Things are quite busy here, since The Doctor’s House is opening this weekend (!). And we’re only a few weeks away from opening our newly renovated Guest House.
We’re picking up speed on our work, to make sure we’re ready for the May 1 open of the guest house. We’re started painting, and then down goes the new flooring, followed by the doors and trim. Then we’ll start on the wrap-around deck, install the hot tub, and start moving in furniture and equipment. And, ‘viola’ -our 4 bedroom house will be open and ready to delight. To celebrate, we’ve got a Ladies’ Retreat Weekend Special on offer. Don’t miss the chance to be one of the first to experience something totally new and totally unique!
Our latest baby at The Doctor’s House isn’t what you might think, given our penchant for rescuing animals and the several pregnant females in our barn. We’re so excited to welcome this new tractor to the family!
This tractor comes with bucket and backhoe, a road grader, plow, fertilizer spreader, and some other gadgets – maintaining 100 acres takes a lot of work and needs a big machine!
It’s 30 Horse Power, meaning it can do the work of a herd of about 50 Newfoundland ponies (and ff you look closely at the picture above, you can see our Newfoundland ponies in the background). This tractor will be cheaper to feed (not that our ponies are ‘work ponies’ anyway), and require a lot less maintenance and room to store. It will need a mechanic instead of a doctor.
So you can see why these types of machines overtook animals. But they’ll never replace them. No matter how much we like it, this tractor will never come up to you and give you a hug, look you in the eye, maybe beg an apple or two. But Beauty, Shamrock and Month? Every time you visit!
Nope – there’s no bunnies or baskets or chocolates or eggs in today’s post (though hopefully your day is filled with them!). Just the sun setting over Shag Rock, and sincere wishes that today is a relaxing one for you, that you’re enjoying the long weekend, and stopping to smell the roses – or tulips, daisies, or other more more seasonal flowers! The Berry and I are enjoying a few extra treats this morning, thinking back to when our children were young and the Easter Bunny used to visit, and, like always, planning ways to make the coming season great. Hope your day is equally enjoyable, and Happy Easter!
A little Saturday cat blogging, with a view! Here’s Mimi, enjoying our back deck (um, you’re looking the wrong way, Mimi!). And yes, as you can see, we mean it when we say we’re right on the ocean! If you’re new to the blog, you’ll quickly find that I blog about Shag Rock a lot – but really, how could I not?
Yes, there’s still snow, but there’s already signs of sprouting spring at The Doctor’s House. We’ve just announced our new menu for Fine Dining at The Doctor’s House (!), and in our quest to be a Farm-to-Table organization, we’ve recently begun planting our seeds in the greenhouse.
We have our gardening plan set out, and our goal is summer sustainability. Our salads, flowers, trees and bushes will be planted in sequence and transferred to the garden as the sun allows.
But unbeknownst to us, Barb George, our garden and greenhouse keeper, had a little surprise for us. She’d secretly bought a home growing system, and she’s gotten a head start on the the lettuce, kale and other early starters. She’ll be bringing them to the greenhouse soon.
That means, we should be having our organic lettuce is a couple of weeks (remember, we’re opening April 10). That’s almost three months ahead of last year! Pretty awesome.
We’d love to know in the comments – are you big gardeners? What do you do to make the best of our Newfoundland climate?
I’m a big fan of a good April Fool’s Joke, but this year I’m feeling more nostalgic than silly, and thinking about to another April Fool’s Day, back in 1949.
Of course, Newfoundland and Labrador joined Canada on March 31. Rumour has it the Act was signed just a minute before midnight, to avoid Newfoundland and Labrador joining Canada on April Fool’s Day. This was serious business – the most serious business possible – and not to be taken lightly.
The ceremonies did take place on April 1 though, and if you follow the link above, you can listen in their entirety. Really interesting stuff, and a big day we should remember.
So there you have it – we became Canada’s youngest province (despite boasting the oldest city in Canada), over 60 years ago, after more than a year of campaigning and two referendums. The issue divided families and communities, and continued to do so for many years to come.
Generally, it was Roman Catholics and St. John’s elites who were anti-Confederation, while Protestants, communities near Nova Scotia and women were pro. But read any account from the time and you’ll know that plenty of Newfoundlanders wanted their independence, and would do just about anything to avoid the grips of the ‘Canadian Wolf.’
But join the Canadian Wolf we did, and with it came almost immediate baby bonuses, old age pensions and veteran benefits – the economic boons of hitching our wagon to a much bigger horse than ours.
So, my parents, and my elder brothers and sisters, were born British subjects; I was born a Canadian citizen. But also a Newfoundlander – which in the early days was sometimes a tough bridge to gap. Like when I went to Montreal for the first time as a young adult and learned just how pejorative a term ‘Newfie’ was in mainland Canada in the 1970s.
Still, I think I’m a proud Canadian for the same reason my mother welcomed Confederation. We were a big family living on a labourer’s small wage, maybe destined to live in poverty like the families before us, with no hope of education past grade 4 (where my father had had to bow out). She wanted health, education, and opportunity for us, never caring about herself. Her greatest fear in life was that our destiny would be like hers.
And no, joining Canada didn’t make us rich – far from it, of course. We stayed poor, just like our neighbours were poor, but our abject poverty was slowly replaced with proper clothing, jobs, good food and life-saving healthcare. And, above all, education.
We all hated school, of course, but our mother never gave up on it. She knew it was our key, the one she never had, and she was determined we would use it. My siblings and I all got affordable, post-secondary educations. Many of us pursued university degrees – something no one in our family for the past 200 years on the island could have dreamed of. We got good jobs and, luckily, if we couldn’t find work at home, we could look to our sister provinces in Canada. We learned from them and shared our culture, too.
I’m not a historian. I know that there were many people who wanted Confederation, and almost just as many who didn’t. Some people never gave up their Independent leanings, and I know some people still take issue with how it was handled, or executed. But we got a lot from that ‘Canadian wolf’ – schools, roads, hospitals, new opportunities and a new chance to start over.
I’m sure Canada isn’t a perfect country. No doubt mistakes were made (just talk to fisherman about the countless blunders made handling our fisheries, for example), but like Newfoundland and Labradorians have always done, we’ve made the best of it. We developed our self-confidence and transformed ourselves from Newfie jokes into Canadian leaders, earning respect with our hard work ethic, creativity and sense of humour.
“And ‘have not’ will be no more.” After just three of generations of borrowing from our sisters, we started giving back, and we became a ‘have’ province. I’m not sure if that’s something Joey Smallwood ever envisioned, or my mother either, but I know they’re smiling somewhere. So I’ll take a break this Aprils Fools’ morning (at least on this blog – old habits die hard), to reflect on all that we’ve done, and all the generations we have to thank for it. God guard thee, Newfoundland!
Saturday’s on the blog we often like to share photos from one of our favourite Newfoundland photographers (and also good friend), Bud Vincent of Hollingside Images. We find that showcasing the beautiful photos he captures all over the island is a great way to also showcase this beautiful province of ours. Plus, every blog needs a little eye candy!
For a Saturday treat, here’s little Rupert, a Green’s Harbour native living in BC with my daughter, Kathryn. She met him on her trip home this Christmas, and the rest, as they say, is history. He’s about six months old and thriving. Like many Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, he is prospering away – but just the same he’ll probably never forget his roots on the rock!
The Berry’s Ocean Delight specials have become quite popular – we’re happy that lots of guests really enjoyed our Stay In ‘N’ Stay Warm package this past winter. So now, in honour of the first day of Spring, The Berry is at it again: introducing the Spring Relax and Refresh.
Our new Spring special features noon checkout, plus a fun snack basket upon arrival, filled with magazines, movies, popcorn and treats. We’ll also provide firewood for your outdoor fire pit, and propane for your personal BBQ – perhaps it’s time to have your first barbeque of the year!
You can find all the details about our Spring special here, and don’t forget that The Doctor’s House, complete with restaurant and Aveda spa, will be opening on April 10 (!). We’ve never been more excited to spring into Spring.
If you’ve been dreaming about that road trip to Newfoundland, then this is the summer to do it. For a limited time, Marine Atlantic is offering big savings for Argentia travel. If you book your summer trip by March 25 (hurry – that’s next Wednesday!), you can save 30 % off the base fares for both passengers and automobiles. And remember, the cottages are only about an hour away from the Argentia ferry terminal, if you feel like stopping in!
We’re so happy about this news and the opportunity to share it. We know that Newfoundland is at the top of so many bucket lists, but we all have limited budgets for travel. We hope this will make it just that much easier for more people to come explore this beautiful province. Make sure to let your friends living away know, too – this could be the push they need to make this a come-home year.
Find all the details on the Marine Atlantic website, here.
Things are quite busy here, since The Doctor’s House is opening this weekend (!). And we’re only a few weeks away from opening our newly renovated Guest House.
