Snow Day

All the schools are closed today. The University of Guelph isn't, but getting there would not be all that easy from here - and the forecast isn't promising either. Fortunately for me, I burned all the files I'm working on right now onto a backup CD yesterday and took them home because I wanted to do some work last night. So today, I work from home. I must say, I'm glad. Since the laneway was cleared at 8:30 a.m., four inches of snow have fallen and it's still coming down.

I like my new place. I've now slept on my new loft twice, but I've yet to prepare a meal here. Tonight will be the first (I'm spoiled, I know, but I've been up at Lorenz's or out with Phil every night in the past week. Except for the two nights when I thought beer, trail mix and crackers were a fine dinner plan!).

I'm looking out my window as I type this, and I see the kids goof off with their snowboards in the mountains that the tractor pushed up when the yard was cleared. I see the snow blowing past my window, I see the traffic crawl along the road on the other side of the trees, I hear Simon working away in the barn. I'm happy I'm tucked away in here. Slow as molasses dial-up and all!

Home Improvement

I live in a barn, in a one-room apartment.
My phone number is unlisted. My phone rarely rings.
My maximum connection speed on dial-up on my current phone line is 28.8. High speed is not available, and neither is cable.
I couldn't be happier.

The last two or three months have left me exhausted. I love almost everything I do, I feel lucky to be living my life and not anyone else's. But I also don't have enough hours in the day to get all that I want to achieve done. Lately, I've been staying at work later and later, and going home and continuing - with high-speed internet, what was the difference, anyway? If I forgot a file, I came back to the office.

My email was always on. I was usually near a phone - I'd say always, but I so rarely turn on the cell phone (though I did get voice mail for it). I could be counted on to return work-related emails at 11:30 p.m., or at 6 a.m. - next to brushing my teeth, attending to that was the last thing I did at night and the first thing I did in the morning.

It's not that hard to figure out - if you're that connected, and you have so many commitments to take care of, and become the contact person for a few things - it becomes impossible to turn off. It becomes easy to say, I'll just go to the gym, and get back to this later tonight. So, with the exception of the week I took off at Christmas, the last couple of months have been an exercise in exhaustion and being highly strung.

I'd like to say that it was much like a film speeding by, and the second I moved to the farm, somebody adjusted the dial to a more manageable speed. That's not true. But what I do have is a definite separation between home and work, and I suspect that I'll start sleeping for more than four hours at a time very soon. When I leave the office, I know that's it for the day. If you email me at 7p.m. about a work problem, it can't ruin my evening unless I'm still at work at 7.

That's an improvement. So is living in a place where it gets dark at night, where I can play the radio as loudly as I want at 6a.m. without worrying about waking up the neighbours, where I plug my car into the same outlet as a tractor, and where saying hello to the donkey and dog is a daily event.

Back 40 Skating

I can't imagine wanting to live somewhere that doesn't have winter.

This past week has been c-c-c-cold, but beautiful. Saturday was one of those brilliant high pressure days, and I talked Lorenz into putting on coat, scarf, mittens, boots, toque and all the other cold snowy wander through the back 40 accessories. The walk was fun - and the best part was right at the end, when Lorenz proposed a short-cut through the swamp.

The swamp was frozen, obviously - but it had frozen perfectly smooth, and there was only an inch or so of powder on top of it. Sliding along it, I declared it to be perfect for skating - and today, shovel and skates in hand, I tromped back there and started clearing some snow. I figured I would make a skating trail - how fun would it be whizzing through the bush?

And oh man, was it ever fun. I went back to the house to get Malcolm, and he goofed off with his stick and puck while I kept clearing - and when Lorenz came, the two of them played on parts I'd cleared, and I kept adding more and more little rinks to the game. By the time we stopped, my hair was a mat of ice, I had a blister on my heel, and it was snowing like crazy.

I can't wait to go back for more (though with the snow falling now, it will take some serious shovelling). Ideally, I'd like to make a series of interconnecting loops through the trees.

Swamps that sometimes freeze to make perfect skating ice, snow enough for igloos, and hot chocolate after all the fun. Who needs endless summer? Not me. Bring on the deep freeze again, I'm ok with it.