Kate and the Girls

Kate and the girls were here for 10 wonderful days and we visited, played on the beaches, had two birthday parties with fake noses and streamers, a movie night with cousins, wild games of Yahtzee, runs with Louie and so much more.............

Boating with Bert

We have the “old banger” boat in our part of Tidnish Bridge,  but it gets us around in spite of appearances.  Bert  opens the wonderful world of going up to  the head of the Tidnish River, or all the way out to the Bay.  

This year, three year old Asha had her first boat ride with old Bert and she liked it.  So did dog Louie.  He was afraid of the water last year, so we got him a floatation device, and in he went.

 Somewhere in his mixed gene pool, there must be a water dog floating around that needed a little coaxing to come out.

We’re already laid back here in Nova Scotia, but there’s a deeper, more relaxed breathing that goes on as soon as Bert gets into open waters. Looking at trees, research says, gives a calming effect like no other form of landscape.  The waters here are lined with spruce and hackmatack, birch and firs.  Taking in the bountiful woods that come down to the water’s edge all along the river and the Bay puts the local landscape in a special category of relaxation and our breathing shows it.

The other night we managed a ride in Bert while the tide was still high enough to maneuver  the boat, and while the evening  provided enough light to make it  safe to travel.

We headed out to the open waters and the mystical atmosphere transformed us.  We were three generations of silence in the beauty of it.  Three generations and a dog, wrapped in what I now think of as Ethereal Bay.

The Best Kind of Company

We love having company, but one kind stands out from all the rest. 

Kids and grandkids!!

Sally,  Finn ( 8 ),  Max ( 12 ),  Asha ( 3 ) and Sully are here with us now and we’re all having a grand time at the beach, the strawberry fields, on the property and all sorts of other places. 

Above, we’re at Cape Jourimain and that’s the bridge to PEI  in the background




                                Popsicles they made.  Mint chocolate chip with chocolate coating.  

                                 Next came fresh strawberries and pudding with chocolate coating. 

                                                                                     

Asha in the strawberry fields. 

Tantramar and Jolicure

  I left early on Saturday morning to visit with a friend who lives in the small college town of Sackville.

A mile from home, a deer leaped across the road in front of me, reached the edge of the pavement, then turned and stood to take me in.  I had stopped easily, but we were very close and we visually visited for the few minutes before she moved on into the woods.


Around the bend, I watched a pheasant hen and her five young ones picking at something they found to eat at the end of a farm lane.

I had no choice but to take the TransCanada Highway next, but veered off as quickly as I could, heading to the little village of Jolicure ( just a crossroads and a sign, really ) to visit my favorite flock of sheep, and then on to the Tantramar Marsh.

The road quickly turned to dirt, and in the Marsh, the view expands to “forever”.  

It’s a sacred hayfield, peppered with old barns that are slowly falling down.  I mourned the latest one that was kneeling into the ground, and breathing deeply, drove through the covered bridge and into my day.

At home, I have paintings I’ve done of the marsh barns and the Jolicure sheep as gentle reminders of their beauty...........but they’re without the smell of the grass, the bleeting of the sheep and the sound of the tires rolling over the old wooden boards of the covered bridge.

Christmas in July

July 10, 2011

We’ve just come from the Annual Christmas in July Party we’ve been attending for 16 years, so we’re full of the spirit and in the mood to wish everyone season’s cheer.  

All those years ago, we were adopted by a large family of Nova Scotians and folded into their yearly summer Christmas celebration. It comes complete with a tree and stockings filled to the brim with gifts for everyone.  The house decorations are red and green from kitchen to bathroom. 

The feast includes a fresh turkey with all the usual side dishes, and dessert features everyone’s specialties. It’s a lot of tasty food!  

When the children in the family were small, Santa came in 

full suit and beard and gave out all the stockings.  Bud even played the starring role one year.

One of the highlights of the day is a competitive cribbage tournament with a trophy and the winner’s names engraved on the side.  

Three of us have never won.  The 16 year old who just started playing won this year.

“ Aunt Judy” has been hosting the celebration ever since we were adopted.  She and sister Helen shop all winter in Florida and we’re the lucky recipients of their gifting and all around generosity.  

As in all families, as in life ... there are  bittersweet parts.  The kids are growing up and we’ve lost some treasured people.  But the merriment and joy is still there.

It feels good to be part of their family.  It feels especially good to revive the Christmas Spirit in the middle of a beautiful Nova Scotia summer.

                                                   Merry Christmas!

Seeing the Place You Came From

I spotted our dog, Louie, while volunteering at the Humane Society in Boulder, Colorado.

Or it seemed he spotted me while I was making a grand sweep through the back room where newly arrived dogs are kept for a few days before they move to the public spaces where they can be adopted.

He’d come in on a van with thirty dogs from Bartlesville, Oklahoma. These Pet Smart sponsored vans go to over - crowded shelters in low population states and bring dogs back to Boulder ( and three other locations in the U.S. ) for adoption.

So there he was -- coming from Oklahoma to Colorado, picked up as a stray in Bartlesville - and with body language and personality, telling me, “ I’m the one you’re looking for.....take me.”

“But I’m not looking for a dog,” I told him. We had just lost Fundy and I was grieving deeply. Still, he danced, and flipped over, flapping his paws and pan handling me for belly rubs.

Our granddaughter Ava was volunteering in the next room. “Come and see this dog,” I said to her.

She took one look at all his corgi and cairn terrier cuteness and said, “Oh Grandma, that’s your dog. That’s YOUR dog.”

And so he left Colorado and moved to the Arizona desert with us, and thrived.

When it was time to return to Nova Scotia, Bartlesville, Oklahoma, was directly en route to friends we were going to visit. I was curious to see this place where Louie had come from.

Over the years, Bartlesville had given us two significant gifts. When Bud was in graduate school, Phillips Petroleum (then known as Phillips 66 and headquartered in Bartlesville} gave him a lucrative scholarship..... and now Bartlesville had given us Louie.

We arrived in the city in the late afternoon and set out to find the shelter. In spite of our GPS, we got lost and had to phone for directions.

“We’re closing in four minutes,” the director told us when we said we were having difficulty. “Oh, that’s o.k.,” I said. “We adopted one of your dogs in Boulder and we just wanted to see where he came from.”

“You want to see where your dog came from?”

“Yes, we just wanted to see where he came from,” I told her.

“We’ll stay open and wait for you,” she said. And when we arrived a few minutes later,

she and a co-worker were there at the door and the local animal control officer drove in at the same time.

“That dog looks familiar,” he said, and when he heard Louie’s story he said he was sure he’d picked him up as a stray.

Babs, the director, took our pictures ( that’s the animal control guy on the left ), Louie went back to the car, and we were given a grand tour of the place. Especially meaningful was seeing the group of dogs waiting to be driven to Boulder the next week.

So that’s Louie’s story. Babs emailed us the picture she took and Louie will be sending an annual contribution to the Washington County Animal Shelter, along with his regular gift to the Boulder Humane Society.

It’s always important to recognize your roots and honor the people who have helped you along the way.

Ditch Digging

I’m a long-time Nova Scotia ditch lover. I grew up in the city, where everything was paved over and water ran into sewers with metal grates. They provided efficiency, but little to watch and wonder about. It was just man-made materials doing their jobs.

Childhood summers gave me Nova Scotia ditches, with mud and plants growing down there. There was drama in the ditches, and I’ve been hooked ever since.

When we arrived this summer, I was worried about what could possibly come up in our local ditches, since there was so much run-off water that the telephone poles were knee-deep in it.

But the draining process did its work and the crops of Lupine, Blue Flag Iris, Ferns and Cat Tails are spectacular.

The dogs and I have also mind-marked where the raspberries and wild strawberries beside the ditches are, and we’re keeping watch.

Louie is a fellow ditch lover, and with nose to the ground, heads down into them whenever I loosen the lead. He’s more interested in critters than plants, though.

I just continue to marvel at what chooses to blow in and make the ditch its home. Our own driveway changes every year.

A visitor of ours from the UK once said to me, “ Everything we work so hard to cultivate in England, just grows wild in the ditches in Nova Scotia. “

Ditch Digging

Fishing and Farming

I met Jason at the Murray Corner ( New Brunswick ) wharf on Father’s Day. He was pulling a medium-sized boat out of the water and finished the process before he turned off his truck’s motor to answer my questions.

The harbor was full of the typical Cape Islander boats, but they were decorated with large colorful balloon-like objects and had enormous rolls of nets loaded behind their cabins.

“Are those lobster boats?”, I asked. “I’m from Colorado”.

“They are when it’s lobster season”, he answered.

“So what are they doing now?”

“Well”, he said, “ John there ( pointing to a boat - we were the only people on the wharf ) is geared up for mackerel.”

“What’ll he do with them?”, I asked.

“He just came back from P.E.I. ( Prince Edward Island ) - sold the catch over there.

“Mark, (he continued, pointing to another boat ) - the one with the colorful balloons, he’s ready to go out for herring”.

“So what’ll he do with them?”, I asked.

“Sell them for bait for the lobster fishing. It’s lobster season on the Island - so they’ll go over there. Or up to Cap Pele where all the smoke houses are.”

“Me”, he said ( pointing to another boat ), I’m going for herring tomorrow. Those are all small nets on her. Not the big ones for mackerel” Today, though, I’m dragging for oyster - at least I was before I popped a seal on the hitch motor”.

“Oysters, that must be pretty lucrative”, I said.

Big smile from Jason, then a hearty, “Yes, I can’t fill the orders I have.”

“So, you’re a fisherman from around here?”

“Down the road a couple of kilometers”, I’m a fisherman and a farmer”

And so the dialogue continued, me the naive one from Colorado, he, seeming to enjoy supplying the answers.

I found out he farms mink and fox ( keeps him busy in the winter when the boat is out of the water ) that go to Toronto, then to China and Russia. Russian men like male fox fur for their hats and the mink goes to China to make coats.

The whole issue of animals being raised for their fur is unsettling for me, but I had to believe that Jason would at least treat them well while they were in his care. He shared a genuine concern about the local wild fox who, a few years ago, were dying in great numbers from mange. “It’s so sad”, he said. “If we could have caught them and given them just one shot to kill the parasite, they would have all lived” “ But they’re coming back....coming back and looking healthy. The ones who survived the mange are reproducing now.

“When I was out working the oysters, I saw a mother and her three pups playing on the sand bar. So they’re coming back...and they’re looking good.”

Titus, the Akita Biker

While driving east on the TransCanadaHighway the other day, I saw three obvious distance bikers ( as in pedal, not motor ) going towards the bridge to Prince Edward Island. I took a long glance at the first two, but the third one caused me to stop and talk. The man was from Toronto and said he'd travelled for three weeks to get this far. The bike was packed, front and back with camping gear and food and he pulled one of those buggies meant to carry a child.

Looking larger than life, Titus, a 90 pound Akita sat in princely fashion on a cushion in the child buggy, with a canister of dog treats beside him. He appeared to be up for the whole adventure. In fact, I'd say he was smiling. "It's not his first trip", said John. "He knows how to do this."

I had a lot of questions.

"Do you tie him in the buggy? " "No, only in suburbs where another dog might lunge out."

"Isn't the Akita a hunting dog? What about wildlife? I just saw a fox by the side of the road."

"He only responds to aggressive dogs." (Maybe it's because he's a Japanese breed, I thought. He looked very Zen-like)

"Where do you sleep?"

"Mostly under picnic tables, with a tarp on top."

"How far are you going?

"All around the Cabot Trail in Cape Breton. I'll work a bit in Halifax, then get back to Toronto by Fall."

I was talking to John by the entrance to the bridge . It's 8 miles long and is the world's longest bridge over ice-covered water ( not ice-covered now! ) Non-motorized vehicles and walkers aren't allowed to cross, so there's a shuttle. But John had a problem. The shuttle would take the bike rig and John, but not the dog.

I said I'd like to help him out, but I had my 25 pound Corgi in the car and even though Zen-like, and coming with good credentials from John, Titus looked like he could mistake Louie for lunch. I walked around the nearby nature center, looking for someone to help, but couldn't find anyone. If he'd arrived earlier, a couple of truck loads of mackerel fishermen could have taken man, rig and dog over, but they were long gone.

"Don't worry", said John , " I have three months, so I'll pick up the ferry at Pictou sometime. One way or another, I'll get to the Island. Then he sat on the picnic bench, stretched out his legs and looked to the sea.

Fiddlehead Ferns, Lobster Omelettes and Pepere

Imagine the sounds of laughter, the music of the French language and the smells of regional cooking as you're looking at these images.

That should transport you to the Dieppe Market in the heart of Acadian country in this part of the Canadian Maritimes.

It's the end of the fiddlehead fern season here, and these delicacies were having their last showing at many of the market booths. They're young, unfurled ostrich fern, found in sandy soil along the river banks in spring. You simply snip the ends off to discard, then stir fry the unfurled heads in oil or butter with a little salt. Ask a real Acadian ( I'm only half ) and I'm sure you'll get a book full of recipes.

The lobster omelette I photographed is the kind we've been enjoying at the long market tables for a number of years. I'm not sure if you can tell by the photo, but it's a heaping helping of lobster tucked in that egg.

And also in the enjoyment category, the last photo is a "pepere" enjoying his little red haired granddaughter. I couldn't resist capturing that kind of joy........in any language.

Waiting.......

I’m not much of a boater, but I do know the value of channel markers. Right now, half of them are in our river, the rest are waiting until the local harbormaster places them. Until then, it’s a potentially dangerous guess where the deepest waters are in anything other than high tide. The neighbors, and we, have docks secured and boats out of water. We’re waiting.