Getting mail in the country is a little different than getting mail in the city.  You have to install a mailbox per Canada Post guidelines for mail to be delivered.

If you’ve never received mail in a country mailbox before, you can both send and receive mail via your mailbox.  For outgoing mail, you put it in your box and put up the flag, when the postman sees the flag is up, they’ll stop and collect the mail on their way by.  When they deliver mail, they’ll also put up the flag to let you know there is something for you to collect.

You can install your mailbox in a number of ways but one of the preferred methods seems to be the use of an old milk jug – drop a 4×4″ post into it, fill it with concrete/dirt, and mount the mailbox on top.  The picture above shows our new mailbox and our milk jug which has recently been primed, after having been sandblasted to remove all the crud/rust.

In another post I’ll post some pictures of the painted milk jug, and a photo of the completed and installed mailbox.  We are just waiting on some stencils as we need to paint our name and civic number on the side of the box!