This morning we had the Kuchen (Kowach?) that we bought at the Farmer’s Market, which was pretty great. Then we went for a walk down to the end of the road, and then back to the other end of the road. I was not expecting all the trees as my idea of the farming part of Saskatchewan was based solely on driving the TransCanada through the southern part of the province. I knew there were trees but I had seen them in the north (really, central) part of the province, and didn’t think there would be so many this far south. (Some of these have been planted, FYI.)
After we went for a walk, we took a ride on the ATV. First I wasn’t driving but then I took a turn driving. It was insanely windy – in addition to being hot, it was also really, really windy most of this trip – and so it was kind of hard to keep it on the road. I have never done anything like this before. Turning was surprisingly intuitive but throttling was much harder than I imagined as the tiniest change in pressure from my thumb and the ATV learned forward or slowed to a crawl.
After we took that ride we went to Melville, where the GF went to school. It’s hard to put my impression of Melville into kind words. Melville feels “dead.” There is not much activity in town, in part because you can reach major stores on the highway just outside of downtown. On Monday, much of the businesses were closed so it likely felt more dead than it actually is. But it’s clear that the industry that drove this town isn’t as big any more and it’s clear that some of the money has left. Unlike so many towns of its size in Ontario, there is no tourism propping it up now that farming isn’t as productive.
We drove around and looked at real estate and then walked around the downtown. There’s a nice old post office.
We took a look at the real estate on offer from one company and the properties range in price from $30,000 for really beat up places to $321,000 for a borderline mansion on the “suburb street.” Also, $289,000 for a condo. I have no words for the latter. I said I hoped it was a penthouse because nobody should pay that much for a condo in a town like Melville. (No offense to Melville intended, seriously. I just don’t know what kind of resale value that has.)
Then we went to Jenn’s uncles and had a nice long chat in their very, very nice house (on the “suburb street”).
When we returned to the farm we made dinner, at which point the other uncle made an appearance.
We got out of going to the casino and watched the game.