Great Expectations #12 - Met and Exceeded
One year ago, we bade a fond farewell to Cobourg and our sweet life in Northumberland County. Oh that day — so very hard! So emotional. So busy. So stressful. So sad. So happy. And all of that on not nearly enough sleep. When the gazillion boxes we'd packed in Cobourg had all been stacked, restacked and finally unpacked, when the moving dust had settled, when every ounce of physical and mental brawn had been expended, there was an enormous exhale. Only then did the enormity of what we’d done begin to sink in.
Obviously, there was no going back but there were choices to be made — to sink or to swim, to merely tolerate or or to thrive; we chose resilience. Resiliency may not exactly be a choice, but it is certainly borne of intention. Daily, repeated intention. My fondness for wildflowers is well-documented (in this blog and beyond) and, just like my beloved, untended, wildflowers, we are thriving here in Essex County. As with so much of our cherished old furniture, there is much of the mighty oak’s strength in us Perraults. And so began our new life, complete with a massive “TO DO” list:
Internet connection. ✅
Changes of address. ✅
Accounts to be set up at the Town of Kingsville and with the ELK Herd (Essex, Leamington, Kingsville Energy). ✅
Finding a new family doctor, pharmacist and dentist. ✅
Familiarise ourselves with condo governance and meet our new neighbours. ✅
Audition golf courses and secure a club membership (Cam). ✅
Obtain passes for the local conservation authority and parks — one national/one provincial (me). ✅
Plan renovations and engage contractors. ✅
Explore our new town and county. Ongoing.
Water as a Bridge
We lived in beautiful Northumberland County for fifteen years and, from the first day, fell in love with it’s natural beauty. It is a very hilly county with myriad twisting, curving and turning roads. It is a water county to be sure - scenically framed by two lakes - Ontario to the south and Rice to the north with rivers, streams, creeks, ponds and marshes galore. When we first considered moving away, I never imagined it would be possible to find another county as topographically and visually interesting and captivating. But we did.
True that Essex - liberally dotted with majestic windmills - is as flat as a pancake but it, too, is framed by two lakes - Erie to the south and St. Clair to the north. Here too, there is a plethora of rivers, creeks, streams, “drains” (local vernacular), marshes and ponds. Water has proven to be the vital nexus between the two counties, a familiar link that helped me to quickly feel at home, settled.
The Year of the Chainsaw
At some point in our search for a new home and without us really noticing, weather became an important factor. We definitely did not want to move into the snow belt! Essex County, also known as Ontario’s Deep South, is renown for its mild winters and in this respect, it did not disappoint. We seldom had snow and when we did, it always seemed to melt within twenty-four hours.
This is not to say the weather here is benign. We endured two catastrophic storms during our first year — an ice storm in February, which knocked out our power for four days and brought a tree down on our roof; and a straight-line tornado in July. Both storms levelled countless huge old trees and knocked millions (no exaggeration, promise!) of smaller branches off trees of all sizes. In the aftermath of both storms, power was out, roads were blocked by fallen trees, and everywhere one looked there was storm debris to be cleaned up. All credit to our local works’ departments - the work began as soon as the storms had passed and continued apace until the job was done. All through March and August, the chainsaw chorus has been ringing out across the county as crews work tirelessly to chop up fallen trees and limbs and to take down trees that were damaged by the ice and wind so that they do not eventually fall and become another problem.
Ontario - Yours to Discover
Whilst learning all about Essex County and chasing the things that excite me and bring me happiness, so many sweet discoveries happened:
In February I had my first close encounter with a Bald Eagle:
Meet Mr. Michael Edwards, aka Eddie the Eagle.
This chap is pure grace and elegance in the air, but his landings usually go awry, hence his nickname.
Discovering the Jack Miner Sanctuary and learning about Angel Wing:
Finding four new-to-me wildflowers:
Flower of an Hour
Moth Mullein
Swamp Mallow
American Lotus
Visiting Caldwell First Nations’ Boardwalk:
This lovely facility overlooks Sturgeon Creek and some marsh land.
Birds, reptiles, amphibians, waders and butterflies galore!
My best new experience, by far, was seeing my first Firefly up close. The woods behind our home are a perfect habitat for these beetles (they like damp conditions with little or no artificial light). Last fall, I saw two, but from a distance. This summer, though, magic happened. Every night, a few minutes after turning out our bedroom light, we could lie in bed, look out the window and door and see flashes of twinkling lights scattered throughout the woods. We watched in awe as our world glowed with their enchanting illumination. Two — named Sparkle and Flicker — even made regular evening visits to our balcony door.
This Great Expectations series of blog posts was born from my wish to record moments, snippets of information, discoveries, progress, successes and setbacks in our move from Northumberland County to Essex County — a distance less than five hundred kilometres but often feeling like a million. Our new home here at Mill Creek is part of a quite special community, one that has welcomed us with open arms. Still, I wondered how our shared moving worries would compare to the reality. It was a marvellous feeling, discovering that our hopes and dreams had perfectly translated into our new daily lives. We’re still the very same people we were in Northumberland, but now we’re looking forward to having many more new experiences and passing many more milestones here in Essex County. Turns out, no matter how many miles we move, nor how much time passes, nothing changes, really. And that’s a good thing! On that note, this, dear readers, will be the last Great Expectations post.
’Til next time, y’all…
Lighthouse Cove