Woodland Mystery

One of the curious things we've seen along the boardwalk is this old tree trunk, 

disappearing before our eyes as an animal chews it to pieces. 

From Ginnie's comments on the "Squirrel" piece I posted last week, I suspect squirrels are the ones chewing the wood. Any creature who can get into an attic and chew everything in sight...

This poses the question, why? Red squirrels do not eat insects and it is too cold for insects now anyway. Is it just because they are idle and chew during the hours people are not around to feed and entertain them? What is the attraction? Or, is it some other creature chewing at this stump?

According to the Macphail Woods Ecological Project, these are the mammals on Prince Edward Island:

little brown bat

eastern coyote

red fox

raccoon

snowshoe hare

American mink

ermine

striped skunk

beaver

muskrat

eastern chipmunk

flying squirrel

red squirrel

deer mice

jumping mice

voles

house mice

shrews.

This photo shows the top of the stump where woodpecker holes and lichen may be clues as well.

There is a wealth of knowledge and experience out there in blogger-land. Are the red squirrels responsible? What is your theory?

"Squirrel"

Do you remember the scene from the movie Christmas Vacation where the squirrel jumps out of the tree and chaos ensues? It is one of my favourite comedic scenes, especially when the grandfather shouts, "Squirrel." I still laugh at that scene and find these creatures fascinating.

You can watch the clip here.

Earlier this week, as Rick and I walked the boardwalk by the bay, we had an interesting conversation with a red squirrel. We noticed her immediately, sat by the bridge eating a seed left by adoring islanders. She ignored us but before we had crossed the bridge, she out-ran us up the trail.

When we arrived at the feeder and stopped for a look, she circled each of us and chatted as she did. The squirrels in this area are accustomed to admirers feeding them and now expect that every passer-by has the same intention. This one focussed on Rick and stood in front of him, looking up and saying something in her squirrel speak. Rick showed her his empty gloved hands, saying,"I don't have any peanuts for you today. Next time."  

The squirrel turned her back on Rick, now making that squirrel noise, like a prolonged clicking sound you hear sometimes in the distance as you walk through their habitat. That day, it sounded like she was scolding Rick.

There are so many interesting stories about squirrels. One friend told a story about cookies she made and put in a plastic container inside a box for overnight. She left the box on the balcony. The next morning, ready to leave the house, she went to the balcony to discover the cookies, intended for a party, all over the balcony. Soil from flower pots covered the balcony and pieces of cookie were buried in the pots. Squirrels had opened the box and the plastic container. That day, she realized that squirrels were now climbing up the corner of her building all the way to the seventh floor.

On another occasion, on a particularly warm late autumn day, my friend left her apartment with just the screen door closing off the balcony. She had decorated for Christmas, putting a Dickens village on display. She used cotton wool as snow, and had piped green icing on inverted ice cream cones for trees. It looked so pretty.

When she returned home, a squirrel had come through the lower part of the screen, eaten the "trees" and taken all the cotton wool back through the hole in the screen. Telltale bits of wool now stuck to the screen.

The final story is one from our time in Howley, Newfoundland when we vacationed there over a few summers when our daughter was young. We had a travel trailer that we parked on a piece of land on Grand Lake and Rick's parents did the same. We loved our time there, sat around campfires, fishing, picking berries, paddle-boating on the lake, riding the All Terrain Vehicle on the old dirt road.

One of our favourite meals was pea soup, cooked on the propane stove. We always made dumplings or as Newfoundlanders call them, dough b'ys, putting the floury lumps to cook in the pot when the soup was almost done. Sometimes, they were perfect, light and fluffly. Other times, they were dunch, which is soggy or doughy. Dunch dough b'ys always made it to the fire pit where we burned the evidence that night.

One day, we watched in amusement as a squirrel grabbed one of these doughy balls and struggled down the road with it. He stopped for a breather often and eventually disappeared into the woods. He didn't come back for the rest of them and didn't tell his friends either. One was all he could stomach. Even squirrels have a discriminating palate when it comes to dough b'ys. 

Do you have any squirrel stories to share?

Yankee Gale

Having always lived on eastern Canadian islands, I know some stories of shipwrecks and disasters at sea, but I had never heard of the Yankee Gale until this past week. This story goes back to the 1850s when there was a fleet of hundreds of American schooners, fishing off the northern coast of Prince Edward Island. These vessels were seiners, fishing for mackerel, using large nets to surround and scoop up the fish. They sailed out of Boston and Gloucester, Massachusetts. 

Map from this article.

By the 1850s, Gloucester was the largest fishing port in the United States. At that time, there were as many as fifty fishing companies based in the port city, sending two-masted, wooden vessels, designed for rough seas, far off shore, as far as the Gulf of St. Lawrence. They fished for mackerel which they packed in salt in the holds of the schooners.

In October of 1851, there was a huge storm that lasted for three days. It is known as the Yankee Gale because there were so many American vessels and lives lost in that storm. There are conflicting reports of the size of the loss but one report contends that 120 vessels sank and 250 people perished. There may be many more people unaccounted for as well. Bodies washed ashore for weeks and most could not be identified. They were buried in graveyards along the northern coast of Queen's county.

With our telecommunication today, such news would be around the world in an instant, forensics would identify bodies, sunken vessels would be searched and families would bring their loved ones home for burial. Imagine what it was like in 1851. 

Eventually, the surviving schooners started to arrive back in their home ports. Wives and children waited as each vessel sailed into port, initially not knowing about the tragedy, then hoping against hope that their loved one was on that next vessel on the horizon. The last schooner to return must have brought joy to a few and complete devastation to many.

Those who make their living on the sea take huge risks every time they venture out, even with the equipment and vessels we have now. Today, I remember the brave people who gave their lives in pursuit of a livelihood on the sea, especially the victims of the Yankee Gale, and the families they left behind. All long gone, but not forgotten!

Note: my interest in the Yankee Gale began with the book These Roots Run Deep by Marion L. Reid.

Iceberg Alley

The icebergs are in the North Atlantic again moving along the coasts of Labrador and Newfoundland, floating south into warmer water. This area is known as Iceberg Alley. 

                                    You can see a number of icebergs in Iceberg Alley.

Over the coming months, many icebergs will be visible from shore, some running aground, carried toward shore by the tides. Icebergs are early this year, and while not unusual, in the past, it was often spring before they appeared.

                                                                                             Picture taken from shore

One area of the province known for icebergs is the area around Twillingate, Newfoundland, making it the iceberg capital of the world. It is on the northeast coast of the island.

The display of icebergs offshore has been spectacular the last decade but I remember them from my youth as well. However, global warming has sped up the ice melting and breaking away from Greenland glaciers; Iceberg Alley is their brief, watery home. 

There are numerous boat tours along the coast of Newfoundland which take adventurers near the majestic giants as they make their way south with the Labrador Current. Icebergs make the tour and fishing boats look miniature in comparison. 

We took these pictures in 2009. It was a lovely day in June on Twillingate Island and the boat tour was a highlight, though the area has some significance for our family as well. My husband's paternal grandmother was from Durrell, on Twillingate Island.

                                                         We sampled the 10,000 year old ice from this small iceberg or bergy bit.

 There are two videos with this link. One shows an iceberg breaking up or calving. It is rare to see this type of footage. The other video is a tourist video showing spectacular icebergs.

Note:  The Titanic was off the south coast of Newfoundland when she sank in 1912.

                                                                                          

                                                                                                              

The Difference

Last year at this time we had had a storm that lasted for three days. That storm was a mere blip on the storm radar that year because we had epic storms and snowfall beginning in the last week of January. It was a miserable winter. Pictures of our back yard at that time will give you an idea of the snow we had.

                                              The red markers indicate my garden plot.

This year, every time we have snow, we have rain to take it away. This is the same area today, one year later.

Thank you, El Niño.

After the Storm

The day after a recent storm, my husband and I headed to the boardwalk by the bay. We are fortunate that our council clears and de-ices the boardwalk quickly after any snowfall or icy weather. It was a beautiful day, with evidence of the heavy snowfall everywhere. 

Let's have a look.

The boardwalk was busy as usual.

There were places where the snow looked blue.

Indian Head Lighthouse looked battered from years of storms.

The blue sky accentuated the trees, clouds, ice and snow.

In more protected areas, the snow still clung to the branches.

In contrast, a network of branches were outlined against the sky.

This furry friend had hiccups.

In the shade, the "blue" snow was beautiful.

The end of the trail...

The trail looks different every time we are there.

Our Libraries

We have a great library system in Prince Edward Island. There are twenty-three busy libraries around the island, each offering a variety of services to clientele, such as craft classes, book clubs, baby story time, to name a few. Libraries offer computer accessibility to the community; audiobooks and dvds are available and e-books can be  downloaded. In Summerside alone, almost 80% of the population holds library cards.

Our community is also fortunate that the Rotary Club sponsors the library and is building a new Community Learning Center which will house a new library as well. The new facility will be more than twice the size of the present library which is housed in the old train station in Summerside. 

Book club kits are provided as a library service across the province. Each kit contains ten copies of a book and a study guide. One person, on behalf of the club, checks out the kit for the group. Each group has six weeks to read the book and meet for discussion. There are numerous book clubs around the island, with youth to seniors participating, some belonging to several clubs. 

I became involved with book club through Seniors College the first month I arrived on Prince Edward Island. Taking courses was a great way to meet people and learn about the island from my classmates, so I joined the book club associated with the college. There is a thirty year age range among the seniors in the book club, bringing a wealth of life experience and knowledge to the group.

Always an avid reader, over the years I had reduced my reading to mystery novels, which suited my busy work life. Book club introduced me to a variety of genres I would not have read otherwise. Discussions were invigorating, each person bringing her own unique perspective to every book. Friendships formed around the pages.

Our group always takes a circuitous route through each book, sharing life experiences. current events and insights. However, we always come to an understanding of the book and help each other with difficult texts. 

One great discovery via book club has been Canadian literature. Not having read much of it before, I've discovered enjoyment in the familiar settings and the Canadian multi-cultural experience, especially the writings of our indigenous people.

In book club this month, we are reading Station Eleven, a dystopian novel by Canadian author, Emily St. John Mandel. This book is not one I would have read before joining the book club. However, I hated for it to end!

Another great service provided by the library is the One Book One Island program. Every year, the organizers bring an author to the island to visit the main libraries in the three counties. We've had a graphic novelist, a short story writer and a mystery novelist, among others. Interacting with the authors is helpful to all readers and one's own writing process.

There are places in the world where libraries are closing due to lack of funding and/or usage. Such is not the case in Prince Edward Island. In fact, our libraries have a firm foothold in the twenty-first century. It will be interesting to see how they evolve in the years to come.