Idyllic

  Idyllic. A one word title that describes our current digs.

  Sun, water, a beautiful house, two great dogs, great food, strong drink, family nearby... I must be missing something. We haven't played golf yet so I'm sure that will be added to the list.

  We're in Nova Scotia, in a place called the Head of St. Margaret's Bay, specifically, Todd's Island. The island connects to the main highway by means of a short causeway so, for those of you who are familiar with me and boats, no need to worry, we can drive to this island. Our house has a

dock of the bay. I was watchin' the tide roll in, thinking I had

my ducks in a row. Then I ran out of musical connections and tired cliches. So I went back to watching the tide roll in. It went up about three feet in an hour. We're on the south shore of Nova Scotia so these aren't Bay of Fundy tides (for those of you who aren't familiar with them, they're the World's Highest... more about capital letters later) but they go pretty high and fast.

  Before I go on about this place let me catch you up on our travels. We left Newmarket last Friday and took two days to drive here. The first day of our 1,900 km trek took ten hours: five crossing Ontario and five more across Quebec. We passed an egg on a stick somewhere on Quebec's south shore so that satisfied the "things on a stick" portion of the trip.

Our day ended in Riviere du Loup, where we stopped for the night.

Editorial time.

  Riviere du Loup isn't a bad place. It has some interesting things to see, nice restaurants, a few questionable motels. And it's very French. Now, Canadians know this isn't French like France French. It's Quebecois French, which means they turn their collective noses up at anyone who doesn't speak their particular lingo which, by the way, is unlike France French to the degree the Toronto Maple Leafs are unlike a hockey team. It's almost like they don't want non-Quebecois to come and spend money in their province. Well, we took our English and our money and left town as soon as the sun was up. We couldn't wait to get to New Brunswick, which doesn't treat the use of English as a crime. Not exaggerating. Look it up.

  Day two started with New Brunswick which also took us five hours to cross (I'm seeing a pattern here) and we didn't encounter anything on a stick. We found better stuff than that. First, the World's Longest Covered Bridge, in Hartland.

It's capitalized because it's the World's Longest Covered Bridge. If it was the world's second longest covered bridge it would get lower case letters. When you have the world's longest/biggest/tallest/heaviest... thing, they throw in the caps. Really.

  Shortly afterwards we happened upon the World's Biggest Axe (re caps, see above) in Nackawic.

  "Why", I can hear you ask, "did someone decide they needed an extraordinarily large axe?" Well, let me illuminate you. New Brunswick's geography is the epitome of all things Canadian. There's not much there except lots of rocks, trees and water. Since there's so many trees and not much else, the forestry industry employs a significant portion of the province's small population. In 1991, Nackawic was designated Forestry Capital of Canada (caps again) so, of course, the town fathers (there's never town mothers) decided to commission said sculpture to celebrate their newfound notoriety.

  For those of you who have faithfully followed our adventures, you should know these guys didn't try to buy any obelisk plans from that shady Washington Monument guy. They focused on originality and talked to an axe guy. I'll bet you won't find any smaller copies of this anywhere else. Yay for originality!

  From that point on, rain settled directly over our car and followed us all the way to my sister-in-law, Wendy's, house where we spent the night, not being required to start our house sit assignment until the following afternoon. And that brings us back to our idyllic spot here by the bay.

  Between Saturday night and today we managed to pay a visit to my niece, Cassie's, place of employment for the summer, in Lunenberg. She's working in the storefront of a craft distillery where she seems to spend equal parts of her time serving customers and sampling the company's wares. She seemed to be enjoying it so we bought some. I love it when people enjoy their work. That was followed by a little grocery shopping excursion which yielded some fresh lobster that we turned into lobster rolls that evening. I much preferred spending $30 on grocery store lobster to produce four lobster rolls than $23 each at the nearby waterside lobster shack. Win.

  Speaking of groceries, it's actually more expensive here than at home. A rotisserie chicken I'd spend $8 for at Costco was $13 at the supermarket. Of course, there's no comparison between the two as the Costco chickens are the size of small turkeys while the one I was shocked by here was the size of a squirrel. I may be exaggerating but you know you love it.

  Back to our current piece of paradise. We're in charge of two dogs, a border collie, Jax, and a shih-tzu named Charlie. They're both great and very closely resemble our two dogs of yore, Indiana and Tinker. Well, sort of. Indy was a kind of border collie/beagle cross while Jax looks like he's straight border collie. Well, I'm assuming he's straight.

  He's three years old and chases tennis balls, sticks, frisbees and whatever you care to throw his way, just as Indy once did. I took him for a 5 km walk today and he was just getting warmed up by the time it was over. Here's the view from the trail:

  In the two days since we arrived he's attached himself to me and follows me everywhere. He may be the Best Dog Ever (see above re caps).

  Charlie doesn't suffer from Tinker's bad breeding so his butt doesn't stick up in the air and give him the profile of a bad 1970's British sportscar. He does have the breed's protruding lower jaw that gives him that "You talkin' to me?" look.

  He's ok but he's twelve going on thirteen so his running and chasing days are long gone. He seems happy in his spot on the couch beside Penny and still manages to walk once a day, for as long as his stubby little legs will carry him. He's a good dog too.

  So here we are until the end of June. We'll spend the next few days seeing the sights, playing some golf, visiting with Wendy and Cassie, eating the food, soaking up the sun and watching the tide roll in and out.

  By the way, how does anyone get off having Muskoka chairs here? Why don't they have Musquodoboit chairs, eh? A question for another day.

PS, I just realized I didn't include Yvonne Vandergugten in the last episode's list of people we visited with last year. And her son, David, and his family. Apologies to all.

A Year Of Adventures

  Hello friends. It's been a while since we talked. It's just over a year since we started this house sitting adventure and I thought it would be a good time to do a little Q&A, using the questions that get posed to Penny and me on a regular basis.

"Where do you find your house sitting jobs?"

  There are a few websites I check a couple of times per day. Our "go to" ones are Trusted House Sitters, House Sitters Canada and House Sitters America. We pay a subscription fee to all of them but they make it easy for us to be selective about the jobs we accept. All of them have a profile we've submitted that describe our skills and experience, like a resume. Homeowners post the timeframes they're trying to fill along with descriptions of their properties, location and pets. We can apply to their posts or they can approach us directly.

"Do you get paid for house sitting?"

  There are rare occasions where a homeowner will offer to pay for our services, usually where some kind of special experience is required. Otherwise we don't get paid for what we do. It's a fair trade since we get to live in a house, in a location of our choosing, for free. That means no hotels and no restaurants (unless we want to), which makes for very inexpensive travel. We do have to care for their pets, which is no problem given we've always had dogs and cats, and we make sure we leave the house clean and tidy.

"Do you need any special qualifications?"

  People want to know you're responsible, clean and able to handle their pets the way they would themselves. Skills, like gardening and home repair, are desirable since people are leaving you with their house and would prefer the plants were still alive when they return and that the house doesn't burn down while you're there.

"Are people comfortable leaving their home and pets to total strangers?"

  This is a question I ask every homeowner when we arrive. After a year it still amazes me people do this. Homeowners' only exposure to us is what we provide in the profile and any impressions they might glean for a half-hour video chat. The websites we subscribe to perform perfunctory vetting so people can be reasonably sure they're not connecting with axe murderers or cannibals. That's it. I think the websites' reputation is what gives the homeowners the confidence to invite us to look after their home and animals. It seems pretty thin to me but it works. I guess people want to trust you until you give them reason to think otherwise.

"What are the best and worst places you've been?"

  If you've been following the blog you'll likely know the answers to this question but, for those of you who aren't constant readers, I'll try to summarize with links to previous episodes.

Best (in no particular order):

• Greece. It was a historical smorgasbord with beautiful coastlines, low off-season prices and interesting food.
• Greece Days 1-4
  
• Some Thoughts On Greece
  
• And Then We Were Home
  
• American Atlas Obscura oddities. The ol' Atlas makes some really boring drives fun.
• On The Road - Day 3
  
• On The Road - Day 4-6
  
• On The Road Again
  
• A Tour, A Ballgame And Some Observations
  
• Missile Silo in Arizona. Almost a year later and this one still resonates.
• Scenic And Scary
  
• Yellowstone National Park. Iconic and jarringly beautiful.
• Maximum Overdrive
  
• South Oregon Coast. Rugged, unpopulated and spectacular.
• And Then Another Thing Happened
  
• Minnesota. This one kind of snuck up on us. Unexpected and wonderful. We've been invited back twice now and we'll definitely go back... as long as Tom lets me drive the tractor 😁.
• If You Build It He Will Come
  
• Labour Day Weekend
  
• The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid
  
• The Tail Of The Dragon. If you like to drive then this is Nirvana. Not like Smells Like Teen Spirit. The other Nirvana. Don't take the RV.
• Riding The Tail Of The Dragon To The Deep South
  
• Any place we were able to meet up with familiar faces. David and Michele in Vancouver, Larry in Revelstoke, Bryan, Sheila and Shiri in Calgary, Alex and Jen in Minneapolis, Ben and Sandra in Mobile and Kate in Cyprus. That makes any place a favourite.

Worst. It's a short list.

• Baltimore. I like the ballpark. The rest? Not so much. Let's just say the highlight was buying a sweatshirt imprinted with "Baltimore. There's More Than Murder Here." There was an interesting cemetery but it wasn't worth the traffic, living in the midst of a slum or the pissy homeowners who outright lied about the property.
• Mobile. Before we committed to the sit I did a lot of research which indicated it was an interesting creole mix of French, Spanish, English and American. It was where Mardi Gras was celebrated long before New Orleans. A famous Civil War battle took place there. Close to beaches. Great, right? Wrong. Slummy. Racist. Minimal diversity in food and culture. Uninteresting history. The beaches were ok.

  To summarize, most places we've lived (we live in these places rather than visit) have been, at times, beautiful, interesting, fun, and historically significant. Some places have been exotic, others mundane but all of them have left lasting memories.

"Do you get tired of traveling all the time?"

  It depends on when you ask. There have been a few instances where we've both asked, "Are we done yet?" Like, two weeks into a month-long sit in a not very interesting place (see Cyprus), or two days in the middle of a one week stay in a slum (see Baltimore). Last summer, it would have been ten weeks into a fourteen week excursion. We both love to travel but there are limits. We seem to have arrived at a happy medium where we hit the road for six or seven weeks and return home before we get tired of it.

"What are the best and worst things about house sitting?"

  For me, the best thing is the constant movement. My short attention span is stimulated by the near constant change. I love exploring new places, eating different foods, just generally wandering where we please. We love almost all the pets we've cared for and would happily return to see them again. Many of the homeowners we've met could become friends if we were closer. We've lived in some gorgeous houses and in some stunning locations. All free.

  The worst things? Being away from our family and everyone we know for weeks at a time. We miss a lot at home and it takes time to catch up every time we return. Another not so good thing is not having a home to come back to. Jen's been great, keeping a room where we can crash when we get back to Newmarket, but it's not home. Oh, and Baltimore.

"How long will you continue to do it?"

  This one's up in the air. Right now we're enjoying it but we're running out of North America. We'd like to do more overseas sits but transportation becomes an issue. If we're staying at a property outside a major town we'll need a car and it can get pretty expensive renting cars for many weeks at a time. I keep my eye out for sits where the owners will let us use a car, like in Cyprus, and I expect that's the kind of thing we'll take advantage of more in the future. That means we'll likely keep doing this for another year and re-assess it next spring.

"Where are you going next?"

  We promised our grandkids we would spend the summer at home, while they're off school, so we're heading off to Nova Scotia on Friday 😂. We'll be back by July 1, relax. We'll be house sitting around the Toronto area until mid-August and all the properties have swimming pools so we'll see lots of the kids. After that, our plans are TBD.

I think that likely answers most of your questions. For those of you who have followed us since Day One, thanks for your interest and indulgence. I hope you've enjoyed the ride and that I provide the odd chuckle to brighten your day. The rest of you who don't follow regularly, get with it gang! You think we do this for ourselves? Well, ok, we do.

As always, stay tuned.