Larry Gibbons' Blog

LARRY'S SURVIVAL GUIDE TO MANNERS

26/2/2019

THE RED GATE

How does a person eat in a mannerly way, when in a situation where eating and conversation are in the mix?

I mean, haven’t most of us been told not to talk with our mouth full? I’ve been told. Have you been told?

Not too long ago, I was sitting by myself, in an eating establishment. Suddenly, I heard these words, “Do you mind if I join you?”

BEACH HUT CANTEEN INVERNESS BEACH

“Sure,” I said.

The person sat down at the table, across from me. We then ate, drank and conversed.

You see, the problem is, how do I synchronize the amount of food in my mouth with the amount of food in the other person’s mouth? And, how do I match my chewing speed and power with the other person’s chewing speed and power?

INVERNESS BEACH WALKWAY

The person might, for example, make a comment which requires a verbal response. Wouldn’t a long silent pause after her comment, so I could take the time to properly masticate and swallow my food, not appear rude or disapproving or my showing a lack of interest? So many negative possibilities!

What if I’m gnawing on an over cooked piece of steak? What to do, what to do?

AFTER AN EXHAUSTING DAY OF MANNERS

Even worse, what if she or he asks a question? Maybe one that requires some elaboration? Eh?

And worse still, what if I’m sitting at a table with a whole pile of chewers?

I was once given a tip. Never talk while your mouth is ‘technically full’. Quite a bit of nuance there, folks.

NUANCE

The same person told me to carefully watch the person and synch the shovelling of food into my mouth with the other person’s shovelling regime. One: Fork into food. Two: Observe how much food is on the other’s fork. Three: Shove food into mouth. Four: Find the chewing beat and chomp, chomp, chomp. One two three. Chomp, chomp, chomp. And five: Make conversation in between the fork-loading procedures. etc. etc. etc.

Maybe I should write a book. An Anal’s Guide To Good Food And Conversation.

ICY INVERNESS BEACH

I do have techniques I use to try and solve this problem. I hold my hand in front of my face or I dab at my mouth with a serviette while I speak. I figure that the person won’t be able to see whether I have food in my mouth or not and how much. Sort of an eating-conversation-sleight-of hand.

Unfortunately, I have a soft voice so they probably don’t hear a word I’m saying. Which, maybe, is a good thing.

PUFFED UP CHICKADEE

Speaking of eating manners, here’s another table manners story.

We were visiting a couple in their apartment for the first time. We all politely talked and laughed, but I knew, I knew, that inevitably, it had to happen. The time when we’d have to sit down and eat while still continuing on with our gab-fest.

A MANNERS PIRATE

The table had been previously set with saucers, glasses, tea cups and countless pieces of intimidating and shiny cutlery placed in military order.

The server arrived holding large round plates. Each edible had its own space with plenty of room to spare. A slice of pork in its rounded corner, a baked potato kitty corner to the meat and two overly large hunks of brussels sprouts kitty corner to the kitty corners.

We began to eat. I was nervous. Struggling, once again, to get the hang of the eating nuances. Desperately attempting to watch all three eaters as they forked food into their separate mouths. This person said that. That person said this. Fork in. Spoons stirring and clanging and reminding me of my past wedding reception, while the extra cutlery loitered beside my plate and filled my heart with anxious expectations.

INVERNESS MEMORIAL

I was asked a question. Hand up to mouth or dab, dab with my colourful red napkin and it was at this point where my innocence and ignorance came to the full fore.
You see, when I grabbed my napkin for the conversation dab dab, wipe wipe, I suddenly realized that I was the only person who had a napkin.
But, just to be sure, I double checked. Not another red napkin in sight and it was only then, and only after I’d fully masticated my food and swallowed that I spoke.
“How come I’m the only person with a napkin?” I asked.
The response was quick and sharp. “Because our napkins are on our laps.”

A SNOWY LANE

That was another hard earned lesson and I added this eating problem to my manners’ worry repertoire.

I have, however, just as I did with the chewing and talking problem, come up with a solution. What I now do is look to see what the other person does and if I’m in a group then I use my statistics background to solve this problem. I count how many eaters have a napkin on the table and how many have shoved their napkins down on their laps.

I make the decision based on first past the post. The majority wins. Napkin top-side or napkin under-side, doesn’t matter a whit to me. Majority rules and that’s where my napkin goes. No nuance here.

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SYNAPTIC RUMINATIONS

29/1/2019

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SHARP CORNER ON OUR ROAD

From time to time I like to luxuriate in a wee rant. So, here it is.

I was ruminating, one fine morning, as I hiked up our road, about just how many human synapses were firing off at this moment in which time my synapses were attempting to calculate this futile and impossible calculation. WHEW!

WALKING AROUND SHARP CORNER

I also wondered why some of these electrical sparks produce ideas which can stick, like crazy glue, to other human synaptic thought producers? Inspiring some folks to baa, baa and blather on. Setting human herds off to studying these ideas, tweaking them, espousing them and writing thesis about them until, ‘you’re up cowboy,’ along comes another powerful synaptic onslaught with a whole different belief system firing out of some other particular neurological gray matter. Producing another herd that is full of certainty. Examples: “Make America Great Again. Elvis is still alive. The world is cucumber shaped”. Do you know that some of these ideas have given some people the intellectual DTs?

FOX DOING ITS BUSINESS

FOX SCRATCHING

And some of these conceptions produce moral or mental oblivion. No logical synaptic connections are made when proof-in-the-pudding-phenomenon occur. Hurricanes that are more powerful, the oceans heating up at an alarming rate, larger and more violent forest fires, and just recently, food banks for government workers who work for the most powerful country in the world, climate change deniers, people who declare themselves to be saved and ready for heaven who consider morality to be the most important attribute of the righteous. And yet, many of these shiny-clean-rapture-prepared-persons are willing to hire the devil to get their righteous ideologies etched into the end of history. They believe “the ends do justify the means” and to hell with the innocents. Human and otherwise.

SCAMPERING COYOTE

WATCHING COYOTE

And, one of the reasons I am so troubled and angry about the abuse of the environment is because it is in observing the beauty around me and the wild critters that live nearby, that I find some of the answers that are buried in the muck hole onslaught of human rationalizations. For example, the hushing sound of the river helps me stay ‘almost sane’ and to understand that most fools on the hill are no fools. That most town idiots are no idiots. That most silly looking misfits, are no silly looking misfits.

SOME MOUNTAINS FOR FOOLS

“Knowledge was inherent in all things. The world was a library”
Chief Luther Standing Bear, The Wisdom Of the Native Americans

The world’s beauty and diversity is worth fighting for. In this day and age it is also the intrinsically and logically right thing to do. No need for a God or a king or queen to decree such and such, although I’m all for laws that will help.
The fantastic, unbelievable complexity of our universe should humble us and make us starkly aware that we must be standing with nature and our ecosystems and not against them.

OUR PAPER BOY

And GREED. It amazes me how the accumulation of money has been turned into a moral law. Has been made to appear as a righteous action. This mind-set supported by philosophies that maintain their phoney authenticity by being buried under a saturated blanket of complex theoretical deceptions.

Thus endeth my rant. WHEW!

WINTER BROOK ABSTRACT

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BIG SAND BOX

15/1/2019

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HUNKERED DOWN

The snow swirled and the wind twirled. There was a delightful but frightful evil in the weather’s mischievous behaviour and when I arrived on the deck I looked like a vagrant snowman.

And when I gazed through the screen door, whom did I see, standing on the other side taunting me? Tail wagging and impishness written all over his face? Buster. And if a dog can laugh or tease, then this bow-wow was having a ball.
Because, one of my un-torn, warm, work-gloves was dangling from his mouth and Buster Man was saying, telepathically, “Come and get it, if you can.”
I came, I chased, and I got it, but it reminded me of why having Buster move in with us was such a good thing. He’s got lots of personality, just like the weather.

IMPISHNESS FROM HEAD TO TOE

I have, as some of you know, been whining about being exhausted after submitting a fairly large novel and I never realized, when I began the novel, what kind of emotional and personal cost it would demand.
Not only that, but only God, Trump and a battalion of angels have any idea whether it’s going to be published, but there it is. Out there, zipping around in the ethos at the speed of light.
So, I have been forced from my desk, so to speak, and I have had to fill the writing void with other activities. One of them is hiking with my trusty camera, Click. And because I’m out more, I see more wildlife.

BIRD FEEDER GUEST

Last week, Click and I were strolling hand in hand down our road. As we were nearing home, I let my eyes wander over the huge field that curls up from our road and ends at a thick wall of spruce and fir. My gaze slammed on the brakes when it spotted a small dark object quite a distance away. It lay close to the tiny brook which cuts through the field and it looked like a rock or a wee shrub.
So, what I did, so as to ascertain what it really was, was to point Click, which is a Pentax K70, and proud of it, at the dark spot and then clicked Click.
You see, Click is as good as having powerful binoculars. Why? Because I can look at the photo on my camera’s screen and then enlarge it. That’s what I did and discovered that it wasn’t a rock or a bush. See photos.

RUNNING

HUNTING

Some folks who like comfort and order and up-to-date this and thats might wonder how I cope with the boredom of a long winter away from all the establishments that give so many people places to go, excuses to throw money around and plenty of noise to dumb down their ear drums. These folks might also wonder, doesn’t shovelling snow get boring and tiring after a while?

ANOTHER BIRD FEEDER GUEST

Sometimes it does. However, I often play at the chores I do. Because, life is, to me, like a big sandbox. The five-by- five-foot one I played in as a kid, where I made up worlds. And while I was making sand-box roads and stores and what nots, I’d sometimes say to myself, in my pre-pubescent voice, “I don’t want to grow up. I want to always enjoy playing in the sand and the grass and the woods.” But I did grow up although some people might disagree.

BUILDING MATERIAL

So, I play in other ways. Like when I’m shovelling the lane-way. I have to shovel out enough room for three vehicles: my truck, Sue’s car and the mail-deliver’s car. Notice I said deliverer? I know what is what. Ha!

SUE PRETENDING SHE'S CURLING

What I’m doing this year is building a causeway out of snow. My snow is sand. I keep dumping the snow into this small ravine and my causeway is now about twenty feet long with more construction material to come. Buster likes to wander out on it and enjoy the view.
So, when you see me doing what looks like a cumbersome, maybe boring chore, I may actually be having a ball in my white sandbox.
As a man thinketh, so he is. Isn’t that a Bible verse of some sort?
Thus sayeth Larry.

A SNOWY DAY

WOODS ON A SNOWY DAY

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I LOVE WINTER

30/12/2018

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ME ON THE TRAIL

A few summers ago a friend and I were hiking on the beautiful Skyline Trail. When we arrived at the end of the trail we met some hikers from Ottawa who were enjoying the gorgeous view. They told us that they had travelled the world and this was the most beautiful place that they’d ever visited.

A HAPPY TREE

Even the snow and trees are happy to be on the Skyline Trail.

FENCE TO KEEP MOOSE OUT

There’s a fella who lives not too far from us. He likes to paint trees and leave interesting objects lying around. I like to think of them as his creations.

IS THE WORLD REALLY ROUND?

Last week I heard some very sad news. The news forced me out of my chair and into my hiking boots. I set out down our road, and on the way back saw the sun shining through the trees and illuminating the many ice crystals that covered the branches.
It made me realize that no matter how bad life can get there is still beauty to behold.

BEAUTY TO BEHOLD

Sue loves to walk on our road and share some of this beauty with Buster.

The crows enjoy each other and the beauty from on high.

CONTENT AND HAPPY CROWS

Some interesting hikers enjoy the Skyline Trail.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

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I SMELL LIKE FIREWOOD

19/12/2018

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SUN STREAKS

Have you noticed, from reading my blogs, that I spend a lot of time in the woodshed? You’re right, I do, and I was sitting on a beach chair in the woodshed when I heard the squirrel.

Who?

The squirrel. She was staring at me. Friendly like and I didn’t want to become buddies with her. Because I could be her home wrecker.

And why’s that?

Because she has built a nest in the back of our stack of firewood. I’m not sure how far back, even though I’ve repeatedly warned her to build the nest behind the last row of wood. I’m presently at row five.

You see, I don’t want, one day, to remove some firewood and expose her nest.

At this point, you might ask, how many people in this world worry about getting too emotionally close to a squirrel because they risk being a squirrel home-wrecker?

It can’t be just me, but take one day last week. Please.

I went shopping. I took my grocery list. The grocery list had, in the past, been stapled to something else. In the grocery store’s meat department it got stapled to my finger when I took it out of my pocket. My finger was still bleeding as I paid the cashier. Not a good omen.

So I said, “Bite me.”

I dropped into another establishment. A woman walked in. I couldn’t put a name to her face. I finally did. I said her name and then I said the name of her husband, because I knew him and I made this connection out loud. That’s a no, no.

My comment was overheard and I was suddenly a chauvinistic pig.

Bite me!

Instead of heading home I took a much longer drive. I’d suddenly had a hankering for an Iced Cap at Tim Horton’s. However, I felt the need to buy it in a Mi’kmaq Reserve which is a twenty minute drive from the Baddeck Tim Hortons.

The Baddeck Timmy’s is inundated by construction and it’s a real hassle to find a parking space and anyway, sometimes when I feel overwhelmed by the bull crap in my culture I like to visit a reserve.

So, I drove the extra twenty minutes.

Guess what? The Tim Horton’s was closed. The sign said it was closed due to lack of water.

The sign also said that it might be open around two pm. How much around?

Bite me!

My day is moving along at a crappy pace, but I get stubborn. I’m going to get that damn unhealthy Iced Cap, no matter what. So I drive back to the Baddeck Tim Horton’s. I knew I was losing it. My sense of feeling in control was lower than my gas gauge.

I waited for the flag person to wave us forward and then waited for a second flag man to wave me into the parking lot. Where there was no room for my truck at the inn.

However, they have a drive-through, so I drove up to the little box in which a tiny person lives. The wee person asked me what I wanted. I ordered a small Iced Cap.

There were no vehicles ahead of me. This probably meant I’d get speedy service. That was a problem.

You see, I have a bum knee. Actually two. Before the skating season began I bought an expensive brace for that knee. It’s in the shape of a cloth tube. That morning, before I drove to the arena, I’d slipped the protective tube over my long underwear and fastened it over my knee. My pants were over all this protection.

I followed the directions from the little woman and drove up to the window.

Well, as the day had already gone so well, I tried to make it even better, by parking my truck too far from the take-out window.

A server poked her head out of the window and informed me that I owed her two dollars and seventy-five cents. I tried to stuff my hand into my pants pocket so I could dig out my wallet. My wallet wouldn’t move.

I dug and dug. Pulled and pulled. At one point, I turned to the server, who was trying not to look amused and I said, “Thank-you for you patience. The money will be with you as soon as I can pull the $%^&*() wallet out of my $%^&*( pocket.”

Which I finally did. I then leaned out of the truck window while she balanced out of her own Tim Horton’s window and we made the exchange.

I thanked her. She smiled, in a queer way, at the silly chauvinistic pig who then drove towards the next flag man. Who held up his hand and ordered me to stop.

I stopped. I waited while I clutched the bills and my change in one hand. My wallet rested on the passenger seat.

The construction man, who was a man, gave me the okay to drive onto the highway. I had an instantaneous panic attack, because I couldn’t remember which lane I was supposed to get into.

Bite me!

When I arrived home, I looked at the woodshed and I thought about my day and about the squirrel. And I thought that I could’t be a really mean chauvinistic pig if I worried so much about the welfare of the squirrel, who I assumed was a she, and who lived in our woodshed.

Today a friend said to me, “You smell nice.”

I immediately thought, “Is it my shampoo, my underarm deodorant, my mouth rinse, toothpaste, hand soap?”

I looked at her and waited for her to explain.

She said, “You smell like firewood.”

I immediately wondered. Is she smelling the squirrel’s shampoo, underarm deodorant, mouth rinse, toothpaste, hand soap, acorn body wash?

Only in Cape Breton.

Thus sayeth Larry

HAPPY HOLIDAY

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LEARNING CURVE

26/11/2018

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HAWK UPSETTING THE BIRDS

Before we left for Ontario, Sue was given a bottle of pain killers. She was advised to take them if she was in pain during our trip to Ontario.

So, we’re driving on the Trans Canada somewhere on theKingston’s side of Moncton. Sue has been valiantly fighting to not take any of the pills which were in a bag on the back seat floor. Not far from Buster.

Sue finally had to give in. Her sciatica and hip were not going to let her enjoy the trip. So, she asked me to reach back and get the pills. Buster is not trained for pill fetching.

I was driving at the time, but, what the heck. I reached back, grabbed the bottle by its top and pulled it out of the bag.

I’d almost got to handing them to Sue when the top popped off. The pills shot everywhere. At my feet, Sue’s feet and on the back seat where Buster was lying and fully alert.

Huge existential questions suddenly became very relevant. Where the heck are all the pills? How many are in the back seat? How smart is Buster? Does he have a pill addiction problem that we are unaware of?
Just one of many incidents that occurred during our visit to Kingston.

NEAR RIVIERE DU LOUP

Almost from the first day Buster popped into our lives he has had us in his training programs. Sometimes he holds training workshops with Sue, sometimes with me and sometimes with both of us.

One of his first evening training seminars involved his being let out to do his business. The training began when we called him back to our trailer and he came in as an obedient dog should.

Buster then ran to the corner, stood on our little white stool and waited for one of us to clue into what to him seemed a very intuitive fact, that he wanted and deserved, by god, a treat.

The treats were on a shelf just above the said treat stool. Of course, nowadays, after a few years of training and intense eye contact, we obediently give him a treat for almost anything. For example, he gets a treat for having fun, getting his feet dried, coming back to the trailer after we let him out, eating his meal or almost all of his meal, getting his chain unwrapped from around a post, which forces us to go outside and unwrap it, and a whole bunch of etceteras and etceteras.

Well, I noticed, a few nights ago, that another one of Buster’s training workshops had been held without my knowledge. The workshop was called Master Buffet.

You see, I was sitting on the couch, probably shaking my fist at CNN, when I noticed that Buster wasn’t doing his usual silent telepathic demands for a treat. He was simply jumping off the couch, whipping off to the kitchen and returning with treats in his mouth.

BUSTER'S TREAT STOOL

Apparently, he and Sue had turned the treat stool into a buffet table. Different kinds of treats were spread out on the stool. Such delicacies as Dream Sticks, Dream Fillets, Oinkies, Roll Overs, Gourmet Beefhide Double Twists, Milk Bones,(the box with the Old English Sheepdog mug shot on the cover) and the occasional peanut or chocolate chip for variety. I was surprised Sue hadn’t laid them on a nice table cloth.

Of course, I’ve also had my own individual training courses. For example, one evening, Sue was perplexed about why Buster was sitting on the floor and staring at her while we were in bed. I, however, knew what was going on because I’d taken that course. So, there he was, waiting for one of us to take a treat off the lamp stand located at the side of the bed. Because, this was where he’d taught me to place his final bed-time treat stash.

I really don’t know why he can’t just train us all at the same time and save the confusion.

BUSTER'S CHASE-MATE

You may have noticed that my blogs have photos and written articles and that in many cases the photos and the articles don’t match. So, you might be reading about a little house in the woods and you’d see, as you were part way through the article, a photo of Buster carrying a newspaper.

WOMAN OF THE WOODS

I think my photos and my writing are in competition. They see each themselves as just the best and see no need for the other. Very independent they are.

Oh well, as a friend said to me, when we were in Kingston, “I don’t know what I like better, your writing or your photos.”

All I can say is that competition is probably good for the final results.

And speaking of comments made to me while we were in Kingsto,n I heard another interesting one. Actually, I hear plenty of interesting comments everywhere I go.

On this occasion, a friend explained that her children had told her that she seems to have dropped many of her screens and now has a tendency to say things she might not have said when she was younger.

I said,”I don’t think any of my kids have told me this.”

She said, “Why would they? You’ve never had any screens.”

Ha, ha, ha. We learn so much about ourselves when we go to Kingston.

Buster learns that he is the sweetest, cutest, most gorgeously coloured little doggie that one could ever find in the whole wide world. I swear that his head looks a little bit bigger every time we get home.
Thus sayeth Larry.

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MOUSE IN THE HOUSE

3/11/2018

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OUR ROAD IN THE FALL

“What’s that? Did I really see something or was it an eye-ball floater?”
I’m sitting in the woodshed, on an orange beach chair, in front of a huge stack of firewood. I take a sip of my elixir and, whoosh, there it is again. That black spot whipping across the floor and disappearing outside.
However, the puzzle was solved a few days later because this time Sue and Buster were sitting nearby and they saw the streaker too. Sue said it was only a wee mouse.

BUSTER'S KITTY CAT FRIENDS

I mean, I hate to admit it, but Mice creep me out. They’re so clandestine. They know how to hide and when I was a young boy I was told by an all-knowing adult that they can run up your pant leg. My imagination went wild after that piece of information.
And so, the very next day, I removed all the wood and other stuff that leaned against the wall and which had given the mouse a place to hide before he made his run for the outdoors. This offered me a clear view of his launch pad.

CAMOUFLAGED DEER

And, let’s face it, it’s autumn and definitely mouse season. So far, I’ve caught three. Poor sods. I hate killing mice.
However, let me tell you, after what happened a few nights ago I was zipping off to the hardware store to buy more traps.

LAKE O'LAW IN THE AUTUMN

That specific night Sue had suddenly popped awake. I was worried because she sounded distressed.
“You okay?” I’d asked.
“I think a mouse ran across my hand.”
Oh god! A mouse in the bed. Now that’s a real emergency.
“Be brave, Larry. Keep calm, Larry.” That’s what I said to myself.
I then grabbed one of our hundreds of flashlights and searched around the mattress, under the mattress and at the back of the mattress. I found no mouse.

FOX WATCHING ME

“Be brave Larry.”
Maybe I should go to the couch, turn on CNN and be enlightened by the realization that there are big rats in the world that can trump any wee mouse.
Instead, I fetched my trusty lap-top. Turned it on. Searched for music that might drive the mouse away and keep him from getting under our covers. I chose New Age music. The kind that drones on and on and on and on and annoys a person to sleep. Music that would irritate or scare or hypnotize the mouse.

IS THIS A BAD TIME

Maybe the illumination from the computer screen would make the mouse think we were still awake and therefore a danger to be avoided.
Huge downer. The computer has a screen saver and I had to keep punching in my pass word so that the illumination and the music would stay on. I know, all you tech-savvy people could correct that problem in a minute. I’m not tech-savvy and it was one o’clock in the ^&* morning and there’s a friggen mouse only feet away and I need my sleep.

OUR RIVER'S EASTER ISLAND HEAD

The next morning was terrifying. It was like a scene from the movie, ‘Willard’. When I rolled over, I felt the mouse. He was tucked up against my leg.
“Oh god!!” I prayed as I so gently moved my butt away from the mouse. Attempted to lift the blankets off me without annoying the mouse.
Carefully, I lifted the blankets. Gently, as if I was disarming a bomb, did I elevate my butt off the mattress.
Oh god!! The mouse had followed me. Chased me right out of my own bed. I jumped up. Wrenched the blankets off the bed and off Sue and before I could stop him Buster had it in his mouth.
There Buster was. On the bed with it in his mouth. The mouse was a bone. An Oinkie. A F#$% Buster treat.
That day I bought more mouse traps and set them up around the house.
And that night, Sue said, “I think that mouse thing might have just been a dream, dear.”

MY BIKE PARKED AT LAKE O'LAW

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THE DANGERSOF FLYING

3/10/2018

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BALD EAGLE IN FLIGHT

Last week, I made an appointment with Dr. Google. She told me that I may have something called, “Finishing-a-Novel-Syndrome,” and that almost all writers have to deal with it.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I don’t feel a sense of accomplishment at finishing a full draft of my novel. I do, but my god, it comes with a mixed bag of emotions. Now I know why so many writers in the past have gone haywire after completing a novel. You live in the novel and then you leave this fictional world with all its emotions and adventures. A relationship is suddenly over and it will never be the same again. Sadness, not joy is what many writers experience and it has little to do with whether or not the novel will be published.

SEARCHING

One of my reactions, besides sadness, was the energy! Boy, did I have energy, and it needed to be used up and so I manically cycled and hiked and fidgeted and generally kept Sue’s and Buster’s heads whirling. Sitting in a restaurant and making calm and pleasant conversation was difficult. My mind firing off creative this and thats and with no rhyme nor reason.

THE NEW FRONTIER

On Monday, a friend and I hiked on the Red Island trail. It leads to a beach. Here we built a fire. We watched the birds, the waves as the tide went out, and the last minutes of a rainbow as its muted colours diffused into the mist after a rain storm had dropped its moisture over a distant mountain. I took photos. My friend sketched. I would’ve sketched, but I can’t get my stick figures to look like anything discernible.

BUILDING A FIRE ON THE BEACH

I’d had a hankering to be by the ocean, and so there I sat… on a beach with miles and miles and miles of uninhabited rock- strewn solitude, while the tide receded and bared the backs of black rocky sea creatures.

DIFFUSED RAINBOW COLOURS

This weekend I hiked to McNaughton Falls. Ah, the power of water and nature. So healing!
When the waters run dry in one place, the tide fills in another patch.
Thus sayeth Larry.

MCNAUGHTON FALLS

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BADDECK RIVER WALK

19/9/2018

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DANCING MIST ON LAKE O'LAW

Katherine Anne Porter said, after she had finished her only novel, Ship Of Fools, “I finished the damn thing but I think I sprained my soul.”
Larry Gibbons, me, who has just submitted a fairly long novel to a publisher is saying to you, “I finished the damn thing but I don’t think I can concentrate long enough to write much in this blog.”
So it will be short but with some good photos I trust you'll enjoy.

GETTING READY FOR WINTER

Following the above statements, I stopped reading all difficult books, did not turn on the news until six pm and began to hike and bike instead of read and write. And because of switching over to the physical instead of the mental got two great animal photos.

DEER IN A HURRY

FAMILY ON TRAIL NEAR MABOU

This summer I hurt my good knee; it wasn’t from a dangerous game of hockey. It was from a dangerous game of gardening. And, I think I had a senior’s moment when I hurt my knee because I’m not sure how I hurt it. Pretty sure it was from gardening. Maybe digging with the shovel or standing and stooping. However, I also had imbibed on a few beers so there is an outside chance that I hurt it when I was splitting wood. When the axe bounced out of my hand and the handle might have struck my left knee. However, it didn’t hurt that much. Still it was a niggling injury and it took a few months just to get it to stop reacting to my walking. Fortunately, biking didn’t seem to bother it too much. The knee still holds a grudge toward my exercising it.
Can you imagine the confusion I sowed in the Chiropractor’s professional mind when I tried to explain all this to him?

SUE & BUSTER BY BADDECK RIVER

Anyway, I got a call from a friend who asked me to go Baddeck River walking with her and another friend. I told her I'd hurt my knee. She said that the river bottom was mostly flat, that the rocks were mostly pebbles and the river was mostly shallow. She was accurate to a point, but I have to tell you that to avoid hurting my knee again I needed a great deal of heavy duty concentration.

EASY HIKING

Plus we had to climb a very nasty trail up the side of a mountain.
I also learned that swimming in a pair of heavy duty hiking boots is not easy nor is it good for the hiking boots.

AMEN

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BUSTER'S SUNDAY MORNING RAMBLE

12/8/2018

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CANADIAN TIGER SWALLOWTAIL

A few Sundays ago, Sue and Buster, while walking down our lane-way, had a stand-off with a large male black bear. The bear was standing on his hind legs. Amazingly, Buster never barked a peep, Sue never said a peep and the bear growled nary a peep.
This adventure ended with the bear getting off his back legs and ambling away. Didn’t run. He ambled.
Sue, meantime, stayed on her hind legs and Buster on his four legs and they didn’t slowly amble back to the trailer.
Consequently, their walk was postponed for twenty minutes. Some folks might have delayed it for a day, a week, a month or even got out of Dodge City altogether.

EAGLE ENJOYING THE SCNERY

Now, I didn’t have as exciting an encounter as Sue when I took Buster for a walk, but it was rather eventful for an early Sunday morning ramble on a quiet dirt road.
Of course, first off, Buster had to stop at the cat house and take a gander at the kitty cats before we continued on with our hike. And after that was completed to his satisfaction, we were back to putting our boots to the gravel.
Our neighbour then drove up in his large pick-up, so we chatted and swatted bugs.
Suddenly, while we were in mid-conversational-stride, we were startled by the sound of a speeding engine. Within seconds an old guy was roaring his vehicle around the corner, his brakes only a distant thought.
I quickly tightened up on Buster’s leash and pulled him to the side of the road while the neighbour pulled his truck to the other side of the road.

Biking Trail Near Judique

After the old guy’s dust had barely settled, we were off again and soon Buster was sniffing around for a poo-poo place that faced north or almost north. Before he’d located the perfect drop-off point, he began yelping and crying.
I hurried through the bug-infested long grass to find out what was wrong and discovered that poor Buster had stapled his front paw to barbed wire.
I flung down my walking stick and began trying to figure out how to disengage his paw. It was tough. If I pulled his paw up it might further entrap it. Moving his paw forwards or backwards might also exasperate things and cause Buster more pain. What I did do was gently wiggle his paw sideways and up and down, and however it happened, Buster was able to pull his paw free.

BUSTER'S BUDDY

Then onwards and upwards. Buster, unfortunately, onwarded and upwarded with a slight limp. However, within a few minutes, he found a safe, clean, north-facing comfort station where he was able to unload.
When we reached the Cabot Trail, a huge tourist bus roared by. On the side of the bus was written, in large letters, CHRISTIAN TOURS.
Buster telepathically said, “I believe, Larry, that those good folks are going to a Cape Breton Christian church for a Sunday service.”
I concurred.

RIDE HIM COWBOY

As we proceeded back to the trailer we suddenly heard the sound of another vehicle approaching. It sounded like it was really flying!
Once again I tightened up on Buster’s leash and pulled him off the road. And this is no word of a lie. It was the same old gaffer, driving the same old vehicle and he was going over the speed limit. And, get this, he was backing up.
I waved and Buster wagged at him and I think he must have waved back because there was a noticeable swerve in his backing- up trajectory. We were witnessing skill at a high level.
“I wonder,” Buster said telepathically, “if there is a different speed limit for driving backwards?”
I pondered on this.
Buster and I finally arrived home, where Buster telepathically said, “Larry, I think you forgot your walking stick back at the barbed wire emergency.”
I concurred and said some other words.