The island
May. 7th, 2005 11:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brightbluegirlSo, my week on the island.
Well, it is an idyllic living space, I'll tell you. The people I stayed with are right on the water... but then again, most people on the island are.
I went on a bunch of hikes, and took some pictures (when I remembered to take my camera). I slept a lot. I cut out a lot of quilt squares. I wrote in my paper journal, I read every book I brought (and some I hadn't). I cooked, I visited. I went out to the water at night in my shift, so see the phosporescence, I fed deer... It was wonderful.
I would love to live on Cortes, I truly would. It's absolutely gorgeous. Apparently carpenters are in great demand there, with huge waiting lists. And there's one restaurant, with 2 part time cafes - and although many of the residents are vegetarian, there are few vegetarian options (the usual - veggie burger, veggie burrito, etc), so I could, if I wanted, open a vegan place (or not).
We could have a HUGE garden. My hosts do. If I had a garden like that, I'd be in it constantly. Wow.
Much of the land is divided into "shares". So our hosts had bought a share of an acreage (I forget how large), and they have neighbours close by, also on the water, and they all share the immense area of land that is "theirs". There is a community orchard, for example. Much of it is just left wild.
I love that!
So I spent much of the time thinking about what it would be like to move there, with Andrew carpenting, and me gardening and perhaps taking the occasional QA contract, and maybe opening a vegan cafe or doing some other food related thing... it really is possible.
It's a more temperate area, so the growing time is long but some things don't grow there. I might want a little greenhouse, too, so we could grow things like soy beans (which require a warm environment).
Of course, the other thing we could do is move to the interior, because the growing season there is very warm. But that has winter, and as I was telling my dear friend Susan yesterday - I'm retired from winter!
We could also move to Quadra island, which is slightly more suburban, and is closer to civilization, if we wanted. Or, really, there are tons of little islands all around here!
Who knows, though. Who knows. Never say never, right?
Anyway, I couldn't possibly give you a day to day account of what I did. There was the one hellish day of sick, there was some visiting with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
zaftigvegan's brother-in-law, there was visiting the free store (where I got a lovely scarf)... I even enjoyed my trip home on the bus.
The room where I was staying:
The view from their deck (when the tide was out):
The deer that come up to their back door to get fed (Well, one of the 3 that often came - I didn't get a chance to get a picture of the raccoons that came up to the front door in the mornings):
Their garden (forgive me, I took a LOT of pictures, but it is sort of a dream garden for me):
I got a scarf at the freestore, which I wrapped my head in often, since I'm growing out my hair and it looks HORRIBLE. Here I am looking like a snarky hippy:
Even when the sky was grey, the view was amazing (this is the view from a point I hiked to):
The island smelled tremendous, utterly fantastic. Not only was it the lack of pollution, but also, the arbutus were flowering:
Once, when I went on a hike alone, I got lost, so I took a picture:
Then I turned around and took a picture of the way back:
I wasn't totally lost - I knew how to get back to at least one way home, so I just went back to that, which looked like this:
One day, a bunch of us went on a hike. We ended up crossing some tide flats to go to another island, and bushwhacking (which involves a lot of climbing, I'll have you know!), at one point,zaftigvegan's husband climbed a tree:
I saw a bunch of tiny crabs, and took a picture of one:
Some things we did while we were there:
Well, it is an idyllic living space, I'll tell you. The people I stayed with are right on the water... but then again, most people on the island are.
I went on a bunch of hikes, and took some pictures (when I remembered to take my camera). I slept a lot. I cut out a lot of quilt squares. I wrote in my paper journal, I read every book I brought (and some I hadn't). I cooked, I visited. I went out to the water at night in my shift, so see the phosporescence, I fed deer... It was wonderful.
I would love to live on Cortes, I truly would. It's absolutely gorgeous. Apparently carpenters are in great demand there, with huge waiting lists. And there's one restaurant, with 2 part time cafes - and although many of the residents are vegetarian, there are few vegetarian options (the usual - veggie burger, veggie burrito, etc), so I could, if I wanted, open a vegan place (or not).
We could have a HUGE garden. My hosts do. If I had a garden like that, I'd be in it constantly. Wow.
Much of the land is divided into "shares". So our hosts had bought a share of an acreage (I forget how large), and they have neighbours close by, also on the water, and they all share the immense area of land that is "theirs". There is a community orchard, for example. Much of it is just left wild.
I love that!
So I spent much of the time thinking about what it would be like to move there, with Andrew carpenting, and me gardening and perhaps taking the occasional QA contract, and maybe opening a vegan cafe or doing some other food related thing... it really is possible.
It's a more temperate area, so the growing time is long but some things don't grow there. I might want a little greenhouse, too, so we could grow things like soy beans (which require a warm environment).
Of course, the other thing we could do is move to the interior, because the growing season there is very warm. But that has winter, and as I was telling my dear friend Susan yesterday - I'm retired from winter!
We could also move to Quadra island, which is slightly more suburban, and is closer to civilization, if we wanted. Or, really, there are tons of little islands all around here!
Who knows, though. Who knows. Never say never, right?
Anyway, I couldn't possibly give you a day to day account of what I did. There was the one hellish day of sick, there was some visiting with
zaftigvegan's brother-in-law, there was visiting the free store (where I got a lovely scarf)... I even enjoyed my trip home on the bus.The room where I was staying:
The view from their deck (when the tide was out):
The deer that come up to their back door to get fed (Well, one of the 3 that often came - I didn't get a chance to get a picture of the raccoons that came up to the front door in the mornings):
Their garden (forgive me, I took a LOT of pictures, but it is sort of a dream garden for me):
I got a scarf at the freestore, which I wrapped my head in often, since I'm growing out my hair and it looks HORRIBLE. Here I am looking like a snarky hippy:
Even when the sky was grey, the view was amazing (this is the view from a point I hiked to):
The island smelled tremendous, utterly fantastic. Not only was it the lack of pollution, but also, the arbutus were flowering:
Once, when I went on a hike alone, I got lost, so I took a picture:
Then I turned around and took a picture of the way back:
I wasn't totally lost - I knew how to get back to at least one way home, so I just went back to that, which looked like this:
One day, a bunch of us went on a hike. We ended up crossing some tide flats to go to another island, and bushwhacking (which involves a lot of climbing, I'll have you know!), at one point,
zaftigvegan's husband climbed a tree:I saw a bunch of tiny crabs, and took a picture of one:
Some things we did while we were there:
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-05-07 06:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-07 06:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-07 09:52 pm (UTC)We've done a fair bit of reseach into buying on the island, my mother's neighbors have been over every inch of BC it seems and are a wealth of information. I can't guarantee I can answer them, but if you have any questions, shoot!
Right now Cortes is at the top of our list. What we want to do is buy some land and build a tiny cottage to spend time at now, then eventually build our forever home and use the cottage as a guest house.
Ahh, dreams...
no subject
Date: 2005-05-07 11:42 pm (UTC)When we were there we went to a potluck to celebrate the successful completion of buying of a parcel of land and getting it rezoned so it can be another one of those share things. I wonder if any spaces will be available in around 2 years?
no subject
Date: 2005-05-07 10:19 pm (UTC)Is the LJ name Snarkyhippie already taken?
no subject
Date: 2005-05-07 11:39 pm (UTC)heh. I'll fight you for the name. :P
no subject
Date: 2005-05-07 11:31 pm (UTC)Who did you stay with, some friends of
no subject
Date: 2005-05-07 11:39 pm (UTC)I didn't post because the computer was a) zaftigvegan's, and b) in the living room where everyone could walk by... I just couldn't get into the writing groove. Hell, some days when I'm at home alone I can't seem to get into the groove of writing in lj. Heh.
no subject
Date: 2005-05-08 12:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-08 05:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-08 01:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-08 05:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-08 03:01 am (UTC)now quit copying all my dreams! :p
no subject
Date: 2005-05-08 05:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-08 07:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-08 08:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-08 11:19 pm (UTC);)