Exploring Prince Edward Island

Bedeque Bay was featured this past week as we walked the boardwalk in Summerside. One day, a sailboat caught our attention with the layers of colour and pattern in the setting. The human element looked tiny against the natural elements. 

On a particularly windy day, six kite surfers played across the Bay near the lighthouse. It looks like fun but I cannot ever imagination wanting to try it, at any age. They are courageous people!

Our friend, Helen, is in Prince Edward Island visiting her son and his family for several weeks. Helen is from Australia and made the long journey on her own this year as her husband, Frank, was unable to travel. We missed him.

Helen introduced us to Hyde Pond last week, an area we were unfamiliar with but will visit again. 

The walk along the trail is a beautiful one any time of year and one can imagine a walk there in the autumn colour. We will find out.

Nearby, Canada Geese and Mallards, including young goslings and molting birds, were safe from predators in the fenced area of a settling pond. 

That day, Helen provided a delicious lunch which we ate across from Charlottetown, overlooking the harbour and the city from Rice Point. A cruise ship had delivered tourists that day, as is common this time of year. 

I always enjoy the view of the Hillsborough Bridge across the Harbour.

My husband and I were biking last week as well and took our first picnic lunch with us on bike. We stopped at a covered picnic table about 13 kilometres from home, in a marshland area which has a pond if we’ve had enough rain. The water level in the pond was the highest we’d ever seen. We had heavy rain numerous times in spring.

Though the wind was the predominant sound, Green Frogs called from around the pond, hidden by the vegetation. The chorus was loud and almost continuous, as if the amphibians didn’t stop to breathe. Nature’s chorus was in fine voice in the wilds of Prince Edward Island.

We had lunch and enjoyed the serenade as we watched Tree Swallows dart through the air catching theirs. Red-winged Blackbirds called out as they flew to nearby trees, surveying the scene.

After lunch, we stood on the bridge over the pond and watched as Swallows picked insects from the surface of the water, swooping down, picking up an insect and continuing on their way. The birds barely slowed as they snatched their prey from the water. A Water Strider didn’t have a chance against those stealthy birds.

Twice during our time there, Great Blue Herons flew over. We have seen them feeding in the pond on previous occasions. From the tiny Swallows to the huge Herons, avians enjoy the area. 

In the ditches along the Trail, Blue Flag Irises were in abundance. 

Similarly, Daisies filled the edges of the Trail.

Along the more shallow edges of the pond, Water Arum, with its single white petal, waded in the water.

The wind in the trees, the call of the frogs, the blooms, the birds enjoying the habitat, made the experience priceless. The world and all its troubles didn’t exist for a few precious moments.

On the way home, we stopped to take in the verdure. 

Along the trail in places, Dame’s Rockets adorn the way and are worth a closer look too.

Also lupins are still blooming along the roads and trails. They are such a treat this time of year.

At home, the first peony is blooming. Yay!

P.S.

On the world stage, the news is bleak. We escape into nature most days which helps distract us. One feels helpless regarding the world situation so we work to make our little part of the world better. There is always a way to help others in need even in one’s own area. Simply giving a compliment can brighten someone’s day. A smile is a kindness which doesn’t have a price tag.

As our daughter says to the children, “Be kind. You don’t know what someone is going through.”

Blooms and critters

This past week was a busy one with activities with our grandchildren and having the golden grand-dog overnight. We did manage a walk most days however, when the weather permitted. We have had cold winds and a great deal of rain.

Along the trails now, Mountain Ash 

and High Bush Cranberry are in bloom. 

Gone are the apple blossoms but people can enjoy a succession of blooms along trails and pathway over the weeks of late spring.

Prince Edward Island is known for its potatoes and planting is well underway now. The fields await the first eruption in the red soil with the potential of another bumper crop of the stem tubers.

One morning this past week, as we readied for the boardwalk, a fox and her two kits played across the street. My husband managed a photo of the mother through the window, but the kits played in the tall grass and were impossible to photograph.

Meanwhile, we walked the Confederation Trail with Daisy, the golden grand-dog, in an area where we could watch for other people. When nobody was around, we let her off the lead to run along the trail. She runs so far ahead and stops to wait for the two seniors behind her. 

Farm animals were out in the fields this past week. A farm with three horses is near the Confederation Trail where we took Daisy. This young pony didn’t mind the barking dog as it grazed in the farmyard.

Cattle were out grazing or relaxing one afternoon in another field. There were a number of additions to this herd this spring.

The same was true for this small herd of sheep another day. Lambs enjoyed grazing along a hill by the farmhouse.

It is lupin time again and the roads and trails are lined with the beauties for a few weeks. The whites, pinks, purples and mixes of colour provide a flash of colour as one drives by. It is so much better to walk past them.

My friend Lucy’s garden is beautiful again this year and I took some photos of some of her blooming beauties last week. My favourite photo was of these irises.

Lucy and I went to a birding class this past weekend along a trail in the National Park at Cavendish. We saw some familiar birds, including Bald Eagles, Osprey, Cedar Waxwings, Great Blue Herons and Song Sparrows. I was also thrilled to see Red-eyed Vireos, 

Chestnut-Sided Warbler

and an Eastern Kingbird.

It is always fun to be around a group of people with the same interests!

We enjoyed lunch with our family yesterday at our house. We have a wall in our utility room where we measure the kids every year and record their heights. We measured their grandfather and me last year too. While the kids each grew appreciably this past year, their grandfather and I shrank, though at a slower rate than the kids grew…at least.

We can rejoice in having lived long enough to experience the life which led to this loss of height and enjoy life at a new altitude!

Have a great week!

Land and sea

On a lupin quest this past week, early one day ahead of the smothering humidity, we headed around Bedeque Bay towards the Indian Head Lighthouse on the shore opposite Summerside. As we neared the south side of the bay, a Great Blue Heron flew across the road about five meters ahead and above the road. Such a sighting was a great start to the day.

Along the way, fishers and farmers were busy. In the bay, on the south side of Holman Island, oyster fishers grasped the shellfish between the teeth of the tongs they held over the side of the boat. 

On land, the first cut of hay was underway in one field but cows nearby weren’t ready for breakfast.

In another field, an elderly farmer used an old tractor in his field near the road. I missed that photo and on our way back, he had stopped the antique and left it in the field. Tractor without farmer isn’t quite the same.

However, lupins lined the red dirt road near the lighthouse. 

Our first look at the breakwater was one of surprise. Had the breakwater been damaged by storms, removing some of the huge rocks along its length? 

After the requisite lighthouse shots, I walked out the road to see the lupins. The sight of the blooms in this seaside setting, though high above the waterline, is a favourite of mine.

The pinks, blues and purples, the mixes of colour along with an occasional white, always make me smile. 

Overhead, Bank Swallows flew their usual erratic way catching insects. They are an important part of the aesthetic of this place.

Islands by their very nature are linked to both land and sea. Earlier in human history the sea was our only means of transportation to and from an island. The sea also provides food as does the land of course. The vistas before me on Prince Edward Island are a combination of land and sea which I have known all my life on my island homes.

I wouldn’t want it any other way.

A walk with friends

The Heritage Roads of Prince Edward Island were cut into the red soil at least a century ago. The Millman Road in the centre of the island is one such road which we visit occasionally to take in the beauty of the season.

We walked that road this past week with some friends who are on the island visiting family.

The Millman Road is in a part of the island which has rolling hills. The old road doesn’t have any homesteads these days but the fields are still planted in rotation every year. This undulating field of corn is just sprouted and within three months stalks of corn will be taller than we are. 

As we walked, the wind in the trees provided music to our ears. That wind kept the mosquitoes at bay so days with a breeze are great days to explore such areas. Birds sang in the trees and while it was hard to see them high in the canopy, sometimes one is lucky enough to see one of the songsters, like this Black-capped Chickadee.

As we turned around to walk back, the fields around the Southwest River stretched before us. 

The ditches along the road were full of blooms, among them the showy lupins which have beautiful variation in colour in that area. 

I am uncertain as to identity of the tall plant with the delicate pink blooms growing with the lupins. 

We continued on to the park at Cabot Beach where we had a leisurely lunch with our friends. However, it rained before we could explore the beach together. We will get together again later this week.

Finally today, I want to introduce you to one of our animal friends along the boardwalk. We first saw this squirrel late last autumn when it was eating at one of the bird feeders. It had the shortest tail we had ever seen on a Red Squirrel, so we called it Bob. 

Over the next several months, we saw Bob regularly. Then it vanished and we feared Bob had fallen victim to a predator.

                                                      Unlike Bob, this squirrel has a normal tail.

Much to our surprise, last month, a squirrel with an unusual tail appeared on another section of the boardwalk. We suspect it is Bob, with a lengthened tail. However, the tip of its tail has grown fur which looks different from other squirrels. Could this be Bob?

We like to think so!