Prince Edward Island

I have just returned from spending three weeks in Prince Edward Island. It is fast becoming our "home away from home". I had a very special purpose for going there this November, my husband and I have just purchased a 70 year old farmhouse on a 35 acre property.

We sure are excited and perhaps a bit overwhelmed. We have our work cut out for us for the next five years. My husband is a little over five years away from retirement so we will spend our three weeks vacation each spring on the island demolishing most of the inside of the house, insulating, putting in new wiring and on and on it will go. Thankfully my husband's brother and wife live just 15 minutes down the road so we can "camp" at their place while our house is under renovations. They are also helping us with what I call "demolition derby", taking down old drywall and shoveling it all into a rented dumpster out front.

The reason I went out was to finalize the purchase and decide what color of red metal I wanted for the new roof. There are various shades of red to chose from and I was anxious to get the darkest shade I could find. My husband and I feel it turned out well. The reason for the RED roof is that we found wild cranberries growing on our front lawn so we decided to call our new home Cranberry Cottage. We also are fortunate to have wild blueberries growing alongside the property and many apples trees dotting our landscape. One such tree bears yellow transparent apples, of which I'd not heard of before or tasted.

Many wild rose bushes also abound, the rose hips are very red and beautiful at this time of year. I shall try my hand at rose hip tea sometime. It will be so thrilling to return in May, walk our property, explore the out buildings, a wooden garage, big barn, little barn (mine) and even an old outhouse to be later converted into a gardening shed. Our next problem to solve among many is what color to paint the house and out buildings. White would remain an option, also grey of which there are so many shades and a blue/grey that I've become very fond of.

There will be many priorities inside the house over the next years that will come before painting the outside so we have lots of time to discuss that. It's a joy to walk the property and enoy the white birch trees, the spruce, willow, red maple and chestnut trees, plus tamarack and many which we haven't identified yet. Another thing we are looking forward to is identifying all the birds around the property. As we sit on our small side deck having a break now and then from the hard work, I'm sure we will release of sigh of joy and gratitude that we were able to purchase our retirement home, take part in the tearing down and restoring of our little place for the time when friends and family can come for a visit.

During my three week stay I was able to start in on the tearing down of walls, the kitchen cupboards and plan where new electrical plugs should go. We have had an estimate on new windows so much planning has to go into what kind of windows we want where. It is easy to start feeling overwhelmed with so many jobs facing us but my brother-in-law calms me down when he says: "one step at a time, just one step at a time". I must remember Rome wasn't built in a day so over the next five years we will endeavor to take that "one step at a time", keeping in mind the sense of accomplishment we'll feel when we reach the finish line.