Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia

Our first taste of what it’s really like to live in Nova Scotia was in the small village of Tatamagouche (almost big enough to be a town! according to the proud townsfolk). Here we stayed with a wonderful British couple, Jamie and Fay, and their two rambunctious but adorable dogs, on their organic flower farm. They bought the farm two years ago from a German couple who were using it as a vacation home, complete with a sketchy live-in van that believe it or not has driven all the way to Panama and back. The farm is a lovely spot on top of a hill with a small river running next to the property.

Our days consisted of helping with the farm, sightseeing around the village, and meeting the locals- all of whom were incredibly friendly. Our first encounter with the neighbors was Shirley, who came to visit from next door. She is originally from Newfoundland, and although English is her native language, Adam and I had the hardest time understanding her. We didn’t notice much of an accent with anyone else (except the Brits, of course!). We also had the pleasure of going to a neighborhood party, meeting more or less the whole street, where we discussed houses, clamming, and the Canadian mandate that all radio stations must play at least 30% Canadian music (turns out that the rather uninspiring Canadian song “Patio Lantern” we heard on the drive got its fame due to this law, and not an extreme Canadian fan club). I even went to a guided meditation with a fascinating woman named Elizabeth, who interprets dreams and reassured me that my frequently disturbing dreams are a result of traumatic past lives, and not a screwed up mind.

Farm chores varied widely, from scrubbing buckets (I am now the QUEEN of bucket-scrubbing) to weeding to transplanting to more weeding… The only thing that didn’t vary was the bugs. The horseflies/black flies/deer flies/mosquitos were on an absolute RAMPAGE, the peak being when we collected seaweed from the beach at dusk to use as mulch (didn’t know you could use seaweed as mulch!)- we ended up sprinting to take cover from their angry onslaught. My favorite chore was helping Fay make bouquets to sell at the farmer’s market. She kindly assured me that even if I thought a bouquet looked like crap, someone would still like it! Fay also challenged us to build a superior ladder for their sweet peas- so we did, complete with guy wires and friction-tensioned twine. Never challenge an engineer if you want a simple solution. We really got into our element when Jamie asked us to take a look at an old solar panel they had lying around on the farm to see what they could use it for, and we pitched a small wind turbine design to pump water into an irrigation system (you can take the engineer out of the cubicle… Peter, I need your analogy skills here!).

There was a surprising amount to see and do in the tiny town of Tatamagouche- we went to the farmer’s market, sampled lots of deliciously sweet wines at the Jost winery, biked along the lovely “Butter Trail”, had a fire and smores at the beach at sunset (introducing Fay and Jamie to the right way to do smores ;) ), and went clamming. Our clamming location was an incredibly deserted bay at low tide- we weren’t even certain we were supposed to park where we did, but no one hassled us about it. I don’t like clams, but went along for the ride, and it turns out I’m a decent razor clam stalker. I also found GIANT snails, hermit crabs, a heron also stalking shellfish, and a crab skeleton. The hunt was actually for quahogs, however, and we only found one- Adam dug up the most massive quahog. Fortunately, Jamie had gone clamming a few nights before and we augmented our meager harvest with some of his.

Adam points out the quahog he's going to find.

The highlight of our sightseeing excursions, however, was finding a message in a bottle! We stopped at a small park along the bike trail, and next to the dock a bottle had washed up! Of course we opened it and read the note- it made me quite happy that it was a profession of love and not someone hopelessly lost at sea. After reading it, we decided that the most appropriate thing to do with the letter was to throw it back out to sea, but only after we noted the name on the letter so that we might be able to find the guy who wrote it. 

 A few random observations: 
• The supermarket had Jones Soda and even Stewart’s Root Beer! 
• Sweet pea flowers really DO smell like the scented hand lotion. I am still not a fan. 
• Cheese is PRICEY in Canada. We have yet to figure out why. 
• When plucking the leaves off of hundreds of parsley branches, the scent is overwhelming, and I wonder why people even sell dried parsley. If you want to use it as a garnish, just buy a damn plant and stop making the farmers’ lives miserable. 
• Canadians don’t have “Moose Tracks” ice cream- they have “Hoof Tracks”. This is because they know that moose are a myth. *NOTE: we have since seen a moose. More on that later.