What’s Gonna Be Happenin’ at Blue Belldon Farm…

It may take some years, but here are our plans, most of which we’ve already input into our own and other rural properties’ activities in past decades.

We will be living as self-sustainably as possible, both because it’s eco-friendly AND eco-nomical. This will include milking our dairy goat, collecting chicken eggs, fishing, organic gardening and orcharding. (Not a verb, not even a word – but it SHOULD be!) I am a certified riding instructor and have spent over 2 decades competing at international events and coaching others to do same. http://internationallycertifiedcoach.webs.com/   Richard will be helping me to build a small cross-country course with our natural and salvaged/reclaimed materials, so that I can continue to train anyone who would like to “ship in”.  Weekend courses will eventually be offered for this as well, once our bunk-house and/or eco-homes (tree house, log cabin, straw-bale and earth-bag homes) are under way for guests. Eventually we hope to turn these into B&B rentals, and offer horses and pets to come along for the holiday with their ‘people’.  Also, guests may like to partake in our informal courses on living “off-grid”, or living “off the land”.  Some may like to simply come for some quiet fishing expeditions, as Richard will be becoming an expert on all the best fishing holes! (If he wants to eat meat, anyway!)  We plan to offer a fun competition at some point, hopefully annually, called: From Paddle to Saddle. This will incorporate the best of canoeing in our lakes with riding through our fields and forest.

 

In conjunction with my Rural Revivals and Rustic Revivals businesses, I have already been the successful organizer of the Carlisle Country Craft and Old-fashioned Market Mercantile for 3 years, and ran the Rural Creators’ Collective art shop for 2!  (https://www.facebook.com/ruralcreatorscollective/?fref=ts)     Richard and my mother Joy are excellent assistants and artisans as well; Richard is a wood craftsman and Joy spins and weaves beautiful wools with natural dyes into rugs and blankets/shawls. Rustic Revivals creates many salvage art and folk-art works, most items being upcycled into useful as well as whimsical objects.  We hope to continue a smaller version of this wonderful type of pioneer crafts and organic foods festival annually, right on our farm. Photos from past years can be seen here:  https://carlisleshow.wordpress.com/  if you want to start planning ahead!  Tour at that site for some idea of what it was all about, or just google the name, starting with “Carlisle Country Craft and…”   And as soon as we can fix up the back ‘shed’, it will be a Rustic Revivals shop where you can come browse, purchase, sip hot or iced tea and homemade organic muffins or wood-oven bread before setting off to walk our nature trails through field, forest and brookside!  As for Rural Revivals, it covers several historic and country-preserving passions. We’re a country-themed decorating and renovations company which Richard and I have been operating.  We are like the Canadian Chip and Joanna Gaines, and Richard’s every bit as comical and clumsy as good ole Chip!  With several fixer-uppers under our tool belts in 4 different countries, we’d love to help you make your “small spaces” into “georgic graces”. See our renovation offerings/details at  http://rusticrevivals.wix.com/ruralrevivals  OR some of our funny but informative television clips at my youtube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7kbWM8WJU6AXktM9NjPnpw

Rural Revivals also does farm preservation (don’t sell out to developers, we’ll show you how to keep making money without losing your beautiful land!) by consulting with and organizing/planning various money-generating activities on your farm, OR planning and decorating special events such as weddings, reunions, and conferences.  See our Facebook page under Photos/Albums/Ideas for… (if this link doesn’t work: https://www.facebook.com/rural.revivals/media_set?set=a.103972229665551.5667.100001583233066&type=3     .   There you’ll find  many ideas of our experiences in the past, and what could help YOU now!

These are just a few, then, (see photo and funny verses below!) of our plans for the fabulous future at           Blue Belldon Farm,  Blue Bell Corner,  New Brunswick.   If you’d like more information on any of the above, simply email me at rusticrevivals@yahoo.ca!  Julie

Why “Blue Belldon” Farm ?

We live at Blue Bell Corner, New Brunswick, with a glorious view of Blue Bell Mountain. Across the valley, among other streams, is the winding and babbling Blue Bell Brook.  Joy, my mother, has a Scottish background, and bluebells are one of the most common flowers there,featured in many poems and songs including the famous  “Blue Bells of Scotland” folk song, and the joyous Blue Bell Polka (Mom loves a good polka!) But most of all, is the following poem, by Sheldon (Belldon) Chadwick.  Not only does “don” at the end of a placename mean “hill”     – orig. ‘dun’, ‘doon’ or later, ‘downs’ –   but this poem has all three of our birthstones mentioned in it (Mom’s is Ruby, Richard’s is Opal, Mine is Amethyst). It also mentions our nick-names “Joy, Rich and Jewels”, as well as describing the very vistas which we see and breathe all around us every day – including, of course, the BLUEBELLS!  And finally, the Chadwick poem is tremendously timely because, after 10 years together living in and renovating other country and historic homes, Richard proposed to me with a diamond intertwined set –  I’ve never had a single diamond in my whole 50 years and now I’ve a cluster of ’em!  So, he is like the poet protagonist below, and I, the “adorned Bride of Love”.  All very romantic.  In the U.K., where I’ve also lived and worked, they would say “naff”.  But we all three find it most fitting, nonetheless.

       *********The  “Because -Why” of this Category, “Because-Why”: 

A great Canadian character who really deserves to be as famous as Anne of Green Gables and her Matthew (and Marilla) is the indomitable Maggie Muggins.  (Oh, my middle name is Ann all right – WITHOUT-an-e.  But I sooooo wanted to be ‘Maggie’ most of my early life! )  Whenever Maggie had a perplexing puzzle that she wanted help solving, she would skip down the garden path to her good friend, Mr. McGarrity (och, another Scot!), who would lean on his hoe and try to help her figure out life.  These books were written by New Brunswick’s own Mary Grannan (orig., Fredericton)  who also wrote all the “Just Mary” stories and had her own children’s radio programmes in Toronto from just before WWII right up until the year I was born! So, if I ever think something needs explaining within (or without!) the confines of this blog, I’ll be sure to share the “Because-Why” with you, here in this category.