sunflower

This was a day for sorting and finding places as I am beginning to move in my stuff now that I have a few finished rooms to do it in. Twice this afternoon I was working in the garden when showers drove me in. So, I think, a good murder mystery is in order.

Yesterday was spent apartment hunting for my new location. It's a regular type apartment, so the cats will just have to suck it up and become indoor cats again. It does no good for me to remind them that I rescued them from death row and every day is a gift for which they should be immeasurably grateful.

beans

Scarlet Runner Beans almondine for supper. I am sitting at home in Nova Scotia having just had internet installed, but I can only get dial up. It took well over a half hour to put up these pictures. My Hotmail account is impossibly slow and  doesn't always come up at all. Living in a rural area has some real disadvantages. We are second class citizens when it comes to communications. They are advertising a gizmo to connect your laptop to the internet if you have a cell phone. The ad in the shop said "Internet Everywhere". So I asked - well only if there is cell phone coverage - and it isn't here and nor do they care. Grumpy!

packing up

Early in the morning we are packing up: cats and plants and garden chairs and heading home.

down in the mine

I went down into the potash mine. The surreal effect is from all the dust in the air. There I was up in the cabin of the humungous machine operating the gears and grinding the ore off the walls. I'll bet you are all pretty impressed.
I am heading home to Nova Scotia tomorrow - so there will be some gaps in my postings.

Polygonum cuspidatum

It is not really a bamboo, although many seem to think it is. It is Japanese Knotweed. It is a scourge, very invasive, but it is also quite lovely in its own way. It begins with a sprout in the spring and ends up ten feet high. I had read that in order to feng shui my property  to get either wealth, health or love, I cannot remember which, I should plant bamboo in the south east corner. I mentioned this to my neighbour on that side. She blanched. "You're not going to plant that knotweed!". No, because it isn't bamboo and would not provide me with filthy lucre and unbridled romance. There isn't even a place to plant any bamboo there at the moment, because sometime I want to put in a circular driveway there. I don't know if there is a strain of bamboo that would really grow in our northern climes. I suppose that wealth, health and love will have to come in the more conventional manner. Still a little bamboo would not hurt.

boredom

A rainy day: I took this just before leaving for work, around 8:45 this morning. The Czarina rushed out much earlier and returned in minutes, thoroughly disgusted. I, on the other hand, enjoyed lying in bed with the window wide open listening to the rain pelting down. It had cleared by noon, and now this evening she is out making up for lost time.

summer has ended

Miss Johnston thinks that it is still summer and she lolls around on the veranda railing. Cats obviously have no problem with heights. She often sits on the roof peak below the railing to watch the clients go in and out of the law office down below. Cats are always watching: silent observers of our comings and goings.

Michael Moore

This is long, but it is an excellent interview.

fall

Fall is here and the leaves are beginning to turn. Nevertheless this has been a lovely warm day. I spent most of it in the office, but I extended my lunch hour just so I could enjoy the day. And now I am considering some veggies that need something done with them, but I have little freezer space and no canning jars. So what to do?

marjoram

Marjoram grows at the bottom of the apartment stairs. It is wildly invasive. I have seen purple fields which had been taken over by it. Still marjoram enchants me, although I shall never plant it again in my own garden. One small packet of seed once taught me a tremendous lesson. It is supposed to be soothing if one adds it to one's bath water, which I tried as I certainly had enough of it - but the tranquility was broken by frantic efforts to stop the weeds from clogging up the drain. Then I put them in a bag, but fishing out the water soaked botanicals were not really worth the effort. I shall stick to lying back with slices of cucumber on my eyes.

hollyhocks

Fall is coming on quite quickly. I have brought in my two potted plants from the apartment veranda so the frost won't kill them. But athough there have been warnings, it has not yet stuck. I look at the small things - the no-mind things: a couple of hollyhocks on my walk to work.

saved tree

This is a full length portrait of the maple tree that was saved a couple of weeks ago. May it live many years. It is certainly now older than any of us. It now has an additional note on the sign: "This tree will not be removed by order of the Church Council."  It was almost cut down, and would have been if an anonymous person had not affixed the protest sign, which saved the tree in its eleventh hour. To life!

BBQ bucket

It works: a few charcoal brickettes, a twist of newspaper, and (this is important) wait at least thirty minutes. I am impatient. It stays hot practically forever. And it burns whatever it is standing on. Here I was supporting the local pig farmers. I do my bit.

guy with tractor

Wanted guy with tractor for serious relationship - send picture of tractor. Actually I didn't want a guy or a tractor at all, but the phoned ringed and there was this guy saying that my neighbour had said that I wanted the back field mowed. Well I had really thought that I would forgo the mowing and have a wildlife refuge. Obviously my neighbour thought otherwise. And I live in this community, so five minutes later the guy with tractor and bush hog turned up. It turned out that the tractor was an old friend. For years Oscar had driven the old white tractor up and down the road. Then Oscar passed away and the tractor disappeared. Here it was again given to a young man making it work for him. Next year, no doubt, the field will be mowed again. Cycles of life, I suppose.

crossword

The Czarina is working on the

New York Times puzzle. She's not getting much further than I. I have heard that the reason the NYT puzzle is easier on the second day is because people have been working on it and the answers are in the ethers, or in the general consciousness. That makes it rather like prayer. This does not work for me because I get it from the Halifax, Nova Scotia, paper, and it is a week or so late. Of course if lots of Nova Scotians were finding the correct answer then it might apply on the second day. But, on the other hand if they were sending up the wrong answers then we would all be getting it wrong. I don't get it right. The names of obscure American senators and university sports teams and rap artists are not in my field of knowledge. There are, however, several sites on the web that supply the finished product.http://rexwordpuzzle.blogspot.com/. Just think. There are professional crossword puzzlers!

ceilidh

 After conducting a couple of services I changed out of my Sunday duds and wandered over the the park to enjoy two hours of a ceilidh, without the dancing - It's that hard to dance on grass. We listened, we tapped our feet, we laughed and sang and sometimes the music moved me to tears.

balloon fiesta day two

I watched the balloons sail into the morning mist from my street before heading to the breakfast put on by the scout troop. Then later went to sample the carnival food and treated myself to this year's pig out on curly fires. This is done with a potato on a mounted handyman's drill and a fixed knife, then it's into the fat. I'm a big fan of the lemonade stand. I'm thinking of this as a future career. I returned in the evening and stood downwind so I could watch the balloons float overhead. Then I stayed a bit for the rock and roll band. I did not, however, go on the rides. I save up for real roller coasters.

balloons

A lovely evening for watching the balloons sail away, and so here are this year's pictures. I would have loved to have sailed away with them, even though I know that I would have landed in some pasture just out of town, but then you never know which pasture!
Here is a video of Nova Scotia now that I know that I am returning to stay in a month and a half.

river walk

I walk by Trout Creek across the road from my apartment. The path leads past the exhibition grounds, which is hosting a hot air balloon festival officially starting tomorrow. However already at dawn and sunset the balloons sail through the sky. Perhaps they need to practice. I'll make the walk tomorrow to enjoy the festivities. To prepare for this may I present .... (Does this ever date me.)

winery

I went Christmas shopping at a winery. So sharpen up your cork screws. I'm making a list of the naughty and nice. Naughty is more fun.
And now just for the halibut here are three boys:

sticky buns

So I was told that the next time I drove through Alma I should stop at the bakery for sticky buns. So driving by the picturesque harbour, the visitor centre and the shops I stopped to taste test the sticky buns. Verdict: good but not nearly as good as the buns at Leo's Deli in Annapolis Royal, and I consider myself to be a sticky bun expert.

flower pots

The Hopewell Rocks and a lot of visitors: tourism is up in New Brunswick this year. I arrived when the tide was coming in, but I could still walk out to the rocks. I took another picture a half hour later when the rocks had become flower pot islands. The tide comes in at just under 8 vertical feet an hour this time of the month as we just had a full moon. Tides are at their highest at new and full moons. This makes it a 42 foot tide. Of course at their lowest it still comes in at 6 vertical feet an hour. Either way they are phenomenal.

tree

The maple tree must be very old and it stands by the road in the parking lot that the church is building. Should the church be building a parking lot at a time when we should be cutting down on our carbon footprint? I'll put that question aside. The tree looks really healthy until you look at the trunk and then you can see that the tree is really split down the centre. The town advised that the tree be cut down. The big machines were there to level the terrain, and the tree was to come down. Then this sign appeared. if you click on the picture it will enlarge. So the tree will remain. As the "ultimate authority" my advice was sought. Which is: "Until looks pretty sick, then you'd better leave it there, or you'll have a public relations disaster." I'm biased. I'm rooting for the tree.
And I couldn't resist Joni Mitchell singing about a parking lot:

picture

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A new picture, hanging in the kitchen, Everyone coming through has commented on it. (favourably) and I just love it. We bought it when we went to St. Martins last weekend.
Now I have made the trek back to Sussex. In less than two months I shall have moved and will be closer to home, but not close enough to commute. I shall not miss the long, long drive.

2 cords

Two cords of wood have arrived and need to be stacked - crying out to be stacked. I worked on it for an hour and a half this morning, and now my back is crying out. A friend came by and saw me at work, went home and returned with a wood carrying apron. It takes the strain off the back - but it may be too late for me. I'll get back to work wearing the apron this time.