Kate are living on a 30 acre piece of land (most of which in inaccessible) in Canada. The property is built on a mountain which is mostly rock.They have terrible dirt for gardening so anything they do they have to import soil and mix it with lots of manure, lime and fertilizer.
The vegetable gardening they do is mostly for fun.They grow tomatoes, carrots, (which they can leave in the ground all winter and dig up as they need them), green beans, peas, green peppers, and sometimes they try broccoli. They also grow various kinds of squash – Zucchini,Spaghetti Sguash, Acorn Squash, etc. Kate says- ”it fells good to grow your own food and know that is not full of chemicals and preservatives”.
They have Sheep(who just had babies between them),cows,some peacocks,donkeys, dogs and cats.They don`t have milk cows.They all agree that it’s much easier to buy the milk at the store.In other words not one of them is interested in milking a cow every day.They also don’t use the wool from the sheep. I asked Kate why they have donkeys and she says-”You would not believe how many times we have asked ourselves the same question.They are terrible destructive. They have eaten all the edges on the cutest and some of the wall panelling on the barn. They have eaten every pretty tree in the pasture and left all the weeds. But they are also very lovable”.
They raise some of theirs own meat – beef, lamb, pork.They do have have a little butcher shop they set up for themselves so that when butchering time comes the meat and Kate and other women do the wrapping.
Kate are very lucky in that she and hers friends can do pretty much anything they like.The Canadians have a very prosperous life style.Like Sweden Canada is now at a stage where the economy is terrible debt and there is fairly high unemployment but they are still enjoying a very good life-style.
What do you know about Sweden? Sweden except for a few paragraphs I read in the encyclopedia and I gather the standard of living is quite different.
How do you spend the Easter?
We usually celebrate Easter with a family dinner. This year we will be 21 people at our Easter Dinner. Traditionally, like Christmas and Thanksgiving we have turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce. Egg nog is usually associated with Christmas time.The kids dye the eggs different colors and use fancy stickers to decorate them. Sens long ago everyone got a new Easter Bonnet but that tradition has gone by the wayside.
I asked if Kate have any dreams and she says – ”My dream is to own a motor home (Winnebago for example) and travel throughout Canada and the United States during the winter months.The Americans calls us Snowbirds because tens of thousands of Canadians ”fly” south for the winter”.
