When we moved here eight years ago we expected our life would be much like it is now, fairly isolated and spending the majority of our time alone. This will be our ninth winter here and until now our time was filled with more socializing than one would ever expect on an off grid remote island. I imagine this winter there will likely be fewer dinner parties and more campfires.

Properties on the island have been selling like hot cakes this summer and there are a lot of new people. E figures 30 properties have changed hands recently. The island only has 190. With Covid there are no opportunities to properly say goodbye to friends leaving or properly welcome those who are new. Our sad goodbyes will have to be implied and our welcomes better expressed next summer. E and I are pretty committed to isolating so ironically our ninth winter will likely be as we expected all of them would be. A lot of time alone.

Today was a day in the garden for me. It is the time of year when I murder plants I have grown tired of, move unhappy ones to new homes and prune the heck out of others. With such a small flower garden, real estate is expensive and can’t be wasted on plants I don’t love.

I had planned on growing fewer vegetables this summer and increasing the flower garden area. Then covid arrived and I thought it would be prudent to grow more food. The vegetables this summer were beyond successful and I will continue next year, however I will plant way fewer tomatoes! This year’s harvest has been madness!

Seven months. It has been seven months since I had a haircut. I have spent the last week trying to convince E, with no success, to cut my hair. Honestly, if he can figure out how to install gas lines and solar power in our house with just a visit to Youtube why can’t he use the same resource to learn to cut my hair. How hard

could it be?