FROST

                                                        

Saturday morning, 7:00 a.m. at the coffee shop. with a bagel and decaf grande. No action here to speak of yet but it’s early and it’s the weekend, the pretty people will start coming through soon. The real news is frost. Hard frost on car tops and windows this morning in the parking lot. On the radio, it’s all they talk about. I don’t know if it’s just denial or maybe the climate here isn’t as harsh as one might imagine. Halifax is on about the same latitude as Minneapolis but it has the sea to keep it warm. The rain cleared out overnight and it will be a clear, sunny day but the wind still has an edge.

If we got frost here, I bet they got it down on the South Shore too. Last week I met a couple from down by Lunenburg; musicians. Jude plays guitar while Charlie plays Irish flute and they both sing. She immigrated here from England in the late 90’s and they live on the farm where Jude grew up. The main house is 180 years old. The board floor was nailed down about the same time Custer picked a fight with Crazy Horse at the Little Bighorn. They rent it to a lady and her kids while Jude & Charlie live in the summer house. 

The summer house wasn’t built until the early 1900’s. It looks like a storage shed with a sleeping loft under a gambrel roof. A small space was added later along with a wood stove. They are building  again, adding a back door, a porch, bay window and more living space with the chimney inside rather than outside the wall, Altogether, with the expanded living space the summer house might total 400 sq. ft. 

I spent a couple of days with them, making music, walking in the woods; I helped Jude with wiring, insulation, altering second hand windows to fit the new bay window, and Charlie, improvising a temporary shelter for fire wood. They cook on a propane camp stove; the greens and potatoes in our lentil soup came from the garden. When we needed wood to finish framing windows we went to the saw mill where the boards come rough cut and plywood is something you find in the city. They aren’t quite finished but I’m sure the frost will expedite their work. 

I’m guessing they are in their late 30’s or early 40’s, same as my kids. They live incredibly simply, happily. What they have meets their need and they don’t seem to want for anything. With a concert itinerary that stretches across Canada, spring into fall, they travel in a 20-yr old, Mitsubishi diesel, 4 wheel drive van. 

As much as I take comfort in the lifestyle and security that my grand children enjoy, my faith in the human journey was nurtured this week. I know there are still people, a few, who swim upstream, live a dream rather than take for granted the culture of granite counter tops, leaf blowers and in-ground watering systems. What’s even better, I know their names and where to find them. It’s just a short drive down the South Shore, across the LaHave river, south of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.