An Amazing Life

We are settling into our new schedule. It's been for the better as the girls are quicker to sleep - perhaps we should have switched up the timing sooner!?  Progress is the name of the game right now... we have progress on our property. An excavator spent the day picking stumps and all manner of stuff off the ground and a dozer is going to come in behind it and level it all off. Things are happening - we will soon have a driveway! This all and the culvert is expected on Monday - or when ever it is a little dryer. A hurricane has threatened our progress this weekend. Who knows what will happen with the weather... I do know that the land we have looks incredible. It seems now, in Spring we will have a building going up.... it is all very exciting!! I have managed to get some relish made this past week also - yeah for expanding and learning new skills. Harvest has continued and we have herbs drying, garlic cured and cucumbers to last us another week or so. We just discovere...

Sallys first week of school has come and gone. Our schedule has shifted and now we prepare for fall. I can't get over how fast summer went - it FLEW by.  (our large Maple, Justin pruned it and it looks amazing) Sally's first day of school went well, she made friends and has found the transition easy. She is such an easy kid that way, no change seems to throw her for long. She goes on the big yellow bus that picks her up from the end of our driveway. She seems too small and the bus too big, but it all works out. I took it harder and am still trying to get used to days without my thoughtful, gentle Sally around as is Ruby who walked around the house that first day calling for "Yaya". Time waits for no man and it marches on, and so must we. She is doing well and enjoys her days so we are thankful.  The garden is still producing all manner of gifts. Last night we had corn that we grew... We never imagined we would have corn our first year without struggle but ...

We have been spending days at the beach, time watering our garden and trying to soak in as much summer as we can... Summer is in full bloom here and its wonderful! (The girls and Justin in the water) At the end of July, beginning of August, we went to Alberta for a week for my family reunion. We saw all my aunts and uncles and introduced Ruby to them all. It was such a quick visit but was nice to see everyone. (All the girl grand children) Since we've been home, we have had a visit from our friends in Grand Etang. They brought their motor home and stayed a few days. We spent some serious time on the beach and really got to know them much better. They are wonderful people and I look forward to many more visits like this one throughout the years.  This week has been fun filled as the fair is in town and also, it is the villages annual celebration, Judique on the Floor. This comes with a ball tourney, a parade, a kids fair and BBQ. Its always a blast and people...

We have officially landed a year ago. We began this journey long ago but finally realized the first step of moving here... how has it been a year already? Its hard to believe how much has changed! Sally and Ruby are both older, stronger, smarter and more lovely than when we started. We have watched them bloom here. Fostering their love for the outdoors and in the summer, their love for the ocean. They have gotten so big and my heart swells at the beautiful people they are becoming. Justin has laboured, sweat, swore, bled and worked tirelessly to clear our space so that we have enough room for not only a driveway and a home one day, but a shed, our garden, a lumber yard. One day we hope to have an Alaskan Woodshed to store our burning wood, our wood splitter, and our wood chipper. Also on our minds are more garden beds and a green house as well as a cottage. We have the materials for the most part as Justin has been diligent at collecting and storing materials to...

The beautiful garden beds are built, filled with soil Justin procured from our land somehow and are planted. Sally helped me plant all our soon to be delicious food and Ruby tried to unplant it all until her Grandma came to take her to play. It was a sunny afternoon and we got it all done in one shot. Even the herb spiral is in! Now all we have to do is wait and water it. Good thing we got a lot of rain today - that should help things along. Before planting and filling After the beds were filled and the ground was raked and wood chips were spread out. Planting is also done. Our herb spiral

Last week we put our permit for our driveway in. This week, we had a visit from an inspector to look at our land and make sure that the visibility to the road was sufficient and that we weren't too close to power lines etc. Today, we got our permit! We can build a driveway!!! Yahoo. We will have heavy equipment to flatten the property, build a culvert, get some fill and spread it out and whammo... a driveway. Sounds easy but it will still be quite a bit of work. This is where our driveway will go!   Justin has been working to get all the logs off the property and stored away for future use. We have so many logs now we have our own little lumber yard. It's going to be so great when we have our saw mill and can create our own 2x4s (or what ever size and shape we want). His hard work will pay off and save is so much money in the future!!! Our lumber yard Work has also started on our garden beds. Justin has been peeling the bark off ...

More progress!! Justin has removed almost all the stumps that are in the way for our driveway. We can now put in our application for a permit so we can get our driveway put in. It's all coming together! before After I've even managed to put in some time this past week! Justin and I planted some boxwood Shrubs along one of the paths behind the shed. It's looking nice, I think! Small changes like this seem to all add up and we have a couple spaces that are nice where we can roam around with the girls. Sally and Ruby both like to be in our space and we try and spend sometime there everyday. Ruby loves to help. All our trees are blooming and the property is starting to come alive. We have frogs and tadpoles in our swamp (Sally calls it Mugwamp swamp). We are going to be putting in some garden beds soon for our food garden. I am also going to be creating a herb spiral so we will have all sorts of delicious foods to eat.  Lots happe...