Fun weekend

Happy October, everyone! We are enjoying warm(ish), sunny weather in Mt Lorne, and feeling thankful after a weekend of good times.

Friday evening was the Home Routes concert at our neighbour’s place, lot 21 in Robinson. They were the ones we met on the Robinson road recently and became the beneficiaries of a big harvest from their garden (the best part was the arugula!). Being able to bike to a live music venue was a first for us since leaving the residence in Whitehorse, and made us love living here a little bit more. We met some more nice people, and saw lots of familiar faces. The musicians, Romi Mayes and Jay Nowicki, played acoustic guitar and sang original tunes (some Juno-nominated), and were really good. The hosts provided some appetizers, and everyone brought something too, so there was also a big feast. The spruce-tip shortbread was fantastic!

Not the concert we attended but this is Jay and Romi. Watch for them at the Junos, nominated for best album and single. 

Saturday was a work day at the Yukon Made Store for Colin, and a relax at home day for Lauren. The dogs went for a great run around the loop, and submitted to a good long pet/grooming session. They are in the process of ‘blowing’ their coats, a hilarious term for growing their warmer winter coat, and so they have patchy bits of summer hair falling off their sides. It was an enjoyable time, all around. 

 We headed out to a cabin on the lake in Carcross in the evening, to celebrate Oinktoberfest with some friends. A friend of one of Lauren’s work pals had special-ordered a huge pig from BC, stuffed it with pineapple, wrapped it in banana leaves (also special-ordered), wrapped it in chicken wire, then cooked it over coals in the ground for a day. It was fantastic, and came with a huge potluck of other great food, including a pig-shaped cake. We were lucky to have a fire dancer perform at the party, and enjoy two simultaneous bonfires at the cabin, one on the beach and one on the lawn on the cabin. Everyone was friendly and interested in hearing where we were form and how we ended up here, and it seemed like there was an even split of ex-BC’ers, Ontarians and Saskatchewanites, mixed in with some Yukoners too. Lots of party-goers camped out at the cabin, but we headed home to be able to leave the house early on Sunday for our other plans. On our way home, we say a stunning display of the aurora borealis in the sky, a really fast-moving show of light green/gray lights above the mountains in Carcross. Life is good, to say the least.

Sunday was a town day, and started off with a former favourite pastime of ours. For the first time since arriving in the Yukon, we went out for brunch! The Burnt Toast Café is one of the only options for Sunday morning brunch in Whitehorse, but they do it well, and we had a delicious meal while sitting in a sunny booth with a view of 2^nd . We were in town for a presentation of the Whitehorse Potluck Co-op, a relatively recent start-up organic food co-op that is in the process of building a membership and setting up a warehouse arrangement to provide local/regional organic food options to Yukoners. It was interesting to learn from them that although there is a strong spirit of both self-reliance and community involvement in the Yukon, the co-op business model is not very common here. And across the world, co-ops employ 20% more people than multi-national corporations! The presentation was followed by an indoor market with local vendors selling their fall produce and products, as well as an enterprising couple who had placed a huge order of BC organic fruit and vegetables, and sold them at this event. We stocked up on organic garlic (woo hoooo!), all kinds of squashes, onions, pears and cabbages. It will be a challenge to decide what to have for dinner tonight, but it will definitely be delicious.

This weekend also brought the exciting news that Colin accepted a job offer at the Mt Lorne community centre, to be a part-time maintenance person for the buildings and grounds. He’ll be learning the building/machine maintenance aspects from two of our favourite neighbours, and come November, will be driving the Zamboni on our outdoor skating rink, running the snowmobile around the forest to track-set the cross-country ski trails, and generally being involved in all the great events that happen in this community. There are lots of interesting ideas floating around for future projects on the property, like a stone oven, and a cold-storage area, and Colin is really looking forward to getting started. The job ad did state that the position required use of a truck once in a while, so a well-loved truck may be in our future.

Community centre

Community centre apres-ski

There's also an outdoor stage

An ice rink

And dog sledding trails!

We’re just waiting for the arrival of Jack the pig’s owner, to come have a look at our electric fence set-up, and see if our Rav4 or a Toyota T100 truck that we’re babysitting for a friend will be able to haul Jack and his trailer over here. It sounds like Jack is destined for tables and freezers across the Yukon this winter, so we really hope we can get him here soon. We’re also waiting to find out how much a bale of straw costs- when Lauren went to C&D Feeds last week, the owner explained that the straw farmer in Fort Nelson, BC was waiting to find out if his neighbour would be able to help him transport the straw up here, and so far this neighbour was not available. So the dogs are sleeping out in the open or in their bare boxes still, although the don’t seem to mind.

The Ontario countdown is now at 41 days, and we are really looking forward to seeing all of our family and friends soon! We’re especially excited about Steve and Cailey’s wedding, and have just brought home a beautiful wedding present for them. Going back to the concrete jungle is another matter, though…

Love Lauren and Colin