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Published: December 4th 2008
I live 30km west of the city of Sudbury, on a lake, in the forest with eleven neighbours along an unpaved road.
Three ice fishers were already on the lake ice yesterday trying to catch something ...pickerel? pike? trout?
I can only access dial-up internet ... have a dish to get TVO on my television ... heat the house with wood that I chop.
It always helps if I remember to feed the fire. In winter when the temperature reaches -30C I get up in the night to put one more log on the hearth. I use electricity for most other things and I do have electric backup for eating ... do not like to use it though. Soon I will be snowshoeing on the lake but not before my good neighbour puts his ice hut out on the lake.
December the third was a day to top a list of previous topable days!
At six in the morning the newly erected Christmas tree (an ancient germanic tradition) fell over. All the water in a container designed to make the tree think it is still alive, was dumped onto the floor. Once that was cleaned up with all
The Cottage
The spectacular effect of snow.the recycled newspapers from the library I headed for the last Spanish class before the winter break at ULU (Laurentian University in Sudbury) ... there was also the tutorial to go to.
The new/old Dodge 2003 Caravan would not move. After waking my good neighbour at the ungodly hour of 8:15 ... it moved... of course. At 20km/hr I proceeded to the highway 3km away. I put the uncomfortable feeling while driving down to the amount of snow on the road and the lack of snow tires. But once on highway pavement the van refused to accelerate.
One of my neighbours, driving behind me, said the rear wheels were not moving. I managed to get off the highway. I had been dragging one wheel, which refused to rotate. I parked in front of the house on Blueberry Hill Road. I resisted the urge to wake a stranger so early in the morning. I woke my sister instead. She suggested Road Assistance. Imagine my surprise when I heard that my Aviva road assist option was not active!
My good neighbour came to survey the situation ... he was, after all, already awake ... "a siezed emergency break"
... a warm garage was needed. I phoned the tow truck. I had left the van on emergency break mode for five days! My driveway is sharply inclined. The old 1990 van would not stay put on the driveway.
Now I woke the stranger-neighbour ... I knew her slightly from the garden centre. Her son is one of my neighbours. Her daughter-in-law saw the unmoving wheel. In her housecoat and keeping hold of a stuggling ChouChow, she graciously invited me to enter, even though I had roused her from her bed.
Forty-five minutes later I was towed to the nicest garage I have ever seen ... Ontario license plates from 1911 to the year that beginning of stickers in the right top corner came into use. He uses an extra large coca cola cooler for chopped wood storage. It is also the cleanest most organized garage I have ever seen. I did not object (well not out loud) to the $101.70 it cost to unsieze the brake and put on snow tires.
It was a real 101 day ... the tow truck cost $101 .... new Sorell boots cost $110 ...garage work cost $101 and the combined cost of Bulk Barn and grocery purchases came to $110 ... almost $500 ... good thing I was able to score free winter tires thnaks to a benevolent friend ... they would have cost me over $500 ... can look forward to thatexpenditure next January when I come back from my Norway/St.Petersburg adventure.
Van working well now. As I have already told a friend, "I will only ever use the emergency break if teetering on the edge of a cliff."
Have shovelled snow every day so far since the last week in November. I am not complaining ... the beauty of winter in the forest ... like being in a Welcome to Switzerland Ski Country postcard ... is worth every shovelful that has to be heaved. The sun came out for a while today and the snow sparkled, scattering the look of diamonds onto tree branches, fencewires, tall grasses and roadside snow ridges.
Needless to say I did not make it to my Spanish class at ULU. Will begin to prepeare my oral presentation about Frida Kahlo for January.
Tomorrow it will be time to decorate that tree. I believe it fell because it took all night to thaw out. Getting it from the forest is the one of the traditions of my Christmas past. If I had less furinture I could have a bigger taller tree ... as it is I am resticted to 2m tall and 1 1/2m wide.
This year I plan to have a Christmas as remembered from childhood. Have already made an Advents Wreath ...red ribbon and red candles ... one candle is lighted for each of the four Sundays before the 24th of December ... one candle so far then two and so on. I am also opening the little windows in the Advents Calendar. Supplies have been bought to recreate the cookies and other delicious food offerings savoured in times past.
.....preparing for the next adventure!
russian proverb........there is no shame in not knowing; the shame lies in not finding out ...
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George Mills
non-member comment
Good timing
Dear Barbara, i have been thinking of you lately as next saturday i leave for Katmandu and there on to Pokhara to visit an old frend who i met in Ann Arbor 37 years ago. After Nepal i will spend some time in Bodh Gaya and Varanasi (Alka hotel ). It was so nice to see a blog of your 'home' instead of a distant far flung place, and it is very beautiful. My daugther Claudia did a 6 month south america trip last year and still does spanish class' in London. Go well, stay well and keep 'em coming.XX