The wood stove

Belanger Wood Stove in living room

I had never had or used a wood stove before but our house in Le Bic has one. It's an old Belanger stove made in the Gaspe town of Montmagny in 1921. It's been nicely restored by Danial Rivard, an antique dealer, and previous owner of the house. Cool to cold mornings in late May and early June provided a good opportunity to test it. We've got a winter's worth of stacked wood in the solarium. After a false start or two or three, I got the wood burning stove cranked up and putting out heat. It's fun to use. And, the stove pipe works beautifully - no smoke in the house. I began to look forward to cold mornings as an excuse to crank up the wood stove. We've yet to heat water or cook with the stove but that's an option too. Spending fall here in Le Bic would provide lots of opportunity to gather round a warm wood stove. We hope to get that opportunity in 2019.

Burning wood

Our wood supply in solarium

Wood box near stove 

Burning nicely

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Hayfields at sunset along the Gaspe Peninsula

Yesterday evening my partner Lisa, Woody, our golden retriever, and I took a short drive. From the house, we travelled a short distance up the hill, took the first left (Voyer Road towards Le Bic), and drove a few hundred yards before stopping along the road for an evening walk. We arrived just in time for a beautiful sunset, with a glimpse of the Saint Lawrence Seaway. All around was farm country -- rolling hills with hay or newly planted corn, a dairy farm with multiple silos and milk cows gathered in a barn. We could hear a tractor working the hay fields in the distance. It was another magical moment along the Gaspe Peninsula.

Sunset along Voyer Road less than a mile up from our house

View of hayfields; ridge in background is in Bic National Park

New emerged corn plants in early July

Dairy farm with silos

Same dairy farm with milk cows in barn

Our Gaspe house was once a small school

Our summer-fall house in Le Bic on the Gaspe Peninsula is an old one classroom school house, built in 1910. Our neighbors, Anne and Denys, grew up in the area and sent us the two photos below which represent a typical school house of that era. In addition to the small classroom (with students of various ages/grade levels), a teacher typically lived upstairs. Small neighborhood schools such as this one were apparently common in the early to mid 20th Century in the region. Looking at the exterior of our house today (the bottom photo), you can see a resemblance to the old school house.

An Old School House on the Gaspe Peninsula

Old School House Classroom

Once an school house, this is our Gaspe home

A not so shy red fox

Yesterday morning, along the bike trail on the edge of the Saint Lawrence Seaway, near the town of Rimouski, I spotted a red fox with a small rodent dangling from its mouth. I stopped and watched the fox make a quick meal of its prey and then slowly wander off. It showed no fear of me, apparently habituated to humans cycling and walking the trails through the forest.  As a botanist, I find it interesting that while foxes feed primarily on small rodents, they also eat fruits, and in so doing, may disperse the seeds of plants.

The most widespread and successful of the foxes, the red fox occurs throughout the Northern Hemisphere, including North America and Eurasia. It was introduced to Australia by humans, and is now considered a pest species. In Russia, the red fox has become domesticated. They're a beautiful animal, but I don't think I will be taking one home  anytime soon. 

Red Fox Along Bike Path

A red fox with small rodent

Neighboring Horse Farm

Nearly across the street from our Le Bic house is a horse farm with beautiful white and brown horses (and one black one) along with an old barn. There's pasture for the horses. The surrounding landscape is mostly hayfields with scattered patches of forest.
I enjoy walking by the horses each morning. They seem curious about me and my dog Woody, sometimes coming up to the fence to get a closer look (and probably hoping to get a treat).
This morning was a bit different, as most of the horses were lying down in the far field. Were they sleeping? I could not tell. But I do know that virtually all animals sleep in some fashion. I suspect horses can sleep standing up so they don't need to lie down for sleep to occur. I'd like to learn more about the sleep patterns of horses.

Our neighbors horses

Our House on the Gaspe Peninsula

Just this month my partner and I purchased the house pictured below in Le Bic, on the Gaspe Peninsula, about 3 hours drive east of Quebec City. The house was a small (one classroom) school in the 1900s, renovated in 2002 as a family home. The forested ridge in the background is part of Le Bic National Park which has a wonderful mix of boreal forest and shoreline along the Saint Lawrence River, where harbor seals seals can often be seen basking on the rocks. Over the next couple of months, I will be blogging about our experiences in this beautiful part of Canada where French is spoken. We plan to divide our time between Le Bic, in the Quebec Province in the far northern Appalachian Mountains, and Asheville, North Carolina, in the southern Appalachians.