Busy at the Belzers’

Alternative Routes

by Shayna Stock, with photography by Dominique Fenton

Kicking back with Ed, Kathryn, their grandkids and dogs

Shayna and Dominique are traveling across Canada in search of community, and sharing what they find with Briarpatch readers. Read their introduction to the project here.

I’m sitting in the living room at the Belzers’ house. Past the wall of windows in front of me, horses graze on a vibrant backdrop of green.

I just got in from helping Ed Belzer capture a swarm of his bees and bring them to the hive. Dominique is out watching the grandchildren at swimming lessons, while Kathryn, Ed’s wife, takes the dog to the vet.

Ed and Kathryn live on 200 acres of land in the Musquodoboit Valley, Nova Scotia. Among many other roles throughout their very full lives, Ed is a retired Health professor, and Kathryn an artist. Both are also grandparents and frequent hosts to all kinds of visitors. Ed now farms the land using horses.

Together, Ed and Kathryn have initiated a co-housing project on their land. Co-housing generally refers to a group of homes that are privately owned, where residents enjoy private control over their own unit, but share resources and decision-making about common areas and communal responsibilities.

Ed and Kathryn plan to build 12 to 20 modest units, where residents will live in a community environment, sharing decision-making, a common room, farm work, child care, and some meals. In pursuit of environmental sustainability, they hope to build everything off-grid. For more information on their project, you can visit www.chaswoodcohousing.ca.

This has been an appropriate first stop on our cross-country tour of intentional communities. As they are still in the planning stages (their “pre-application” just went in Monday to the Halifax Regional Ministry), we have been able to learn a bit about the bureaucratic red tape that goes along with starting an intentional community.

Between building permits, applications to the Regional Ministry, and conference calls with other members who are scattered across the country, Kathryn and Ed have a lot of work on their hands. Grandchildren, farm work, and visitors like us only add to the workload (no matter how useful we pretend to be).

Before the beekeeping endeavour today, Dom and I helped Ed pull out all his farm machinery from the barn, and then learned how to drive a horse-drawn wagon. My first time milking a goat was just the previous day.

Last night, Dom suggested in all seriousness that we should stop at the next used clothing store we see because he needs a pair of overalls. Today, he seems to have forgotten about the overalls, and is talking about buying some farm land instead.

A couple of days at the Belzers’ will do that to you. Maybe it’s all this clean air…