Ready for Rain

After what feels like weeks of relentless heat and humidity—humidex levels in the upper thirties, cascades of sweat from the slightest exertions—it is difficult to avoid wondering whether we have a new Cape Breton climate, one more evocative of the bayous of Louisiana than the boreal forests of our native land. With record wildfires raging in BC and Ontario we wonder how long Nova Scotia can escape similar peril.

Once when young and especially foolish, I sought the sun, preferred a brown-as-a-berry look to my native pasty whiteness, recklessly disregarded warnings about melanoma. Those days are long gone. Now what is relentless is the search for shade and our daily dips in the precious, cooling waters of the Great Bras d’Or. I cherish time spent in the screened porch, indulging nothing more athletic than turning the pages of a compelling Ian Rankin novel. The rain barrels have been dusty dry for days. We rely on Bob Nagel’s still-reliable spring for water, and waste not a drop of it. I am told there are people who still deny that H. sapiens has had any impact whatsoever on the planet’s climate. How can this be?

Given a summer that looks and feels very much like the ones formerly celebrated by the Beach Boys it is perhaps no surprise that we have become a destination again. I have already reported on the blithesome visit of pals Garth and Carole. Now we can add six more kith and kin to the summer guest list, with another seven on the near horizon. Elizabeth and Steve forsook Winnipeg in summer to grace us with their presence. Steve’s day on the Margaree—described in the preceding post—was just one highlight of their noteworthy five-day stay.

The Black Hole of Calcutta came to mind on a sweltering evening at St. Andrew’s Church in Sydney Mines where the four of us gathered with three hundred other swelterers to rhapsodize in the enduring musical talent of Sydney Mines’ own Barra MacNeils.  I marveled that the performers could put out so much energy on such a steamy evening. I also marveled that the audience—hardly any of them under forty—stayed the course without anyone collapsing from the heat. So far as I could tell no audience member had to be hauled away by ambulance; virtually everyone stood at concert’s end to accord the MacNeil brothers-and-sister a heartfelt and sweaty standing ovation.

On Friday, while the men sought close encounters with salmon on the Margaree River, the women—Liz and Jan—went to Goose Cove to take advanced instruction in the fine arts of paper eco-printing and hand-stitched book bindery. I felt duly impressed with the proceeds of the women’s concentration.

Once upon a time, more than four decades ago, the cabin slept as many sixteen people on a single summer night. To be sure, the sixteen were young, flexible and undemanding of five-star amenities. Nowadays we do a little better at seeing to it that friends and relatives get to sleep in relative comfort. Earlier this year the loss of my Victoria workshop was the price I paid for concurring that the basement space might be better purposed if we converted it to a combination rec room and guest bedroom. Now the Big Bras d’Or workshop is re-purposed too, though not fatally to its principal role as a place to make sawdust. The workshop now doubles as a guest bunkhouse. Liz and Steve seemed perfectly happy to take advantage of the new queen-sized bed that now graces the space when table- and crosscut-saws are removed.

We didn’t come close to breaking the old record but the compound did provide sanctuary for eight souls—nine if you count Cooper the little Italian greyhound (and count him we must)—when the Mahone Baysians—Naomi, Terry and the girls—joined the rest of us for the August long weekend. There are three Murphy beds in the cabin. All three were deployed. No outbreak of cabin fever occurred. Apart from the swimming and shade-seeking we took a chance on an evening bonfire—nothing burned that wasn’t meant to—and fought pitched card-game battles. Young Sara, not yet a teenager, helped to demolish me in a rousing game of Hearts. I learned another game—‘Hand and Foot’—and lost at that too.

Jan and I have only each other’s company for the next few days but soon enough another contingent of seven—niece Sarah and nephew Michael, together with their families—will get to savour the enhanced attractions of Shack-ri-La. I am ardent to show them off.