I live on a little island off of America. Ask me anything.

[Stimmyplip]

Due to living in a small island I'm frequently bored. Hence the thread.

We do get film crews sometimes. Not so much as Maine doesn't have tax breaks for films so even all but I think one or two Stephen King films were actually done elsewhere.

Oooh, I think I saw your island when I was on vacation in Maine a couple of years ago! I did wonder what it would be like to live there....

If you fall out with someone it's awful. You actually have to swallow a lot of shit you normally wouldn't. Our friends will be ds's teachers, Doctors, emergency services. We are people's plow guy, tree person etc. You have to learn to get along, even if you have wildly different opinions.

The thing I find the hardest is a lot of men here are extremely misogynistic. Whilst I love most people's can do attitudes, men tend to do men stuff and women the women's stuff.

I felt so intimidated when I moved here. Most women can can, bake, sew, knot, quilt. They can survive on their own. And the men chop their own wood, kill their own food etc. A HUGE change from London but I'm getting used to it.

And luckily Dh is a feminist so he's more Han happy to teach me how to take on the 'male' roles and take over the 'female' ones.

It's insane how it goes from a few people struggling to stay warm and survive through the winter to billionaires swanning around demanding the most outrageous shit you couldn't begin to imagine.

I can see how islanders loathe the summer folks. Even though they're their bread and butter.

OP, you likely have a lot of summer homes on the island, so there are people paying school/property tax but not sending any children to the local school. That's ideal for the school budget.

I'm in a really good school district in NY, but it's quite expensive to live here and the property taxes are high. Kids on your island also probably qualify for a lot of need based aid in addition to merit aid.

I've become something of an expert on the US college application process in the last two years. Ask me anything.

OP it sounds amazing and so so different from London (where I am) and the UK. Do you ever miss London? If so, what do you miss?
Also how do teenagers spend their spare time out there? Do they get bored?

@MissConductUS you hit the nail on the head. Property taxes from the summer houses are insane. Most go to the school I think. I'd love to chat more about entitlement and process. It's all a bit terrifying!

@curlyrebel I do miss London. But only a little. Mostly friends, food, culture and diversity!

Teens here mostly sail and boat in the summer then ski, snowboard or snowmobile in the winter. They're generally a pretty active bunch!

I think I was way more bored in a sleepy Cotswold village than kids here. They just have more stuff. Camps to fit any interest. There's a lot of marine and ecology programs here too that most kids are in to.

They have to take horticulture at high school. The school has a huge organic garden, the kids provide veg for the school lunches, they learn how to grow things responsibly. They also have a big tilapia fish irrigation/fertilisation system. It's all pretty cool!

Although I do think some kids here need to be a bit more bored. But I think that's a this day and age thing thing all over the western world.

Our idea of fun when teens was setting light to that grease paper toilet roll in the public toilets! (Not me but the boys. We'd smoke and tell them they were cool and do poppers. )

Ds is 4 though.

@Stimmyplip I'd be happy to chat about the whole college process here.

I just popped over to the education board and posted this:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/higher_education/a3286422-anyone-s-dc-going-to-uni-in-usa?msgid=79071272#79071272

Then decided to start my own thread on the topic, following your inspiring example:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/higher_education/3293457-Applying-to-Colleges-Unis-in-the-US-Ask-me-Anything

But if your DS is just four years old you have plenty of time! I just saw up thread you mentioning that he's in pre k. By the way, I just PM'd you if you want to chat off line about the college stuff or anything else.

Waving at you from just across the border. We don't live on an island though!

@MissConductUS thanks! Have had a busy few days but will check that out now!

@Taytotots where about a are you from? Canada?

How long have you been on MN? And did you post a lot about 5 years ago when you were pregnant?

If so, you are the reason I joined MN! I read your posts and found them hilarious.

@Stimmyplip yes we're south New Brunswick. Culture sounds very similar!

Your garden is so beautiful!

?

Do you live in I—-b— and so you want visitors from Mumsnet?

I might visit some time in summer and be one of the annoying summer visitors but I I don’t like extreme winters so would leave you to it. I imagine you WANT the winter visitors as that’s the hardest time of year for you.
And although I love snow (snowfall) and skiing, after living in continuous snowfall and ice and shoveling snow everyday, I do not envy your winters, but saying that your house and the warm fires sound beautiful. I imagine too that like lots of North Americans, many of you preserve the foods from your garden to stock up food supplies over winter. I love seeing families who grow and preserve all their food. Also I love the idea of living by food that’s available. So eating only winter foods available to you, is lovely knowing that when summer comes the local farms sell all their crops as they pop up. That is lovely, and some thing you don’t get in a big city. Anyway I love what you have shared of your life on the island. Thanks for doing the thread.

We need to have an East Coast MN reunion - I'm just up the road in Montreal.

My favourite AMA so far!

My only point of reference for the kind of place you might live is Montauk (?) from The Affair. If I'm vaguely right, I want to be YOU 😁😁

concretesieve my username used to be BettyMacDonald . LOVE all her books.

My only point of reference for the kind of place you might live is Montauk

Montauk is an insanely posh hamlet at the end of peninsula in New York, so not such a good point of reference.

This is my favorite AMA too.