Are you 'bushed'?

Know a person from highschool days who became an author, wrote a book, embarked on a several country book tour. I saw her when she was having a reading and signing in her home town. SOmeone asked her what people from other countires were most curious about. She chuckled and said that the most asked question, which surprised her, was "What does 'bushed' mean?" She would explain it is a term sometimes used for people who have spent long periods of time without seeing other humans.

Many people could not get a handle on this. What do you mean go for a long period without seeing other humans? How is it you can't see other humans?

In many countries the land mass is small, the population is high and isolation due to weather or geography is something that is utterly unavailable in these people's experiences. THey are never isolated. Author said they simply could not comprehend the idea of looking down a snowed in driveway for a week or longer and seeing no other living person. THey cannot comprehend that you can lives miles and miles (I try not to say kilometres as it is an awkward, ugly word and has no redeeming quality as prose)away from your nearst neighbour. They calculate trips in kms, where we often calcualte trips in HOURS.

Have you been bushed this winter? Stuck at home with chores, kids to look after, husband to feed and the routine of staying home and getting things done is easier to deal with than the pain-in-the-butt struggle to get to town where you have to act civilized and have conversations with real people? Do you feel that going to town is a big nuisance? WHen people ask you what you've been up to lately, do you stare at them, open mouthed, speechless, wondering how exactly to answer that question without shouting, NOTHING IS NEW, YOU IDIOT, IT'S THE SAME DAMN THING DAY IN AND DAY OUT! I yell this in my head. Usually I smile and shrug and say same old, same old. Then scurry away realizing I have my barn coat on in town AND there are eggs in my pocket! And I smell like horse manure, cause it's packed into the tread of my snowboots. And you DO wear your boots to town incase you drive in the ditch on the way home and have to walk. Bring a flashlight too, incase it's dark when you slide in the ditch. Cause they don't plow your road until it's 18 inches deep and you don't see the ditch until you've driven right into it.

Do you get bushed? How have you been so far this winter?

Yes Uno I get Bushed alot. Not so much yet this winter, lots last winter. And I am assuming will be before this winter is over...

the closest I have been to "bushed" this winter was when I ran out of razors for a week.

A week? Only a week? Arctic, you're such a beginner. Did you know that unshaved leg hair can acheive an R value if left long enough? I'd say a month is the minimum. Toss those razors and turn down the thermostat. It's your responsibility as an environmentally concerned Canadian.

Arcticsun wrote:the closest I have been to "bushed" this winter was when I ran out of razors for a week.

omg i almost spit out my coffe DONT do that arctic without warning!

I guess I've been "bushed" because I ran out of razors for a week as well. In my case the insulative value increases on my chin and not on my legs where I have a slight R value. I don't have husband to feed, but I do have 60 chickens, 4 Highlanders, 3 dogs and 5 cats. Somewhere there is a small community of mice living on various sources of food.

We are guilty of taking along heavy boots, heavy coats and emergency blankets for a trip to the big city of Kamloops. I'm careful to change from my farm coat when I go to Barriere for milk and cookies because I look like a street person otherwise. If I'm just going to the feedstore I go in my farm coat hoping they'll charge less for chicken feed.

My wife's folks from Holland always had trouble getting around the amount of empty space in Canada. My father-in-law figured someone should clean up the fallen trees along the highway. My wife's niece was disappointed when we went for a hike one day because after an hour she thought we should be getting somewhere.

I'd sure like to be.

I'm bushed right now! As I sit here in my husband's oversized shirt with no bra on! I really should put some socks on...to complete the ensemble! The smell of speghetti sauce still lingering in the air..."OH RAPTURE, OH BLISS"!

Second internet window open to the weather network; Contemplating whether I want to brave the -33 forcast driving my kids the 30 min to school in the morning. At the same time my hubby is yelling from downstairs (we call our addition the DOWN STAIRS as there are indeed 2 steps to get down into it) as he plays his new favorite game "Sky Rim".. He thinks he should get me the new Iphone 4 (I don't have a cell myself) As doing so would make him feel better! Incase I hit the ditch!..I can text him a sad face :-( followed by a "Spank you helpy helperton" while he is off in his recorder cab on some lease.

Thank God for my husband having to regularly remove all facial hair due to H2S gass regulations or I would have no razors to use! Though I usually don't shave the legs during winter..Helps to grab and keep the long johns closer to the skin!

Well I better get outside...need to grind more goat poo into my treads. "HONEYS, I NEED HEEEEELP MOVING BARBIE!!!!"
I have to move my Saanen doe, Barbie into the other part of my heated garage. I think she is going to have her babies soon! YAY! My garage is currently filled with standard cochin chickens, goats, bunnies! And I have a brooder in my kitchen with 9 lovely chicks that I hatched myself. Being bushed aint so bad! And i'm not really bushed when I can read how others are aswell..and share much the same thoughts as myself.

That's so funny Uno, as I DO have eggs in my coat pocket!..You made me remember that I need to get them out of there before I slip on the ice and fill my pockets full of yolk...Smelling like poop is one thing..But smelling like rotten eggs makes people think you are up to no good!

Hazzah to being bushed I'll be up filling our woodstove with the BBC comedy series "Father Ted" playing in the background, and making sure that my critters are all ok tonight!..I look at it is an ADVENTURE! LOL!

Thanks for all your great posts Uno! I always enjoy them!!...Would comment more often but you know...I'm BUSHED

I remember a Dutch student was over here when I was going to university. He couldn't get over our large stretches of forest (and this was in a developed area, he didn't even get to see the middle of New Brunswick where you can drive for hours on logging roads and not see a thing).

I don't get bushed these days what with having an outside job. Funny though, we currently live pretty close to everything but still dress and pack as though we might be stuck for hours if we slid into a ditch.

Live in New Brunswick, be prepared as if you live in Labrador. It's the Canadian way.

The realities of Canada are hard to grasp for some Europeans. When we first moved to Canada from Switzerland I kept in contact with a few of my friends by writing letters back and forth. They couldn't believe how lucky I was getting a snow day and not having to go to school. One of them wondered why it took the mail so long to get there in the winter time and asked if the Mailman doesn't work either if we don't have School. Well if you can't see where the road is you aren't going very far.
I for one am very happy to be living in a country where I look out of my Window and I don't see into my neighbours window!
I don't need too many people and as long as the milktruck makes it every second day I'm good.

I think "bushed" is about the same as "cabin fever"? Except maybe you can only get cabin fever in the winter months...you can probably stay "bushed" all year... this might be more of a B.C. jargon...

mirycreek wrote:I think "bushed" is about the same as "cabin fever"? Except maybe you can only get cabin fever in the winter months...you can probably stay "bushed" all year... this might be more of a B.C. jargon...

Around here, it is usually used as a term for exhaustion.


bushed [boosht] adjective

1.overgrown with bushes.

2.Informal. exhausted; tired out: After all that exercise, I'm bushed.

3.Canadian Informal. mentally unbalanced as a result of prolonged residence in a sparsely inhabited region.

4.Australian and New Zealand Slang. unable to find one's direction; lost; confused.

Cabin Fever to me is being stuck inside. I'm not stuck inside, too many outdoor chores. It is -30C this morning (not counting windchill) and I am facing feeding stock from a tractor without a cab. Facing is the problem. I have very unattractive (but new!) michelin man insulated coveralls and -40 felt lined boots and warm mitts with glove liners. Great wooly hat for under the hard hat and neck piece but I just can't find a way of keeping the tip of my nose warm WITHOUT STEAMING UP MY GLASSES (because contact lenses don't work well at temperatures below -25). These are the sorts of concerns that fill my day.

My father, an Australian by birth, used the term "bushy" for people who spent so much time alone in the bush and became eccentric. I don't think I am until I go to town - well, maybe not Williams Lake, where I am well understood, but Toronto or Vancouver or London where even in unstained, fashionable clothing I know I am still bushy.

Love my life here. Speak only to my husband and my animals for weeks at a time - but am on line with friends and family all the time and I think have better conversations with them on e-mail than I often do face to face. Read lots. Get magazines from all over the world. Feel plugged in but at peace.

If that's bushy, I'll take it any day!

I thought it meant "tired", too. Interesting info, I never took it to mean cabin fever, type feeling. Good to know.

I think I'll start using it the 'Canadian' way though. I like the whole 'mentally unbalanced' thing.

Hopeful Farm wrote:I thought it meant "tired", too. Interesting info, I never took it to mean cabin fever, type feeling. Good to know.

That is how I think of it as well Hopeful.

My father, an Australian by birth, used the term "bushy" for people who spent so much time alone in the bush and became eccentric.

Having spent 10 years in Australia, this is a very familar term and I think it may decribe me quite nicely!
Bushys are some of the most interesting people I met while down there. (I suppose some of the scariest too. )

I can tell you with the cold and snow we are having right now I MISS Australia much more than I usually do!!!! I miss the sun and the warm and the growing plants and my hands in the soil and the animals roaming around, not all hunched up. sigh..........

Yes, bushies can be great fun, hugely resourceful and also more than a little scary. We have neighbours who are really bushy - go to town maybe once every 2-3 years, only eat game and do their shopping at the "share shed" at the dump. Some even live in a single room log cabin But I still consider them more eccentric than mentally unstable...

heda gobbler wrote:But I still consider them more eccentric than mentally unstable...

Not to mention better-prepared, and more likely to survive any earth-shattering disasters that may arise.

I know there are lots of people who dream about living "off the grid" but I wonder how many of them could actually stand to do it, if presented with the reality?

I like the fact that I can drive up my driveway and be as alone as I want to be. For added assurance, I can lock my gates. I rarely do it, but when I do I never feel the lack of company, never feel "bushed". I feel relieved, refreshed, relaxed and happy. It's usually time to go back to work by the time I lose interest in my own company. I consider myself *almost* perfectly balanced in that area. I would rather work 3-4 days and have the rest at home, but I have a great balance considering I have a "full time" job.

The book my schoolmate wrote was set in the 30s and 40s, before social media could keep us in touch. The rural setting of her book portrayed Canadian homesteads many miles apart. There might only be one vehicle in a family, and often it was gone to work with the husband or there was no vehicle at all. HOrse and wagon. Wagon. NOt buggy.

'Cabin fever' and 'bushed' are terms that I have often heard used interchangeably. I think very few of us know that stunning, mind numbing state of simply seeing no other living soul other than your mate for weeks and maybe months on end. It made farmwives go mad and young teens flee their homes to the cities to avoid that isolated state of mental suspended animation. Bear in mind the social setting of the book was one of desperate poverty and strict social order where women who were beaten and neglected suffered in silence because most of their neighbours were in a similar situation and there was no recourse open to them. In church, when you got there, you didn't speak of such things. It would not do to have your pious husband, the man who sings so loudly on Sunday, known as the man who will blacken your eye or bust your lip later in the week. In this context 'bushed' was also a social situation, a bad place and existence that many women found themselves in which left them vulnerable to the stress and hostility of their mates.