A time to weep ... a time to heal

It is mid-May and birdlife blossoms along with the daffodils. Tulips are in bud, and we have arrived at that time of the year when lobsters in Sandy Bay best curb appetites, because traps that were well off shore for most of the season have been shifted to shallower waters. There’s no free lunch for Homarus americanus.

Of jaw bones and water woes

The snow has melted here and worms are casting about, much to the delight of robins. I’ve not yet spotted a woodcock, the bird that must be the best equipped, with its hinged mandible, to tweeze earthworms and grubs from their lairs beneath the surface of the soil. Speaking of mandibles, last week I found one attached to a skull beneath a brush pile I was about to torch.

Goodbye to a champion

The dark months take a toll on our spirit, and on the lives of friends. So I see the leaving, on March 4, of Oliver Murphy, three-time champion “chair mower” at the annual Maritime Handmowing Championships at the Ross Farm Heritage Museum in New Ross, N.S. He’s the guy who grew up playing with dynamite on the family farm in West Chezzetcook, as recounted in Rural Delivery last November (“Ways of knowing,” pg. 8).

Spring tonic

My old and trusty chainsaw blew its muffler before Christmas. Local shops did not have a replacement in stock, and besides, a new one would be costly. There’s only one junkyard for old saws I know of, and that’s the one belonging to Joey Muise, whose chainsaw and small engine emporium is off the beaten path in the community of Concession, southwest of Digby.

For many years, the go-to guy on Nova Scotia’s Eastern Shore if there was rock ledge in the way of your project, be it a foundation or a grave, was Oliver Murphy. Mr. Dynamite, I’ll call him – a wiry-built man of generous spirit, now retired and with his wife Heather looking after the Murphy farmstead in West Chezzetcook at the head of Chezzetcook Inlet. I met them years ago at Ross Heritage Farm, where Oliver demonstrated finesse and focus in annual Hand Mowing Championships.

Value added

Adding value to resources is the way of Canada’s economic future. Opportunities abound. Just how they abound came to me the other day while weeding the asparagus patch. Crawling through the thicket of ferns, I wore a hole in the knee of my britches. Ordinarily, this might call for artful patching. However, with value-added in mind, I’m thinking a better bet will be to run the trousers through the wash and donate them to Value Village.

Pick of the crop

    Raspberries! Fresh raspberries on granola, fresh raspberry pie, fresh raspberries on a leafy green salad, and a bowl of fresh raspberries with light cream and a sprinkling of brown sugar before hitting the sack.  Lord, I’m tiring of fresh raspberries. Fortunately, there are red currants, huckleberries, and blueberries to break the awful monotony. Soon there will be blackberries. I think we will make it through.

Delivering the goods
The back door slams. There are footsteps; the clink of glass. “Hello?”
Think back a couple of weeks to the flooded St. John River, where a canoe bearing burglars visited empty homes. A chilling thought. But no, it is the 1950s and the milk man has arrived with a fresh supply of bottled, pasteurized milk. Nobody home? Not a problem. Stepping to the refrigerator, he opens the door, sets aside a leftover bottle from the previous delivery, loads the top shelf with three fresh bottles, replaces the half-bottle, and turns to leave.

Positively grounded!
    Doc MacLeod was right. It was years ago. I had a wicked stiff neck, and looked to him for relief. Last week, when I fried my Tacoma’s electrical system, I was taken back to that time when. I’ve been boosting dead batteries since pre-teens and never had a problem. I was waiting until I had a vehicle held together, not as in the old days with baling wire, but with computers. I was in a rush.

It’s called enterprise
    Taking a walk with Tank yesterday, he chased rabbits while my mind chased ideas how this Sandy Bay Landings was only my lifetime ago. Change. The rabbits Tank chases are in fact Snowshoe hares that change from white to brown to white with the seasons. Now, as the days pick away at night, their coats are often mottled. This Sandy Bay is mottled in a cultural way.

Bluster and garbage and gas
    Trump protests too much in recent tweeted response to allegations he is mentally ill-equipped to run the U.S. show – and show it has become, on his watch. But is Trump an aberration or revelation, exposing for everyone to see an ugly underbelly of the Excited States? Many fear Trump out of fear he would take the world to war rather than admit a mistake.

Travels with Tank
    After walking the beach or taking a leisurely stroll through the woods, more than one friend or family member has exclaimed, “You live in a paradise!” True. We do. Thank heaven we have not been hacked by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. Undeclared fortunes remain out of CRA’s sight, squirreled away amongst the roots of wind-blown spruce, guarded by porcupines.

Down in the garden
He’s calling for a frost in low-lying areas tonight. First of the season for many, despite being well into October. Here on the coast, on a hill, there’s not a chance remaining tomatoes will get hit, although I wish it were otherwise. Jack Frost would be welcome to take the tomatoes, the beans too, and don’t forget the zucchini. It is time for a break. Besides, the freezer is full.

Mother would be in jail
    I am sitting at my computer waiting for someone to Facebook me and tell me what to do next. Or maybe someone I never heard tell of will email me to ask that I add them to my LinkedIn “family,” which does not exist. That is because after signing up to join the exalted ranks of the LinkedIn I decided I live on the wrong side of the tracks and have managed to hide the fact thus far in life and why screw things up now?

Riding coattails
    I arrived in Canada and Nova Scotia in 1969 with the equivalent of a key to the country and province. Kind of like the reception dignitaries arriving in some great metropolis receive, the welcoming hand was out. “Here you go,” says the mayor in the typical scenario. “Welcome to our fair city. This here golden key will open every door.” Wow. Wow indeed.