I woke up this morning with my family aboard a sailboat at a peaceful anchorage in Mahone Bay just a couple of hours sail from home. And shared my thoughts: “We are so privileged to be doing this. Not just having the boat, but to be able to sail where we want and drop the [...]
The highlight of the Tall Ships visiting Lunenburg was seeing Larinda. She’s a replica of a 1767 schooner, built over a period of 26 years by Larry Mahan of Barnstable, Mass. She was a labour of love, full of wood carvings and fancy and fun. Mahan sailed her in many Tall Ships events, [...]
After their triumphant sailpast in the sun in Halifax, several tall ships came to Lunenburg for a mini version of the big event. The Unicorn, in this picture, takes teenaged girls on excursions of several weeks with an all-female crew for life-changing experiences. I heard its captain explain to some astonished men that no, [...]
Dennis Robinson writes:
This butterfly came to me yesterday. He started out by alighting on my knee and ended up drinking generous quantities of cranberry juice, strawberry juice and Welches grape juice from concentrate. I think he (or she) liked the grape juice best.
He sipped it off the end of my finger but later actually took [...]
Since we live and sail on Mahone Bay and have come to know most of its islands by sight, I read Frank Parker Day’s 1928 novel Rockbound with great interest. I wasn’t the only one. Thanks to CBC’s Canada Reads program, the previously obscure novel has been lionized by the Canadian literary establishment and the [...]
My deer fence looks like a carnival, the thin mesh festooned with orange and yellow flagging tape. What’s inside is not terribly tempting to deer, not yet anyway. It may not be big news for hungry humans either. The potatoes should do OK, and I hope to get some beans – especially if [...]
Beyond the waves rolling into one of Queensland’s beaches on St. Margaret’s Bay, a windsurfer in a full-body wetsuit spent the afternoon learning to master his board. Meanwhile, an afternoon party rolled on at a cottage on a sheltered pond separated from the ocean by a bar of rocks and sand. Some of [...]
A friend just put together this video about “The Story of Maple Syrup”. I contributed a particular photo at the end of the video. A note: the light amber grade of maple syrup may be considered the finest, but I prefer the darker stuff – more flavour, and no doubt more of those [...]
I’m determined to develop a garden on this corner of our property. Grass won’t even grow there, just weeds and wild strawberries. Over the 5 years that we’ve lived here, I’ve cleared a 15′x15′ patch and tried growing things like beans, potatoes and broccoli. But deer, and maybe rabbits, have munched whatever [...]
