Giant's rampage

A giant lumbered through here, towered over the trees and pushed many of them aside as he went. That's what I imagine as my husband and I hike the Hilltop Trail in Breadalbane, Prince Edward Island. 

 

The trees are broken or cracked, some even toppled from the roots. 

 

There is an abundance of firewood though it is not easily accessible. Therefore nature is doing the work of decomposing the old wood. Slow and steady, season to season, decomposition of the old trees progresses.

 

The trail runs along by the Dunk river. There is a picnic area on the bank of the river just below the trail. Looking down, it looks like the giant has placed tables for us to use or will we be served for dinner?

 

In places where the sunlight can reach the forest floor, young trees are growing, renewing the old forest. Such trees will eventually replace all the dead wood which nature reclaims.

 

An old shed across the Dunk River looks like the giant put his foot down through it. Nothing escapes his destruction when he is trudging through this forest.

 

We hope never to meet him on the trail.

Foggy dew

The city was shrouded in fog, thick as pea soup. We waited for two days to go to the Citadel in Halifax and along the coastline in Nova Scotia but the fog was persistent. We are not accustomed to this kind of fog any more but wanted to go to the Citadel. Away we went.

The Citadel stands on a hill over looking the Halifax Harbour. It was a British military fortification established after Halifax was founded in 1749. It gives a great view of the harbour, but not that day. 

The photos tell the story.

 

 

 

 

 

You know it's foggy when...

While the Citadel was open, the museum was closed. Our visit was brief!

 

                            Can you find the Canadian flag in this photo?

Back in Prince Edward Island, life on this gentle island brings occasional mornings of fog. This spring, there have been a few days with the cloud-like mist at ground level. My husband and I ventured into that foggy dew recently to take some photos. 

The sand dunes

 

The marsh

 

The river

 

The boat

 

I much prefer the foggy dew to the pea soup.

Sounding

Every place has its sound, that ambient noise which you become accustomed to over time. Here in Summerside, the wind is the one which has impressed me. The days without wind or a breeze are remarkable.

Our few days in Halifax recently did not give us time to settle on a sound which represented that city. However, the sounds were different from those we hear daily.

The fog horn was busy. While we are Newfoundland born, for most of our lives we lived in central Newfoundland where there was little fog. Now in Prince Edward Island, Summerside has fog occasionally but we have not heard a fog horn. Halifax was reminiscent of my youth in eastern Newfoundland where fog is a way of life and the fog horn signals a way through the atmospheric pea soup.

We stayed downtown in Halifax, not far from the train station. The sound of the train is also reminiscent of our younger years. As children, both my husband and I knew the sound of a train but it impacted our lives in more important ways as family members worked with the railway. That sound put food on the table. Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island lost their railways in 1989. The sound of the train in Halifax was a welcome comfort.

The air conditioning in the hotel room was noisy. Living in eastern Canada, there is usually a breeze and temperatures are rarely high for long. At home, our air conditioner is an open window, not a noisy machine, though we have one which we have used on one occasion.

We turned off the air conditioner in the hotel room and opened a window. The downtown traffic was much noisier than in our neighbourhood in Prince Edward Island where many nights, not a car goes up our street. The question became, traffic noise or noisy air conditioner? We opted for the traffic which decreased on the city streets over night. 

What is the ambient sound where you live?

Park retrospective

They were excited the way four and six year olds are when doing something they enjoy. My husband and I were headed to the park with our granddaughters for the first time this year. The girls love to make cracker sandwiches with peanut butter for their snack at the picnic table. They use as much peanut butter as crackers and giggle as they are made. Grapes and juice go with us too. We were ready.

The red wagon is part of the experience. Sylvie has long legs now, but she sat in the front of wagon and her sister sat behind her. They chatted non stop all the way to the park and played "eye spy" which Caitlin hasn't mastered yet but loves to play anyway. 

 

The park had been cleaned of the millions of leaves from last autumn. We were the only ones there for much of the time and the girls made the rounds. They love the teeter totter but it would be hard to pick a favourite.

A year brings a lot of growth in the life of a young child. 

 

                       Sylvie and Caitlin, May 2016 

 

                         Sylvie and Caitlin, May 2017 

 

                                   Sylvie 2016 

 

                             Sylvie 2017     

 

                                  Caitlin 2016              

 

                                    Caitlin 2017

The little ones and little things in life bring much joy.

Shifting sands

Sunny and 10 degrees C. Time for a picnic and a walk on the beach.  We don't need a reason just the weather. After all, it only takes a few minutes to steep some tea and make a sandwich. My husband always has homemade bread rolls ready. Brackley Beach in the national park on Prince Edward Island was our destination.

We took the back roads, though the main highways on the island aren't all that busy at  any time. Within the hour we arrived and quickly started for the beach. The sand dunes near the boardwalk had shifted over the past winter and sand covered a section of the boardwalk.

 

Park personnel are not out in full force yet.

It was one of those days; if you waited five minutes, the weather changed. The skies clouded over and it rained, cleared and repeated during our excursion. On occasion the skies looked ominous,

 

but the sun would break through and change the scene. 

 

Though it rained twice, both times were short lived and warm enough that we didn't mind.

The highest sand dunes we've seen thus far on the island are located here at Brackley. Some towered at least fifteen feet above the beach.

 

Waves and wind made for one of those days when the sound of the beach fills your senses and controls your thoughts. It wasn't cold but we zippered our jackets as we walked into the wind. 

During the winter,  the Gulf of St Lawrence cast ashore some buoys from traps set off-shore. 

 

They are on the upper part of the beach, far from the usual high tide mark. Stormy seas must have thrust them forth.

 

The waters around the island can be calm as to barely lap the shore. This day, the waves had crests and troughs, the crests breaking as they neared the shore. The white water sent a spray into the air, as the wind blew across the surface. 

 

Seaweed, a constant along the sandy beaches of the island, rested on the beach.

 

A huge log, at the base of the sand dunes, was partly covered by the shifting sand. 

 

It was a great place to sit and take in the scene on a beach which feels like it goes on forever. Several people in the distance are the only other humans.

 

Time for lunch.

Black scoters

A wind turbine was squeaking. That's what we thought initially as we approached the bench along the shoreline by the Interpretation Center at North Cape, Prince Edward Island. We had lunch looking over the Gulf of St Lawrence with the breeze at our backs.

My husband and I noticed two flocks of ducks off shore. Watching them as we ate, it became obvious what we thought was a squeaking wind turbine, was the sound of the ducks. They called in unison!

To hear the scoter call, check here.

After lunch, we went to the beach and watched one flock as they swam nearby.

 

                                        Two drakes calling in unison

These were black scoters, diving ducks whose drakes have yellow orange knobs on black bills. 

 

There was one hen in the flock, with the gray-white markings on the lower side of her head, who appeared as if protected by the drakes. She was smaller than the males and sat lower in the water. They often surrounded her 

 

and one displayed courting behavior. 

 

She appeared oblivious.

 

This island is their winter habitat. They will head out soon to their breeding grounds further north. Meanwhile, the courting dance continues as they feed along the shoreline.

Maybe next year we will see their progeny in the same location.

Mining town

The first third of our teaching careers, my husband and I taught in an isolated mining town at the end of its mining life. While the ore was depleted, the spirit of the people wasn't. They depended on each other underground and in the mill, so they forged a strong bond. Also, the company town had facilities which few Newfoundland towns had in those days, such as a stadium, a curling club, a theatre, and bowling alley. It was a great place to live and raise a family.

I saw a video recently of a fly-over of the town just after the mine closed. Many of the facilities were still in place, though closed. One of the sights which made us smile was the school where we worked those early years. Lots of great memories came flooding back, of students, colleagues, friends, and our daughter's early life in a place that she loved. 

Our province had denominational education in those days and we were hired to work in the Roman Catholic system. The school had a nun as principal and other nuns were on staff. The Church, school, convent and rectory were all in the same block which was the epicenter of our lives. These facilities were paid for by the Catholic families, who had deductions taken from their salaries to cover the cost. The facilities were long paid for by the time we arrived in the community.

 

 Church-lower left, convent behind church, school-behind the cars, rectory to the left

Some young families did leave the community when the mine closed, including ours. We moved an hour away, to a paper mill town which was larger and on the Trans Canada highway. Today, in Buchans, only the church is left on the block where the school, convent and rectory had been. But the community lives on, smaller but spirited and strong. 

Note: the photo is taken from the video and is blurred as a result.