For the last two and a half years, I have been writing this post in my head. The whirlwind of this time passing has spun me "right round" about 10,000 times. I decided that it was time to sit down and put it on paper...well metaphorical paper.
It all started in May of 2003 when I jumped on an airplane the day after I graduated from university. I was headed off to the "North Pole" aka Fort McMurray, Alberta. I call it the "North Pole" because to be frank...it's freaking cold for 1/2 the year. The 12 years I spent in Fort McMurray was also a whirlwind. I secured a great career and worked with some amazing companies. I met my husband, got married and bought our first house. We got a dog, made a lot of friends and had a lot of fun.
Having grown up in British Columbia my husband always dreamed of moving back to the province. Being from the East Coast, I had never even once thought about living in British Columbia. My friend who had moved from Fort McMurray to Kamloops BC had given me a line on a job with an amazing company in her town. I applied for the job and hadn't heard anything for months. Fast forward to October of 2014, my hubby really injured his back, and we weren't sure what the future held. The day after he was taken by ambulance to the hospital for a 9-day stay, I got a call from said company, asking me to interview for the job. I ended up turning the job down because I just wasn't sure what the future held...and it just wasn't the right time.
About 6 months later, the job was coming around the second time. My husband was feeling much better and encouraged me to apply for the job again. We had one dilemma though, we needed to find somewhere to live. We searched and searched for the perfect property. We had initially been looking at older properties which needed a bunch of work. We miraculously came across a property listing that had everything we were looking for, rancher house with a big kitchen, huge shop and a decent chunk of land. The only thing that could make this property better would be if it was closer to town. A 45-minute commute to work would be a challenge, but doable. We put an offer in on the house on the spot. I got the job a couple of days later. In two short months, we would be moving to sunny Savona, BC.
I was scared to death of what was to come. I was scared of being alone while my husband worked. I was scared of the drive to work. What if there was a huge snowfall, what if there was a wildfire while I was at work. What would I do with the pupper if I was going somewhere? What would I do if something in the house broke? What would I do if someone broke into the house in the middle of the night? The list of fears was endless.
The last Friday in July, I packed up my office, packed up my Suburban, and the next morning I officially headed out of Fort McMurray. I thought I would be more emotional when I left. I said my goodbyes to family and friends during the week, but I can honestly say I didn't shed one tear leaving my house and the place I called home for the last 12 years.
It took me 2 days to get to Savona, with a stop into Calgary on the way down to see my Sister and Brother-in-Law and to break up the drive. The drive from Calgary to Kamloops is a beauty that time of year. It was also tire melting hot. I knew I was getting closer to "home" when I rolled through Kamloops. I had only been to the property once before with our realtor. In the 15 minutes we were there I managed to step in a massive cactus patch and had a huge cactus quill shove itself right through my squishy sneaker sole, right into the pad of my foot. You may be thinking, why would there be cactus in your new yard? Well, the answer to that question is because our new house is in the middle of Canada's desert.
My new job started the day after I arrived in the new desert home. The drive to work was a bit intimidating at first, going up and down a windy mountain every day. Luckily that mountain is part of Highway 1, and it's a bus route so it is kept quite clean. The first couple of days in my new house I met more neighbours than I had the entire 12 years in Fort McMurray. See, our house is at the back of our property, perched on a gorgeous bench that kind of overlooks a river. There is another bench about 300 feet below us, which is closer to the river. There is a "road" aka "dirt path" behind our house that people walk and ride on all the time. Multiple times a day horses, people, dogs, and other assortments of animals make their way past the back of our house. We have a beautiful covered deck that is parallel to that train, so I spent a lot of time getting acquainted with the views from the back of the house. Conveniently it's very close to the trail so I also got to know the neighbours quite quickly.
The first weekend at the house, about 8 women showed up with wine, to welcome me to the neighbourhood. I had met some of them already, but most were new. They told me all about the community, including all of the creepy crawlers I had to be wary of. There were snakes, including rattlers, black widow spiders, coyotes, mice and many other critters. After the gang of women departed, I started making a list of things I needed to pick up to defend our property.
I headed into Kamloops Canadian Tire the next day armed with a list of things I needed. I had never been to this Canadian Tire before so I had no idea where to look for the things I needed. An older gentleman who worked there asked if he could help me. I handed him a note that said...
The worker may have looked at me like I was an axe murderer that just escaped from the jail up the road. To make myself feel better, and to prove I wasn't some sort of shovel-wielding killer, I quickly explained that I just moved into a new house in the boonies and I need these things to ward off the critters and pests. He helped me find the four items and I made my way back to the desert.
About two weeks after moving into the house, my husband was home for the weekend. We decided that we had to do something about the 6 foot tall weeds in the front yard. My husband showed me how to turn on and run the John Deer lawn tractor that came with the house. To be honest, it may have taken him a few times to show me before it stuck in my head. As I was mowing the "lawn" which is really just weeds and cactus, the wind was picking up quite a bit. As I was about 3/4 of the way finished mowing through the 6 foot weeds, I wasn't going to stop for a little wind. Turns out it was actually a lot of wind, and it was kicking up "tumbleweeds" and blowing them around the yard. One of them hit me square in the side of the face as I was rushing to finish up mowing. I ran for cover onto our covered deck.
Much to my disgust, I noticed a small snake slithering between the deck and the siding. I panicked because I knew if my Husband saw it he would die...or at least faint. I grabbed the Canadian Tire shovel that I just purchased, and I "relocated" the snake. I can't say how or where, but let's just say it wasn't in our yard anymore. I went up to the shop and told my husband and he almost passed out.
That night when we were just getting ready to go to bed, my husband spots a mouse in the house. Great, just great. Another critter that needed to be dealt with. Luckily there were some traps which the previous owners had left. The next morning the mouse was no longer.
Who knew that the first couple of weeks in our new home would be so eventful. I never thought I would learn to drive a tractor, deal with a snake, get hit in the face by a tumbleweed and kill a mouse in a 24 hour span.
Here is to many more adventures in this crazy countryfried life.
Jen
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