What Would Wally Say?

Up on MacKenzie Drive Wally-and-Edith’s old place, vacant for several years, now has new residents. This morning, as we emerged from the woods for the last kilometre or so of our pre-breakfast constitutional, we spotted an adult red fox at the corner of the old house, then two more faces -- pups hiding behind the rusting oil tank. We hid too, behind the spruce at the end of Bob Nagel’s driveway, to watch the show. A third young face made an appearance at the den entrance -- an opening in Wally’s basement wall. Then a fourth face, then -- just as we imagined that must be it -- a fifth. The youngsters played, competed for best position at feeding-station mom, conducted themselves in the nature of youngsters having not a care in the world. How charming that Wally-and-Edith’s is a home again. To a family of six, just as in the old days.

When we’re away on the opposite coast friend Gord Haggett, master gate-builder and rabbit stew fancier, harvests a few of the varying hares that flourish at Bigadore. I don’t mind at all: doubtless the stew his missus makes is a most worthy dish, and Gord’s depredations have no noticeable consequence -- the hare population appears to be as robust as ever. I wonder though whether our conduct around the rabbits gives the hunter an unfair advantage. Jan and I are harmless drudges: we ignore them and the bunnies soon grow complacent and fearless -- easy pickings for the merciless hunter. Perhaps it would even the odds a tad were I to impersonate Elmer Fudd, make threatening noises, shake a stick, holler ‘Say your pwayers, Wabbit!’

Strange sights on the Great Bras d’Or. Some loyal readers will know that northern gannets are a seagoing species. Until last year I don’t recall seeing one foraging the waters opposite the cabin. Last year we saw the occasional one or two. Lately the trickle has become a flood: six or seven dozen at a time on the water or diving headlong for fish. What gives? Why would gannets be moving to inland water? Do the birds know something mere humans don’t? Or is it simply that the 2011 smelt run is one for the ages?

On Sunday we hiked the North River Trail. Moose droppings littered the pathway much of the way. Folks who believe in ghosts might be drawn there. A century and a half ago these hills were a thriving community of Scots settlers – people named MacLean, MacKenzie, MacLeod and MacAskill. The old homesteads are gone now but their signs are left behind: old foundations, walls, cellar depressions.

Nowadays the forests along the way are dominated by hardwoods – beeches, sugar maples, yellow birch. It wasn’t always thus. A century ago North River provided a mother lode of softwood. As many as 900 men working with double-bitted axe and crosscut saw yielded a third of a million cords of spruce and fir over a thirteen year period. An old photograph shows a platoon of moustachioed young men sitting on a mountain of pulpwood. How many of them wound up in a different sort of platoon a decade later?

Ten days into the 2011 sojourn, things are greening up. Kelly’s Mountain, grey when we arrived, is verdant again. The Solomon’s-seal by the bathhouse, just four inches high May 20, is now two feet tall, the flowers about to bloom. But no, Jan will not plant her tomato and basil seedlings just yet. It was minus-one yesterday in the Margaree; frost is still a risk.

Late lamented Wally – who knew what he was talking about – insisted that Jan not do her planting till the new moon in June. She will heed Wally’s advice and bide her time by the warming Drolet while the threat of frost persists.