fit into.)
18. Sleep

If all of these things sound incredibly relaxing that's because they are. I've always loved Earth Hour and now there are a whole lot more of them in my life.

Do you ever deliberately take a break from electricity? What do you do when the power goes out? What powered activities are stressing you out? What powered activities do you think you could or couldn't give up? I'm curious to know, so please comment below.

The Move: Part 5 (In which I actually start to move my stuff and myself, but it's far from over...)

We had a wicked spring storm yesterday in Nova Scotia. Howling winds and quite a lot of snow – hard to say exactly how much as the earth was scoured bare in places with 2-foot-high drifts in others.

I'm preparing to move my living quarters to Wholehearted House this weekend – for 2 reasons

1. My cat is coming
2. I have firewood at the Tiny House and I am almost out of wood at the big, old house where I have been renting

My cat
Yes, I have a cat. He arrived as a stray last fall at the home of a dear friend who felt sorry for the poor, half-starved kitty, but knew he couldn't afford to keep two cats.

Well, I'm a cat person who's been a long time without a cat. And, this cat was orange. I have never had an orange kitty - black cats, brown tabbies and a white cat with grey splotches - I've always wanted an orange one.

I can't have a cat where I rent because my landlord is allergic, so my friend agreed to foster this little waif, with me covering food, litter and vet expenses. Knowing I had a cat to house was one of the things that motivated me to find a home of my own.

I named my cat Salinger, after the great J.D. and I've had lots of visits to bond with the little fellow. He's gone from a tiny mite to a strapping man-cat in the past 6 months. He's been neutered and wormed and vaccinated. He's cuddly and snugly and smart - although with an unfortunate tendency to try to eat things he oughtn't. Curiosity has almost killed this cat a couple of times.

Now, my friend has to move next week and rather than make Salinger move twice, I've decided to step up my move into the tiny house. 

I got my bed and armchair up there on Monday ahead of the storm and I'll be going to pick Salinger up from his foster-poppa on Saturday and Sal and I will move in to Wholehearted House together. 

We hope the kind friend who saved Salinger's life will be able to come visit soon.