Billy Ditchburn

Drive east out of Port Hawkesbury on highway 4, the Other Road to St Peters, and you'll pass a blink and you'll miss it red dirt road.  You almost certainly will miss it, even if you don't blink.  I still do, and I know it's there, and I'm looking out for it.  It's the sort of road that really only gets used by the people who live on it, and most of those are at the far end, closer to the much fancier road connecting Port Hawkesbury to St Peters.  If you drive a short distance down that road, you'll see the for sale signs.  That's my property.  But it could easily be yours!  

What's that?  Shutup and get on with it?  Okay, okay!!  

This is a piece of property my wife and I picked up about twenty years ago when we were living in Ontario.  We always intended to build an off grid, cordwood house on it.  But we had kids, in school, and couldn't make the break.  We came out for holidays, and did what we could.  Last year, we made the move permanent, and bought a fixer upper house closer to Sydney.  However, life intervened.  We were older than we had been, had sustained back injuries and arthritis, and really weren't in shape to get our house finished.  And we were living in a community that has its problems, but which we found we liked more than we'd expected to.  So, it's kind of a bitter sweet thingt, but our land is up for sale.

At this point, we have:
A driveway
A house site, with 30 x 22 concrete beam on grade foundation, aligned for passive solar
Two inground water tanks, totalling 2600 gallons in place, for rainwater collection.
A (permitted) greywater infiltration bed.  We planned on using composting toilets, so the only wastewater was greywater.
A 12 x 16 permitted utility shed.
A garden area, with fruit trees, perennial herbs and native plants and grasses.
A lot of trees, mostly spruce and fir, but a smattering of birch and maple.  Lots of mushrooms, including chanterelle, boletes, black trumpets.
Rear of the property, 740 feet. is formed by a creek.
Oh, yes and Engineer drawn, provincially approved, building plans for a cordwood house.

Lots of privacy, no immediate neighbours, peace and quiet. The town of Port Hawkesbury is fifteen minutes away, with all services.

Listing is here:

https://nsar.paragonrels.com/CCR/collablink/5be4ec36-0641-486a-9733-384cda77a5bb/listings/results?&forMlsId=NSAR&sid=LHMCkZnnt0Q

Feel free to message or post any questions you have!

thanks
Billy

I collect pee in a watering can and then pour it around the garden.

Will this work for squirrels?

It might.  We used to live next door to a house with three unfixed tom cats who thought nothing of wandering into our house, beating up our two fixed kitties, eating their food, then spraying on the way out.  But they stopped after I started peeing around the house on a nightly basis.  I don't know if the neighbours thought we were crazy or not, but even if they did it wouldn't count because they were way crazier than us.

Absolutely not an April Fool's.  The National Post article cited is dated March 31st for a start, and I know they're bozos at the Post, but even they recognise that April Fool's pranks are strictly for April 1.  It's not Christmas, it doesn't creep up the calendar every year.   Also, a simlar article came out in Modern Farmer on April 11 and was reprinted in the Smithsonian mag on the 12th.  BUT, I know it works because we did it ourselves.  Like Rudy, I have evidence, but it's on my phone and I can't upload pictures right now. But I'll post 'em tomorrow!  

https://modernfarmer.com/2021/04/how-to-germinate-seeds-with-an-instant-pot/
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/how-germinate-seeds-your-garden-using-instant-pot-180977488/#:~:text=Most%20seeds%20germinate%20in%20an,24%20hours%20to%20seven%20days.

Update - Photographic evidence - LIVE - from the instant pot

Knock knock joke for your enemies.
You: Did you hear the idiot's knock joke?
Them: No
You: Well, you start it off.
Them: Knock Knock
You: Who's there?
Them: er....
You: explode with laughter and run away

Sarah Elizabeth wrote:
What do you call a deer with no legs trying to cross the river?

Bob

First time I heard that it was a man with no arms and no legs in a swimming pool... to be immediately followed with what do you call a man with no arms and no legs and no head and no body?  Dick, of course, to be immediately followed with what do you call a man with no arms and no legs and no head and no body and a PhD in molecular biology?  Clever Dick, but to stick with the deer, what do you call a deer with no eyes?  No idea.

John F Dean wrote:I am at the age where I know I had a good time in bed if I wake up and the bed is full of crumbs.

Me too, but I don't need the crumbs.

We lived aboard a sailboat at a fancy Toronto yacht club for a number of years.  We had a couple of okay neighbours there, but mostly the people were intolerant, entitled, ignorant, rich old geezers.  They thought everything we did was crazy, from not eating the overpriced self proclaimed 'gourmet' food and tortured meat products in the swanky restaurant (it was all from Sysco) to threatening to report them to the government if they didn't stop destroying barn swallow nests on the clubhouse.  Which, by the way, they had designed to look like a barn.  

But the best was a couple of years ago.  Canada had offered asylum to thousands of displaced people from the war in Syria, and all kinds of individuals, groups and organisations were doing what they could to help the newcomers settle in, offering jobs, homes, food, money etc etc.  At our AGM that year, after a succession of members (and they were members) stood up to complain out of nowhere that The Liberals were trying to Destroy Christmas, my wife Kristina took the mike to suggest that the club might like to sponsor a family of Syrian refugees.   They could have easily done it. They'd just allocated thirty thousand dollars to replace the perfectly functional chairs in the restaurant ffs.  Money no object for that.  But instead, a weird silence descended.  It was thick, dense, and heavy, like peanut butter after the oil's separated out.  I've never heard a silence quite like it; the sound of privilege strangling conscience, maybe.  Nobody looked up, nobody coughed, nobody was even audibly breathing.  And eventually, the Chair of the board, having completely ignored the point, moved to adjourn the meeting.  Which seemed to wake everybody up and suddenly there were people seconding, raiding their hands, shouting Aye, and heading for the door.  Clearly, everyone in the room thought she was crazy for even suggesting such a thing,

What's the mating call of the clam?

<place forearms one above the other in front of the eyes.  
Open them, really slowly and meaningfully.  
Make eye contact with your audience; very important.  
Then shout, as loudly as you can, or dare>

Djyerwanna fuck?