Break Out the Sherry: The Robert Has Landed

Simultaneous events brightened Bigadore days. The first: at long last summer arrived, instantly and fully, on Canada Day. The second: Malcolm Murdoch ‘Moose’ MaKenzie aka The Great Nagel appeared the very next day, just in from Boston. At this, sunshine and warmth became relentless. Shorts emerged from mothballs, the beer fridge went back into action, sunburn made its first appearance of the season.

Like David Crosby, Bob still declines to cut his hair. It’s more than a year since a barber had his way with Robert’s curls. He now strongly resembles Timothy Leary thus it is perhaps no surprise that border crossings are suddenly an adventure. With short hair Bob sailed right through. Now he is detained. Border guards refuse to believe he is a Yankee octogenarian bent on sitting in the shade at his Cape Breton summer hideaway. Now, with hair halfway to his ass, our stalwart and vigilant border people imagine Bob is a threat to national security – a superannuated druglord perhaps, or maybe a long-in-the-tooth Al Qaeda sympathizer. The poor old thing was stiffly cross-examined at St. Stephen NB the other day before being allowed into our home and native land. Clearly it was traumatic for Bob in this his 51st summer season at Big Bras d’Or, but the old guy refuses to say whether or not the indignities included a cavity search.

So of course the partying began at once and in earnest. Yesterday afternoon the monozygotes – Lynn and Louise – guided us on a tour of the Battleman-Aconi fossil fields at Boularderie’s north end. The sandy southern bit of this remarkable stretch of shoreline had attracted a large gathering of sunbathers, sunbather-oglers et al. We headed in the opposite direction and soon had the world to ourselves.

Someone said Battleman-Aconi should be a UNESCO site because Devonian-Carboniferous fossils are legion here. Right on the beach in their thousands where the hoi polloi are free to pick them up and carry them off willy-nilly. Apart from an occasional dragonfly the fossils are all flora. Don’t make a point of coming if it’s dinosaurs you’re after, but the floral varieties are myriad, many of them wonderfully detailed.

Back at the cabin we cooked a big salmon on the smoker and introduced Jan to the recorded charms of Hughie and Allan, a long-gone duet of down-home country comics. I soon recalled what it is we like about Cape Breton when the sun shines and the bugs aren’t bad.

Meanwhile, out in nature, the Clintonias and false lilies-of-the-valley are just about gone but other wildflowers – bunchberry, high-bush cranberry, alternate-leafed dogwood – are at their glorious peak. The foxes have moved on from Wally’s basement and the morning chorus of birdsong has eased noticeably but the feeders at our windows attract a steady trade of rubythroats, goldfinches, purple finches. I’m near to thinking Bigadore is swell enough to hang my hat for awhile.