Season's Greetings from Jan and Alan

Oscar Wilde said it best, “Work is the curse of the drinking class”. It is long ago – sometime in the last century – that your Christmas correspondents earned daily bread by honest toil. As another year fades into memory we continue to dedicate ourselves to getting it while it’s hot, apprehensive that at any moment it might get cold for a long, long time. While we’re at it, we work at taking nothing for granted and try not to forget the importance of counting our abundant blessings.

We are back at the winter base camp in Victoria, keeping ourselves off the streets with a variety of diversions and distractions. Jan quilts, bludgeons mere mortals at bridge, learns a new guitar piece now and then. Alan takes pictures, spends inordinate hours on Great War research, reads books about Shackleton and Scott and wonders what it feels like to be a titan among mere mortals. Together we hike local hills with stalwart companions Mike and Mary, breathe outdoor air at every opportunity, make a point of occasionally learning something new. Simple pleasures endure: cribbage at breakfast by the dining room window, watching juncos, towhees and bushtits reaping the chickscratch we’ve scattered in the yard.

We enjoyed a balmy summer at the summer base camp in Cape Breton. Downeast we rely on Cousins Lynn and Louise to lead us into corners of Cape Breton seldom tramped by anyone else. We lure the birds at Big Bras d’Or too, enjoy their antics at the feeders and keep track of everything that flies within binocular range of our shack at the edge of the Great Bras d’Or.

In September Lynn and Louise joined us for an 18-day trip to Ireland. We walked 150 km of the postcard-perfect Dingle Peninsula, got nose-to-beak with fulmars at the Cliffs of Moher, tramped rocky Burren national park, looked for ghosts at the Boyne battlefield and the principal places of the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin. Irish cooking – especially the seafood – was vastly better than we ever anticipated. Best of all, avowed beer-haters Lynn & Louise learned that Irish Guinness draught is a beer in a class all its own.

We traveled to Oregon twice – in spring and fall – seeking out wild hot springs, migrating waterbirds, mountain quiet. At Portland – in the opening game of the new NBA basketball season – we saw the great Steve Nash in the flesh. His team lost.

But losses have been few. Alan’s mom rebounded from a bad sacrum fracture in the summer and is doing wonderfully well at her new place in Truro. Jan’s dad is flourishing in his beloved garden and back yard at nearby Cadboro Bay. Life continues to treat us well. We wish it so for all our friends and loved ones too.

Oregon Flashes

Having spent a whole week back in Victoria we hit the road again. Despite my high regard for Steve Nash I had never seen the great man in the flesh. Since his Phoenix Suns were opening the new NBA season in the venue closest to Victoria we decided to drive to Portland to watch the spectacle. Two seats in the 28th row cost were priced at $340. I feel more than mildly ashamed to admit that we paid. Portland – like so many other NBA franchises – sells out all of its 20,000-plus seats every single game. How is this possible? How do mere mortals afford $300 or more for a pair of seats forty times a season? The game itself produced good news and bad. Mostly bad. Nash potted 26 points, making him the game’s high scorer, but he coughed up the ball nine times and the Suns were drubbed by 16 points. Happily for them, the Portland fans were delighted and made a lot of noise. My hearing went haywire for two days.

We sought solace and silence in the mountains. Jan has contaminated me with affection for natural hot springs in remote places. We added two more to our life list. A mile and a half walk though primeval forest brought us to Bagby Hot Springs. We had a stall to ourselves and soaked in a huge hollowed-out cedar log. We heard nothing louder than trickling water and voluble Steller’s jays.

Along Oregon Highway 22 we chanced upon lava fields covered in fresh snow. We successfully negotiated Highway 46 despite the six-inch snow cover. We arrived at Terwilliger Hot Spring south of OR 242 on a rainy Thursday. On our previous Oregon trip, last spring, I won the lottery: a naked and sumptuous young lady suggested – without financial or other inducement on my part – that I was an attractive man with a good body and so what if I was if I was 50. No such luck this time. At Terwilliger we were joined by four young people, two of each ‘gender’. Had they been wearing clothes I might have described our young ladies as the fresh-faced, girl-next-door type. But nakedness provoked a different impression. One sweet young thing displayed pierced nipples, a ring through her shorn left labium, tattoos depicting large swallows above her boobs and another, a scorpion, above her crotch. I began to feel strongly that time has passed me by.

I am entertained by the roadside vistas that appear as I drive American highways. South of Eugene a big billboard informed motorists the Sabbath is Saturday notwithstanding the efforts of the Antichrist to make it Sunday. The immediate neighbourhood featured an ‘adult shop’, shooting range and casino. Something for everyone: god-fearer, pornographer, gunman and gambler. Another billboard showed an image of the US Constitution on fire and this: “Deep in your heart you know something is wrong”. Barack Obama might not have been pleased with a sign alleging “My dog is smarter than your president”.

We visited Cousin Terri and Ed at their shangri-la on the Umpqua River. Fall colours shone almost half as splendidly as those of Cape Breton. We hiked a stretch of the North Umpqua Trail and dined on springer salmon caught by Ed himself on the river flowing mightily right in front of his palace. Scrub jays and a gang of wild turkeys dropped by to extend their regards.

We tore ourselves away from southern Oregon and drove I-5 to Bellevue WA to spend Halloween and a pleasant, well-fed evening with Julie, Jan’s cousin, and Kim. For somewhat fresher vistas we took the ferry from Anacortes through the American San Juan Islands to Sidney BC. Now we are back in Victoria under temporarily sunny skies, wondering where to go next.

Alan

Home Again, Home Again

It turned out that life could indeed be that good. We returned to Victoria under brilliant sunshine. Marc collected us at the airport after turning on the power and water at Ontario Street. He knows my appalling weakness for cheezies and hickory sticks: a bag on the main floor, another upstairs on my desk. Doug Hensby prepared a 4-star feast of Indian cookery; he and Jacqui entertained us with tales of their recent adventure in the Middle East. On Sunday Mary and Mike led us on a new route into the Sooke Hills. The weather was ideal, our friends’ boon companionship a match. More than once the sign on Bob Nagel’s kitchen wall came to mind: These Are The Good Old Days.

Warmly welcomed by west-coast pals we haven’t seen in months, we imagine, like Sally Field accepting her Oscar, that maybe a few folks out here like us a bit. I communed happily with old friends, Al Carver and Tim Leadem. Jan revels in the James Bay nest-box: unlike ‘Bigador’ it has power, central heating, hot running water. But she doesn’t linger long: pals who quilt and those who play bridge lure her away. Meanwhile I immerse myself in WWI projects, reading and grazing the Internet for fresh gold.

Victoria looks swell in late-October light. We seek variety on our before-breakfast walks and catch up on the changes that five months have wrought in the local landscape. Clover Point drew us, not just for a look at autumn shorebirds and gulls but to cross paths with old pal Ron Satterfield.

On Tuesday Steve Nash commences his fifteenth NBA season. It so happens his Phoenix Suns open just down the road, In Portland. I have never seen Victoria’s – and Canada’s – pride-and-joy in the flesh. We decided to remedy that. We head to Portland Monday, will spend a couple of days at the Benson, prowl the city, head south for a reunion with Terri and Ed, look for suitable birding opportunities along the way.

Alan

And Then There Were None

The gate is closed on another season at Big Bras d’Or. We departed Wednesday morning and are now enjoying Donnie and Nancy’s hospitality at the Black Rock Shangri-la on Minas Basin. Doris is nearby, in Truro. We’re happy to report that mi madre continues to soar. Yesterday we went out on the town with the old girl, making pigs of ourselves at a good Italian restaurant.

The last year or so has brought a worrisome lean to the ancient outhouse. Fearful that a rambunctious BM might deliver someone on an unwanted ride into the Great Bras d’Or, I spent a day jacking up the comfort station, removing the old posts – just as well since one of them was reduced pretty much to dust below ground – and replacing them with creosoted railway ties that should last a good deal longer than I will. The day’s exertions left me wearily aware that a 63-year-old body is no facsimile of the 20-something version that built the outhouse back in the early 70s.

October delivered peace and quiet just as sublime as that we enjoyed in May but evening arrived far sooner. Stillness was broken occasionally, by honking formations of Canada geese, wing-whistling surf scoters massed on the saltchuck opposite the cabin, noisy woodpeckers – pileated and hairy – hollering from the woods. Warmed by the Drolet woodstove we pigged out on Lee Child ‘Jack Reacher’ novels, exhausting most of the Cape Breton regional library system’s entire supply.

October is Celtic Colours time. The annual music festival is always a guaranteed good time and this year was no exception. We enjoyed Lennie Gallant, Old Man Leudecke and others at Boularderie school and an Irish-themed evening at Lower River Inhabitants with Liz Doherty et al. What we liked best were two free events at Knox Church in Baddeck, where CBC Cape Breton hosts daily two-hour recording sessions. We especially liked Scot guitarist Tony McManus and the PEI Acadian group Vishten.

We’re back in Victoria on Saturday, enjoying a notion that a few folks might be happy to have us back: bro-in-law Marc promises to retrieve us from the airport, pal Doug Hensby will produce a feast of Indian food mere hours after we’re back. Will Mary and Mike have a hike planned for Sunday morning? Surely life can’t be that good.

Alan

Doris Leaps Over Tall Buildings

Well, maybe not tall buildings. En route back to Cape Breton from the Ireland trip the Dingle walkers – all four of us – stopped to visit Doris in her new digs in a seniors building at Truro. The dear old thing was released from hospital and has been in Truro about two weeks. Appropriately, she gives highest praise to my sisters for their above-and-beyond efforts in organizing the move from Halifax while I indulged myself in Ireland.

Mum is doing remarkably well and doing so far faster than I ever expected when I saw her in hospital September 9. She uses a walker but gets about very quickly. Her weight plummeted to 85 lbs in hospital. No typo – 85 lbs. She has regained a little at Truro and I dearly hope she recovers more soon. Best of all, the dear old thing has a marvellous positive attitude about her new circumstances. She accepted an invite to participate in a card tourney. She won. Yesterday she recited several of Robert Louis Stevenson’s poems from a Child’s Garden of Verses. From memory.

Jan and I depart from Halifax for Victoria October 16. We will drive to Truro a couple of days ahead to see my mother, play a few games of cribbage, and stuff her full of truffles and her favourite ripple chips.

Those of her friends who desire to stay in touch will want her new address:
Parkland Truro Edinburgh Hall
#305, 356 Young Street
Truro NS B2N 3Y6

Her phone number is 902-843-3814.

Irish Luck

We are back on the left side of the Atlantic after an 8-day, 150 km tramp with Lynn and Louise along Ireland’s Dingle Way, five more days on the road in a rented Skoda Octavia and two wandering the streets of Dublin by shank’s mare. We were blessed: Serendipity arrived early and stayed late. As if leprechauns were looking after us. Prepared for rain, the weather proved far better than we feared, nearly as blithe as we dared hope.

Our Canadian red-maple walking sticks and the twins’ trademark rubber boots attracted attention wherever we tramped. We identified 65 bird species during the Dingle walk, none more special than the remarkable chough, a reckless red-billed aerialist that frequents dramatic coastal cliffs. On the flanks of Dingle’s Mount Eagle we watched more than a dozen impersonating WWI dogfighters, hurling themselves earthward at top speed, averting disaster only at the last moment.

At Anascaul I chanced upon a statue honouring Tom Crean, a real-life, unassuming hero of four British Antarctic expeditions, someone I knew about from my reading on the subject. Across the road is the South Polar Inn which houses a pub Crean himself operated between the world wars. Surrounded by old Antarctic photos and memorabilia, we had fish-and-chips washed down with draught Guinness. I was happy as can be.

Serendipity delivered two new friends: affable Yanks Rick and David, also on a Dingle walkabout. We deviated from our prescribed route to follow them on theirs, over a mountain, Cruach Mharthain. Turned out to be the best day of the entire Dingle walk.

Years ago a Boston neighbour of Bob Nagel’s gave him a homemade CD of Irish songs featuring a voice evoking a Humvee rumbling over coarse gravel. I like the unknown voice a lot. Walking into a Killarney pub I heard it rendering a familiar song, Dirty Old Town. I demanded identification. A customer at the bar said the voice belonged to an Irish institution, the late Ronnie Drew of the Dubliners. The barkeep directed me to a music store around the corner where I could procure as much Ronnie Drew as I liked. I did.

At Lispole a friendly shopkeeper gave us an events calendar that led us to a folk concert at St. James Church, Dingle. The evening of vocals, fiddle, guitar, uilleann pipe and low whistle was a musical feast.

Other feasts surpassed expectation too. At Dingle we were led to a diner, Out of the Blue, claiming it doesn’t open its doors if it doesn’t have the finest fresh seafood to offer. We all chose squid and decided it couldn’t possibly be beaten. Then it was, by the seafood stew at Bianconi’s in Killorglin along the Ring of Kerry. And again by the crab claws at Monk’s in Ballyvaughan on Galway Bay.

We time-travelled. To 1916 and the Easter Rising in Dublin; to the General Post Office where bullet holes still evoke the heady days of April when republicans briefly held off the British Army. And dreary Kilmainham Jail where 14 were executed by firing squad in May. We travelled to 1690 and the site of the Battle of the Boyne, the “eye of the storm of Irish history”. To Monasterboice where elaborate high Celtic crosses have stood for ten centuries. To Knowth where ancient people built great mounds three thousand years BC, decorating them with a quarter of Europe’s known Neolithic stone art. Even further back, to the portal dome at Poulnablone which has stood a thousand times longer than I have cluttered planet Earth.

Serendipity abandoned us only at the end. We arrived early at the Dublin airport for our Air Canada flight. Trouble was, there was no Air Canada flight, neither ours nor any other that day. Nor was there an Air Canada counter to raise an alarm. We might still be wandering the airport, abject and helpless, but for this: one of our quartet is a genius. Jan somehow deduced we were meant to fly British Midlands –- who else could have figured it out? –- an Air Canada partner in Star Alliance. We made it to Heathrow late, found fresh trouble: landing in Terminal 1, we had to get to Terminal 3, fast. By running and with the aid of shuttle bus Jan and I made it with three minutes to spare but where were the twins? We’d lost them. As I’m about to panic, a tap on the shoulder –- Louise. She and her twin had got there on footspeed alone, no shuttle. On the flight to Toronto I de-stressed on a combination of plentiful French wine and egregiously violent movies. But trouble wasn’t over. At Toronto our Airbus 320 was disabled by mechanical problems. Delay. We were squeezed into a 319. I couldn’t escape into my latest Jack Reacher novel because the overhead light didn’t work. Landed late in Halifax and one last problem: two pieces of baggage missing. Briefly, I vowed never to fly again.

Now we are back in the Cape Breton woods and all is calm again. October peace-and-quiet is every bit as sublime as that which greeted us in May. But daylight is in shorter supply. We have decided to take a break from intensive travel and will return the easy way, by air –- gulp –- rather than truck and camper. Our ETA in Victoria is the afternoon of October 16. Friends and creditors can look for us starting then.

Alan

Life with Riley

A dog came to stay a few days. I can’t think of another mutt who could induce me to offer a spell of pro-bono dog-sitting but Riley is a charmer: a pint-sized border collie possessed of abundant charm and personality. On our Dalem walks he routed every squirrel in sight. He would have chased stick all day if my throwing arm hadn’t eventually fallen off. We proved a useful birder too, flushing grouse, chasing crows, daring ravens to accept a fight to the finish. Yep, I was sorry when the interlude came to an end.

We inherited a bucket of fresh filleted mackerel. Which provided an excuse to get the smoker back in action. What with Jan’s marvellous marinade and a good fire of birch and green alder the proceeds were just as gratifying as planned.

We continue to be blessed with fine summer weather. The swimmin’ hole is just about perfect. Tonight we go for gold: it is prime time for the annual late-August bioluminescent diatom extravaganza. Accounts and descriptions will follow.

Meanwhile Doris makes excellent progress in Halifax. She manages to sit for hours now and walks the hallways of Ward 8.4. Next week she expects to move to a rehab unit. Once the hospital stint is over the dear old girl will have a new address. She’s given notice at Caxton Close and will move to an apartment in an assisted-living facility in Truro. Daughter Nancy will be close at hand and Doris will be an hour closer to us. She looks forward to forging a flurry of new friendships.

Less than two weeks to go before we depart with Lynn and Louise for a fortnight in Ireland. The principal draw is a 180-km, 8-day walk around the Dingle Peninsula. If you’ve ever seen David Lean’s Ryan’s Daughter you might understand why I’ve long harboured a desire to wander that corner of the emerald isle. Given the thirst likely to build over the course of a long day on the trail, I look forward to concluding each day at a pub with a view, a cool glass of Guinness in hand.

Bachelor Days at Big Bras d’Or

My Jan flew west for nine days to renew adoring acquaintance with granddaughter Lexi in Coquitlam. I headed to Halifax principally to commune with Doris. At first appalled at my dear old Mum’s shrivelled form I saw enough improvement over three days to convince myself that her above-ground prospects are significantly better than 50-50. Her first order of business was to show off the fleet of cards and letters that have flowed in from her friends and admirers across the country. Thank you again, those of you who cared to write or call. We played cribbage. That seemed to engage Doris’s red corpuscles; when the cards didn’t go her way she threw a familiar unmentionable epithet at me. My heart soared.

Halifax refreshed awareness that I am a country mouse by nature. After three days of crowds, noise and traffic I was happy to be back in the woods. At Bigadore the decibels are slight, provided mostly by hummingbirds, squirrels and jays.

Jan’s absence increases her stock and enhances appreciation of what she shares with me. I do the early morning 7 km Dalem walk without her but with reduced enthusiasm. In her absence Jan provides a good weight loss program: in the first 36 hours I shed five pounds. I feed when I’m peckish but sometimes projects distract me from awareness of hunger.

Big Bras d’Or is sublime in mid-late August. Nature's bounty is peak: mushrooms, blueberries, blackberries. Conditions for the August 12 Perseid meteor shower were ideal: no wind, no clouds, no moonlight – perfect viewing. Under blankets and tarps seven of us lined up on the bank, two of them strangers to the night sky. Some years ago I introduced Lynn and Louise to the joys of astronomy. As with all their other endeavours the twins took to it like politicians to fresh graft; now I eat their dust. They introduced the night-sky tyros to the northern constellations, explained why the panoply appears to rotate around the pole star, regaled them with arcane details of the luminosity and power of the Summer Triangle's mighty stars – Vega, Deneb, Altair. While at it we counted 104 meteors.

Yesterday The Darlings were both kind and cruel. They took pity, delivering a meal on wheels after work. Then mercy turned to malice. Bananagrams is another thing I introduced them to. Against mere mortals I am a player – I hold my own. Yesterday we played two dozen games, Louise winning five, Lynn 18. That left me with one win. One. The ego suffers mightily.

Jan returns Sunday. I will be at the airport in plenty of time to welcome her with open arms.

Counting Blessings

Yesterday Doris commenced her third week in the Community Health Unit of the Halifax Infirmary. She marked the occasion with a success: managing to sit in a chair for twenty minutes. The effort was painful and exhausting in the extreme; the dear old thing wins my commendation. Doris is not able at the moment to convey thanks; on her behalf I extend heartfelt kudos to those of her friends who have called and sent cards or flowers. Believe me, there never was a patient who appreciates such considerations more.

Next Friday Jan departs for a week or so to commune with darling granddaughter Lexi in Coquitlam. During her absence I will head to Halifax to do the same with Doris.

One of my mother’s enduring influences is the invocation to count my blessings. Even now, leveled by a sacral fracture, Doris manages to remember that she is lucky by comparison to many others. Sourness isn’t in her.

Meanwhile, here in Big Bras d’Or nature shows its best face. The swimming hole is at its balmy best, black flies and mosquitoes in retreat, blueberries abundantly at their peak. We have had a succession of visitors and enjoyed a couple of riotously happy gatherings at the cabin.

On Saturday we reveled in our latest nature ramble with Lynn and Louise. Along the coast south of Louisbourg we were foiled in a search for prized cloudberries but consolation came by way of a bumper crop of chanterelle mushrooms. The twins take good cheer to a whole new level: there isn’t a trace of sourness in any of their 206 bones.

Would that we could all be so blithe.

Doris Takes a Fall

Abundant personality, vitality and good nature have brought Doris many friends from one side of the country to the other but myriad charms do not comprise a fortress against the ravages of time. The Dear Old Thing fell last Sunday while doing chores, suffered a very painful fractured sacrum and was hauled off to hospital by ambulance. Six days later she is bedridden, still in hospital, and faces the prospect of weeks of rehab. Her weight is down to less than 95 lbs, her immediate future a mire of uncertainty. Doris’s friends and admirers would pine as much as I do at the sight of her marooned in a hospital bed. The good news is that from the neck up she is as sharp as ever, bright-eyed, still exuding positivity, still smiling.

Sensible folks prefer a big lottery win or a large, unexpected inheritance but my mother is odd: finding a postcard in her mailbox constitutes a major windfall. If you felt moved to drop a line your reward would be the knowledge certain that you’d make her day. Doris is in the Halifax Infirmary, 8.4 CHU, 1796 Summer Street, Halifax NS, B3H 3A6. If a phone call is your cup of tea dial 902-473-1510 and ask to be switched to her room.

Wish her well.

Commingling with Mother Earth

Go outside your comfort zone, I am sometimes urged. Late in June we did just that, joining The Twins for a wild herb walkabout. Our guru evoked the flower children of the late 1960s, draped in loose cottons, braless, gumbooted. Her twenty-five pupils were directed to gather in a circle, shut eyes, wiggle fingers in Mother Earth, rhapsodize in nature’s bounty. I squirmed, then distracted myself in the décolletage of the young women included among our ranks.

I’d expected to learn which herbs are best for wild summer salads but the focus was on the medicinal magic awaiting us in the Cape Breton woods: false lily-of-the-valley for headache, bunchberry for troubled kidneys, goldthread for alcoholism and constipation. All potentially useful in a Big Bras d’Or summer. We learned much, some best taken with a grain of salt, some intriguing. We will experiment further.

Bob Nagel returned to his summer Shangri-la a week ago, enhancing the sunshine and light. He has a mane of curly waves, looks ever more a lost brother of the Kennedys – Jack, Bobby and Ted – and still vaults tall trees in a single bound. He mustered his courage and allowed me to set fire to small mountains of accumulated brush. When everything went swimmingly, Bob morphed from shrinking violet to arsonist, demanding more.

Kathleen and Jon came for the long weekend. My sister abides restfulness only in small doses. We stalked wild orchids at Frenchvale, built bonfires, cut trails, searched for the ruins of Angus Livingstone’s homestead, he the first Scot settler in these parts, our ancestor.

Summer has landed, and with that our seasonal food-and-frivolity festivals are underway: we celebrate eggs and strawberries at Millville, mussels at Englishtown, lobsters at Big Bras d’Or, porkchops at Ross Ferry. How blessed we are to still have most of our senses intact and to know there is bound to be a wild-herb cure for dyspepsia right outside our door.

Alan

Magical History Tour

Finally the rain stopped so we enacted a plan to vacate the summer shackri-la for awhile to explore back roads in mainland Nova Scotia.

A Livingstone ancestor imported the family bloodline to New Scotland in 1790. We saw Livingstone Cove in Antigonish County where Malcolm established a homestead; we visited the St. David’s churchyard where ten or twelve old Livingstone headstones slowly lose the battle against the elements and the ravages of time.

My ancestor fought with the Highland Stuarts at the calamitous Battle of Culloden, which ended Bonnie Prince Charlie’s adventure and put the sword to the Highland clan system. The battle occurred 264 years ago, but even today it resonates strongly in both the Old Scotland and the New. At Knoydart a roadside sign pointed the way to a monument I’d never seen or even heard of. In 1938, a MacDonald clansman, still possessed of strong feelings about the atrocities visited by the English following the 1746 debacle, built a cairn honouring three Culloden survivors who made good lives for themselves in Nova Scotia. The monument stands on a windswept headland clearly selected to evoke the highland moor where the Highlanders fell. The monument plaque reads, in part:
Let them tear our bleeding bosoms
Let them drain our dearest veins
In our hearts is Charlie, Charlie
While a drop of blood remains

Whew.

Our road trip morphed into a magical history tour. Jan urged a stop at the NS Museum of Industry at Stellarton. Later we saw the Sutherland steam-powered sawmill at Denmark NS, the nearby Balmoral Grist Mill and finally the Maitland site of the shipyard where William Dawson Lawrence built the largest wooden sailing ship the world had ever seen. At each of these fascinating stops I was struck by the energy, industry, initiative and inventiveness of 19th century Nova Scotians and pondered the changes that have led to Stephen Harper feeling entitled to talk about the region’s “culture of defeat”.

Defeatists were not evident at sparsely-populated Wallace. If you are ever in the neighbourhood you might want to consider pausing at the Jubilee Cottage Inn. It was the nearby national wildlife area that drew us to Wallace but having seen the Jubilee included in a list of five things ‘not to miss’ on the Northumberland shore we took a room in the century-old house. The room was charming enough but the capper was a fabulous 5-part dinner feast produced by Carol, the female half of our husband-and-wife hosts. Carol is a brilliant country chef and she delivered one of the best meals we’ve ever enjoyed, anytime, anywhere.

Carrying on to Black Rock for a sibling weekend with my three sisters and their rhyming spouses, Donnie, Ronnie and Jonnie, we enjoyed a surfeit of Cape Sable lobsters and evening outdoor fires. On Saturday the eight of us stormed the Marigold Cultural Centre in Truro for a virtuoso performance by one of my favourite singer-songwriters, Lennie Gallant, the best-known, best-loved native of Rustico PEI.

Now we are back at Big Bras d’Or, a few pounds heavier for our gustatory indulgences but with head swimming with ideas for the next round of historical pursuits and rambles.

Alan

Of Barrens, Bananas and Bunnies

The Cape Bretoners should retain us as rainmakers. Through the first five months of 2010 year-to-date rainfall levels were half the normal level. Then we arrived and now farmers jump for joy. June’s rainfall figures are twice normal. Hallelujah.

We had one sunny day in the last seven. Fortuitously it was the one we’d scheduled a hike with Lynn and Louise. On Saturday they shared another of their secret destinations, the trailhead just a few kilometres from iconic, much-photographed Cape Smokey. In Nova Scotia pink ladyslippers are neither rare nor retiring. Indeed they are among the showiest, most visible of all the native orchids. We normally expect them around the end of June but here near the foot of Smokey they ran riot. Sometimes, particularly in northern parts of Cape Breton, pink ladyslippers aren’t pink at all, but white. On Saturday nature provide us with an abundanza of whites, deep pinks and the whole spectrum in between.

Our ramble led to an open barren commanding terrific views in every direction. It evoked earlier hikes in Newfoundland and Arran in Scotland. I was hard-pressed not to award a ten on my 10-point appreciation scale. The weather held for the six hours we spent in the hills. By the time we returned to Big Bras d’Or the rain returned too. No problem. All four of us had eagerly looked forward to the second half of the day’s agenda almost as much as the first: a no-holds-barred, go-for-the-throat Bananagrams slugfest.

Those not acquainted with Bananagrams will have no idea of its addictive allure. Perhaps it’s just as well – if you’re not already hooked perhaps you should steer clear. I consider myself a decent player. Louise and Jan are good too. Lynn is another matter entirely. For the first two-thirds of the marathon I stayed pretty much even. Then, like the great Secretariat stirring from a somnambulant effort in the early going of a major stakes race, Lynn moved to a higher gear and blew the field away. She is a stone-hearted assassin.

On Sunday my treatment for a bruised ego was to immerse myself in useful projects. What likes rain? Why a garden of course. Jan completed her spring planting – beans, peas, radish, carrots, lettuce, parsley, basil – and I did my bit too. In previous years our resident rabbits – varying hares to be precise – helped themselves to some of the garden proceeds. The real men of our Boularderie neighbourhood have an answer for such a problem, one flowing from the muzzle of a .410 shotgun. Even if Jan allowed such a solution which she most assuredly does not, I wouldn’t have the stomach for it. So the garden is now defended by a staked chicken wire perimeter. I am counting on rabbits being less skilled than squirrels at penetrating human defences.

Meanwhile the rain is back but that’s okay; it gives us an excuse to linger indoors working at strategies for coping with The Assassin.

Alan

Rites of Second Spring

Imagine how charmed we were to arrive at Bigador May 20 and find the summer shack-ri-la uninvaded by human intruders. True, squirrels had built winter dens in the outhouse and woodshed and the workshop showed signs of having provided off-season sanctuary to a deer mouse or two but those sorts of interlopers we can stand.

May 20 was our earliest-ever arrival date at the old Big Bras d’Or farm, early enough to deliver us a second spring. We found the woods carpeted with wildflowers -- violets, clintonia lilies, lily-of-the-valley, wild sarsaparilla et al. Already we have seen 50 species of birds including eleven warblers. Eight of them are summer denizens of Bigador including some of the most beautiful you’ll find illustrated in the Peterson guide – Blackburnian, Magnolia, Black-throated Green, Parula – but migration is still underway: we were early enough to see a warbler gang ‘just passing through’ that included Yellow, Wilson’s and Yellowthroat. Northern Gannet is an offshore seabird. Unusually, one flew into the waters of the Great Bras d’Or just opposite the cabin, entertaining us with a spectacular dive from great height for a seafood lunch. We don’t even have to leave the building for good birding. Our feeders are installed and well attended. A pair of Hermit Thrushes is raising a brood under a little pine right just 10’ away from the dining room window.

Mammals thrive too. The neighbour man used to shoot every four-footed thing that moved, but by recently going to his reward the wild things are rewarded too. The feet and undersides of the varying hares still show white traces of their winter garb. Foxes are on the rebound. Scat dotting our roadway indicates it’s only a matter of time before our first coyote sighting. Best of all, with no guns blazing from the neighbour’s place, a white-tailed deer showed up the other day near the cabin, the first laid eyes on in three decades.

The Darlings – Lynn and Louise– did their level-best to commit a homicide last Saturday by way of a 10-hour slog up four hills, down four dales in CB Highlands National Park. Near death though I was by the end of it, I managed to stagger back to the vehicle feeling every one of my 63-year-old aching joints and muscles. Jan was tested too but she is a better soldier than I and sucked it up for the homestretch. The twins? Of course the effort was absolutely, well, effortless for them. At the outset I would have claimed our party comprised three women and one man but the day’s events proved conclusively that the roster actually included three cow moose and one soft, spongey wimp. Tomorrow, Saturday, we are scheduled for a return engagement with the 100-lb Wonders. I have been in training all week and hope to embarrass myself a little less grandly than I did the first time out.

Bigador is wonderfully quiet at this time of year. The fjord is mostly devoid of boat traffic, summer visitors have yet to arrive, Old Route 5 is only lightly travelled. When the sun shines we spend hours rambling in the woods and fields. Now that Steve Nash is out of the NBA playoffs, I feel not the faintest need for a TV; if we need to know what awful things are going on in the Gulf of Mexico, Afghanistan or the Gaza Strip, CBC Radio keeps us in the loop. Otherwise, fiercely contested games of Bananagrams keep us distracted while honing our competitive edge; when that gets to be too much there is no place for reading a worthy book quite like the old rocking chair parked in front of the warming Drolet woodstove.

Alan

Oregon Tales

Nothing stimulates the latent diarist-blogger in me so well as a journey to unfamiliar ground. We’ve just returned from a nine-day trip into the wilds of southern Oregon-northern California. The principal objective was to get ourselves gobsmacked by the annual spring waterfowl spectacles at the national wildlife refuges straddling the OR-CA border east of the Cascades but in the going and coming back we found enough distractions to keep us from ever falling asleep at the wheel.

We took the coastal route through Washington pausing at Olympic National Park long enough to ogle the sea stacks at Ruby Beach and measure ourselves against some of the ancient and now rarer giant redcedars that were commonplace long ago. Years ago pal George Perry passed along Ralph Widrig’s advice that Leadbetter Point at the north end of Long Beach Peninsula is one of the most golden of the west coast’s premier birding hot spots. It took me decades but I finally got there and soon discovered that Ralph knew what he was talking about. We arrived early enough March 23 to have the place entirely to ourselves. Thousands of shorebirds –- sanderling, black-bellied plover and especially dunlin –- flocked in the mudflats among gangs of gulls.

A sign at the trailheads warned that trails were ‘subject to flooding’ from October to May. Our gumboats were no match for numerous watery places sometimes four inches above our knees but, strangely enough, old age sometimes brings a trace of wisdom. One of life’s great lessons that has finally managed to penetrate my cranium is that when vicissitude visits we often as not have a choice: we can change our circumstances -– or change our minds. With the latter accomplished flooded gumboats no longer seemed a problem and we managed to revel in our circumstances, rewarded by close encounters with vocalizing Virginia rail and drumming ruffed grouse.

At Astoria which bills itself ‘Little San Francisco’ we indulged a whim to stay downtown in a grand old hotel. The Elliot fit the bill to a T and provided easy access to historical attractions along Astoria’s Columbia River waterfront. From Astoria we made an 850 km beeline for the wildlife refuges. Twenty-nine years have passed –- how is it possible? –- since I last laid eyes on Lower Klamath and Tule Lake NWRs. I was impressed then and no less so in the return engagement. I promised Jan hordes of ducks and geese and Klamath-Tule Lake made me no liar. A broad white band stretching half a kilometre across a gravel road into a big farm field turned out not to be snow but a flock –- 20,000, 30,000, who knew -– of Ross’s geese. The Ross’s were supplemented by many others: snow and white-fronted geese, and 15 species of ducks in their unnumbered thousands. The day before our arrival the NWR folks had carried out their latest survey, counting a million and a quarter waterfowl in the refuges.

We spent a few hours among geological wonders and Modoc ghosts at Lava Beds National Monument. Here the first people lived for centuries until evicted about 1870. When the Modoc objected to their forced removal a war broke out the Modoc couldn’t win. Outnumbered 20 to 1 the Modoc warriors lasted for months but finally surrendered in the fall of 1873. More casualties ensued after the fighting ended: four leaders of the insurrection were hanged and the Modoc removed forever.

Jan loves hot springs, particularly those meriting the label ‘natural’. We identified one reachable along our route back across the Cascades. The four pools of the Toketee hot springs are perched high above the impressively wild North Umpqua River. We crossed the North Umpqua on a log bridge and found our way to the pools last Friday afternoon. It turned out that Friday was the start of university spring break in Oregon and we arrived at the pools to find ourselves among young people -- young women included -- in various states of undress. Suddenly I felt as drawn to natural hot springs as Jan herself.

We followed the North Umpqua past its junction with the South Umpqua to my cousin Terri’s Shangri-la on a lower reach of the river at a place called Indian Bend. Terri’s talented Ed has built a brand new edifice here -– some would call it a house but I consider mansion, castle or palace better labels. Our hosts treated as regally as palace-dwellers might. We walked among tall conifers above the river, photographed a ‘lifer’ flower here and there. Lulled to sleep by a chorus of frogs we awoke to the gabbering of wild turkeys. Kid sister Kathleen and bro-in-law joined the fray ; we had the first dinner feast in the palace before the first real fire in the splendid new beach-stone fireplace.

Having never investigated Portland, we went there, stayed in another grand old hotel, the Benson –- built the year the Titanic sank –- walked another riverfront, the Willamette this time, prowled enormous Powell’s bookstore, tried some of the 99 beer varieties on tap at Henry’s Tavern and opted for seafood lifers at Jake’s Crawfish –- Oregon rockfish and Columbia River sturgeon.

Now we are back in Victoria, happy both with the aftertaste of a good trip and with the changes nine days of spring hath wrought to our little backyard. A pair of robins tend to their eggs in the nest they have built on a joist of our deck. Just 10’ away a pair of bushtits have also taken up child-rearing in their beautifully woven pouch nest hanging from a branch of our willow. How lucky can we get?

Alan