Living off the land…. on the road.

I am going to write this year about our upcoming adventure to points south of here in our motorhome. In  particular I am hoping to write about how we are taking our garden with us, in many delicious ways.

As we are coming to terms with the first snowfall, and the first plunge into freezing temperatures, we are wishing we might have been somewhere very far south by this time…… but we are not.  We will be soon though.

DREARY isn’t it?

We arrived home from last  years adventures (that I wrote about here) on January 4th 2017. It was an abrupt transition from 3 wonderful months of exploring, and rock hounding, that ended with a letter from CRA, Canada Revenue Agency. They were auditing us for our 2014 year which was the last one we actually had an office practice, so it was a big deal. After years of running  our doctors office, we had gotten a bit slack on record keeping and downright lazy on keeping receipts.

So we opted to take on this audit with the same energy that we put into everything, and sat here for an entire month, reconstructing 2014 and tracking down receipts. Did you know that there are a lot of things that they do NOT give you receipts for?  Well by the time May came, it appeared that the CRA actually would be owing us money, so they quietly said that they would not change our tax return…… and we just left it at that….no point in pushing our luck.  One thing about the CRA (and I am sure the IRS) …. when they say they do not accept credit card bills or check stubs….. THEY MEAN IT!

WE ALSO TOOK THIS TIME TO START 800 Heirloom tomato plants……

Not sure when exactly it happened, but somewhere along the way, last winter, I decided that I had worked TOO DAMMED hard to become a doctor to let it gojust yet. So I DID go back to work this past year.  I was not totally sure what I wanted to do to begin with, but after being audited it was clear I did not want to have my own clinic.  Primary care is going through major changes now based on the shortage of primary care doctors, and so I have found my self with several options that do not involve clinic.  After some trials, I am now working at a very new concept rapid access breast health clinic.  We get referrals from the screening mammogram program.  It is a very cool program in that a person who has a concerning mammogram in the screening program,  gets seen, reviewed, breast exam done and biopsy done all in the same day.  As a cancer surviver myself, I have often credited the doctor whom offered me a biopsy the first day I saw her. …….. with my timely diagnosis. (mine was not breast cancer)

I am also doing work in Long Term Care facilities, as a director and I cover for other doctors when they are away. MUST protect my winter  time off.

OH and we also bought an electric car, because where I work is 90 Km away from where we live and could not come to terms with all of the fuel I would burn through driving all this way to work  2-3 times a week.

 

SOOOO Back to the living off the land part.

We have a (sort of) Market garden. We grow vegetables and sell them at the market, and some day we hope to make money at this. We totally benefit from this in that it feeds us. We EAT VERY WELL.

So we have squirrelled away our harvest, and this year are hoping to live off the land, on the road.

My last day of work at the breast clinic is November 22nd, and we plan to leave after I get off work.  Currently we are studying 14 day weather forecasts hoping for a no snow no ice day for November 22nd.

So I am hoping to talk about our adventures as well as how we grew, harvested and preserved the fruit and vegetables that we are bring along with us for the winter, as well as how I cooked them perhaps.  Right now we are excited to get away, but still have lots to do before we leave.

So follow along our trip if you find it interesting, but do not feel obliged…. I just like to write.  MUCH LOVE Janet