downshiftme.com

Podcast 68

2009-03-15T19:22:00.003-03:00

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This week's podcast studio (photo from Feb)

Chicken update
6 boys rehomed. Egg production is up. Celebrating by recording in the greenhouse – the chickens' winter home.

Harry
Sad news is that Harry died. Luckily Chloe recovered after a night in the vets and anti-biotics. We got another cat with undue haste as we were worried about Chloe. Caden has now joined the family. Harry had an amazing character the short time we had him – he was a beautiful loving, affectionate naughty cat. We miss him a lot.

Harry

Caden

AJ's garden masterclass
Weekly tea, cake and gardening

Starting to plan the season
Some seedlings being planted, getting ready for the snow to melt to start work. Also want to tidy some of our woods.

Produce
Quince jelly, mango chutney, curries, naan, yoghurt – making so much from scratch. Some days I have had a 100% homemade lunch – soup, with homemade bread, followed by homemade yogurt with homemade jam in it. Almost as nice as last summer when our meals were often 100% garden produce.

Bad things
Matt – tax returns
AJ – preparing receipts for taxes

Good things
Matt – sunshine
AJ – Spring

Podcast 67

2009-01-02T18:49:00.004-04:00

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Visit from Carolyn
Was great to see her
Check out www.frugalandgreenish.com – her well written blog about all things greenish and frugalish.

Chicks
Hatched, grown, flourished – almost as big as their parents now. 5 boys to try to pass on.

Recession
Downshifting is very “in” now – TV programmes have gone from Property Ladder to The Home Show - all talking about making do. Living within your means rather than on credit.
Growing food, knitting, making gifts.

Jeep sold truck bought
Our own little bailout of the auto industry

Energuide survey
Got results – not much hope of any grant money – scored 57 points

Plans for 2009
Work on the house
Build AJ's business
Grow even more vegetables
Optimistic about it

New TV
Flat screen – we have been really consumerist – works with our UK DVD player – great picture and right size – it is our main form of entertainment. Works with our resurrected laptop.

Matt been to PEI
Matt – NS, NB, PE, ON
AJ – NS, NB, AB, ON

Bad things
Matt – TV
AJ – power outages

Good things
Matt – life
AJ – 6 months free Sirius satellite radio

Christmas Tree 2008

2008-12-21T19:13:00.003-04:00

With the world in recession and crunched by credit we downsized our Christmas tree for 2008. No fossil fuels were used in this years tree harvesting.

Happy Holidays, Seasons Greetings, Peace on Earth and Good Will to All.

Matt and AJ

They hatched!

2008-10-09T20:25:00.003-03:00

AJ's "good thing" became a great thing yesterday as the eggs one of the chickens had been sat on began to hatch.

We now have 14 little fluffy chicks. The photograph above and the video below were taken yesterday in the middle of hatching.

Podcast 66

2008-10-05T20:21:00.003-03:00

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Podcast 66 – get your kicks

Immigration
we landed
permanent residence
long journey – enjoyed the ferry
problems with Canadian immigration
wait times
CIC
study to immigrate
good way to “try before you buy”
bureaucratic system
CIC need to work with people not against them

Broadband, highspeed, ADSL

Spencer - the purr is silenced

Introducing Chloe and Harry – 3 months later

Chickens

Garden update
Greenhouse – up and inflated
Lots more produce
More time
More experience
Produce – strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, gooseberries, rhubarb, potatoes (including lovely blue ones), beans, peas, courgettes/zucchini, carrots, corn, leeks, asparagus

Business update
Park - community involvement

Bad things
Matt – our friends moving to Ottawa
AJ - negative election campaigning

Good things
AJ - potential of us having chicks
Matt – PR and ADSL

The downshift has landed

2008-08-03T10:41:00.003-03:00

I am pleased to announce that around 1:30pm yesterday, Saturday 2nd August 2008, we crossed the border into the United States and returned to Canada as permanent residents.

On 2nd August 2010 we will be eligible to become Canadian citizens.

Podcast 65

2008-05-10T20:22:00.004-03:00

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Not podcasted since December… quite a winter..

January – snow
February – more snow
March – less snow

Horticultural happenings
- awards
- Skills Canada gold medal
- commissions
- business
- job

Our garden
- greenhouse
- soft fruit
- grapes

Home brewing
- beer
- wine

Immigration update
- medicals
- bureaucracy
- new 5 year graduate work permit

My job
- at the University
- website work

Animal updates
- Spencer
- Dylan
- chickens

Visitors from England next weekend

Bad Things
AJ – ticks
Matt – bugs

Good things
AJ – Twinnings Herbal Teas (wellbeing range)
Matt – living in the country

Podcast 64

2007-12-28T19:21:00.000-04:00

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2nd anniversary of our first podcast (not going to play it again)

63 podcasts later but bit out of practice.

Nice to hear people have come to us after we stopped weekly podcasting and they have listened all the way through - out of real time.

Winter
- Quite a winter - 5 storms (including last night) - last winter 5 in total
- 10cm last night
- snow most of December

Horticultural happenings
- passed semester with honours
- one more to go
- lots of houseplants propagated

Knitting
quest for the gnome
tree decoration
knitted our hats

Creeping Canadianisms
highway
gas

Immigration to Nova Scotia - we have PNP

People not always doing what they set out to do coming here
True of many downshifters
Adapt plans if things don't turn out exactly how they are planned

Bad Things
AJ – TV
Matt – snow

Good things
Matt – snow
AJ – snow

Christmas Tree

2007-12-09T18:45:00.000-04:00

We spent last weekend selecting a tree. We found quite a few nice specimen but it seemed such a shame to cut them down. Then we found this whopper - the top 8 feet were great but it was stopping light to a few more spruce and rather nice white pine. We decided it would be ideal if we took the top 7 feet as a Christmas tree and allowed the others around it to thrive - woodland management you see :)

This weekend we went to retrieve the selected tree and I filmed the retrieval using the digital camera and posted below:

In praise of simple pleasures

2007-11-17T13:11:00.002-04:00

Over the last few weeks I've found myself distracted by the strangest things; consumer electronics, vehicles, new possessions - distractions that I thought I was inured against in our new simpler life. It has been odd to find that I'm keen on a fancy thin television set, that I still mourn my old x-box and that my head is turned by a shiny red Ford Ranger. So you can imagine how relieved I was this week to rediscover an old distraction. Grasses...

The first snow of the winter fell recently and while I was out with the dog I noticed that two of my favourite grasses were poking out of the snow - still vibrant and a stunning shock of colour against the white.

Late in the autumn, I dug and planted a new bed in our Japanese garden, mainly to accommodate a lovely prostrate pine that I had been given - I had the happy thought of moving my favourite grasses over to complement the planting so I shifted my Japanese Blood Grass (Imperata cylindrica "Red Baron") and my Black Mondo Grass (Ophiopogon planiscapus nigrescens)

Black Mondo grass isn't actually a grass (it's a member of the lily family) but its dark purple almost black blades are grass like and beautiful. It is one of the loveliest things that I have seen.

Unfortunately I didn't have the presence of mind to take photos, hopefully I'll remember next snow fall, but in true Blue Peter style here's a photo of the unfinished bed that I took earlier.

The Blood grass is looking a little sorry for itself now, but the Mondo grass is still stiff and perky in the chill November air.

My love of grasses has been reinvigorated by my study of them at college. I have been fascinated by the Miscanthus genus, the striking inflorescence and variety of blade colour, the soft nature of Pennisetum orientalis, and the sheer impudence of Calamagrostis acutifolia 'Karl Forster'.

The amazing differences in how they sit in the landscape fascinates me and I have plans to install a grass only bed in the gardens here at some point. Needless to say, when it comes to propagate these grasses at college, there will be a few small examples propagated for my own collection, (legitimately of course thanks to the generosity of my prop lecturer).

Anyone know where to get a cheap laptop hard disk?

2007-10-21T20:20:00.000-03:00

Would you believe the hard disk on my 14 month old laptop has died?

Anyone know where I can get a cheap one of these?

Would this do? Anyone got any better suggestions?

Or this?

The Archers to be Podcast

2007-10-13T10:06:00.000-03:00

Excellent news from the BBC. The everyday story of countryfolk, The Archers is going to be podcast!

This means I don't have to bother with downloading a real audio file using one piece of software and then converting it to mp3 on another piece of software so I can listen on my iPod on my way to work.

Good old BBC - you have made one Englishman abroad very happy.

Podcast 63

2007-10-08T19:12:00.000-03:00

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Why we stopped podcasting
Busy
Ran out of things to say
Spencer tries to stop the podcast
Was worried slightly we had “lost our way” with my new job

We are poor, we knit our own yoghurt and hats.

Didn't get chickens as we hoped to this year.

Got some great emails from people – people said they understood but would miss us.

Met some great people visiting
Welcome to Nova Scotia – Mark and Tania, Richard and Jane, and Flora and Larry

Harvest – potatoes, tomatoes, zucchini/courgettes, squash, chilli peppers, some berries.

Next year – carrots, parsnips, more potatoes, onions, more zucchini, berries – hoping the grape vines and kiwi survive.

Triumphs of the year - we can look back and give thanks

So settled
Survived the winter
Had some great produce
Great fun - spent time together
Enjoy walking the garden after dinner
New job meant physiotherapy on foot and filling replaced which came out in November
AJ learnt to can - chilli jelly, jam, chutney, pickle, salsa
AJ has mastered beer - Matthew likes the beer

Setbacks

Truck still dead – setback – bought car – on credit
Not grown as much as we would have liked
Money running out faster than we hoped

Downshifting is about finding your own path. Choose a different way of living.

We need BBC Canada.. Doctor Who, Torchwood, Spooks, Robin Hood, It's not Easy Being Green, Buildings that Shaped Britain.

Don't feel homesick but nicely nostalgic.

Found our house in a book.

The school was bigger than we thought. More outbuildings - like we thought.

Bad Things
AJ – the truck
Matt – cost of insurance

Good things
AJ – a general sense of joy and contentment
Matt – Nova Scotia is my home

Harvest

2007-09-12T21:14:00.000-03:00

Well its not quite true to say its harvest time just this week - we dug up potatoes a few weeks ago and are still enjoying them. Squash started shortly after - slowly at first, but now they are coming thick and fast. Our tomatoes are slowly ripening too. We have had one frost already and there is a warning for another tonight too.

We have gained a lot of experience with the growing conditions here through the season and had some failures and successes. All this experience will influence what we grow next year. Hopefully we will have an even better harvest next year.

Doing Fine

2007-08-25T11:10:00.000-03:00

Thank you everyone for the really kind and thoughtful emails we received when we announced we were not going to podcast every week.

We are doing well but enjoying the break from the weekly podcast routine.

We have both had a busy summer working and with my increased commute it has reduced a little bit of our opportunity to achieve things. We have enjoyed squash and potatoes from the garden and we have corn and tomatoes growing well. We have raspberry and blueberry bushes, kiwi and grape vines all growing fast.

We will try to podcast when we get a chance for a proper update - but we are happy and healthy but have been working lots and had a busy summer.

Soon AJ starts back at college and I have the new students arriving at work too. We still have lots of plans and will try to keep you updated.

Thanks all for your concerns and good wishes.

Matt and AJ

Happy Canada Day (yesterday)

2007-07-02T12:19:00.000-03:00

A quick Happy Canada Day message - uploaded a day late but recorded on Cananda Day.

Sunshiney day

2007-06-15T19:22:00.000-03:00

Its been a scorcher today and far to hot to work inside, so today I built a water feature for the nursery.

Hopefully the water will settle overnight and should be less beige tomorrow morning.

Its not a bad life, I got to womble about the nursery gathering materials (nothing bought in) and build something beautiful out of odd and ends.

Today we have another new Iris - (I found out that the one in the post below is called Harpswell Hallelujah - a wonderful name for such a stunning flower)

The new one bloomed yesterday and has such a vivid colour combination, I decided to share it with you all.

I have no idea what this one is called - but I'm starting to develop a deep appreciation of these deep jewel like colours.

Simple Delights

2007-06-13T20:51:00.000-03:00

One of the things that I love the most about our new life here in Canada, is that our home never stops surprising me with new and beautiful things.

I have a beautiful drive to work, the sides of the roads are littered with lupins and fresh greenery (very green now that we've had a lot of rain of late).

I've been watching this Iris grow for weeks and then, today, when I got home from work, it had flowered in all its luscious glory.

The best thing about this beautiful flower is that there are new unopened buds further down the stem, so we should get a lovely display for a while.

I got a new free plant from the nursery today - Viburnum plicatum tomentosum 'Mariesii' - It had suffered some winter damage and wasn't sale quality.

My boss is very generous and gives plants like these to staff, I'm looking forward to seeing how it grows and spreads now that I've pruned out the winter dead.

Podcast 62

2007-06-10T16:17:00.000-03:00

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Truck is dead

AJ’s infected bite

Job going well

Bought a cultivator

Grass growing quickly

Almost a year on

- Achieved a lot
- Not always as expected
- starting to run out of things to say weekly
- getting quite busy doing things
- weekly is too much pressure
- we will still update the website
- subscribe to the email updates or subscribe in bloglines or a newsreader to the general feed

Bad Things
AJ – infected bite
Matt – dead truck

Good things
Matt – work colleagues we live in a beautiful place
AJ – happier, more content with less stress

Busy weekend

2007-06-03T20:19:00.000-03:00

Yesterday was my last day at the supermarket. I was tricked into going into the meeting room to "help move a box" but secretly a load of the staff had sneaked in and shouted "surprise". They had a cake with "Good Luck Matthew" written on it and a card signed by lots of the staff. I was really touched as I really wasn't expecting anything.

Tomorrow I start at the University.

We have had a very busy and productive weekend in the garden with our new tiller which AJ bought yesterday.

We have not had time to podcast I am afraid this weekend - but hope to catch up soon.

Podcast 61

2007-05-27T18:44:00.000-03:00

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Feels like spring has come and gone and its summer.

Planting update – Spencer ate the corn, planting beds outside – lots of free discarded – “not good enough to sell” plants.

Truck MVI

Wood for the chicken coop

Matt’s new job – back working for a University, back in housing – looking forward to it. Sad to be leaving the supermarket and the nice people – but not the anti-social hours. Leaving pay not too bad (for this area) but new pay better.

Is this going backwards on the downshifting thing?

AJ working through torrential rain, baking heat, bug plagues

Bug update – we were premature last time – they come and go – lots today though. Need a screen house tent thingy

Bad Things
AJ – bugs
Matt – bugs

Good things
AJ – plants
Matt – weather and having weekends back

The presents of Spring

2007-05-20T20:06:00.000-03:00

Its the 20th of May and you’d think that we’d be able to have some decent weather wouldn’t you? Well think again. Another cold, dreary, wet, windy, dreary, depressingly unspringlike week here at downshiftme acres, throughout the entire Valley, actually. So cold and wet that I spent most of the week at the nursery under cover, so much rain in fact, that the polytunnel I was working in had a river running through it for most of the day. My gloves were soaked and my fingers cracking from the cold and wet by the end of the day. You might think that at some point I'd be hankering for my old warm dry office, but you'd be wrong, you see it may have been cold wet and windy, but everywhere was the sight and smell of new spring growth and that made for a very content me.

We have had some beautiful reminders that spring is forcing her way through though.

These Sedums have appeared all over the garden, they have a lovely crisp bright green that is, for me, so evocative of spring colours.

I have no idea what these beauties are, but I think they look great against the meadow grass and the treeline.

The hyacinths have such a distinct smell, a strangely haunting aroma that I always associate with spring.

You will have noticed by now that there is no podcast this week. Thanks to our work schedules we have both been working hard and Matt has worked all weekend.

Podcast 60

2007-05-13T15:59:00.000-03:00

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Spring

Cut grass
Bulbs appeared

Update on our vegetables and herbs

AJ work update

Matt Work update

Truck having MVI tomorrow – wish us luck

Chicken house construction starts soon with local timber

Bad Things
AJ – apprehension about the truck MVI
Matt – bugs

Good things
AJ – being alive
Matt – smell of freshly cut grass

Nothing to say here

2007-05-06T16:29:00.000-03:00

We are going to take a week off from podcasting as we don't have much to say and we are feeling quite tired.

Speak to you soon.

Podcast 59

2007-04-29T20:27:00.000-03:00

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Not retiring at 60. 3rd attempt - very tired. Matt has had his siesta. AJ has bottled beer.

AJ work placement week. Saltscapes expo. What is the difference between an exposition and exhibition?

Tracey Smith in the Toronto Star.

Electric poultry netting - mentioned on Geek.Farm.Life.

Bagels and Baggels. Gooda and Gouda.

Andrew and Misty built their own greenhouse – looking at ways to retain heat.

Humidity question - good for some plants but not others. Humidity can cause problems with pests, mold or spores.

We are looking for a heated winter greenhouse with dual skin.

Sprouting update – what's hot and what's not

Water sampling has started again

Earthquake – damage in Folkestone – 475 houses damaged. 4.3 magnitude on the Richter scale.

We had one in the valley of 3.2 magnitude – was 11th August 2006 so we were living here then (and didn’t notice).

Google Map

Records 1985 to 1997 – nothing over a 4

First tick - yuk. Don't listen while you eat!

Bad Things
AJ – first mosquito bite
Matt – still a little chilly

Good things
AJ – bulbs
Matt – youtube - numa numa