Merry Christmas From PEI

It’s Christmas Eve, Irving Berlin’s White Christmas is on the TV, snow is gently falling outside (making our own white Christmas), the furnace is piled high with logs, and I am putting the finishing touches on our yearly Christmas greeting. Our Christmas greetings come to you this year from the North Atlantic Island of lobster, potatoes, and ADL. ADL? ADL is the maker of the BEST milk, chocolate milk, butter, and cheese you can possibly imagine. Drinking a glass of their chocolate milk is like drinking a little slice of heaven (I just finished a glass!). Well, our greeting comes to you, as you know, from 83 Lewis Road, Union R.R. 1, Alberton, West Prince, Prince Edward Island, Canada.

We left the U.S. in August, leaving the dog days of summer in Central Texas (the day we left was 107 degrees with 100% humidity), and headed across the U.S. moving up the east coast. So, here we were, Gil and I, accompanied by 2 dogs, 1 cat, and 1 Lucy Bird, pulling our horse trailer filled with things we thought we would need until our household goods arrived, headed for Canada. Gil and I had never driven through the states lining the east coast so we were really looking forward to seeing the land. An added bonus, especially when traveling through the southern states, being in the land of really really good grits! Yummmm. The only part of the trip that truly sucked was going through Atlanta with a horse trailer, and we didn’t even go through at a rush hour time. Thank God Alli and Jesse gave us the wonderful gift of a GPS before leaving or the suck factor of Atlanta would have been significantly worse!

We stayed for a few days with Alli and Jesse in Swanzey, New Hampshire and the rest was greatly welcomed by us and the animals. We had a wonderful time with Alli and Jesse and got to spend some time watching Aaron, their 7 m/o son, being Aaron. He is a truly happy and delightful child. Even though this is their first and they have little parenting experience (7 months to be exact!), I told them they HAVE to be doing it right or he wouldn’t be so happy and well adjusted to life. He is a joy to be around. We had such a wonderful time seeing Keene (Swanzey is just a couple of blocks from there) and Walpole (where their family business is located). We brought sausage from Green’s Sausage House in Zabzkville with us and Gil made a huge pot of his gumbo. We had our usual trio of gumbo, baguette, and wine, accompanied by lots of wonderful conversation.

We crossed into Canada at the border crossing located in Houlton, Maine. We were prepared with a file box full of papers which were required to get us, the animals, and the car across the border and fully expected to spend hours going through papers and getting it all sorted. We were shocked and pleased that it was so quick and painless. Gil got his work visa and I got my Canadian papers and we were across the border in less than an hour (none of the documents we worked so long and hard to get in the U.S were asked for!). As we drove through New Brunswick headed to PEI, we looked at the scenery passing us in a different way than we looked at Canada all the times we had visited. This was our HOME now, and it makes you look at your surroundings quite differently.

The horses made it here about a week after we got here. There was a bit of difficulty getting them across the border. The transporter called me in a panic at midnight saying they weren’t going to let them across. We finally got everything worked out so the border agents understood why we were bringing them here and finally in the wee hours of the morning they made it across into Canada. When they made it to me they had a bit of a deer in the headlights look, but that is to be expected. They were on a transport from Texas to Maine for 3 full days without stopping, stayed over in Maine for 2 days, and then were on another transport for another 12 hours here.

Cowboy and Olivia have settled in and done well. I have been riding Cowboy and although it took him a bit of time to settle in and get back to where we were in Texas, he has been just awesome. In the past, when he traveled, a show was at the end, so he was in full (and I mean full with bigness and glory!) saddle seat mode. We finally got the dressage brain engaged again and he has been spectacular. I have been lunging and long lining Olivia since arriving, but haven’t ridden her yet. She has continued to be sound as can be and I have looked long and hard to find a driving trainer that I could continue lessons with and perhaps start Olivia driving. We attempted it once before with my trainer, Tom O’Carroll, in Texas, but she didn’t stay sound for it. Since then, we have had her on Naproxen, and she has stayed sound. The bad news is I can’t find a trainer. Most people on the island harness race which is, of course, not the same at all. I have, however, made a couple of friends who drive (not competitively) – carriage in the summer and sleigh in winter. So, I am going to get a bit of sleigh experience this winter. I am really excited about getting to sleigh this winter. The two horse experiences topping my list for PEI were riding on the beach and sleighing.


As most of you know, our Ophelia sustained a devastating injury on a back leg on Thanksgiving Day and the prognosis was extremely poor. It was felt by all that it would have caused her great suffering to attempt to fix it and in the end, we would have been putting off the inevitable. So, the decision was made and Gil was with her until the end. Of course, Ophelia was out of my mare, Olivia, and we were there at Dr. T’s when she was born. Alli took care of the farm while Gil and I spent every evening/night at Dr. T’s watching Olivia on the monitor, playing lots and lots of cards, until finally 3 weeks later, at 2 a.m., Ophelia was born. She would have been 3 years this January. This has been extremely difficult for both Gil and I, but especially Gil. He was bonded to her (and her to him); the way Olivia and I are bonded. It is so tragic and sad and we will miss her so much.

Gil started working on 01 September and is really enjoying small town medicine again. He sees patients at the clinic in O’Leary and also has some on-call time at the O’Leary Hospital. Of course, he has beat the “evidence-based medicine” drum since arriving and is now back to doing some teaching. He has just gotten a medical student who will be doing a one month rotation with him. Since he was a hospitalist at S&W the last 8 months or so before moving here, he wasn’t doing any teaching, so he is really enjoying having a student and teaching again.

There are lots of changes in medicine going on here though. For many reasons, they are consolidating services on the island and toward that end, they closed the ER and hospital (acute care beds) in Community Hospital O’Leary, where Gil works. Alberton’s hospital, which is 15 minutes from O’Leary (and closer to where we live), will serve as the local ER and in-patient hospital for acute care and when Gil is on call, he will work out of Alberton. All that sounds good, but we are not entirely convinced that Alberton’s ER/hospital will remain open either. It seems, what would make the most sense, is to have all ER and acute care in-patient in the 2 largest centers – Summerside and Charlottetown. Eventually the only services left in the small communities would be clinic/urgent care. These decisions and changes are very unpopular with the people of these communities, as all the individual communities want their own fully functional hospital/ER, so I imagine these changes are going to come piece-mill and slowly, but I think they are inevitable. So, this makes it difficult to know how to proceed with the horses.

Aside from helping a great deal with this kind of change, Gil is also doing here what he does everywhere he goes, seeing what needs to be changed to make patient care better and setting to work. Providence seems to have led him here for this reason, above all. There are many huge changes which are occurring here and change is something that is difficult for anyone, but it seems especially difficult for the good people of Prince County. The way they have done things in medicine for the past 50 years is being turned on its head and they are being catapulted into the 21st century of medical practice. In so many ways PEI is like the U.S. was in the 50’s and early 60’s and it is refreshing, but not in medicine. It will take probably a good 5 years to really implement these changes and have them running well. For all of you who really know Gil, that will be the time we will be ready to go on to our next adventure…

Willa and Isobel are very happy here. They love the snow, although it is s a little difficult to see Isobel dashing through it as it usually deeper than she is tall!! Lucy bird is great too. It is somewhat cold for her and we have to keep the house a bit warmer than we would otherwise and I keep an oil heater on next to her cage. She seems very happy there though. She is dangling off toys in her cage and talking smack constantly! We also brought Dory, one of our barn cats from the farm. She is now an inside cat, as she doesn’t care for the snow or the cold much!

Gil and I learned what it is to prepare for winter in a north Atlantic region. Everyone here utilizes two sources for heating – oil and wood. Oil is extremely expensive, so everyone uses it sparingly. So, we ordered our 7 cords of wood for the winter. Wood makes more of a warm/cozy heat than oil does as well. Our wood was dumped on the front lawn, 3.5 cords at a time, by the entrance to our basement and we had to get it down there and stack it. I won’t lie – it sucked. I am used to walking over to a thermostat and putting it to whatever temp I would like the house to be. Well, that really isn’t an option here. As our good fortune would have it, Alli and Jesse came for a visit for U.S. Thanksgiving and helped us with the second 3.5 cords. What a huge help that was. Gil had discovered on the first 3.5 cords that he isn’t 20 anymore!! After helping to get 7 cords down to the basement and stacked, I like the thermostat thing even more. Imagine this though – there are 70 and 80 year old men here who stack 7 cords by themselves every winter. Holy cow!

We really like it here though. The pace is MUCH slower here than in the U.S. I will say that has taken some getting used to. I tend to approach most everything with a snap, snap, snap, get it done now approach. You can forget that here. No one is in any hurry ever for anything. There is no such thing as running by someone’s house quickly to drop something off. If you go by, you have to come in for at least an hour for hot tea and conversation! Everyone here loves to talk. Even if you go into a store in search of something and have to ask for assistance, you will usually get at least 15 minutes of conversation before you get the answer. We went into a shop in Charlottetown which has woolen knitted clothing to look for a sweater for Gil – one sweater – we came out about 2 hours later! Even in the checkout line at the Farmer’s Co-op (grocery in O’Leary), a bit of conversation occurs within the check out timeframe (and if you don’t conclude it and move on, they will keep talking while folks just stand behind you and wait – and they will just stand there and wait patiently for however long and listen to your conversation!!) and it will almost always include comments about the weather. EVERYONE loves to make a comment on the weather conditions of the day. In fact, the other day I was sitting at the kitchen table working when I noticed the recycle garbage truck coming down our street and realized I hadn’t yet put out or recycle bags. So, I rushed to throw on warm clothing, grabbed the bags, and ran out to the street just in time. The garbage man, took my bags, threw them in the truck, and then proceeded to talk to me for the next 15 minutes about… the weather!!! He told me all about a horrible snow storm they got in the 1982 and how the snow was almost to the top of the telephone poles and how winters here have been really mild in comparison since… and on and on for 15 minutes. The garbage man even loves to talk! He was very pleasant and we had a very nice conversation.

I will have to say though that the folks we have become good friends with the quickest here are also people from “away”. That is was the locals call folks who move here and are not from the Island, even if you have moved from Nova Scotia. They say, oh you are from “away”! When folks say that to me, I say yep, we are from “way away”, 2400 miles, to be exact! Our good “from away” friends Pam and Jim, originally from Ontario, but have lived many, many places, are headed to Nunavut (above the 60th parallel) for the next year for Pam to work. It is only one year and they will be back, but we will miss them so much. We have had so many wonderful dinners with them and, in fact, that is where we will be on Christmas Day.

Being on PEI has been such a wonderful learning experience and we have only been here a short while. We know what it is like to stand in the midst of a blizzard, drive in one (the first snow of the season was pretty close to a blizzard and I had to drive home from the barn – 45 minutes away!), drive in a mixture of snow and then rain (slicker than poo you’d find in microbiology!) the smell of a woolen mill, the taste of exquisite ADL dairy products, the flavor of fresh (out of the ocean less than 2 hours, boiled in ocean water on the boat) lobster, and what it feels like to stack 7 cords of wood.

So, that about wraps up our year. It has been one of learning, joy, and sadness. We are still at the same e-mail addresses and you can always find what is new in our day-to-day lives by visiting Gil’s blog.

Uh…Hello….its Canada………. (spoken in a valley girl voice)

Well Nancy has finally arrived in Canada.

What? I thought she came with you?

She wrote about Halifax, how can she have just arrived?

We all have moments in life when a realization hits us smack in the forehead, a Satori moment if you will, that moment of utmost clarity when you seem to see the world around you in a very different light. Sometimes those moments are the end of a long quest of the most profound nature, at other times they arise from the simple act of looking at your shoes in a different light. Either way, they offer you the opportunity to shift your viewpoint of the world, to allow you to see the world anew. It is a moment when you look out into the world and see everything around you as if you are seeing it for the first time.

Well, Nancy reached her Canadian Satori this week in the Atlantic Superstore. She was in the store shopping for groceries for the week, and headed to the Deli counter for some sliced turkey. After carefully pursuing the options available and considering the particular taste preferences for us both, she determined that the sun roasted tomato and rosemary turkey would be the best option for the week. Decision made, she promptly moved on to the instructions for slice width and quantity. As usual she wanted it sliced as thin as possible without shaving it, and as always she asked for one half pound. She promptly moved on to thinking other thoughts and waiting on the delivery of the turkey. She snapped back to reality when she noticed the large pile of turkey that was accumulating.

Nancy: Whoa, whoa, whoa…..what are you doing?

Deli Girl: weighing the turkey.

Nancy: Yes but I asked for a half pound, and that's way to much

Deli Girl: Yeah, but I don't know what a half a pound is, I usually pile it up until I think it is enough and ask the customer if it looks good.

Nancy was enlightened, she was in Canada, the measure in Kilograms, and she had no idea how to convert from pounds to kilograms. Her world had changed. She was different and the world around her would never be the same.

We hope that you are all doing well, and that you all have a moment of Satori in your lives. We shall post our Christmas Letter in the next day for everyone.

She will be missed

She was ojnly 22 months old.

We had to put Ophelia down today due to an injury to her right hind leg. We are not sure how it happened, but it was clear that it was an injury from which she would not recover. She had bisected the superficial deep digital flexor tendon as well as the deep digital flexor tendon and incised the skin through to the periostium. After discussion with the vet, Nancy, and the barn owners it became clear that she was not likely to recover from this injury. In short, it would likely be a long hard road and she would not ever be able to be ridden or worked in any way. With this in mind we made the decision to have her put down. It was a hard decision, but it was the right decision. In the end, being a horse owner means that you often have to make the very hard decisions and do what is right by the horse.

Ophelia was a lovely horse and she has taught us all so very much over her very short life. She was the first, and I dare say the only, foal that we had from Olivia. She was the product of a breeding of Olivia and Bergamon. She had lovely movement and loved to jump, going out of her way to jump things even if they could have been walked across. She taught me to be a better person, and taught me how to put my energy and emotions in check in order to better serve the hose at hand. As horses go she was a very special horse, always full of energy and full of herself. She was a horse with a very big personality and that personality touched everyone who worked with her. She was an extraverted horse and that made her very tough in some respects. She was a constant challenge and tested the boundaries at every turn. If she was thinking something you knew it immediately since there was no filter between what she was thinking and what she was doing.

She will be missed more than words can express. Born January 16th 2005, died November 26th 2008.
Ophelia Viedo
Ophelia Photos

Oh, the weather outside is frightful......

The furnace is so delightful..

and since we really can’t go,

best take photos of the very big snow.

(sung to the tune of "Let it snow")

Day: Snow at times heavy and blowing snow ending near noon then cloudy with 60 percent chance of flurries or rain showers. Snowfall amount 10 to 20 cm. Wind northeast 40 km/h gusting to 60 becoming north 60 gusting to 90 early this morning then northwest 30 gusting to 50 this afternoon. High plus 3.
Night: Flurries. Amount 2 to 4 cm. Local blowing snow. Wind northwest 30 km/h gusting to 50 increasing to 50 gusting to 80 this evening. Low minus 6.

It was interesting to listen to the subtle change in the nomenclature used by the weather forecasters in describing the upcoming (now present) storm. As you recall (see prior post) the weather office had mentioned flurries in the forecast that resulted in a snowfall of roughly 5 cm. In the description of this storm, they substituted the word snow in place of flurries. It no longer read a 60% chance of flurries overnight. It now read snow overnight. That makes me wonder…If we got 5 cm when the forecast said flurries, how much would fall when they say ‘snow’.

The snow is definitely blowing, but I can still see the house across the street, as well as the plow that comes down the street. What I can no longer see is the individual wood stacked in the pile out in front of the house. Likewise, when the dogs go outdoors, I can no longer see Isobel (our Cavalier King Charles Spaniel) when she hits the drift coming back inside.

Since we have no place to go, we will sit and enjoy the snow. This naturally brings up the question of what do you do with your time on ‘snow days’. In order to understand the answer there are a few things that are worth remembering about how we spend our days in general. First and foremost is that we do not have access to broadcast television. That’s right, we do not have “TV” in our house. That is not to say that we do not have a television, after all, we love to watch movies and Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings is especially good on the big screen. What we lack is a connection to the broadcast television world. We do not own cable (it does not come down our road anyway), we did not purchase a Direct Way dish, and we do not have rabbit ears (that would be external television antennas to the under 30 crowd). Now I realize that the thought of being without television is an anathema to some, but it suits us well, and it frees up our time to do other things that we enjoy. Needless to say, we listen to more radio than I would wager many folks do, and we certainly read. As well, since we cannot find the kind of bread we really like we make it ourselves (roughly two loaves a week). Nancy spends many of her days at the stables so there is not a lot of time on those days for around the house sort of stuff, and that tends to get put off until the weather prevents us from going outside. As for me, since I am new to the Canadian health care system, I have a significant amount of reading to plow through as I get accustom to the different recommendations from the Canadian Preventative Task Force. So, all in all our days are far too full to be spent watching television.

As for today, the most important activity is to capture some video of the storm as well as some photos for all our friends in warm places so you can have a little bit of Canada in your lives.

The snow blows hard here

Tonight
Periods of snow and local blowing snow ending this evening then cloudy with 60 percent chance of flurries. Amount 5 to 10 cm. Wind north 40 km/h gusting to 60 except gusting to 80 along the coast early this evening. Wind becoming northwest 30 gusting to 50 this evening. Low zero.

Tomorrow
Day: Cloudy with 60 percent chance of flurries. Wind northwest 30 km/h gusting to 50. High plus 1.
Night: Cloudy with 40 percent chance of flurries. Wind west 20 km/h. Low minus 4.


Well, they mean every bit of that forecast. The snow was blowing hard from the northwest making travel from the southeast a pretty tough slog. Nancy had a sudden re-introduction to the driving skill set that she developed while in Utah. The highway from Summerside in the southeast to O’Leary in the northwest was a bit of a nasty run tonight. There were several accidents along the road and the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) warned islanders to stay off the road tonight because it was treacherous. Mind you that is Canadian Highway Patrol telling the Canadians to stay home.

Well, the problem for Nancy is much like that of the pilot. You do not have to take off, but you have to land, and so she had to get back home once she started down the road (since the road is essentially deserted). She traveled cautiously and what normally takes 45 minutes took 1.5 hours as she headed home. It is amazing how quickly the driving in snow thing returns to you, and how quickly you remember that you dislike blowing snow, and that is the biggest problem we have had today. The blowing snow is being fueled by the 40 km/h winds and it making some beautiful drifts in the yard around the house. It also makes vision difficult when you are driving into it, and memory of the road becomes your most important asset. In fact, the snow was blowing hard enough that I drove past our house and had to double back to find the driveway.

So, we officially have our first real storm. It is an interesting time, the wind is howling around the edges of the house, and the snow drifts are mounting in the front yard. Pictures will follow soon. If you want to have a look at the roads in the area, follow these links to see the Elmsdale road camera which is 10 minutes from the house.

In Flander's Fields the poppies grow.......

Ironically, the begning of November is the first time that you can get studs put on your tires here on Prince Edward Island. As fate would have it, November 2nd saw the first snow for the island. The snow itself was more of the sleet variety with a few choice flakes thrown in for good measure. It was not the glorious dry fluffy snows that we saw at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, and it did not come as heavy as the October snow we had in Denver in 1995 where 6 inches fell in 4 hours onto trees that still possessed an abundance of green leaves. However, it was the first snowfall we have seen since April of 2008 when a freak snowstorm hit Texas and covered our farm with just about as much snow as we have received overnight. The neat things about this snow, compared to all others, is that we know it will be the first of many, and that soon, all that we survey will be covered, and snow will reign for the season.

The last week in Canada has been very interesting on a number of fronts. First, the election coverage of the coming US election has been a hot topic in the Canadian news. The Canadian press, much like the press in the US, is very enamored with Mr Obama. In fact, today when Nancy and I were driving home from O’Leary we were listening to a CBC interview of three reports from various places (Canada, Germany, England) discussing their views about who would win, and what it would mean. I have found the coverage of the election to be fairly interesting, as have been the questions from my patients. The press seem to take it as a foregone conclusion that Mr Obama will win the election handily, as the polls predict. My patients all ask me the same question, will he win? I have to answer that I do not know who will win, since the polls may very well be wrong. I remind them that it was not all that long ago that the United States was integrated, and that many people who are alive, and of voting age, still harbor very strong emotions surrounding race, integration, and the election of a black man. In fact, to put things in perspective, Nancy was in high school in Ft Worth when the school was integrated via forced busing. She remembers very clearly the effect that this had on the kids in the school from both races. I know that people who harbor these feelings will tell a pollster one thing, yet believe very differently, and I do not know how big that difference will be until the votes are counted. Either way, this election will say something about the United States, and on Wednesday we will all find out.

Nancy got her Prince Edward Island driver’s license this week. I can hear the collective yawn from all of you, but this marks a very significant point in her life. You see she has been driving since the age of 15, and has had a Texas license for all those years. The license changed only once (outside of the obvious photo and address changes), it earned a leading zero when Texas increased the numbers for all licenses. For all of our travels across the United States, she has held a Texas license with the same number on it for all those years. This number has been one of those things you remember and recite when needed to complete all sorts of forms, checks, and such. Well, this week she had to surrender her license when she received her new Prince Edward Island driving license. It was a big moment for her, taking her by surprise, and signaling that the change was real, and the move permanent. Neither of us posses a Texas driver’s license, and the only tie to the US remains our passport, in all other respects for legal purposes we are Canadian. It is a strange not unwelcome feeling.

Finally and most importantly, it is the week leading up to Remembrance Day (Armistice Day in some countries and Veteran’s Day in others). It has been interesting to see how another country remembers and honors their veterans and as such a very interesting memorial to those who have died in combat during WWI will play across Canada this week (http://www.1914-1918.ca/). Something that may not be very well known, it was not to me, was that those soldiers who died during WWI were not brought home. The soldiers’ remains were left in Europe in the theater of battle and buried in place. Take a moment and remember those who have come before that made all that you cherish possible. To those who have served and still serve, I cannot thank you enough for all you have done.

Dick Scheese MGSgt USMC Retired
Kent Brewer MSG USSOCOM HG
Jason Staub MSG currently in Iraq
“Chuck” Rush MAJ currently in Iraq
Michael Dean MAJ US Army Reserve still serving
Jim Talley SGT
Raul Gonzales, MD, MAJ still serving
Billy Ligon , MD, MAJ
Robert A Henry , DO, CPT USNR still serving
John Manning, MD, LTC
Blair Valentine, MD rank unknown
Ed Fasolina, MD, LCDR
Tim Pfanner, MD, COL US Army Reserve
Michael Kirkpatrick, MD, LCDR
Doug McNeese, COL US Army Retired
Jessie Lewis, SPC
John Hancock SSGT US Army Retired
Darrell Johns, MSG US Army Retired
Charles Grimes, USN Rank unkown
Chip Lewis, US Army Vietnam, Rank unkown
Louis Ortiz, RN, CPT
Mathew Connely, SPC

Don Parker, MD, MAJ

Gene Hooker, CPL US Army (deceased) Nancy's Father
And so many more, lest we forget.

Putting in the wood

Winter is coming with big nasty teeth, biting winds, and a deep frigid grip. The cost of filling our heating oil is $700 CA a tankful and it is estimated that if we were to run only oil, keep the house at a comfy 20C (68F) it would take a tank a month starting in December. So that translates to $4200 total for oil to see us through the winter from December to May. That is a heck of a lot of money, and I cannot believe that oil is not going to go up in price over the next several months.

We have thought a great deal about alternatives to the use of oil heat and forced air, and looked in to the use of a wood stove or a pellet stove on the first floor of the house. We ran into a couple of problems when with these two alternatives. First and foremost, we are renting the house, and anything we put into the house will stay when we leave. The second problem was one of cost. You see, in order to put in a wood stove it would require a chimney through the house to the roof. We cannot use the chimney that already exists since putting a wood fire above an oil furnace risks a backdraft and potential explosion (bad idea). The pellet stove would not require so much work on a chimney as it could vent right out of the wall of the house, but the cost of the pellet stove would equal the cost of the wood with chimney.

So given these costly alternatives to the oil, we decided to look into the use of the wood furnace in the basement. This has several advantages, not the least of which is that wood is much less expensive than oil. It does mean that you must work a bit harder to make the heat work, start the fire, tend the fire, tote of the ash, but the heat is more constant than the oil since the fan runs as long as the wood is burning to dissipate the heat. Oil comes on and off as the temperature fluctuates and thus it often feels cold before you have the furnace kick in again.

Well, if we want to burn wood, and that seems like the best choice, then we need to get wood. I contacted a local gentleman (Paul Smallman who is a great local Entrepreneur, more in future blogs) and he said he would get things arranged. Our neighbors, who had lived in the house until recently, told us to expect to burn seven cords of wood if we used wood exclusively, and so that is what I ordered form Mr Smallman. The cost of hardwood is more than soft wood, and to have it cut, blocked, and split runs $174/cord which translated into $1218 a darn site better than the $4K plus of oil alone.

Mr Smallman dropped 3.5 cords off several days ago, and we commenced to putting it away. Now, in order to understand what this entails, take a look at the wood pile in front of the house. Just under the window in on the house is the trap door that leads to the basement which means that the wood must be moved from point A outside to point B in the basement and the stacked. To say that the process was an undertaking would be putting it mildly. It was a royal pain in the arse. You see, you have to toss the wood down, separate it into the sizes and then stack according to size. This gives you the chance to handle each piece several times. We asked one of our friends if her sone wanted to earn some money, he did of course, and so he helped me move the wood today. He started his work in the basement, and after about 45 minutes realized that he needed a break. I took over and we worked for another 4 hours stacking the wood.

Now, before you think that it was no big deal, you must understand that our basement is not finished, and there are only one or two places where a grown man taller than 5’8” can stand upright without hitting his head. I spent most of my time in the crouch as I sorted and stacked the wood for our furnace. Believe me, as I stacked the wood the thought of a pellet stove on the first floor looked better and better. I am hoping that Mr Smallman was pulling my leg when he told me it was only half the wood, because I really do not know where we will but another 3.5 cords if we have that coming our way.

So, tonight Nancy and started talking about building a house on the island, and the first thing I mentioned was geothermal heat, pellet furnace, and no basement. Ah the lessons just keep coming.

If you are interested in where the horses are now living, check out the link to the right titled Wild Wind Stables.

My First Trip to Halifax....

Or, what are we doing in Dartmoth? Aren’t we are supposed to be in Halifax? Or, wait a minute, what is my philosophy for living and why did I move to Canada? Holy Cow!

-By Nancy Grimes

Realizing I would not be prepared for the winter riding season, I quickly came to the conclusion I needed to prepare for the colder months with a heavier riding coat, insulated paddock boots, and warm breeches. Our local tack store did not carry what I sought, so I thought “hey, perfect time for a trip to Halifax”. They have a couple of fairly large tack stores, and even more important, they have a Starbucks. It has been since we left the U.S. since I have had Starbucks and I have gone through serious withdrawals. How could I possibly go wrong, getting to see Nova Scotia for the first time, visiting two tack stores, and getting a Starbucks fix. It just doesn’t get a whole lot better than that.

Yesterday was the planned launch date, so in the Suburban, with a full tank of gas, and along with my friend Shelley McLellan, the adventure began. Speaking of full tank – I stopped at the gas station just down the street from where we live and the nice man who works there, whom I have chatted with on numerous occasions, was there yesterday morning when I fueled for the trip. I explained that it was an exciting day because I was making my first trip to Halifax. “Oh, Halifax” he said, “yes, easy to get to, straight forward, piece of cake.” I should have known at that point that the trip was jinxed. It was destined at that moment to NOT be easy to get to, NOT be straight forward, and NOT be a piece of cake.

Now, as most of you know, Gil and I just got a Chevy Aveo for the primary reason that it gets great gas mileage. I was going to take that since Halifax is about 4 hours from us, but Gil thought it would be better to take the Suburban, even with the lousy gas mileage, because we have On Star, so if I get lost, I can call On Star and get directions. Better than On Star, however, is our Garmin, which was a lovely and extremely useful gift from Alli and Jesse before we left from Texas to come to PEI. However, we discovered while stopping over in New Hampshire at Alli and Jesse’s that even though Alli got the disk and loaded the Canada info on the Garmin, it was in fact, not there. So, Gil spoke with the Garmin folks and finally figured out Alli had been given the wrong disk, and we needed another one. The disk had just made it to Katy G’s (Gil’s mom) in Midland, but alas it had not yet made it to PEI. So, the next best thing… On Star. Right.

In addition to the On Star backup, I had also Googled the address of the first tack store we were heading to and got a nice set of directions, or so I thought. We headed out, directions in hand, south to Nova Scotia. All went well for over ¾ of the trip as there weren’t many turns onto different roads and there is a whole lot of nothing after crossing the Confederation Bridge which is the link between PEI and New Brunswick. Once we were into Nova Scotia and we got to where civilization started, that is where our troubles began.

Now, let me digress for a second to give you a couple of pieces of information that should give you great insight (assuming you have that to begin with – if you don’t, sorry, I can’t help you there) into what was to follow. I have been here, what, for 2 months and Shelley has been here 7 months, having moved from British Columbia, and while at least she is from Canada, if you are unfamiliar with Canadian geography, she is from the other side of Canada. Neither of us had been to Nova Scotia. The second piece of information that is helpful to know that I am an INTJ and Shelley is an ENTP. Anyone at this point wondering why I am using random letters in the alphabet to describe Shelley and myself, might want to click on the link I will provide that talks about Myers Briggs Personality Types.

Okay, so we are going along rather well, headed into what was obviously a city, and we thought we were headed into Halifax. Wrong. It was so simple, we were supposed to be looking for 102 South and just a bit down 102 South, we were to take exit 4B. Not complicated. We came to a biforcation in the freeway which had a sign above each choice – 102. That’s it. Not 102, south, north, up, or down. Just 102. Crap. So we pretty much did the ennie minnie minney mo thing, and chose left. After being fully committed to the left fork in the road, we saw a sign way down on the road that was the right side of the biforcation – Halifax. Shit, shit, shit. Why did it say Halifax down there, we were looking at a big downtown area in front of us which had to be Halifax, but here were NO SIGNS to let us know where the hell we were. As we were driving, we were looking at the exit numbers… 7, 6, 5 … excellent, 4 should be next. Yeah, it went from 5 to 12, to 13, and back to 12. Oh my God, where is 4, and where are we?

Naturally, I said we should just take an exit, turn round, and get back to the part of the freeway that biforcated and go right instead of left. So, that is what we did. This is where our 2 hour nightmare began. I wish I could tell you everwhere we went. We ended up on strangly laid out and winding roads that didn’t lead back to where we thought and when we got back to a “freeway”, it was not the original one we were on. What the heck freeway is this? Well, at least it is a freeway, so that had to be good. We had no idea what freeway we were on and there wasn’t an over abundance of signs to inform you of your precise location, but the exit numbers looked promising, so we decicded to go with it. We still couldn’t find 4B and took more exits and got even more lost, if that is possible.

By this time, we had been like a rat in a maze, making wrong choices that led to places we obviously didn’t want to go, and had completed drastic and dangerous freeway manovers which included instantaneously cutting across 3 or 4 lanes of traffic in order to take a direction Shelley would point to and say “oh quick, I think we need to be over there, punch it and I think you can make it”, and in the process cutting off several Nova Scotians, but making it!! I figured they would see the Texas plates (if their eyes could follow that quickly) and figure if my plates said Texas and I was in Nova Scotia, I must be really lost.

Now this is where the Myers Briggs personality types come in handy. What would you suppose was happening in the Suburban? Shelley was laughing saying it was a great adventure, I was not. My stress level was way way over the top, my blood pressure was close behind, and my brain was close to the melting point. I love adventure as well as the next, but CONTROLLED adventure, PLANNED adventure. The last 2 hours most definitely did not fall into either category.

So, we still didn’t have a frekin’ clue as to where we were, so finally I said we are pulling over and we are calling the tack shop. Shelley called the store, and when she described, as best as she could, where we were, they said “ooooooh, yeah, you guys are really lost, you are in Dartmoth”. Dartmoth??? Yes, as it turns out, we had been doing the rat in a maze thing in Dartmoth which is about 10 miles from Halifax. They gave us directions to the store and we headed out again. We managed to make it out of Dartmoth and then we got lost again.

So, we stopped again to call the tack store for further clarification and I thought I should probablycall Gil. I told him I would call when we made it to Halifax which should have been around 1:00 and it was now almost 3:00. When I reached Gil and explained (with hand gestures and explatives!) the situation of how lost we had been for the last 2 hours, he said, did you call On Star? Isn’t that the reason you took that vehicle? Oh… yeah… I completely forgot about On Star. Shah. So, I called On Star and got directions to the tack store and we made it there without further difficulties. Thank you Jesus, or maybe I should say thank you Gil.

We had a nice time shopping in the Greenhawk tack store and I found some of the winter things I needed, including a medium weight blanket for Ophelia. Now, by this point my brain was pretty much full, actually over full, when it came to anything new, different, complicated, or difficult. Not to mention my blood sugar was getting low, so my ability to focus and concentrate was quickly deminishing. They had to order the blanket for Ophelia, as they didn’t have her size in stock. The lady asked me if, when the blanket came in, I wanted them to put it on the bus? On what? Put the blanket on the what? The bus? I am pretty sure I was looking at her like I have been freshly pithed for at least a full 60 seconds. Finally, I managed to jump start my brain enough to ask – “what on earth are you talking about?” Apparently, it is common here to purchase things in Halifax and put them “on the bus” to be brought down to either Charlottetown or Summerside rather than mail them. Alright.

So, we actally made it from Greenhawk to the other tack store, but not without 3 stops to clarify directions, and then on to the Starbucks. Heavenly. Never was a Starbucks so welcome, so needed. I got the largest size of my ol’ standby – peppermint, java chip, frapachino and got 2 bags of breakfast blend ground for french press for Gil. We left the Starbucks, filled up the Suburban, and… before we pulled out of the parking lot... called On Star for directions home.

We made it back to Wildwind without a hitch and our adventure was over. I make buckets of moistened beet pulp/alfalfa cubes for the horses whenever I go out and so I had 3 buckets in the back of the Suburban to give them when we got back that evening. So, I gave them their treats, kissed noses and left for 83 Lewis Road.

I was thinking on the way home… yes, I was extremely tired, yes, the day definitely had its stressful moments… but secretly, I had a great time, a great adventure, and would I do it any different if I could? I think experiences like these where most everything is new and unfamiliar, even with how difficult they can be, are so good for us, and beneath it all – they are exciting. I think in some respects it is the way we experienced things as a child. When you are a child, you have had so few experiences, that most everything is a new experience, most everything is a stretch (to some degree), and it is faciniting and exciting. When you are an adult, you have gained lots of knowledge and had many experiences (hence the phrase “been there, done that, got the t-shirt”) so that fewer and fewer things are truly new, and by extension, they lack this type of new experience excitement.

Stepping completely out of what you know, is like stepping back in time and becoming that child again, and not only taking great joy and excitement from the newness of things, but in addition allowing our imaginations to venture freely into fantastic, exciting, and unknown relms creating even more worlds in which to delve experiencing all there is to experience. I love J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, and if I were a kid at this point, I guarantee I would have my Hermoine Granger wand in my pocket everwhere I went. But let’s face it, it just doesn’t look cool for a 46 year old woman to be going about the house with a Hermine Granger wand at the ready! I think many of us miss all these aspects of being a child and we just don’t realize it. So, as an adult, we have to go about it differently. I would like to say, though, that those of you with children are lucky because you can have the cool toys and play with them under the auspice of “playing with your kids”. Right.

As many differences as we have, I think that a major commonality that Gil and I share is the love of experiencing life like that, from the perspective of a child – where you are experiencing all aspects of living for the first time, fully and completely, not just glossing over the day taking in a quarter of what you experience because you’ve seen it so many times, your senses natually filter out a majority of what is there before you. I think that is ultimately why we made the move we did and I can say, without a doubt, we have not been disapointed. This is not to say, however, that you have to move away to be able to live life in this way. I think it is easier for obvious reasons, but there is no reason you can’t do it from where you are, it is just harder to reprogam your senses to stop glossing over and start paying attention and experiencing life fully and completely!

Having said all that, you must know that this experience was not easy for me. This was a “stretch skill”, as it were, for me. Gil will be the first to tell you, that I would have NEVER ventured out to Halifax without him even a year ago and yesterday I did it. Wow! As uncomfortable as it is, if you don’t stretch, you really miss out on the vast and rich rewards those experiences offer. Would I trade this Halifax experience for a nice serene day of safely sitting on my front porch back in Texas in a rocking chair where I know what there is to know and have things well within control? Or, would I go backward in time, say three rotations of the time turner, to relive the day so that I had precise directions and went directly there without a hitch?


Not on your Hermoine Granger wand!!

Signs of Fall

The Lobster boats are out of the water and the potatoes are coming out of the field, these are sure signs that fall is in full swing on Prince Edward Island (PEI). It seems that every day the colors on the trees become deeper and the air is cooling off. The drive to and from work are some of the best times of the day to look at the color. The low angle light in the morning and the evening really bring out the colors in the trees which makes it more difficult to keep focused on the road as I drive. Likewise, if you were behind me watching you might think that I had a bit of a ‘tic’ as you watch my head swivel left and right trying to see everything. Everyone tells me to enjoy the colors because they are not long for the island and in a very short time the winds of winter will blow and all the color will carpet the lawn announcing the beginning of the hard cold winter.

Since PEI is such a small island you end up living very close to the land. Just down the road the lobster man has pulled out his boat and his lobster traps in preparation for winter. Our neighbor across the street has not pulled his boat yet, he still has some work this year. He is a fisherman, he fishes oysters in the early fall both wild and raised, then mussels in November, mackerel in December, and then the boat comes out of the water. He has his cultured oysters across the road from us in the bay, and he works them quite a bit right now. He starts by situating floating columns (called the clutch) over the oyster bed and as the oysters reproduce, the small larvae eventually seek a strong firm surface upon which to cling where they spend their first year on the clutch. In the fall he scrapes down the clutch so the maturing oysters fall into the bed where they continue to grow until they are two or more inches long (usually two years). In the fall, he scrapes down the clutch, and then uses the oyster tongs to harvest the oysters from the bottom. For any of the small oysters they get tossed back and only the big ones are kept. It is hard work, and when the wind is blowing, the rain is falling; it becomes very apparent that the fisherman is a tough fellow. There are two types of oyster fishermen for oysters, those that have a lease can harvest from one spot where they have enriched the supply. For others, they harvest form the wild. They find a spot, and work it all day, then move to another spot. On the first day of the season you can see many folks in one space harvesting the wild oysters, but after day one, the ‘Oyster Farmers’ head to their lease while the wild oystermen continue their work.

The fall harvest does not just contain the lobster and the oyster, it also contains the root crops-carrots and potatoes. We have a small potato field behind the house and we have been waiting for them to harvest the field. You see, when a field is harvested there are many potatoes that get left behind, and once the harvesters are out of the field, these leftover potatoes are free for the taking. They harvested the potatoes yesterday and so this morning Nancy was out in the field gathering the free potatoes. You have to get out there early so that you can get them before they start to turn green, and you have to be careful to pick those potatoes that are not cut or otherwise damaged. We picked up potatoes for the morning and have them spread out in the garage drying before we bag them into paper sacks and place them in the basement for winter storage. It is an island tradition, and the fresh potatoes are very good. The farmers harvest their potatoes, knock most of the dirt off of them, and then store them in a potato shed. These sheds remind me of barracks from the Marine Corps and they are filled floor to ceiling with potatoes. It is an interesting sight to see folks loading these sheds with potatoes. The farmers work morning till night and the days are often 18 hours long. The goal is to get the harvest in before the weather turns ugly and the rains come (effectively ruining the crop in the field). Just like the fishermen, the farmers work from before sun up until after sunset and so whenever I see them in the emergency room, it is usually either very early or very late.

If you have not taken a look at the photo pages lately, take a click on the slide show and enjoy the photos of fall as well as photos of the harvest and the local farmers market (where we are buying as much as we can). Stay tuned for a guest blog in the very near future.

What is he saying (Part II)???

Whenever you go to a new location you can expect that things are going to be different (see part I of what is he saying???). For instance, when you go to France you expect that things will be in French. Likewise, in China you expect Chinese, Korea , well Korean of course. So when you arrive in Canada you should expect to hear some Canadian.

Wait, I thought the Canadians spoke English and French?
You are in fact correct.
Then what is Canadian?
That is the version of English they speak.

Today I pay tribute to some noteworthy differences that I have picked up over the last month and a half. Some are in the way in which folks pronounce things, others in the adjectives and adverbs used to highlight the conversation. So, let’s go through my most recent examples of differences from our common language.

The first example comes from Nancy and her interaction with a car salesman. We have recently purchased a happy yellow Chevrolet Aveo and we enjoy it when it runs (and when it does not it goes back to the salesman to have it looked at and fixed….a completely separate post). It was during one of her visits to the dealer to pick up the car (again) that they got to talking about the color. She calls it happy yellow. This led to a conversation as follows (deckle rhymes with freckle).

Salesman: You ought to get a deckle for that car
Nancy: A what?
Salesman: A deckle of a nice yellow smiley face, there is a guy down the road who makes em, eh.
Nancy: Confused look on her face
Salesman: See he made all those deckles for my other cars, eh.
Nancy: Light bulb comes on and she realizes he
means Decal. Hmmm………

The second example comes from several patients I have heard over the last week. You see we have had a bit of stomach flu in our community (a gift from the return of the school year). So I have seen several people with the same basic complaints.

Doc: Hello Mr Whomever, what is going on today that brings you in?
Patient: I been sqwamish, terrible sqawmish.
Doc: I see (Puzzeled look on my face masking as concern)….Tell me a bit more about it.
Patient: I been wake up terrible sqwamish, can’t hear tell of eating, make me terrible sqwamish.
Doc: Have you been throwing up?
Patient: Only when the sqwamish gets terrible.

After several encounters I began to understand that sqwamish meant squeamish. It is an unusual way to describe nausea, but I guess it works. It certainly gets the point across once you understand what they are saying.

The last bit comes from differences in the way we describe the same things (taken from the medical setting).

Terrible = As an adjective such as a Terrible smart, Terrible big, Terrible pretty, Terrible sick, or Terrible tasty. In some parts of the country they would substitute the word wicked. In Texas you might hear the word powerful in place of terrible.

Getting a Needle = an injection of some kind
Freeze it up = Numb an area for something like a stitch or an excision
Prick, as in “ I had to prick her three times to get that IV started”. I am used to hearing the word stick in place of prick.

I will continue to listen for more curisities form the north.

Well for all of you that are sweating away in Texas, you will wish that you were here. The weather is glorious, and the fall colors are beyond anything I have seen . The leaves have an electric almost fluorescent color to them as they turn brilliant yellow, red and purple. Here is a link to the science behind the changing of the leaves. I only hope that Kyle does not blow them all away prior to getting some photos of them for everyone. For now head over the flickr site (click on the slideshow on the right) to see some new photos we posted form a trip last month to the north shore of the island.

When do you serve lunch?

For anyone who has travelled around the United States, it is not uncommon to have the mid-day meal referred to by a variety of different names. Most folks in the southern states refer to the midday meal as either lunch or dinner. What is the difference?


Well both meals occur at the noon hour, so how could you tell one from the other?

I have always been a bit confused about this difference in terminology and so I went to that bastion of knowledge, the Merriam Webster dictionary (on line version).

Lunch
Etymology: probably short for luncheon
Date: 1812
1: a
usually light meal ; especially : one taken in the middle of the day

Dinner
Etymology: Middle English diner, from Anglo-French disner,
diner meal, from disner to dine
Date: 13th century
1 a: the principal
meal of the day b: a formal feast or banquet

Supper
Etymology:
Middle English soper, from Anglo-French super, from super to
sup

Date: 13th century
1 a: the evening
meal especially when dinner is taken at midday b: a social affair featuring a
supper ; especially : an evening social especially for raising funds
2:
the food served as a supper 3: a light meal served late in the evening

Well that seems to clear things up nicely now doesn’t it.

So if you drop by the clinic and catch me in the middle of the day eating a sandwich at my desk, then you have stopped by for lunch. However, if you find me at home on the weekend and we are having grilled chicken and oven vegetables then it is likely that you have come for dinner. Clearly when you come by in the evening we are having supper no matter the form or content of the meal.

This all seems perfectly clear until I went to the local Masonic lodge meeting. Lodge get’s started at 8 pm, and afterward they have a small light meal. During the meeting we talked about an upcoming event that was to take place in the evening in two weeks. We were going to have a speaker and everyone was talking about the timing of the lunch break. I must admit I was confused about the timing of the events. It was clear to me I had misunderstood when things were going to be taking place, and I was a bit sad since I clearly could attend since it would take place around lunch. It was all very confusing to me since everyone was clearly referring to an evening meeting (the lodge will open at 7:30 pm and the speaker will start at 8:15 and we will break for lunch at 8:45).

My confusion deepened when at the end of the lodge meeting they asked me to stay for some lunch. Understand the time was 9:30 pm, and I had already had supper with Nancy earlier that day, and lunch had consisted of a sandwich and some havarti cheese in the clinic around noontime. I stayed because my curiosity was high, and in very short order small sandwiches appeared as did small cookies and cakes and everyone sat down and had a social gathering over this meal with tea and coffee.

As I left that night, I figured that this was just one of the crazy local things. They referred to the morning meal as breakfast, everyone seemed to refer to the midday meal as dinner, and the evening as supper. This makes obvious the idea that the cafeteria served a hot dinner at noon (i.e. something freshly cooked and warm such as seven layer dinner), and a cold supper at 5 pm(i.e. soup, salad, wraps and such). Lunch must be when you have sandwiches. However, I have come to find out from very reliable sources that lunch has no real time and instead refers to the meal that occurs after an evening of socialization.

It does not refer to a light meal as Mr Webster implies, rather on the island it refers to the meal that happens after supper. These meals may be simple such as that of the lodge, or they may be very elaborate happenings. In fact, in the winter when folks seem to socialize more (since the weather does not permit much outside activity) people will gather for cards or some other function. Often a lunch will follow before everyone goes home. When the group convenes next, the hostess will serve something completely different, and often a bit more elaborate than the previous week. By the end of winter these lunches can take on the scope of a rather grand buffet and everyone is leaving the party feeling very full and very happy.

So there you have it, the fourth meal of the day, the meal before bedtime, or the meal when at work. Lunch it is more interesting than you could possibly imagine. Learn more about lunch, supper, and dinner at Wikipedia. You can also see the entire meal series at Wikipedia.

Seven layer what?

I have heard of seven layer cake, seven layer dip, and even seven layer salads. What I have never heard of is seven layer dinner. That’s right, seven layer dinner.

Why do I mention this?

Well, yesterday evening when I was on call at the hospital, I wandered down to the cafeteria for a little something extra to go along with my homemade sandwich. I was hoping for a little soup or something along those lines. As usual I inquired about the offerings for the evening and was told that they had barley soup, homemade pizza, and seven layer dinner. I guess my face did not hide my complete and utter ignorance, because the ladies in the kitchen all chuckled at the queer face I must have been making.

Seven layer dinner?

Yes I had heard them correctly, it was in fact seven layer dinner. What pray tell is seven layer dinner you ask? Well let me tell you friends it is nothing like seven layer cake. The seven layers of the dinner refer to the layers of ingredients with which you line the casserole dish. In the case of our hospital, the kitchen had chosen the fresh veggies that are currently available throughout the countryside at any of the many roadside stands. It begins with potato halves, then green beans followed by bell peppers, corn, peas, macaroni noodles, tomatoes, and ground beef. When it is dished up it looks a lot like any other casserole you have ever seen. Since I had never heard of such a thing, I immediately went to Google to find out more about this culinary invention, and I found several different versions of the same basic process. Like any good recipe it is easily modified, and so I found the following options for the dinners.
1 c. rice

1 c. whole kernel corn

1/2 (5 oz.) can tomato sauce

Salt and pepper

1/4 c. chopped onion

1/4 c. chopped green peppers

1/2 (5 oz.) can tomato sauce

3/4 to 1 lb. ground beef, partially cooked

4 to 6 strips of bacon on top

1 1/2 lbs. hamburger

1 c. green beans, drained

1 c. kernel corn, drained

1 c. sweet peas, drained

6 servings of instant mashed potatoes

1 c. spaghetti sauce

Salt & pepper

2 c. sliced potatoes

1 c. sliced carrots

1 c. chopped onion

1 lb. hamburger - browned

Salt and pepper to taste

1/3 c. raw rice

1 c. chopped celery

1/2 c. chopped green pepper

1 qt. tomatoes

1/2 cup uncooked long-grain white rice
3 potatoes, sliced
1 onion, sliced into rings
2 carrots, cut into 1 inch pieces
1 (15 ounce) can green peas, with liquid
1 (10.75 ounce) can condensed tomato soup
1 (10.75 ounce) can water
1 pound pork sausage, sliced and browned
salt and pepper to taste

As you can see, there are many options for the seven layers of deliciousness that could have come you way in the cafeteria, but I having a sandwich already opted for the barley soup in a cup.

While on the subject, I should make it very clear that life in a small town hospital is infinitely more fun than you would possibly expect. For instance, the cafeteria is run by the same ladies who have been there for ages, and all the meals are made from scratch using as much local produce, meat etc as possible. The meals, while different from the fare of Texas, are none the less satisfying and very good. The next nice thing is that in very short order you know absolutely everyone in the place, and there are no longer any strangers. You see these folks whenever you are out and about in town, and when you are out for a walk on the trail. Each and every one of them is ready and willing to help you with anything in which you might be interested.

As an example, I am very interested in getting some wool sweaters made prior to the arrival of winter. The woolen mill where we had gone came across two sweaters that they thought might fit me, and so when Nancy ran into the manager in the grocery, she mentioned this to her. She had put them back and was preparing to call me at the clinic to let me know that she had them and I should come try them on. During their conversation, they realized that with my schedule I would not be by the mill for some time, so they gave the sweaters to Nancy to bring to me for fitting. Understand that these are fantastic sweaters that are probably worth $300 or more in the states, and they just handed them over and said give them a try. We did in fact try them on and I am keeping one of them, a pullover that is very nice. We have looked at some other places for sweaters, but they are all marked up far too much for my taste, so I put the word out that I would be interested in “commissioning” some sweaters from any of the knitters in town. I have several names which I will be going through this week to see who has the time and inclination to knit some sweaters for me this year. I can assure you they will be very warm, very pretty and a whole lot less than the ones in the store.

Very soon I will post some photos of the hospital on the blog so you can get a better feel for my life north of the 40th parallel.

What is he saying????

Well I have officially completed the first 36 hours of gainful employment for the Beechwood Community Clinic. As luck would have it, I began my time as a Canadian doctor in the Emergency Room. It was not too bad, a pretty forgiving 24 hours all things considered. The role of the emergency room in Canada is very much the same as it is in the United States in that it serves as the catch all for anyone who does not have a personal family physician (called orphans in Canada) or those who cannot get in to see their personal physician. The patient complaints were not all that dissimilar to those seen in any urgent care setting: coughs, colds, gastrointestinal problems, as well as the odd trauma. In addition to these general difficulties you also see the expected cardiac difficulties etc that come along with an Emergency Room.

The two biggest differences that I noted were the social admissions and the difficulty with language. Let’s begin with the social admissions. Since the health system is socialized, this includes the nursing homes. So, when a patient comes to the hospital and needs to go to a nursing home and the nursing homes are full, then they stay in the hospital until there is a bed available. It is probably not the best use of resources, but it does fulfill the needs of the patients and upholds the social contract. It will be interesting to watch this over the next several years.
The second difference that I noted was the difficulty I had with the dialect as well as the colloquialisms. The dialect was very interesting for me and on a couple of occasions I had to grab one of the nurses to help me decipher what the patient was trying to say. It was especially difficult for me as the evening wore on, and my fatigue increased. Add to this the use of different phrases to explain things and it made for a very interesting evening. My favorite saying form the evening was from a patient in response to the question describe your pain…..’it’s like water running down my legs’. Now I have no idea what that means, but it is certainly descriptive. I am just glad the response was not along the lines of ‘ the way water smells when you make butter’. The nurse translator was not very helpful in figuring this phrase out, and so we had to come at the question form several different angles.

My first day in clinic was very enjoyable as well, and it was much like any other clinic in many respects. What made it more enjoyable was the small town feeling of the clinic. It is a familiar feeling for me, and reminds me very much of my time as Dugway Army Proving Ground. One of the best treats of the day was the presence of a coffee break that happened around 10:30 am. Since there is no scheduled time for tea or coffee, one of the nursing staff brews a pot of coffee and steeps a pot of tea and brings all of it to the doctor’s work station for everyone to enjoy. It was a very pleasant treat in the middle of the morning.

All in all it was a very enjoyable start to my Canadian medical system. In the next several days we will talk about the other big differences and the challenges that I can see myself facing as time progresses. In short, standard international units (http://jama.ama-assn.org/misc/auinst_si.dtl) in place of conventional units as well as different medications. More to come.

Iced or hot…..either way it is still tea

So, one of the interesting things that we have come to see over the last weeks is that when you think that you are going to get one thing, often it is a not exactly what you would expect. A classic example is the tea situation. Today while we were dinning at the Gahan house (http://www.gahan.ca/) enjoying some very excellent fish and chips, Nancy ordered tea for us as we settled in to await our treat for the week. In a very short time, the glasses or ice water arrived, and then shortly after this, two small pots for hot tea. We were a bit taken about, but continued and enjoyed a very good small pot of tea each. It was not what I would have usually ordered to go along with fish and chips, but that was alright.

We have noted some other things that are equally fun to experience. There is the previously mentioned issue with French fries. Specifically if you are fries on the island, then you will be warned about getting them with the works, which means that you will be getting fries with brown gravy, ground meat, and peas. Now I am not sure why anyone would ruin good peas by combining them with ground meat, gravy, and fries. Also, the entire snack chip industry here is a bit off.

When you look along the aisles of the supermarket or any convenience store, the snack chips are present in abundance. Although present, they are all in flavors that are unusual to the southern pallet. You can enjoy a nice bag of Ketch Flavored or Roast Chicken Flavored chips if the mood strikes you (as long as the mood for Fritos does not strike).

Another interesting thing that has become more obvious is the sorting of the garbage. You see, since we live on an island, a landfill is of necessity a limited thing. We do not have the abundance of land that we were familiar with back in Texas. On the island, land is at a premium. However, people still generate a lot of garbage so something has to be done in order to keep from filling the landfill quickly. The island answer is intensive recycling. In order to make this work well, we have to sort things at the source as opposed to sorting at the destination (which would also be nasty). So, we sort our garbage. Now recycling is something that we did in Texas, albeit at a lower level, but we have taken it up a notch since we arrived. We have four separate containers we use to sort and recycle everything that we can. Under the sink is anything that can ultimately be turned into compost. In our previous trashcan is our blue bag #2 into which we sort cans, glass, and plastic bottles. In blue bag #1 we place newspaper, pressboard, junk mail and other white paper. Into our waste goes most everything else except for cardboard which must be broken down and placed on the curb for pickup. We have two garbage cans, one black for waste, and one green for compost. The waste and compost alternate form week to week as to what is being picked up from the curb, and if you get it wrong you get a gentle reminder. Apparently 60% of the waste stream is recycled which is not a bad deal if you think about it. If you are curious about this head to the IWMC for more details (http://www.iwmc.pe.ca/).

Oh, by the way, the guest bedroom painting has been completed. Just a bit of touch up work on the master bedroom and we will be done with the painting for a while…….Now if I could just figure out how to heat the house this winter…….

The wool mill around the corner

It appears that some folks reading the blog have become curious if all that is taking place at the new homestead is the steady drill of painting, unpacking, sleeping and repeating. Well I can assure you that nothing could be further from the truth. In fact there has been a great deal more taking place than this simple four step cycle represents. There has been grocery shopping, the eternal quest for Fritos, trips to the barn, work with horses, setting up an office, painting, deciphering the mandatory recycle system, searching for Fritos, sleeping, unpacking, going to the hardware store, painting, and of course, sleeping.

In all seriousness, the quest to get everything important unpacked, as well as finishing the painting so that the rooms can be organized has occupied a significant amount of time. However, we are venturing forth to explore the surroundings as we make our way north and south across the island on the regular trips to the barn and clinic. Today we ran into a most amazing place which we have passed several times, but today decided needed closer inspection. It is the MacAuslands woolen mill and it has been in operation since 1870. The building itself is newer having been rebuilt after the fire in 1948, but the mill itself has been operating on this site since 1870. We have driven past it several times as it is on the way from O’Leary to the Kent Hardware (think Lowes or Home Depot). Today we popped in and took a look around (Link to flickr photos). It was fantastic. The equipment is wonderful, and the women who were working away on it moved with a sense of finesse and grace as they ran the spindles that created the yarn. We talked with the owners for about half an hour prior to taking our leave. They put me in touch with a lady who knits wool sweaters and I will be visiting her soon to get a few in my size.

This weekend we are hoping to head to the northern and western most point of the island to the town of Tignish to see a beautiful Catholic church and enjoy the sites. Also, since we now have a reliable internet connection at home I will begin uploading more photos of the travels.

In case you are curious as to the multiple mentions of Fritos, we are having great difficulty finding these chips in Canada.

Has it already been a week?

Let’s review the latest happenings.
Eight days ago we arrived in our new house having passed through customs without so much as a long glance. We spent the first night on the floor, and then slept in hotels until our mattress and other household goods arrived on Tuesday the 19th. We have been painting furiously, although it amounts to two rooms, they each required several coats of primer and two coats of pain in order to cover the colors that were there previously. We have unpacked kitchen stuff and are finally cooking instead of eating out, and the horses arrived on Wednesday the 20th and seem to have settled in to the new routine. Since we are new in town, we have established our electrical service, a new bank, received our Social Insurance Number (i.e. Social Security Number) and been treated to lobster for four separate meals.

So what is left to accomplish?
We have our internet coming to be set up in three days. Currently we are poaching the internet form our neighbors across the street that thankfully have a G-band wireless router that is unsecured, and an unobstructed view of their house. We still need to get Nancy set up with cellular service, and the hospital has been kind enough to supply me with my service (although I do not yet have my permanent number). I still need to apply for my malpractice insurance through the medical society and I have yet to receive my billing number from the government (although I am told it will be ready by Monday). There is some cleaning up from Texas that still has to happen, specifically I need to contact the state medical board and let them know that I have moved (same with the drug enforcement agency and with Medicare). That will pretty much clean up the loose ends from the states, and we will be free and clear professionally to jump into work here.

What are the differences?
Prices are higher for some things, lower for others. For example, in Texas it cost roughly $100 to fill up the Suburban if it was below a quarter tank. It costs more like $125 to accomplish the same task here. The costs for soda are marked up about the same amount, as are some other staple food items. The biggest differences that we are seeing at this point are the people. Things here move at a slower pace than they did back in Texas, and it feels like that mythical place called Mayberry RFD. People do not lock their houses, they leave their keys in the car at the store, and think nothing of letting their kids run around the neighborhood playing all day.

More people are walking or biking, especially in the small towns where it appears that everyone walks to lunch or to run their errands when they are at work. The tellers at the bank already know our names, and when we go in we do not have to have the deposit/withdrawal slip already completed, they do all of this for us while chatting about the latest news from around the town. We run into people we already have gotten to know when we go to the local store so every trip turns into a social visit.

Litter does not exist as far as I can see. There is no rubbish on the sides of the streets, no junk in people’s yards, no plastic grocery bags floating down the streets. People seem to take a great deal of pride in their yards which are al neat, tidy and full of flowers. The same holds true for the local parks and green spaces. They all look as if they have been freshly planted and mowed, and rarely do we pass the local cemeteries without seeing at least one that is being mowed and clipped. Speaking of which, every little church has its own local cemetery, if not right next door, then usually only one or two lots down. The churches themselves are an entire blog entry and once I have some photos of them I will be writing about them in depth.

Grammatical oddities……
Civic address= home address
Hydro= Electricity as in hydroelectric
You people= Ya’ll
Never hear tell of it = I haven’t every heard of it
Dairy Mart = Ice cream shop
Licensed (sign in restaurant window) = they can serve liquor
With the Works = indicated that the meal comes with brown gravy and peas
I will try to post more of these differences as they become known to me through my work as I am sure they will once I am in the clinic.
Finally, once the internet is up and running full time, I will post some photos from the house, and the surrounding area for all to see. Also, I hope to set up a web camera that will provide some real time glances out our front window so you can get a sense of what the weather is like and how the apple trees are doing. Remember we are two hours ahead of you time wise so you will want to look at the live photos before the sun sets out here.