What It REALLY Means to "Think Outside the Box"

I did an interview yesterday for the March 4th "In Conversation With..." column that shocked me.
I don't want to give too much away but I will tell you this: There are plenty of job -- no, not job but career opportunities for Nova Scotia's young people if only they were shown all the possibilities.
If only they didn't buy into the comfortable, safe idea that they can't leave home. Ever. Not even to learn a trade, not even to bring a trade back home.
This young man I spoke with works on ships. Not building them but sailing them. He works the Great Lakes (as opposed to deep-sea shipping) and on average, each of these freighters employs 18 people. He told me he can live anywhere he likes with this job; as in, he can live in Nova Scotia.
"I work more weeks at a time but I have more time off," he said, comparing his job with the ones out west. Because he can't work in the winter (lakes are frozen), his company sends its employees for training.
And his work can lead to other interesting jobs in the shipping industry.
Yet he didn't hear about this career from a high school guidance counsellor or from his parents. He didn't know someone in the business. He had to research it himself. He had to go to Ontario for his training but he doesn't have to stay there in order to work. He plans on settling down in Nova Scotia while he continues to work and train outside the province.
It frustrates me when I see young people that I met when I was a substitute teacher working at jobs in our area that have nothing to do with what they went to college for. Some of them want to work in that field but they don't want to leave home. They paid tuition, they put in the time for studying and training but they aren't willing to do the rest of the work. They don't understand that now, when they are young, is the time to get as much education and apprenticeships and experience and exposure to the damn world that exists beyond this tiny little province as possible, before they settle down with marriage and children and a mortgage. All those personal goals are great but take care of your work future NOW or there won't be a future to stay home for. 
Parents and teachers are not doing their children and students any favours by encouraging them to stay close to home, by not challenging them to explore every opportunity that is out there. Then again, if they've never left the area, if their idea of "world exposure" is a week in Mexico or Cuba, how can our young people have the courage and the example to think outside the box?
That's why Nova Scotia is stuck. That's why Nova Scotia is failing. The work exists -- yesterday's interview proves it -- but too many people are trapped by fear and the misguided belief that this is the best place to live. You can leave, you should leave, you need to go away and learn all that you can, become the best at what you do and BRING IT BACK HOME.
That's how you make Nova Scotia truly the best place to live. 

Hearts Galore

I fell into collecting photos of hearts purely by accident. Because of something I read about the shape of deer hoofs looking heart-shaped, I began photographing those shapes in the snowy field behind our house. When I was doing a church service last year just before Valentine's Day, I spoke about the heart and about the heart-shaped hoofprints and how 'love is all around'. After that service, a friend emailed me a photograph of a heart she saw in the snow, the shape made by a twig and its shadow.
From that moment, the collecting was on.
The more you look to see hearts, the more you see. Right now, there is a Scotsburn milk truck parked across the street from the Journal office, making a delivery to the SaveEasy. The glass-of-milk graphic on the side of the truck has bubbles in it -- and I can see a heart-shaped bubble.
My Field Notes column this week is about a very special heart. There are fascinating facts about the heart that I couldn't fit in the column so here they are:

• Every day, your heart sends over 7500 litres of blood coursing through your body. A kitchen faucet would need to be turned on all the way for 45 y ears to equal the amount of blood pumped through a body in an average lifetime.
• Every day, your heart beats about one hundred thousand times. That creates enough energy to drive a truck 32 kilometers. 

But where did the heart shape we associated with love and Valentine's Day and every "I heart New York" T-shirt come from?
From what I can gather, in the 11th and 12th centuries, when artists began depicting the idea of a heart, an upside-down pine cone, point up, was used to represent the heart in paintings. Apparently, the shape of leaves, like a fig leaf, influenced the image as well.
It's suggested that by the 14th century, this point-up image was flipped and over time, this is the shape that emerged as the universal graphic representing the heart.

When An Icicle Sees Its Shadow

Snow Art

At the risk of getting pelted with snowballs, this is how you cope with storm after storm after storm: Find the beauty. Is the deck half full or half empty of snow? Enjoy the flakes, knowing that each one is totally unique.
Of course, this is coming from someone with three decks, none of which are shovelled off.
Of course, you could just be like the chickens who look out the coop door and it doesn't matter whether they see their shadow or not -- they see snow and say, "Looks like six more weeks of winter to me."
The other night, I had to go into town to take a photo for this week's community correspondent report on CTV Morning Live. When I came out of the arena, it was just starting to snow and the streets were empty. I wanted so badly to take the dog for a walk. As much as I embrace my country life and don't want to live anywhere else, that's what the city girl in me misses about living in town: Going for walks in the falling snow after dark, enjoying the quiet streets, the muffled noises, the peace of the evening. 

In Conversation With...Shannon & Clayton Brooks

First published in The Oxford Journal on Wednesday, February 4, 2015, by Sara Jewell Mattinson.

Shannon, Daisy, Clayton and Cindy in the new horse stalls.

      Every home renovation story -- in real life or on reality TV -- begins with a list of “Must Haves”. That list can get quite extensive for someone’s dream home. 

The list Shannon and Clayton Brooks created for their first home was just as challenging.

“We were looking for a very specific property,” Shannon, 27, explains. “We wanted a house that was in pretty good shape, a space I could run my business out of that wasn’t directly in the house. We wanted a lot of land and a decent size barn, and to be close enough to a city like Amherst, Oxford or Truro but far enough away. And we didn’t want neighbours right next to us.”

One might think there are plenty of those properties for sale in our area but Shannon says the houses were either a mess, the acreage was too small or the price was way out of their range. 

“My work area is Cumberland County and Westmoreland County in New Brunswick so that’s where we were looking,” adds her husband of three years who works for a company that sells dairy farm management tools.

Then they discovered a 51-acre wooded property in the hollow at the western edge of Little River between Amherst and Oxford.

 “We found this place online,” says Clayton, 28. “The main selling point was that the house was in great shape. I’d much rather buy an acreage and fix it up for horses than fix up an entire house.”

Wait, horses? Oh, yeah, Clayton fell in love with a horse girl.

Originally from a small town in eastern Ontario, Shannon was introduced to horses when she was a little girl. 

“My best friend in Grade Two lived on a farm and she got a couple of ponies,” she says. “I went over and saw them and got the horse bug. I begged my parents and they found someone who would give riding lessons to someone that young. Once I started, I never stopped.”

Her parents bought her a quarter horse named Major Mister when she was 12 but Shannon admits she was always fascinated by the horses at Spruce Meadows, the equestrian facility and show venue in Calgary. 

“The jumping horses,” she explains. “There were a couple of horses that I loved, their look, their athleticism, their willingness. When I looked into it, they were the Hanoverian horse.”

Also known as the preferred ride for the RCMP.

“My parents did everything they could financially to make my dreams come true,” says Shannon, “but a Hanoverian was just not happening.”

Knowing she wanted horses of her own but not a career with them, Shannon decided to become a massage therapist. Before starting that course, Shannon enrolled in a business program at what is now the Dalhousie School of Agriculture in Truro. That’s where she met Clayton, whose sister lived in Shannon’s dorm.

It can’t be said that Clayton didn’t know what he was getting into when he married Shannon in 2011: They bought “Daisy”, a Hanoverian, as a two-day old foal just before Shannon finished her massage course. 

Hence the specific list for their dream property: Shannon wanted to work from home and she wanted Daisy to be with her.

After living and working in Sackville, where the Brooks family’s dairy farm is located, the couple moved into their Little River property in 2013 and began working to bring Daisy home from where she was boarded on the Island.

“The barn was described as ‘obsolete’. There was no value on the barn at all,” says Clayton. “The roof leaked – it has a new steel roof on it now – and the siding... The old saying is ‘You could throw a cat through it’. But if you look past the roof and the siding, the main structure of the barn is built so strong with those beams. All the beams were still in their original notches. It would have been a shame to knock it down. The house is fitted together the same way, post and beam construction.”

Clayton says the way the barn was built inspired him to reconstruct it the same way. 

And it’s been a labour of love for these two who worked on their property when they weren’t working at their full-time jobs. The previous owners had turned the run-down barn into a garage so there were no stalls or hayloft. Clayton milled  softwood timber from their woodlot to make the beams and floorboards for the hayloft as well as the fence around the pasture; Shannon varnished all the interior boards that make up the stalls and painted the fence around the pasture.

“We asked the guy who was selling the property what value he put on the woodlot and he said it wasn’t worth anything because he was just using it for firewood and softwood isn’t a good firewood. Meanwhile, I was seeing it for another purpose,” Clayton explains. “They were all mature trees ready to be cut for good logs. It was shame to let them die and rot in the woods.”

Of the time leading up to Daisy’s long-awaited arrival last October, Clayton says, “It was a sleep when you can situation. I don’t know what our neighbours thought of us because we had a chainsaw running even on a Sunday.”

But Clayton is proud of what they have accomplished in such a short time. 

“You go to work and bring home a paycheque but when you go to work on your own place, at the end of the day you can see how much you’ve changed and how much more value you’ve added to your property.” 

Daisy, who is now five, came with Cindy, a 15-year-old brood mare. Breeding a foal from Daisy paid for her board and inspired Shannon’s new venture. 

“I’m taking a breeding course this spring to learn how to breed my own mare,” she says. “Instead of hauling the mares three hours to the Island, why not learn to do it myself? If we can do it right at home where they are relaxed, it makes a lot more sense.”

At the same time, Clayton will be clearing more pasture so Shannon can have a riding ring and he’s going to put new siding on the other side of the barn. Eventually, the entire barn will be refurbished with white siding and red trim. 

 “We found a way to combine both of our hobbies,” he says. “I like to build and work with my hands so basically I’m the groundskeeper and Shannon is the horse girl.”

A Match Made In Horse Heaven

Limited by space on the page, I only get to tell part of the great story of Clayton and Shannon Brooks in tomorrow's issue of The Oxford Journal. But you will meet a lovely couple who have been working very hard to restore an old barn to its former glory and make Shannon's dream of having horses -- her beloved Daisy, for one -- at home with her.

A Year In 4H: Cake Decorating

The 4H project meetings are underway now and Edie Wood hosted the first meeting for the Linden club's cake decorating Sunday afternoon.
Edie has been teaching cake decorating to 4H members for 38 years. She says she looked back in her book and determined that she has been involved with 167 members throughout that time. What an amazing influence to have. How many well-decorated cakes has she influenced in the last 40 years?
There was supposed to be four members in our group yesterday but illness kept them away. Am I allowed to be delighted that my first attempt at cake decorating became a one-on-one session with Edie? She showed me the correct technique for spreading icing ("It's easier with a round cake," she advised) and then the secret for smoothing the icing. And then I learned that the art of cake decorating -- all those shells and leaves and rosebuds and dots -- aren't as complicated as they look.
But learning the technique to do it well takes some practice, which is what the 4H projects are all about. Providing several months of meetings in order to allow members to practice, practice, practice.
"The kids will spend an hour and 15 minutes on one cake," Edie says of the 90-minute meetings. With each meeting, the techniques improve and the decorations get bolder.
The whole point? Achievement Day in July, when a member decorates a cake and presents it to judges.
"I have nothing to do with that cake," Edie says. "They do it at home on their own."

Remember the 4H motto: Learn by doing!