Rain Update - Big Ol' Post This Sunday!

Our "back yard"

Hi Everyone, it's time for an update!! We still don't have internet, that should be all set up in just over a week (fingers crossed!). I wanted to respond to a few comments from the last few posts. Yes, I'm able to read comments, but responding and commenting is very difficult. Visiting your blogs on my phone is a nightmare! As soon as I get set up online, I'll be back to visit! :) And about that porcupine fish skeleton from the last post, oh gosh I had no idea when I uploaded that photo that it looked like the Covid virus lol!!! 

Have I mentioned how much I HATE using my phone's keyboard??? It takes me forever to type what I want! Plus, my fingers are covered in bandaids from little nicks - moving injuries! This post took hours but I decided to take a day off from unpacking. I sure needed it.

I have so much to tell you all! Firstly, here are some photos of the drive. At the New Brunswick border, there were two lanes; one was a lane for "Quebec" (people who were turned back) and the other was a lane for "New Brunswick"...you already know which lane we were told to take!! That's me, bawling my eyes out from exhaustion, emotion and relief, just after we passed the border.

My sciatica is calming down. Alex and I are taking things slowly, we are both resting each evening - we have a lovely view of the back property from the Sun Room. I took some time to whip out my Tarot cards yesterday morning. It was raining and all I could hear were the rain drops and the birds singing. The back acreage has a lot of fallen/broken trees and needs lots of care. The previous owners were snowmobilers/quad-people and sadly we can see a lot of damage they did to the trees, sigh. We plan to replant a lot of trees over the next few years.

Our realtor Bill brought us a hot chicken dinner the second night we were here - oh boy that was very welcomed!!!

Honestly, temporarily living without refrigeration isn't too hard! We have my little cheese cave fridge (the bar fridge) that we filled with my cheeses and a few eggs that made the trip. But we are mostly eating my canned food. This is how Rain and Alex are "roughing it"...spaghetti dinners, enchiladas with homemade salsa...pizza (the oven here works!) and apple/cheddar fondue (with leftover stale bread we had)...not too bad huh? ;) And before we left, I hit the dollar store and bought bags of candies and chocolate bars...we have juice, wine and pop. The pets have all of their food. We are out of quarantine next Friday the 22nd - that's when we hope to go shopping for a decent (hopefully used) fridge. We have been doing laundry by hand and hanging it out to dry.

Baby Oscar has a comfy spot!

The previous owner left two rocking chairs in the Sun Room, so Alex and I have a little sip of wine after dinner each night, sitting in the rocking chairs and enjoying the view. It's so quiet here, I love it. 

We saw a porcupine waddling up from the woods the other night. He hung around a bit then climbed a tree and stayed there for a long time.

We hear lots of birds around here. I got a nice photo of what I think is a partridge nibbling the catkins off a birch tree. (Andrea, is this a partridge?) Our 1.6 acres is mostly birch with pockets of conifers.

Alex and I walked to the back of our property (we're number 11) and checked out the lot behind us (outlined in blue). I'll post photos next time...it's just under 2 acres and still has the foundation of the cottage that burned down before 2013. We are hoping to buy that property in the next few years to expand ours.

When we were working in the basement, we saw a little squirrel in there. We shoo'd her out, but she kept hanging around, and she wasn't scared of us. We had a feeling she might be protecting her nest. Last year, Alex and I found 3 baby squirrels in our basement and we took care of them and released them a few months later; we both felt like there was a nest inside the basement based on this female's behaviour.

We spent an afternoon searching and listening and finally we found her nest in the fiberglass insulation. It was tucked above one of the beams and wedged between two pipes. These three babies couldn't have been more than a few days old, oh our hearts melted! We followed protocol and put the nest in a box over a hot water bottle, then placed the box outside. Mamma Squirrel came back for them. It was awesome to watch and I tried my best to take photos but none of them turned out. She picked one baby up, curled it into a little ball, held it in her mouth and ran away to her new nest. In intervals of about 15 minutes, she came back for the other two. We made sure to seal all of the holes we found in the basement after that.

We have the bathroom and bedroom set up, I'm working on the kitchen. Alex set up my measuring cups and spoons for me...this made me feel a little more at home! He got our well water pumping. It's clear and potable though it has a little metallic taste to it. A Brita filter is helping with that but we may have to invest in a larger filtration system.

I can finally use my potato!!!! It's been sitting in a box for years, now it's going to house our day to day cutlery.

We bought a fixer-upper. This is the "front" room. It's the teeny-tiny kitchen on one side and the living room on the other side.Those horrid blinds HAVE to go, they are on every window. You can see a bit of the loft. It is now officially the "cat loft"! We have their litter up there and their beds and we feed them up there. They have a big window that looks out onto the backwoods. They LOVE it and spend most of their time up there! "No Dogs Allowed" lol! :)

We have so many plans and ideas for this cottage, it's going to take years but it's going to be a fun journey. I'm so glad you are coming along for this journey! I'll post new photos every Sunday to show you things! Thanks so much for visiting and for your lovely comments!!! Gosh I can't wait to start painting again...and cooking...and cheese making...life is beautiful. :)