We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet

Her friends will rejoice to hear that the fractured shoulder is perfectly healed and arm mobility sufficiently restored that hill-climbing is once again a feature of Jan's life. How glad we are. With Winnipeg Steve keen to get some Vancouver Island mud on his hiking boots we three joined Mary and Mike for an impromptu ramble in the Gowlland Range, to Jocelyn Hill.

Birds were a target, specifically one bird, the pine grosbeak, usually rare in these parts, but spotted the day before. Denied a sighting before reaching the Jocelyn summit, we at last saw one, then another, then a gang of five, finally maybe a dozen in all. The hill's abundance of arbutus berries was the obvious draw, not just for the grosbeaks, but for platoons of cedar waxwings and a whole division of robins.

Friends are important enough that wordsmiths write poems about them, and novels and plays, even a well known sitcom or two. I find life seldom sweeter than when spent hanging out with pals, whether sharing lightheartedness and licorice allsorts on a nearby hill, or communing with a wee dram on the cabin porch at Big Bras d'Or.

We passed Christmas in Coquitlam with Lexi and Ben, Doug and Allison, Steven too. Stockings were well stuffed and turkey plentiful but what I liked best was exactly what I anticipated: heading outdoors to turn over rotting logs with young Lexi. No, we didn't find a salamander -- except the plastic one the four-year-old planted when I wasn't looking -- but the little naturalist was happy with the next best thing: a clutch of eggs including one nearly as blue as sapphire.

After Christmas the Coquitlamites returned the visit. We took Lexi to see the woolly mammoth at the BC Museum and all the creatures of the natural history section. Asked why the birds didn't fly, we explained they once did, but are now lifeless and stuffed. Lexi seemed unfazed. In the evening I played Hearts with Jan's sons and marveled at the show of brotherly love exhibited by Doug when Steve didn't play as his younger sibling felt he ought to. The thought occurred that I might resolve to be more carefree about mere games.

Given that this is the last day of dear old 2012 my mind turns to other potential resolutions. Donald Trump might resolve to exercise his brain at least as frequently as he does his mouth. Stephen Harper might decide to rule as though he enjoyed the support of only four voters in ten. Kim Jong-il could vow to recall that what goes up must necessarily come down. As for me, I find as old age deepens that my pledges grow rather less ambitious: remember my prunes . . . turn off the stove . . . look both ways before crossing the street.

Whatever you resolve, gentle reader, may it leave you content rather than cranky, healthy instead of haggard, vitalized rather than vexed.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind? Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and auld lang syne? For auld lang syne, my jo, for auld lang syne, we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet, for auld lang syne.

What is Christmas Without Surfbirds and Centipedes?

There's a wide, wide world out there. At one extreme there are folks who if asked what they like best about Christmas will tell you it's rubbing elbows with the hoi-polloi at the neighbourhood mall, 'Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer' looping endlessly from the mall's woofers and tweeters. Others claim the season summit is the luxury of spending all day indoors, getting stuffed on turkey and egg nog, watching Alistair Sim's Scrooge for the umpteenth time. At another extreme there are those who think that the best the season has to offer is standing gumbooted at the edge of a muddy slough, under a heavy drizzle, waiting for a bird to fly by. Count me among the latter.

It is Christmas Bird Count season in greater Victoria. On Saturday, for the eighteenth straight year, I savoured another Stewart Mountain-Scafe Hill CBC with Jan and spiritual kinfolk Mary and Bruce. In unimportant ways it was an unexceptional count -- our aggregate species total of 24 was utterly routine -- but the routine is partly what I like about this event: predictably good conversation, guaranteed boon companionship, assurance that we'll have the hills to ourselves. What's more, it is rare for the routine not to be varied by something special. We started the day with a coup, luring first one then another northern pygmy-owl into responding to our whistled impersonations of the pygmy's call note. A pygmy owl is tiny, utterly charming, and well-named: you can fit one into a teacup and have room to spare. Jan might never have taken to me at all had it not been for the memorable time, years ago, that I summoned one out of the ether and persuaded it to land at eye level in a bush right in front of our noses.

We added a new species to our all-time zone list, a Wilson's snipe, and not just one of them, but sixteen. In terms of simple volume it was a slow day: we counted barely 200 individual birds but the conversation never flagged, Stewart's western flank provided an excellent vantage point for watching the world go by, the tea and salmon sandwiches kept body and soul intact.

Some folks are bird count gluttons. We were out again Sunday to do our duty with long-time pal Andrew in the Patricia Bay zone of the Saanich-Saltspring CBC. We added a wrinkle to this particular routine, leaving the vehicle at the side of the road and doing most of our counting on foot. We wandered more than 11 km in the aforementioned gumboots. There is plenty of routine in this zone too, albeit a different routine from that offered in the hills. We know what to expect and we generally find what we expect to find. But is always a surprise or two. Yesterday we added two species to our over-the-years aggregate: Eurasian collared-dove, lately invaded in our region, and a gang of 20 surfbirds, a lovely and dignified sandpiper whose habitat preference is rocky shorelines.

We have another count to look forward to, the Drinkwater-Prevost zone of the New Year's Day Duncan CBC. There we expect another pleasant combination of routine and surprise with long-time birding pal, Ann.

But before that last CBC unfolds there will have been opportunity for indoor turkey and egg nog, in Coquitlam, with Lexi and Ben and the other folks they live with. My faithful reader may rest assured, however, that I will seek opportunity to take the children outdoors for a bit of stealth naturalizing. What Lexi likes best about 'Pappy' is his proclivity for suggesting we go outside to turn over rocks and rotted logs to see how many centipedes, spiders and sowbugs we might find, maybe even a salamander or two. Ah yes, that's when Christmas works best for me.

If It Suits Snowies and Pelicans Can It Be All That Bad?

The orthopedist says Jan's shoulder fractures are healing exactly as desired but she is grumpy nonetheless, still just a one-armed wonder, restrained by the damned immobilizing sling. The injuries furnish a lining slightly silver: I continue to flourish in the fill-in chief cook role. Other things may irk the old girl but know this: she has no basis for significant complaint about what arrives on her plate at dinner time.

We miss hiking the Sooke Hills and riding the bikes out along the Saanich Peninsula. We grow fat in the absence of those cherished and slimming activities. Saturday provided a little consolation: we took our first post-shoulder-smashup walk on uneven ground, in Francis/King Park. Mary and Mike kept us company as we rambled among the woody giants of the park, red-cedars, doug-firs, hemlocks. It was only 4 km or so, but enough to spark hope that we may still have a future as hill hikers.

Level-ground walking opportunities abound. Birding is particularly good these days in our James Bay neighbourhood. A fortnight ago snowy owls invaded in numbers, then brown pelicans. One day we saw five snowies, this morning 14 pelicans.

In both cases what's good for birders is doubtless bad for the birds. The owls are driven south from their usual Arctic havens by deep hunger. Climate change sweeps Canada's Arctic, perhaps altering the owls' natural food supply. In desperation they fly thousands of miles south for replacement fare. Many, perhaps most, will die. As for the pelicans, they are lured north by more frequent ocean warmings; you may have heard of them, El Ninos. There is fish aplenty for them here in Victoria but there will be trouble too once the temperature dips below zero and water turns icy.

Indoors, Jan adapts to being one-armed. Ingenuity and occasional help enable her to carry on with her quilting endeavours. A big new project slowly takes shape on her design wall. Across the hall, I beaver away at my WWI archival projects, finding a nugget here and there. It pays to have a network of fellow diggers around the world. A tip from one of them led me to solid gold, two 1915 photographs of one of my Boularderie soldier relatives killed in the war to end all wars. The find was better than the sort that used to thrill me under the xmas tree when I was 10.

Which reminds me that the calendar says December has snuck up on me. I have done nothing at all to satisfy the conventions and obligations imposed by the month's twenty-fifth day. Sticking my head in the sand is an attractive option, but is it likely to win me widespread approval in the long term? Hmm, I'd better get going.

Unlucky Break

The best-laid plans gang aft agley, the immortal Burns counsels. So it would seem. In our last dispatch I allowed as how we'd be happy for a while to limit peregrinations to the near horizon -- only as far as hiking boots or bicycles allow. Suddenly even that became overly ambitious. Last week a slippery rock undid my Jan: while birding at Cattle Point she went, as country folk used to say, ass over tea kettle, landed on her right shoulder and fractured both ends of the shoulder joint. How quickly and radically things can change. Instead of a pleasant day in the great outdoors we went to our local ER and saw first-hand how the demands on the health care system are affecting wait times. After many hours we left with Jan shackled in an immobilizer to keep the shoulder in place.

There will be no bike rides and no Sooke Hill hikes for weeks to come. Not to mention no quilting, no guitar-playing and -- in case it isn't obvious already -- no cooking, no kitchen magic. I am suddenly thrust into an unfamiliar role of everyday cook around the James Bay shack. If that sounds like bad news, the good news is that I have embraced the catastrophe whole-heartedly and with good attitude. Cooking turns out to be fun and so perhaps I oughtn't be surprised that a measure of success is fun's companion. Sure, I sometimes forget to turn a burner off, or spill the pasta, or overcook the breakfast eggs, but mostly it turns out I can be competent in the use of oven and range.

Various activities are available to the one-armed: take a walk on even ground, read, attend a Remembrance Day parade, ponder US election returns. Americans are not of one mind in the matter but a week ago we joined in the rejoicing heard in the rest of the world that Obama managed to persuade a majority of voters that he is a better option than a guy who doesn't give a damn about 47 per cent of his fellow citizens.

It will likely take four to six weeks before Jan's shoulder is sufficiently healed to go back into action. Yes, we miss the hiking and biking, but all is not lost. Despite what got us into trouble in the first place we have rediscovered the joy of attentive birding. You can hold a binocular in one hand, and birding tends to be mostly benign provided you mind where you step and avoid slippery rocks. Pal Mary has joined us for a couple of outings. We've even managed to find rarities: a short-eared owl flying past the end of the Ogden Point breakwater, a swamp sparrow skulking among the brushy margins of Maber Flats.

I expect that her present restrictions are likely to make my better half a tad cranky before the bones are healed and the immobilizer comes off but if I should occasionally burn the vegetables at least I don't have to fear Jan's fearsome right hook.

Happy with the Near Horizon

Cape Breton supplied well-nigh-perfect weather for our final day at Big Bras d'Or. Closeup day is never the favourite of a summer season at Bigadore but whatever melancholy might be afoot is abated by a sunny day. We made our final circuit of Dalem Lake immersed in the full spectrum of autumn colours. Closeup duties complete, we were ready to roll by the time Lynn arrived in mid-afternoon to deliver us to the Sydney airport. Having appreciated Dalem at close range in the early morning, I savoured a different view of the lake, from an elevation of ten thousand feet or so, in the late afternoon. The Air Canada Dash 8 flew close enough to Boularderie that I could study the whole island, from Point Aconi to Kempt Head, and pick out neighbourhood landmarks: St. James Church, Dalem, the Seal Island bridge. I offered a silent farewell.

Weather remained generous in Toronto, affording two blithe Indian-summer days for our country-mouse ramblings in the big city. On Friday we spent a half-day at the Royal Ontario Museum with Alice and the kids gaping at 'Ultimate Dinosaurs', the ambitious ROM exhibition of big and small southern-hemisphere dinosaurs: Giganotosaurus, Austroraptor, Futalognkosaurus et al. We rubbed elbows with the Saturday-morning hordes at the St. Lawrence market and walked Michael's Christie Pits neighbourhood, mildly appalled at the signs barring kids from playing street baseball or hockey.

Our Sunday flight from Toronto to Vancouver was uneventful, just the way I like it. We spent a day and a bit with Lexi and Ben, Doug and Allison. This being the west coast in October, the sun didn't shine but that was no deterrent to walking the woods and indulging Lexi's ardour to search for salamanders in the forest duff.

Rain stopped and sunshine broke through the clouds for our ferry passage through Active Pass and the southern Gulf Islands. The passage is very familiar to me but somehow I managed to appreciate the glory as if seeing it for the first time. By the time we reached the Victoria bus depot the rain was back; we were grateful to have Marc collect us for the last leg to Ontario Street.

For the past five months there have plenty of peregrinations to report: the latest cross-country meander, the adventurous fortnight in Iceland, the 'magical history tour' through the Nova Scotia mainland. Now we're happy -- at least for the time being -- to limit ourselves to the near horizon and to wander only as far as hiking boots or bicycles allow.

Awash in Celtic Colours

Celtic Colours overwhelmed Cape Breton and turned us into music gluttons.

Colours bills itself as an international music festival. The claim is a fair one. Apart from the cast of local musical luminaries we were entertained by tunesmiths from the Shetland Islands, Denmark, Ireland, even Finland and Estonia, and by someone from our own Victoria neighbourhood, fiddler-trumpeter extraordinaire Daniel Lapp.

Apart from familiar fiddles and guitars, performers made music using bouzoukis and banjos, harps and harmonicas, pipes and penny whistles, trumpets and tambourines.

Apart from official concerts – there were 46 of those to choose from over a nine-day period – we frequented CBC Radio tapings at Knox Church in Baddeck and followed that up with another daily freebie at the Alexander Bell national historic site.

Without exception, none of the artists cheated their audience – everybody we saw seemed hell-bent on delivering their musical all. Though there wasn't an act we disliked, our top favourites were Irishman John Doyle, Newfoundland band 'The Once' and the aforementioned Daniel Lapp.

By the time the last bow was drawn over the last fiddle string we had seen thirteen events. Perhaps that strikes the gentle reader as a sufficient number but, no, we were a little sad to see the festival end. On the other hand we console ourselves with the knowledge that it is only a twelve-month wait till Celtic Colours #17 takes flight.

Meanwhile hues of another sort – the forest russets, golds and scarlets of autumn – have transformed the green hills of Cape Breton into a Jacob’s coat of intense colour. The swelter of August is but a memory and we are not tempted to revisit the old swimming hole. The woodshed is restocked – a good thing given the demands we put upon our trusty Drolet woodstove. Ice has yet to make its first appearance in the wash basin but on Saturday morning the outside thermometer registered just three degrees; I screwed up my courage to take a shower as a brief snow flurry underscored that summer is gone. We claim that in summer our screened porch is the freshest, airiest, finest bedroom the world has to offer; even so, the autumn chill drove us indoors three weeks ago.

Our 2012 Cape Breton days are numbered and the number is small – three to be precise. On Thursday we fly to Toronto for a three-day visit with nephew Michael and family, then to Vancouver for a day with Lexi, Ben and company. It is nearly five months since we departed Victoria; on or about October 23 we’re eager to pick up where we left off back in May.

Periods of Rain, Sometimes Heavy

August of 2012 in Cape Breton was just about the hottest, sunniest and driest August on record. Relentlessly hot, rainless weather left the rain barrels arid, the roadside spring reduced to a trickle. In sweltering August we exploited the swimmin’ hole almost every day, sometimes twice. Now in late September Mother Nature exacts retribution. If it’s a refreshing dip we’re after we need only step outside; the rain barrels are in constant overflow, Bigadore’s trails negotiable only in gumboots. ‘Periods of rain, sometimes heavy’ is the new weather mantra.

One of the matters Jan and I see completely eye-to-eye about is that the screened porch is the best bedroom in the entire world, availing the freshest air, the brightest starry skies, the fairest night-time soundscapes we ever encounter. Since arriving in June, three months ago, we had slept nowhere else in the building – until last night when a storm blew complacency away. In normal circumstances we have time to install contingent polyethylene storm windows but last night’s guerilla ambush was so sudden that everything in the porch – bed, bedding, bedmates – was drenched almost before we knew what’d hit us. We sought refuge in the drier but not-so-airy sunroom and managed to resume snoring. But here’s the thing: never before has nature allowed us such a long, unbroken stretch in the porch. In a typical year wind, rain or cold would have driven us indoors long before the end of September.

Our store of firewood demonstrates that this year has been one for the books. The woodshed is almost as well-stocked as when we arrived, the woodstove seldom called upon to raise the indoor ambient temperature. But, yes, the Drolet is blazing this morning and I am freshly mindful that it is time I got going on building next year’s fuel supply.

The altered weather offers rewards. The woods deliver a mother lode for amateur mycologists. Never have we seen mushrooms in such abundance and variety as currently arrayed under the neighbouring spruce and fir. Some we know are safe and choice to eat, others are unfamiliar, strangers we dare not ingest without careful consultation of the field guides in the cabin library.

Meanwhile, out on the Great Bras d’Or growing flocks of surf scoters confirm that summer is past, their wing-whistles a benchmark of early fall. Yesterday the first red-throated loon went about its fishy business below the cabin. Bald eagles are backyard birds again, returned from their summer sojourn out around the Bird Islands. The woods are mostly silent now, bereft of the singing warblers and sparrows of early summer, but chattery, roving bands of chickadees entertain us in the birches and mountain-ash out front, blue jays sound the alarums when one finds something new and choice in the compost bins, ravens share thoughtful commentary on the state of their world.

Jan’s little raised garden yields its harvest: tomatoes, beans and all-important basil, essential to the high-voltage pesto much prized in these parts, particularly by me. Batches of green tomato chow and crabapple-rosehip jelly already behind her, Canner Jan has now moved on to her second round of spiced beet-and-onion pickle. We feel wealthy.

Summer was hectic, social and boozy – all very well in season – but we have no complaint that we now have plenty of sober time – especially in the rain – to attend to other priorities. We dedicate hours to improving our bananagrams skills for the next word-war with Lynn and Louise, or to reading, or listening to CBC Radio. We appreciate The Current after breakfast, As It Happens after supper, Ideas later in the evening, and chastise ourselves for allowing opposite-coast distractions to stop us from doing likewise in winter and spring.

Sometimes the CBC payoff is not just ideas but something material. This morning Jan was quick-fingered enough to be the first in line for a pair of tickets to a big literary event at the North River community hall this Saturday. We’re keen about that and also about what’s nest on the order paper: Celtic Colours, the annual music festival celebrated far and wide.

But wait a minute . . . it’s stopped raining, ducks are swimming, gulls are sailing. It’s time to get going.

Magical History Tour Delivers the Goods

On September 12 Bob Nagel signaled the unofficial end of summer by clearing out for Boston. With no responsibilities to keep us in Big Bras d’Or, and Environment Canada offering a terrific long-range weather forecast, we decided to hit the road. Focused principally on war memorials, birds, historic sites and museums – and as much bluenose seafood as we could stick on a fork -- we covered close to 1500 km in our amble, chose back roads over main highways as much as circumstance allowed, enthusiastically welcomed the first Cortland apples of the season, hung out with kith and kin.

At the extreme eastern end of mainland Nova Scotia, the town of Canso drew us for its war memorial and nearby Grassy Island national historic site. Parks Canada spoiled us rotten: with no other visitors demanding attention, boatman Tom Kavanaugh delivered us not just to the historic island but on a tour of the entire Canso island group. Still better, it turns out Tom is a serious birder: we paused whenever opportunity arose to look at returning winter ducks, migrant shorebirds and whatever else flew within binocular range.

At Charlos Bay we stayed at SeaWind Landing, our first NS ‘Unique Country Inn’, and liked it well enough to target more. Though a native Nova Scotian and a resident for most of my first three decades, the far Eastern Shore was a ‘lifer’ for me. We took our time, charmed by old-town Guysborough, the Acadian Ancestors Park at Larry’s River, the Port Bickerton Lighthouse.

Sherbrooke Village preserves a community of mid-late 19th century houses and businesses. In this her sixteenth NS summer season Jan got to see Sherbrooke for the first time. Among the several highlights we sussed out I was particularly pleased with the MacDonald Brothers water-powered sawmill; it conveyed in spades that ingenuity, resourcefulness and self-reliance were once everyday qualities in people, not rarities.

We savoured a short stay with sister Nancy and Donald at the Black Rock mansion and spent much of a day at Truro with pals Garth and Carol, sharing enthusiasm for rugged Victoria Park and a musical evening with early-music virtuosos Chris Norman and David Greenberg.

Annapolis Royal goes back to the early 17th Century and has the heritage buildings to prove it. We visited Fort Anne, the oldest national historic site in Canada, and stayed at Hillsdale House, circa 1860, another Unique Country Inn. I can’t speak for Jan but I was entertained to sleep and snore under the same roof that once sheltered Lord Tweedsmuir, Mackenzie King and Prince George, the eventual King George V.

Yarmouth delivered a Henri Hebert war memorial figure so excellent and authentic that I had to modify my personal list of the ten best memorial sculptures in Canada. In Shelburne, founded by Empire Loyalists in 1783, we investigated three museums, stayed at Cooper’s, our third UCI – if you’ve been paying attention you’ll know what that stands for – and relished our best restaurant feast of the trip, a four-star scallop linguini at the Charlotte Lane Cafe.

Herman’s Island near Lunenburg delivered excellent food, drink and conviviality with sister Nora and Ron and something rare for me, an opportunity to boast of a victory at bridge. Jan seldom has to endure defeat when facing me at a bridge table but, paired with Nora, I enabled my better half – at least briefly – to experience the humility of being a bridge loser.

We went into rainy Halifax to see and photograph three more monuments including the oldest in the country, the 1860 Sebastapol memorial to two Haligonian soldiers killed in the Crimean War. Pals Stephen and Sheila hosted us grandly at Ferguson’s Cove. Hours spent with S & S are always edifying: this time Stephen even managed to add good value to my store of war memorial lore.

We’d planned to be on the road for maybe four or five days but diversions were broad and deep enough to keep us away for ten. I even managed to get arrested. Approaching Tantallon (emphasis on the second syllable if you need to know), its lights flashing and siren squealing I was pulled over by an RCMP squad car. The young constable, all courtesy and good manners, inquired whether I was feeling alright. Indeed yes, thank you, I am. He claimed that I had wandered across the centre line. Are you the registered owner, he asked. Yes. May I see your driver’s license? On producing my BC permit, the young constable laughed and came clean: it seems that in the ongoing search for fugitives, miscreants and diverse ne’er-do-wells, Mounties are forever checking license plates. On asking his dispatcher about mine he learned that while the vehicle is properly registered in Nova Scotia, the owner hasn’t been licensed in the province for a third of a century. With things nicely cleared up the baby-faced cop sent the old fart on his way, the latter mildly disappointed at being deprived of a juicier tale to tell.

Now we are back at the shack, struck by the quietude surrounding us. It is officially fall now, but continuing warm temperatures belie the fact. Still, there are autumn signs: squirrels attempting to break into the cabin in search of a good spot to build a winter den, the woods bereft of birdsong, the ground lightly covered by the litter of early fallen leaves.

Autumn Leaves, Roadside Anthropology

So I did indeed command Lee Valley Tools to deliver a critter cam to Old Route 5. It has been in place more than a week, at a trailside spot well tracked by deer, coyote and bobcat. Alas the only images we have to date are of the two-footed creatures checking on what’s been captured on camera.

Meanwhile, as autumn leaves begin to drop bird migration is in full swing. Small waves of warblers and sparrows drop by en route to Central America. Loud honking marks the southbound passage of Canada geese. Signature wing-whistles betray the morning presence of surf scoters on the Great Bras d’Or. A big, handsome northern goshawk – a good bird for these parts – flew across our bow and may have been the culprit responsible for the scattering of grouse feathers spotted on the trail the next morning.

We paid a visit to Marble Mountain, cherished in my memory for long-ago days spent there with great-uncle Harrison. Now it is summer home to Harrison’s son Dan and daughter-in-law Pat. We enjoyed lively conversation, wrung our hands at the hard-to-believe prospect of a Romney-Ryan White House, shared memories of loved ones long departed. Jan appreciated an excellent haul harvested from Harrison’s old crab-apple, destined for conversion by her hand to jars of premium jelly.

The Mahone Baysians – John, Naomi, Hannah and Sara – bestowed their companionship over the Labour Day weekend. We flew kites, blasted away on the apple cannon, enjoyed a swim and cookout at Bob’s beach, played countless games of Uno. Sara turned seven on Saturday and profited handsomely from the occasion.

A small anthropology project proved illuminating. Since our June arrival we have seen a steady increase in the volume of litter gracing the two- or three-hundred-metre stretch of roadside between my road and Bob Nagel’s back lane. What’s to be learned about the preferences of the good folks who throw their trash out the car window as they drive along our bit of countryside? I decided to find out. I gathered the refuse in a large garbage bag, then spread it out to examine the proceeds. ‘Seems our local litterbugs like to drink and smoke and dine at Tim Horton’s and Robin’s doughnut emporia; they prefer chocolate milk to the unaltered variety and are prosperous enough to include perfectly good clothing in the roadside jetsam.

I counted 21 booze containers. Budweiser was the beer of choice; Iceberg vodka and Bacardi rum were also favoured. There were even bits of the kitchen sink – drain and strainer – among the debris. For a few hours – or was it only minutes? – the roadside looked fairly pristine but by next morning fresh contributions – a pint rum bottle and can of Coors Light – decorated the road shoulder. It makes a fella swell with pride to reside in such a civil neighbourhood.

Not-so-Doggish Days of August

Until our departure August 11 the summer of 2011 was so miserable we hadn’t used the old swimmin’ hole at all, not even once. This year’s version of the blithe season couldn’t be more different. We swim virtually every day, sometimes twice. Our nightime dips with bioluminescent diatoms have been especially gratifying: the galaxy brilliant in the moonless sky, another galaxy stirred to life by our motion in the water. How do the invisible one-celled geniuses do it? I have no idea. Fill a glass with seawater and you see nothing at all, but at the shore, in the dark, the water comes alive with transitory lights. It is enough to fill even the most jaded old heart with something like wonder.

Bananagrams bellicosity continues. These days we like to play a four-way sprint with Lynn and Louise requiring each player to lay down 36 tiles as fast as possible while deploying at least one 11-letter word. I know lots of two-dollar words of that length – some even usable in polite company – so at last I have a battlefield in which I can hope to compete with assassin Lynn. Oh what fun.

Carole and Garth graced us with a visit to Bigadore. Agreeably rhapsodic about the physical beauty around us, our friends were also generous in their compliments about the country carpentry manifest in the cabin itself. As reported in the previous issue of Peregrinations Garth inspired a domestic renovation:

a new screen window in the forty-year-old outhouse. Pretty pleased with the outcome even without Garth’s blessing, I was all the more gratified by my pal’s enthused seal of approval. We sat in the porch, talked baseball, drank beer, reveled in Jan’s seafood chowder, agreed that life is pretty good even as we drift into senescence. A no-holds-barred funfest in a certain porch produced the inevitable result: two more Bob Nagel fans. In good conscience I couldn’t allow the visit to be too perfect: I exacted a small measure of revenge for the posthole-digging labours Garth dragooned me into providing during our June stopover at Amherst Shore: I put him to work helping fall and remove a tall poplar that had worn out its welcome by the cabin. Now, alas, our pals are departed for further adventures in Newfoundland; the cabin is quieter and less jolly than it was.

Nature affords its plenty. Blueberries flourished below the cabin in a fashion unseen in years. Up the way, closer to our boundary with Old Route 5, the blackberries are still prolific and super-sweet. Jan makes the most of the abundance of tasty chanterelle mushrooms growing in the shade of the spruce and fir. The branches of summer apples droop under the weight of a heavy crop, dropping their bounty on our road.

Meanwhile, along where the perimeter trail meets our little interior bog we see coyote scat and the footprints of deer and bobcat. What nocturnal adventures transpire in the woods behind the cabin as we lay snoring in our bed? I’ve heard good things about Lee Valley Tools’ motion-activated ‘critter camera’. Maybe I’ll get me one.

But Do Flying Squirrels Really Fly?

We of course count a good measure of riff-raff among our cast of beloved friends but oddly enough we have a few cultivated pals too, two of whom paid us a visit. A visit with Stephen and Sheila to our favourite antiques purveyor, Diane at the Den of Antiquity, turned profitable, availing a handsome old floor lamp complete with faded botanical-themed shade. The lamp will provide marvelous light some imminent rainy evening as I read my next Scandinavian police procedural.

Accomplished and celebrated gardeners, S & S identified a favoured bush below the cabin as Nemopanthus mucronata, false holly, and showed us how to enhance its allure through careful and caring pruning. We indulged Stephen’s keen desire, hordes and heat notwithstanding, to hike the ten-kilometre Skyline Trail in CBHNP. Alas, the moose we’d hoped to see stayed sensibly cool in the shade, hidden and unseen. Consolation came by way of a terrific feed of snow crab at the Hometown cafe in downtown Cheticamp.

My previous dispatch alluded to Bigadore’s infinite capacity for generating absorbing projects. Jan liked the yellow proceeds of the cabin floor-painting project so much that she led us on a painting tear. After replacement of rotted pieces and application of a blue-grey solid stain the deck rails now look qualified for an appearance in Better Shacks and Shanties. As for the deck itself, well, rain now beads nicely after the latest application of Thompson's WaterSeal. Now Jan has her eye on the cabin itself. Many moons have passed since the cedar shingles benefited from an application of stain. It seems that is about to change.

Anticipation builds: the inaugural visit of pals Garth and Carol is anticipated in a few days. Such is the power and magnetism of Garth’s personality that it extends even to the hoary old outhouse. Garth professed astonishment when I disclosed in June that, no, the Bigadore privy has no window. I simply cannot have my friend disenchanted with his trips down the trail so with Jim Troke’s borrowed reciprocating saw in hand I aim this week to undertake an outhouse renovation. By the time Garth enjoys his first interlude in the privy he will get to behold a relaxing woodland vista through the new picture window.

Our ongoing saga, Adventures with Wildlife, delivered another intriguing chapter. It is claimed that the northern flying squirrel is just about as common in Nova Scotia as the omnipresent red squirrels that like to defeat all our efforts to squirrel-proof the bird feeders. But the flying squirrel is strictly nocturnal and I could boast of only one past sighting, in British Columbia years ago. Then, on Friday, one turned up in a remarkable place, my workshop. My authoritative The Mammals of Canada makes no mention of the flying squirrel’s preference for sharing human habitation, but there it was, comfortably ensconced in its den of leaves in a corner of the shop. I photographed it in situ then waited to show Buddy to Lynn and Louise, who were very impressed. Long-term cohabitation with a pooping, peeing, perhaps-procreating flying squirrel is, however, something I don’t choose to maintain; I evicted my little pal by gloved hand. It cussed mightily and tried in vain to bite the hand off but seemed none the worse for having been given the bum’s rush.

The deer mouse is a lovely little creature when seen its outdoor element; I am less endeared of it upon finding little turdlets on the kitchen counter in the morning, or freshly gnawed fruit in the peach basket. It would be pleasant to have some non-lethal way of removing the little darlings once they’ve decided to share housekeeping, but I haven’t yet discovered an effective one so I rely on the tried-and-true devices provided by Home Hardware at $1.99 a pair. Lately my mice seem possessed of higher IQ: somehow they’ve mastered the art of tripping the trap without fatal consequence. I check the traps in the morning only to find them bereft of both mice and peanut-butter bait. I await loyal readers’ thoughts on what to do next.

Finally, mention of a minor milestone. We sold the Bigfoot camper in May so never again will Peregrinations report on fresh adventures in ‘Leo and the Taj’. Leo, the ’98 Dodge Ram, made what I expect will be his last transcontinental journey in June; henceforth it will be a strictly Nova Scotia resident. Until Friday Leo had known only one license plate, issued by the British Columbia Motor Vehicle Branch. Now the truck wears another, touting 'Canada’s Ocean Playground’. If while traveling Nova Scotia roads you catch up with and pass a vaguely familiar old fart rambling along in a weather-beaten green Ram be sure to offer a friendly wave.

Yellow is the Colour of My New Shack Floor

It’s more than two weeks since we bade farewell to Iceland. Our fortnight just south of the Arctic Circle looks choice in the rear view mirror but Boularderie Island’s diversions have us living in the present.

It had been two years since we laid eyes on Boston pals Dennis and Nancy but only two minutes for riotous, familiar connexion to restore itself. We rode the bikes in a generous (rare this summer) rain squall, took a short hike to a lifer destination, Gun Creek Falls, by the New Harris Road, and did as tourists do in touristy Baddeck.

Apart from customary barred owl duets, yipping choruses of coyote squads have become a regular feature of the cabin’s night-time soundscape. Cape Breton coyotes are atypically large and aggressive. A couple of years ago a pack attacked and killed a young woman in the national park. The animals are in the news again this morning in the wake of aggression at nearby Cape Dauphin. We are given to understand that the beasts are not purely coyotes at all, but coyote-wolf hybrids. That struck me as an acceptable circumstance if it resulted from natural processes, but I’m now told by a usually reliable source that the animals are not natural at all but were selectively bred by the provincial lands-and-forests department as a kindness to a multi-national lumber corporation keen to ‘control’ deer populations in its Cape Breton timber holdings. As a result of Cousin David MacDonald’s graphic account of the effectiveness of a pack’s hunting-and-killing methods I’m inclined to ensure that we are accompanied by stout hardwood walking sticks on our morning walks around Dalem Lake.

Other faunal changes attract my notice too. In 41 years here at Bigador I had never seen a pickerel frog, a handsome leaper adorned with splashy rectangular spotting on his coppery brown back. Suddenly they are everywhere, jumping prodigiously across our path, getting themselves flattened on the roadway by inattentive night-time drivers. Nor had I ever seen the striking star-nosed mole, larger than other moles, with feet that remind me of an armadillo’s and a most remarkable starfish-like snout: I counted 22 nose-tentacles on the one we found freshly dead on Bob Nagel’s road the other day. Now I hear the neighbour’s cat has brought home two more of the strange beasties. Other habitués of the old farm are conspicuous these days not by unprecedented appearance, but sudden disappearance. In past years varying hares routinely entertained us as they grazed contemplatively on the grass in front of the cabin. Now they are gone, victims of what – hunters? Marauding coyotes? Who can say?

The summer of 2012 is as extremely different from its 2011 predecessor as it possible to imagine: one hot sunny day after another. The old swimming hole below the shack went entirely unused a year ago. Now it provides a welcome mid-afternoon respite from the swelter.

Never at Big Bras d’Or is there a need to complain about having nothing to do. Apart from Nature’s abundant distractions, there is no end of pastimes and projects to be seized. The thrum of the generator regularly violates the stillness. Construction tools, paint brushes and rollers are taken frequently in hand. On our way through Quebec in June we stopped at Wilfred Laurier National Historic Site to see its representation of the boyhood home of Canada’s great Liberal prime minister, the gentleman who graces our five-dollar bill. A distinctive feature of the old Laurier house is its floor, painted sunnily yellow. I decided I just had to have a yellow floor of my own. Now I do: the original cabin plancher now beams brightly jaune.

While I was at that I remedied a 41-year-old irritant. Back in ’71, the year I built the cabin, my only wealth was a young back and plenty of energy. After dismantling the derelict house that once stood further up the way I used the proceeds to frame the cabin. By the end of the floor construction phase I was down to the dregs, a pair of long, ugly, irregular, too-thick boards. With nothing else available I used them, with the result that the finished plywood-surfaced floor always featured a high ridge along its centre spine.

Now I’m happy to report the spinal ridge is gone: I sectioned out a 13’x2’ section of floor right to the joists ; its replacement is beautifully level – and spectacularly yellow. If you’re planning on paying a visit in the next while ensure you bring your sunglasses: no matter how cloudy it might be out-of-doors you’ll need them once you step inside.

Iceland Idyll

We are back in Cape Breton after a two-week adventure in Iceland with Lynn and Louise. Some folks might prefer Disneyland but I’ll take Iceland’s array of distractions: glaciers and volcanoes, fumaroles and geysers, snowy mountains and vast lava plains, long fjords and big waterfalls, birds and cetaceans.

We rented a Toyota Verso and drove it nearly three thousand kilometres around the entire island. We burned the candle at both ends: July days are long in Iceland, we started early and stayed up late. Our first day on the road, July 9, we traveled from Reykjavik to Olavsik on the Snaefellsnes peninsula, checked out Deildartunguhver, Europe’s highest-volume hot spring, hiked to the Eldborg crater. For good measure we birded till midnight in the shadow of Snaefellsjokull glacier, where Jules Verne imagined the start of his Journey to the Centre of the Earth, walked the black sand beach at Djupalonssandur, waited in vain for the appearance of a starry sky. By 1:30 a.m. dawn brightened the horizon only a few degrees east of where the sun had set ninety minutes before.

Some of my favourite sites are also preferred by birds. We relished a sea watch at Mana where great skuas patrolled the headland, platoons of guillemots skimmed the littoral and snow buntings foraged among beach rocks. Our chosen vantage point commanded a fine view of Grimsey Island on the Arctic Circle. I risked losing my lunch via boat trip over choppy water to Papey Island where puffins, guillemots, razorbills, fulmars and kittiwakes gather in their thousands to rear their young on jagged cliffs. From Heimaey, largest of the Westman islands, we gawked at even larger numbers of seabirds gathered on still higher sea cliffs.

Diversions varied widely. One day we rambled over a glacier, outfitted with crampons, ice axe, safety harness and helmet. Another we climbed Eldfell volcano which buried four hundred Heimaey homes in 1973 and is still very much alive: at the top, along the crater rim, volcanic vents were too hot to touch.

Iceland’s waterfalls are voluminous and spectacular. Legendary too. At Gothafoss in the year 1000 Thorgeir the Wise threw statues of Norse gods into the cataract to mark Icelanders’ conversion to Christianity. Mighty Dettifoss is the largest waterfall in Europe, set in a rugged canyon cleaving a moonscape of rock and volcanic tephra. Dramatic Skogafoss is said to conceal a treasure of gold and gems. Like all the others, huge Gullfoss attracts humans in legions, recklessly gathered ant-like at the precipice edge.

Geysir is the waterspout that lent its name to the entire geyser genre. These days Geysir has lost its edge: it steams away undramatically without blowing its top, but every few minutes its companion Strokkur blasts a steamy tower thirty metres high, to the great delight of gawkers sprayed in the blow.

We saw horses and sheep wherever we went. Horses were of particular interest to my traveling companions. At Reykjahlith on the marge of Lake Myvatn the women saddled up Iceland horses and went for a tolt. The Iceland horse is the only one in the world that still manages the ‘fifth gait’ – one foot on the ground at all times – that is so smooth a rider can hold a glass of bubbly without spilling a drop. Even without the bubbly Jan and the Twins pronounced their ride one of the highlights of the trip.

After twelve days we jettisoned the Toyota and rambled Reykjavik by shank’s mare. Intrigued by both the Vikings and the Icelandic Sagas we patronized the Settlement Museum and the Culture House display of mediaeval manuscripts, including one made of the skins of 113 calves that features the earliest existing record of Leifur Eriksson’s journey to Vinland in the New World.

Our last stop before leaving the land of fire and ice was Iceland’s answer to Disneyland, the Blue Lagoon, where people gather in dozens to soak in geothermally-heated water, while plastering their faces with white mud and enjoying an adult beverage before heading off to a buffet of sushi, salmon and lamb. Many visitors insist the Blue Lagoon is the greatest attraction Iceland has to offer; I am from a different planet and disagree, preferring the fjords, volcanoes, glaciers and seabirds.

Now we are back at the edge of the Great Bras d’Or where it is easy to bring the Icelanders to mind. My great-uncle Harrison Livingstone was a student of the Greenland and Vinland sagas. Scholars disagree on the whereabouts of Eriksson’s Vinland, but based on his careful readings of the descriptions in the sagas, Harrison had no doubt that Straumsfjord was none other than the

Great Bras d’Or, that a thousand years ago Eriksson sailed right past my present-day Big Bras d’Or shack. It is pleasant to imagine the old guy might have been right.