The thing about living in the country…..

• The thing about living in the country…..
  
• Neighbours will tell you EVERYTHING about ANYBODY. On moving day, our neighbour introduced herself, asked if we had ‘bought’ the house and ‘hallelujahd’ when I said yes. What is it about neighbourhoods and tenants – such disdain; anyway she proceeded to tell us all about the tenants that had lived here, the original owners, the sellers, the potential subdivision being surveyed, the feral cats, the eagle trees, the retired neighbourhood. She was quite surprised that we are still working. Do we look like we should be retired? (or re-aligned as my friend Tannis calls herself)…..all within a few minutes. Oh, and don’t forget the part about leaving our outside light on – it shines right into her bedroom, so it would be appreciated if we turned it off at night. To be fair, it is a mercury farm light and is pretty darned bright. It gets shut off at night.
  
• The power will go out on the very same day that I decide to cook meals for the coming week. The stew was slow-cooking, the meatloafs (2) were baking, and the buffalo steaks were thawing. Meanwhile the washer & dryer were humming along, as was the vacuum, dishwasher and Bob’s drill when all of a sudden – silence. I thought I had blown up the electrical panel in our house with all the industrious activity.
• Maybe I blew up the whole BC Hydro site in the area because it took 5 hours for them to fix it.
  
• Barbeques are a great way to finish cooking a stew and meatloaf and of course the only way to grill a steak.
  
• Dining by candlelight is special, but will be immediately disrupted by the power coming back on. I shut off all the lights so we could finish our dinner by the flickering firelight.
  
• A woodstove is the best investment (see above re: power outage and dining by firelight).
  Racoons really enjoy dumpster-diving in our garbage can. We have to get a locking container.
  
• Trick or treaters are scarce – the houses are too far apart and the driveways too long. But the ones that do make their way to our door are SO polite.
  
• It is DARK, REALLY REALLY DARK after the sun sets. The town does not have street lights. A scary thing when you can’t see one foot ahead and your dog starts growling, barking and pulling on his leash at something that he smells but can’t see.
  
• Fog rolls in quite regularly, and the sound of the fog horn pierces the air. We can hear the waves crashing on the shore.
  
• Sea lions are noisy and bring a smile to my heart, as do the herons, the eagles and even the pesky raccoons. Rumour has it that the occasional bear lumbers down the street.
  
• The E&N passenger train goes by at 2:00 precisely on its way from Victoria to Courtenay. We have a brief glimpse of it through the trees. Reminds me of living in Armstrong where we could see the freight train chug by everyday.
  
• The commute to work is relaxing. Instead of the bumper of the vehicle in front of me, stop lights and traffic jams, I get to watch the sun rising across Georgia Straight electrifying the Coast mountain peaks, as the waves crash to the shore. There is no traffic - a busy morning is 5 on-coming vehicles.
  
• The morning that I am running behind there will be one other car on the road – right in front of me – going below speed limit. Opportunities to pass are few on the windy one lane highway.
  
• The car will turn off the highway (for the coffee shop) just after I pass it.
  
• Just like in the city, we can still hear the neighbour’s telephone ring or a conversation in their yard and their dog barking. We can hear this not because they live so close but because it is soooo quiet out here.
  
• The neighbourhood rooster crows even when it is dark.
  
• The top of the driveway is where you leave ‘free stuff’ and it disappears. What the neighbours don’t want, gets picked up by the garbage collectors.
  
• A neighbour will invite you to go for a cup of coffee when you see each other at the grocery store.
  
• There is democracy at the community government level. The residents had a town hall meeting with their area representative and expressed enough support to turn down the idea of building permits becoming mandatory, that the representative agreed.
  
• We are very, very happy to be living here. There is a huge amount of work to be done to get the ‘cottage’ renovated to our standard, but it is all good.