Di and DR Day

The vegetable garden fence is more than half done. Elaine came by to take a look yesterday and left more food. I have never had a fridge so full of fresh food and it’s all homegrown.

And Sheba is clean and fragrant. We have guests coming today and so she’s nice and clean and ready for lots of attention.

Darrell arrives every single morning with gifts: Grapes, cukes and tomatoes today, branches of Bay leaves to freeze yesterday, a basket of plumbs and tomatoes another day, salmon and homemade pasta sauce and salsa on another.

And he’s done all the work (over the past year) that’s made this place my home. He’s made my transition here pretty easy and very pleasant. Without his advice and assistance my move here might have been pretty awful.

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Sheba got in the car by herself yesterday—twice! She’s only done it once before in our 10.5 months together. I’ve been going to Drumbeg every morning and I think she’s come to understand that there’s to be pleasure at the other end of the journey.

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“By the way…. You use a hose, and not a sprinkler, to target water. That reduces water waste.” So says a neighbour in a follow-up email to my inquiry about my use of water. Plus, as Darrell pointed out, I use water from my cistern, not the well.

I have a regulator on my well that limits my consumption of water to only two minutes per hour and I’ve gone through this entire summer, watering my gardens, without reducing the cistern contents by much at all. I have no dishwasher and my showers are very  brief because I bolt asap to the hot tub.

In sum: I am a fair user of water. End of issue.

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I binge watched and loved  an Australian TV series called Sisters. It’s about a woman whose father is a Nobel prize-winning geneticist, renowned for his in vitro clinic, and who, on his deathbed, reveals he has used his own sperm to father over one hundred children. It’s a comedy with a brain and a heart and the writing is great. I love the characters and all the actors.

At the end of the series there are a zillion cliff-hangers and no season two has thus far been announced. I watched it and loved it; Dingo, I noticed, repeated several words in every episode to improve “his” pronunciation. 

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This afternoon Dianne and DR arrive to stay just tonight and tomorrow. They’ve been here before but there have been big changes since their last visit and the weather is far, far nicer now than when they were here before.

Tomorrow, after months without rain, it starts and there’s no end to cloudy rainy days in sight. What a sudden and dramatic change this will be to go through.

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Quite a while back I ran into a former colleague from Emily Carr University of Art & Design. I introduced myself to him when he started at the college and that’s a rare thing for me to do. I’d had such a dreadful time adjusting to an academic environment; I didn’t want anyone to go through what I’d been through. There was absolutely no orientation and I wanted to help him if I could.

But then I was fired (for no cause) and David left too. It was a dreadful place to work. And so when I saw him in our grocery store one day, I was thrilled to discover he lived on the island. 

I heard from him yesterday and was thrilled because we’re going to get together sometime soon. It’s exciting news for this guy who left my friends behind when I moved here. Patsy is the only other person I knew before coming here and her friendship has been vital. Jay, another resident here, I’d met once before but he’s become a good friend.

Slowly, slowly, I’m earning a circle of friends here. 

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“Your request has been reviewed. Our Drug Authorization Department has determined that this medication will be allowed as an exception o your drug plan with Green Shield Canada.”

I have seen the hurdles and overcome them. I now get one of my asthma medications totally free for the rest of my life. It’s medicine I must buy every month and it’s expensive.

Summer is Ending

Two more days. That’s all of summer there is left. Then we’re predicted to have nothing but rain for a week and the endless watering of my germinating lawn and gardens will end. Wonderful warm and dry forest and beach walks will be no more. Sigh! It’s going to feel brutal after months and months of nothing but sunshine.

I’m feeling nervous about the indoor season. I worry about what I’m going to do because reading or doing craft work is tiresome and much harder with only one eye working and I doubt I’ll have the surgery until May or later. The wait is 36-43 weeks from the date one is placed on the list; I went onto the list on August 17^th. Thirty-six weeks from August 17^this April 26th! It’s a long  wait.

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It’s like someone threw a switch. There was no one at Drumbeg yesterday morning. And I was surprised to find I missed the kids, families, dogs and kayakers but the serenity was very easy to appreciate. There was only Sheba, a chorus of crickets and me; I sat on the benches and let myself slide into tranquility. There’s no better way to start the day than Drumbeg. 

Darrell came and cemented the fence and gateposts for the vegetable garden and then he built the gate. That left me, happily able to use the spa without trunks. The end is coming to this endless spectacular first summer on Gabriola so I want to take full advantage of every fine day. What a treat this summer has been.

Today the gate will be installed and the wire fencing will go up around the garden. After that: Who knows? Maybe Darrell will build the beds; maybe he’ll wait until Spring. I may find out today.

A neighbour dissed me about my water consumption, suggesting my vegetable garden was “selfish.” She suggested I was using more than my fair share of water so I started sourcing cisterns so that I could install one and purchase water for my garden.

I told Elaine and Darrell about the neighbour and they were outraged. They showed me statistics on a government website about our water and they pointed out that my neighbour lives with her husband and a tenant so together, Stats Canada says they consume 113,000 gallons of water annually for personal use. I consume only 38,000 annually. Elaine and Darrell said the woman should mind her own business.

So I went to other neighbours and told them about my plan to have a vegetable garden. Not one of them had any concerns and most have their own veggie gardens—and, it turns out, I am the only single occupant home on the street so I am easily the lowest water consumer in the neighbourhood. Still, I harvest as much rainwater as I can for use on my gardens.

As for my neighbour, Elaine put it this way: “It’s your water and your well. Its none of her business.” And Elaine is a decades-long resident here. She knows “the rules.”

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Today the gate and wire go up on the vegetable garden fence. It’s been exciting to watch so large a garden space come together. And the day after tomorrow my lawn will be one week old and I should see the first evidence of growth and then, with a week of rain and reasonably warm temperatures, real growth should occur. I can hardly wait to see green.

Sheba's Birthday

Monday was my day of essential total rest. It was a gloriously sunny day with lots of wind and much  cooler temperatures. It was 17° at Drumbeg in the morning; it felt good to come home to a warm house. Suddenly, I’m turning on the heat—at least to warm it up for a while. 

I noticed the tide was out while we were at Drumbeg, so I went to Brickyard Beach and harvested some Sea Asparagus for Dianne and for me, too. I love it in salads. I dropped it off at SeaAir for her and we came home to water the lawn.

Deborah, my neighbour, continues to find fault with me. Every time we talk, she subtly lets me know I’ve transgressed some rule or convention. Today she advised me that I am watering my lawn with well water and thereby possible affecting the water resource of my neighbours. Then, when I told her that Sheba and I go to Drumbeg in the mornings, she advised me not to go there with Sheba off-leash.

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Sometimes when I wake up, it’s daunting to realize I have to face another day of endless duties. My plants and the lawn are demanding children. It’s barely rained in months and I’m supremely tired of watering my gardens—and now the lawn every two hours!

I finished my entire back catalogue of New Yorkers;  reading between sessions of watering today. I undertook the laying of the lawn because I thought that rain was coming this week but the weather outlook has changed and now the rain is not due until next week. Please God: Rain!

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My soul mate, my constant companion, Sheba, is one year old today but we are not celebrating. Instead, we will celebrate the anniversary of her arrival here in October. How we will celebrate is still undetermined; I think the celebration will largely involve food.

I weighed her when Todd and Jessica were here to read the scale while I held her in my arms. She weighs fifty-eight pounds.

I have to water extensively for four more days, then the rains come—and thank God. It hasn’t really rained here for months and I’m really sick of watering.

Two lovely men I met—our dogs were attracted to one another—have invited Jay and me to the Farm to Table  feast on Sunday. It’s one of the days we’re predicted to have rain. However: It will be an adventure. And it’s so Gabriola—we are to bring our own utensils.

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I’m expecting Darrell this morning. I hope I’m right to expect him and that progress continues on the vegetable garden.