Today's guest is a woman of many talents. Nicole Dixon is a writer, of course - an award-winning author of short fiction and essays. She is a former teacher and librarian, and a current permaculture home-farmer on her company-town plot of land in New Waterford, Cape Breton, on Canada's Atlantic coast. As you will hear, she has also taken to raising chickens.

Nicole spent the winter of 2015 at the Berton House Writers Retreat in Dawson City, Yukon - a very cold and dark place. While in Dawson, Nicole's fascination with permaculture led her to a unique view of the local lifestyle, and she wrote out her thoughts on all that in a wonderful essay called Permaculture on the Permafrost in Canadian Notes & Queries magazine.

Nicole joined me over skype from her lovely home on Cape Breton, to talk about chickens and writing and everything in between.