Realities of Living in Canada.html

Canada is a harsh place to live in some ways with the summers and winters. I grew up in the north of Ontario where 40 below was common in the winter. I have become disillusioned with the way our society has grown. Television is in every household and I feel addicts people to American shows that have very compelling addictive advertisements. Dorothee and I do not have a television but we do have slow internet access for email, news and you tube videos. I really dislike the you tube advertisements but use youtube to investigate rural life in places like Cameroon and others countries around the world.

We do not have a good community close to us. Most farmers here have a day job and contract out their land.

Food

Providing food is a major difficulty since there are no daily markets open close to our farm nor even in large cities. Most people rely on multinational grocery stores and few people cook their own food. A lot of food is prepared at the grocery store and sold as a meal to be put in the micro wave providing poor nutrition. The cost of purchasing basic food is expensive and will add about $1500 to a family budget each month. With this in mind we will need to account for the extra expenses or plant a garden that will provide for the your family about sept 2024.

If we are planning to provide food from the garden we will need an idea of what your family eats. In our area we can grow carrots, broccoli, Chard, beets lettuce, sweet potatoes, various potatoes, corn etc We also have spelt, rye flour and corn meal.

We will need an accurate count of the various foods needed to plant in this May.

So does your family eat theses foods? If you plan to bring your family over in 2024 then we need to have the food ready for them and be ready to harvest and preserve the food. Everyone will have to help with the preserving and harvesting.

There is a food store in Straffordville about 20 minutes by bicycle. It is expensive and does not offer any organic food.

All bread has chemical additives to keep them looking fresh for many days. There is very little whole grain breads as most people have white refined bread.

Aylmer has a new market open on Saturday and offers some basic food but most it will be luxuries and not healthy food. Aylmer is about 35 km from our farm.

Tillsonburg has a Saturday market about 30 km from the farm.

Port Rowan has a market in the summer about 30 km from us. Port Rowan we have treid and got a few orders but if we attend every week it will provide more customers.

Residences

I am working on getting the one bedroom apartment approved for residence before you come. At first there will be no stove or fridge as you will eat with us. Stove and fridge will be added later. I have also thought of adding a wood stove but this may not be necessary until winter in October 2024

There is also the question of what to do with the two bedroom apartment. It is still not approved as they decided to rethink the approval. This is a problem that I hope will be resolved after we get the one bedroom apartment approved. It would be good to have an income from the two bedroom apartment but if your family comes over we need to leave it vacant since the laws do not allow us to remove tenants easily. The income would be about $1300 a month for the two bedroom apartment. Once we get the two bedroom apartment approved then we could rent out the single bedroom apartment in the north barn... but this may be a problem as we are only allowed to rent it out to full time farm help but we may be able to get someone who will help part time on the farm for the rent.

There is a washing machine in each apartment along with hot water. In winter the hot water is by our stove and in the summer it is with evacuated tubes which need regular maintenance. I have an evacuated tube system for the north barn but it needs to be installed. The two bedroom apartment will need the evacuated tubes water heater installed in the spring.

We have no house insurance so it is very important to be extremely careful with fire. We need to be trained in use of fire extinguishers and fire hoses. We need to constantly clean up any flammable material.

Transportation:

In canada there is very little public transport for those living in the countryside. Most people expect to have a car. There may be some public transport from Tillsonburg if you call in and get picked up in a rural area, so we need to check on this.

Dorothee and I do go to Tillsonburg, and Aylmer about once a week for various supplies.

Fuel for the cars is expensive and increasing each month. We do have one car that uses Sunflower oil but we can only use pure sunflower oil in the summer as it gels easily in the cold. We do have two tanks so we can start it on diesel and switch it to sunflower oil once it is warmed up.

We also have to think about having a drivers license. Driving without a license and insurance will have you deported.

Car insurance is very costly especially anyone who has less than 10 years of driving experience.

We have to plan on there being no gasoline in the near future so our farm should be planned in that direction with the use of bicycles and walking but still able to use sunflower oil as diesel in the summer months.

All of our cars are old and in constant need to maintenance. The main delivery vehicle is from the year 2002 and is kept in good condition but it has about 300,000 km on it. I am thinking we should purchase another old one for parts and backup for about $4000

I suggest we all use bicycles and cycle to Straffordville in anticipation of selling our flour, oil and vegetables there.

Chickens, ducks and animals:

All chickens eggs and ducks need to be graded at a grading station which is about 30 km from us. There is a cost per dozen of eggs and any meat bird cleaned and inspected.

The weather

. The summer is hot and will be about 40 degrees C on the worst days and about minus 15 on the worst days in February. There is usually snow too for January and February. This past fall 2023 was very wet which concerned me for the harvesting of the sunflowers which need it to be dry. I usually harvest the sunflowers in late November or early December.

Medical and Dentist

It is really important to have good health. Eating good organic food is vital for everyone. Canada does provide good health care but being sick is not good. Emergency hospital services are very slow to see everyone and usually quite crowded. It is very important to have health coverage as a few days in hospital costs thousands of dollars. My stay in hospital probably the government cost well over $100,000.

Keeping good dental heath is important . I did not care very well for my teeth so today I have two bridges on my lower set of teeth that need to be replaced every 10 years and I am past the 10 year point. The cost is probably about $10,000 so it might be a while until I get this done. Without the bridges I cannot eat solid food.

Dentists are very expensive so caring for ones teeth is very important.

Clothing:

We go through four seasons a year so you need a lot of various types of clothing. We purchase all of our clothing in second had stores in Aylmer and Tillsonburg. I have about 20 coats which I change frequently according to the weather. My clothes need to be washed every third day which Dorothee does.

It is probably best to purchase the clothes here when you arrive.

Finances:

We are able to provide your salary for about one year after you arrive. After this we will have to make a profit or just rely on the farm for our basic needs. With the many tools we have here we should be able to provide many services which could provide money and community. Will no debts and no mortgage we should be at least able to exist well off the food from the farm.

We need to provide $7,000 worth of farm income each year to qualify for farm taxes which aare about 1/4 of the residential rate.

It is important for both Dorothee and I to remain alive to provide the pension money to keep the farm financially viable.

Firewood:

We heat with wood which also has the danger of fire. We do not leave a stove going if not at home. We do have fire alarms and fire extinguishers and water hoses. It would be a good idea to clean up areas with combustible material.

We have to cut all of our firewood each year. This is a hard task as we need the trees cut which is very dangerous, and then hauled by the horses to a staging area where we cut the logs into 16 inch lengths. The we get the horses and wagon to bring the wood to the house for splitting. We can split the fiurewood by axe but recently we have a hydraulic splitter which works on the tractor.

The firewood needs to be stacked and dried before using about a year in advance.

Schooling:

We wonder if you want to home school your kids? We worry about he effect of the kids in the local school with the pressure to conform. I went to a private school late in high school from the Basilican fathers which as very good in giving me a good direction in life..

Drugs, alcohol and Tobacco, vaping

I so not consume any alcohol, drugs or tobacco. Dorothee sometimes has some wine, she does not smoke but was a smoker many years ago. We do not use any drugs like Marijuana. I prefer to be free of alcohol and Marijuana which has become very popular. I see no sense in becoming addicted to anything since the financial cost is so great and no real benefits.

Religion:

There are a few churches in the area with the most popular being the evangelical church in Port Burwell about 10 km south of us. We do not attend church except on occasion attending the Quakers church in Sparta about 20 km from us. Ken Laing attends there.

Animals:

I love all animals. We have three cats at the moment but this varies as there is always a new one or one has disappeared. It is traumatic when one does not make it home in the morning and i usually go looking for them. In the fall the cats tend to go out all night and then come in in the early morning to get fed . So there is Gandolf, tiger and Patches. Every night when it gets dark I go walking with the cats and when we are done they get fed. After lunch we all go for a nap with the cats on our bed.

The horses are very tame but like myself they are getting older and do need more care.

Our cow is really just a pet but would love it is someone wants to get her pregnant so we can have another and get fresh milk.