What's up today (bullchiting) thread.

Grew tired of trying to chip treetops and removed the chipper and attached the nine foot mower, to get the lower pasture cleaned up. Haven’t mowed it this year. Still got too hot, so shut that nonsense down and took a nap.

 

We met some friends of ours at a local lake for a picnic dinner and some fishing...the kids caught a few bluegills, and I found a nice rubber frog lure, tried it out, got it caught in some rocks and lost it...easy come, easy go!
It started to sprinkle a few times, then quit...the last time it kept going though, then started to pick up, we started to pack up since it was about time anyways...should have went 5 minutes earlier though! We got poured, no, POURED on before getting back to the cars...like water running across the parking lot an inch deep poured on!
So in case we weren't already cold enough, we stopped for ice cream on the way home (and left a wet drippy trail behind in their lobby!)

 

???????? Nothing like a picnic to bring a family close together!

 

Hey at least the family isn't a bunch of quitters!

 

One of our Irving oil tankers is in Portugal for refit, so we have a visit from one of the ships from the American run. Rare opportunity. Thankful she came in on a weekend when I'm in town.

 

Refined products, gas, diesel, furnace oil, marine fuel,

From the Irving refinery in Saint John, New Brunswick

 

Well, it's not often you see an ad for a house making a point of saying the community is dying....

McCallum, on the south coast, is one of the most remote communities in NL and something of a time capsule. An hour and a half from the nearest road, the community's garbage truck is an ATV with a trailer. Population dropped from 73 in 2016 to 45 in 2021. Multiple votes have been taken to resettle the community but not enough people voted yes.

I take it the seller of this house is looking to attract someone to this house as an investment, a getaway in the meantime and if McCallum is resettled in the future, the government will pay them a large sum for the property.

 

Love the summertime!

 

It used to be a less voluntary, crueler process years ago. I'll dig up a couple old pictures later on from thst time period.

Today, with enough expression of interest, a community, generally an isolated place with few young people left and an aging population ready to admit defeat and move closer to a hospital and whatnot, will approach the government and a vote is taken from the residents. Not too long ago, a 90% vote to leave was needed but it was lowered to 75%. (Interestingly enough, another community in that region, Gaultois, voted 80% last time, but took another vote only this past April and the vote was only 64%. Perhaps a lot of people moved anyway in that time frame, but if the threshold had been lowered before the previous vote, Gaultois would have been resettled. As it stands, the community was destined to hang on for a white yet.

If enough residents vote to leave their community, residents are given money for their property, usually about 250,000 bucks, and anyone who wants to stay is welcome to, but must do so off the grid. Power and all other such public services are cut, as well as ferry service (the process is generally associated with places only accessible by ferry) and the community pretty much becomes a ghost town.

If Gaultois (which is on the same ferry route as McCallum, but closer to the other end of the route and serviced more frequently) had been resettled, it would have cost the government about 10 million bucks, but the same amount would have been saved in public expenses in about 10 years, chiefly by no longer running a ferry there.

I have a fascination with these isolated places and hope to visit many of them before they may go through this. They're relics of another time. Some are, as of now, not in immediate danger because most residents are still determined to stay, others less so.
I recall another community, small and a long distance from anywhere else, but accessible by road, approached the government about resettlement and were basically told it couldn't be justified because the public expense (chuefly maintaining and plowing the road) was not enough to justify government aided resettlement.

 

"Look at us go! We're zooming! I told you! We're hauling azz! We're hauling azz! All..." - Rat Race quote (clip.cafe)

 

A couple pictures from years ago. Between the 1950s and early 1970s, nearly 300 communities were resettled. Financial compensation was minimal. Many houses were towed across water to their new grounds. What an undertaking without heavy equipment.

It must really be something else to live in a place like that in this day and age. Only a few dozen people, a ferry ride to the nearest road and then a good length drive to a place with a traffic light to its name. No cars and no crime. Many aging residents become afraid to be so far from a hospital, but some can't imagine leaving the place they've always lived, their spouse or other family buried there, and so forth. I understand that. It's sad. But reality often is.