Big City, Little Homestead

Living rural in the city is great – you can do it, too.

Page 5 of 17

Ending my decade as an AirBnB host

In 2012 — around the same time as this blog got underway — I started being an AirBnB host.

Here I was at the time, a full-grown adult, having to have roommates to meet the housing expenses. And roommates in Montreal were seriously a crapshoot when the rents were still relatively cheap (it may be a little better, now that they’re not). The only adults who didn’t opt to live alone were those who couldn’t afford to live alone, or who wanted a ready-to-use place where responsibilities were assumed by the person living there. In both cases, you get either transient or difficult roommates. And as you’re not allowed to get first-and-last-month’s rent or a security deposit (I know, right? Seriously, a terrible law), you have no indemnification against the worst roommates. There’s your incentive to live alone.

Without a supporting culture that roommates are base-level responsible and considerate, over twenty years of cohabiting, I’ve had a lot of crappy roommates. I’m not talking of slightly different lifestyles and incompatible concepts of cleanliness. Those frustrations are fairly common. It’s more like, “Here’s are a situation in which you can maximize the chaos! you don’t owe anyone ANYthing!”

Roommates who did stuff like “borrow,” lose, and break things they didn’t replace or repair; who had friends mooching off the common space and supplies and utility bills; who ran up bills without paying them; who never did the housework; who left before their lease was up without sufficient notice or covering the rent; who left by installing a stranger [in my home!] who ended up skipping out anyway. And then there are some who made things impossible with their behaviour, so that they simply had to go. Holy mackerel, do I have stories! A bad rental/roommate culture will tend to proliferate those.

I really needed to stop having roommates without having to sell the house. I still had a significant mortgage, as well as all the other “rent is due” expenses (insurance, property taxes, utilities, etc.). The first mortgage I’d had was at 4.75%. The bank officer who set it up screwed me over by not setting up the line of credit as home-equity, so it was a consumer line of credit at 7%! (When you first get a mortgage, insist that you get a HELOC. If you leave it to later to convert it to a HELOC, the bank penalizes you by making you qualify all over again—and conditions may not be so favourable as when you first qualify.) So off to work I went, but also…

AirBnB to the rescue

After hearing about that last terrible roommate, a friend told me about AirBnB. I’d already been doing CouchSurfing, letting travellers stay here for a day or two as a pay-it-back for having done so myself. It was a lot of fun. Not perfect, because people are weird, but people are mostly good, especially short-term while travelling.

So AirBnB made perfect sense to me, to be able to have temporary guests over the portion of the year when people visit Montreal. This would offset the living expenses, and share the resources I was already using, and be a bit of a social boost. I had an extra room, even two extra rooms for whenever a family or trio of friends wanted to stay. And so that’s how I started.

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My friend Gladys, the black mama squirrel

Black squirrels are always noticeable, and one had been living with the other grey squirrels in either one (or both) of my squirrel cabins since last autumn.

Yes, I provide cabins for my squirrels. I put this one here because there used to be a through-the-wall air conditioner, and when I removed it, it still had the rack. So as an earlier squirrel had indicated it was a cozy spot to put a cottage, I made them one. It was a hit, providing years of shelter for them, and entertainment for me.

The squirrels spend a lot of time running along the fence and climbing the house. If I stopped to talk to them, they’ll stop to listen to me. That’s how I noticed one day that she was nursing. And soon enough, I saw she spent a lot of time lounging on top of the squirrel cabin next to my bedroom window.

Of course I had to name her. And though it took a while, I finally saw the babies peeking out of the cabin.

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A bumblebee friend I made on Mt. Etna, Italy

This summer, I went to Italy for almost four weeks. Oh man, it was freakin hot there, like 40ºC every day, so I mostly stuck to the coasts. After five days of roasting in Rome and a day in Napoli, I took the overnight ferry to Sicily, and then I travelled around by regional train. This brought me around to Catania, from which I took a day trip to Mt. Etna, an active volcano.

I didn’t book a tour, but took the early-morning bus from the train station to the foot of the mountain, where you had the choice of hiking or taking the funicular in either (or both) directions. A tour at the top was mandatory. I chose to take the funicular up, and then hike back down.

A mountain rescue

An interesting thing happened while we were at the top. One of the women I was with noticed a bumblebee lying on one of the volcanic rocks. It was cold, so cold that my shorts and shawl seemed like an unwise choice (though thankfully I didn’t suffer for it). The bees that try to fly over Mt. Etna could succumb to the sulfide gas that the volcano emits in cloudy little puffs. Or it could be the long flight up, and the terrible atmospheric cold. And then there’s a complete lack of available fuel once you’re out of the foothills. In any case, there was a bumblebee on the ground, and it needed help.

So I swooped in with what I had on hand: a dessert container, a napkin, the pit of a plum (for hydration and fructose), and water. I bundled the poor creature into the napkin and into the container, adding a little water to make it damp, if that’s what it needed. Then, as we were done the tour, we took the bus back down to the top of the funicular.

Once there, we were guided into the gift shop, where we were fortunate to have samples of Italian honey on offer. I took a sample stick, and went to sit outside on the terrasse to give the bee some sustenance. And the creature, who I must say seemed unimpressed with its imprisonment, and yet unable to protest, was quite hungry for the honey on offer. I sat there with it for about 45 minutes, even getting seconds from the honey-sample girl (who ironically was allergic to bees and so panicked at the sight of this one. Italians, they’re so dramatic).

Hiking with a passenger

The morning having thus passed pleasantly, it was time to take the hike back down the hill. We had plenty of time, but there was more to explore. So I set off down the hill holding the container in my hand with its lid ajar. The little creature didn’t want to be sequestered. It carefully climbed out and explored my available hand. And so I, now with a passenger to take care of, had the brilliant idea of taking the honey-sample stick and inserting it into my watch band. That way the bee would have a good place to perch on the walk down the hill.

Eventually we made it to the bottom and I visited the calderas around the visitor centre. It was there – it had been a couple of hours now, and the descent saw an increase in ambient temperature – that the bumblebee thought it might be time to test its wings. I crouched down behind a boulder, while it walked around my arm, buzzing its wings, until it took off. It flew in circles around me, landing on my lunch bag and on me a few times, and then it returned to the napkin “housing complex” I’d assembled for it. I could tell it was still hungry, and wanted to rest a while more.

…I should compile all the videos I took that day, really.

So I continued carrying it with me through landscapes like these.

A post-hike meal, and time to relax

Again, to our great fortune, a honey kiosk was parked on the road back to the funicular building. I showed the bee to the attendant and asked for another honey sample for it, and he graciously complied. I was getting hungry myself, so I was going to have to find an outdoor place to dine.

Back at the centre, it took some quick work to get in to use the bathroom and line up at the cafeteria for my own meal (at least there was no actual line). I made haste to return. Little Bee cooperated in this endeavour by attending to its honey sample. I’d used the contents of my bag as obstructions on the table, and put the bee under a napkin tent for safety and privacy. My pasta with funghi was not very palatable, which was too bad, but fuel is fuel… 

This was a planting of wildflowers at the edge of the Visitor’s Centre. At least there was friendly habitat!

So I sat back and relaxed and waited for the bee to make its full recovery. The charming thing is, the bee was interested in exploring me, walking up my arm to explore my shirt. And for the better part of an hour, it seemed to really prefer settling down to rest over my heart. It was like I was wearing a brooch of a very large bumblebee.

Time to depart

When the hour was up, I became a little anxious that my new friend was good enough to go. We were meeting the bus at 4 o’clock, and I didn’t want to take the bee on back to Catania, probably 50 kilometers away. I also didn’t want to just deposit it somewhere in the wild and run away. I didn’t know what to do! So I took it for another walk, and told it I was going to have to leave very soon, and I hoped that it felt good enough to fly away home. “You have to go, now, and so do I!

That’s when the bee started flying its test flights around me again. It flew around, then landed on me a few times… and then it landed on my ankle and tried to crawl down into my shoe (bumblebees sleep in burrows in the ground). In a bit of a panic about that, I squatted down – “Hey, git outta there–!”  

And maybe I scared it with that sudden move, because that’s what it did. It flew away before I even saw in which direction it went.

So that was a very special day, spent in the company of a very large bumblebee. I learned that not only do they know when you’re helping them, they definitely have the faculties of recognition and trust.

I hope that this became a story in the bumblebee culture of a time when one of them flew too high on a too-cold day over a big volcano, and fell to earth, only for a giantess to rescue it and give it honey and carry it back down to where it would find familiar plants and landscapes.

Then again, perhaps they’ve been telling each other this story for thousands of years. It’s conceivable that some of the ancients did the same sort of thing, when they had a reason to go walking with the gods on Mt. Etna.

Montréal’s annual garden giveaways and resources

The spring gardening season is upon us with even more speed than it usually arrives, because regardless of what winter does, that’s the way time works: every year accelerates. Thus the Ville’s annual “embellissement” campaign (“embellishment,” or rather “beautification”) is coming again to many boroughs in just a few weekends.

Pepper plant from the garden giveaway
A pepper plant I received from the garden giveaway as a seedling, once it matured and produced two peppers!

This annual event gives residents of Montreal a number of floral, vegetable, and herb seedlings for their gardens and balconies. Past entrants have been impatiens and begonias, echinacea (cone flowers), sage, rosemary, basil, and mint, and peppers, tomatoes, and cucumbers. Always included: as much compost and wood chips as you want to take. Bring your own bags, baskets, buckets, and a wagon to cart it all away! Oh, and don’t forget your ID. You have to prove residency in the borough in which the plants are being given.

When? Well, you’ll have to check the Montreal.ca website and consult the calendar or the page for your borough, or other community listings, to find out when the “distribution” of plants is. Typically, it happens on the long weekend in May, and for some, the weekend after that, and lastly, the first weekend in June.

It seems late for getting them in the ground (our last-frost date in the city seems to be happening in April), but frankly, it takes time for the seedlings to grow up and “harden off” (acclimate to the outdoors) before they can be distributed for public planting. Though well-established plants are now as lush as can be, the seedlings I’ve planted are barely even ready for planting; the ones the Ville distributes have been started in greenhouses.

More resources are available:

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