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Leaving Nelson
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 316
Ran into friend yesterday, L*****, known her almost 40 years, an early girlfriend from Edmonton. I'm due to have dinner with her that evening, but here she is grabbing weed...
She's in tears. Moving back to Saskatchewan to look after her ailing parents, after 15 years in Nelson she just can't make it work. She has a great place, 3 bedroom, 2 bath, high ceilings, 2 floors, reasonable rent ... an enviable situation, only...
She hasn't worked for a year. And in the year she's been putting out resumes, setting the bar high, looking for those 100K+ jobs, and finally she realized she wasn't getting them, it wasn't going to happen, and so she bit the bullet, swallowed her pride, and decided to return.
The town, in the middle of Saskatchewan, nowhere really, hours to Saskatoon, more hours to Edmonton, I've been through, know the name although I can't picture it, probably a gas pump, general store, and buggerdly fuck else...
Seas of waving grass...
Over dinner I try and cheer her up. Brainstorm business ideas, like a mini-golf, or "The World's Biggest..." although what hasn't been done yet. I reassure her the dating scene out there is fabulous, (although, clearly, I'm no expert on this but that's a different post), the name of the town rings a bell and I Google - sure enough, one of the boundaries of a famous meteor fall, probably a few others that aren't recorded, plus in the coulee's you could find dinosaurs and every farmer I've ever met out there had a whoop-ass collection of arrowheads and if she wouldn't mind checking the thrift shops for watches...
She's favouring beekeeping.
I'm pretty good at finding the silver lining in things but I gotta admit, I'd be devastated as well...
I feel her pain.
Repotting the Chilis
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 338
And Monday I've set myself the task of repotting the chilis and moving them outside. I wake early, walk around town, looking at free piles for 12" pots. No luck. Hit the hardware store on Baker, nada, then down to Wal-Mart, nothing, over to Wholesale Club, nothing, then over to the Farm Supply Store and compromise with 10" tubs. Better than what they're in. And buy a big bag of dirt and wrestle it all home and repot the chilis, move them outside, there's a spot at the end of the landing where they'll get double the light.
Untangling the roots, getting them into the bigger pots, a couple will suffer for a few days but they'll thank me later. And I them, the infamous Carolina Reapers...
Now I'm faced with a few small empty pots and I'm off on the same tour, once again, to find herbs to fill them.
The herb garden I've set up has been punctually raided by the neighbours, and I could use a few more basil and rosemary and thyme plants.
To the Kootenay Co-op, Ellisons, the killing-field that is the remnants of Wal-Mart's seasonal display; "50%" off a dead tomato plant isn't a deal no matter how you look at it, and over to Wholesale Club where it's the same again. Nobody has watered a thing since mid-June. So now a bunch of love-lorn empty pots...
On the way home, a garage sale in the alley, more plant pots, and having bought them new I recognize the bargain, pick them up, if I can't fill them this year I will next.
And then it's noon, way too hot to be out and about, and I'm home, thrilled with a productive day, and checking my phone I've already walked 15 KM this morning. The rest of the day off...
The Ice Cream Shop
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 335
And Sunday, after another scorcher, and I wait until the sun's gone down to walk up the Gelato shop.
It's the best shop in town, maybe 25 flavours, the kind that's rolled out on a frozen marble slab, absolutely delicious. I have a single, $8.00, reasonable, and I regret it. I should have had a double. A triple even. Do they do triples?
But tonight, getting close, there's a throng of people in the courtyard, a lineup, maybe 20 people deep, inside the shop.
People have caught on. For Ice Cream in town there's DQ - the other end of town, and there's the candy store on Baker - generic ice cream scooped from a tub, and there's another place around the corner, still open, same, generic ice cream from a tub.
I go to the place around the corner, it's empty, and I wonder if the 2 girls working know about the place around the corner? I mean, it's possible they don't if they're always here. And I can't be disappointed, I knew what I was getting, the price is the same but the quality, well, it doesn't even come close to comparing.
Ferraro Foods
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Other
- Hits: 262
Merely high praise for a grocery store out of Trail and Rossland. Fine specialty Italian foods, pastas, ethnic specialties, general fruit and vegetables, meats, sausages, etc, stopped in on a failed thrift tour of Rossland and was once again amazed at how much better the store is than anything we have in Nelson, the breadth of variety, economy, and quality.
Real Pasta. And for the same price as the Sh*t you buy around town here.
We need one in Nelson. Bad. Until then the once-a-month tour to Trail.
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