Larry Gibbons' Blog

ONLY HUMAN PLENTY OF TIMES

26/4/2021

SALMON POOL'S TRAIL

“With the religious leader, the artist has the responsibility too of reminding us of the awe with which the handiwork of God is to be contemplated, so that we can perceive the spirituality manifest in the most ordinary human act or object.”
Richard Demarco, Celtic Vision In Contemporary Thought

JENNA AND BROWNIE BEAR ENJOYING THE HIKE

Last week, Vincent, Vincent’s daughter Jenna, Jenna’s teddy bear, whose name is Brownie Bear and I hiked on the Salmon Pool’s trail. We often hike this trail and usually stop at the little cabin for a drink and a snack.

It was a wet one so we all had to wear rain-coats. I dislike rain-coats. They cover up my fashion choices.

During the break, Vincent made a tea for me to drink with my lunch. After lunch Jenna and Brownie Bear gave us a little puppet show.

PUPPET SHOW

The table in the cabin is covered in sheets that were torn out of one of those little calendar booklets. Each one has a riddle like, “What did one snowman say to the other snowman? Do you smell carrots?” Hahaha.

Anyway, the hikers who stop at the cabin, write their names, maybe a little note of appreciation for the beauty they are witnessing and where they are from.
So, after Vincent had boiled the water, I pulled out my mug, and Vincent poured hot water into it.

“I only have cream. Is that okay?” He said to me.
I said it was, but only because there wasn’t any milk. I drink my tea fairly weak and cream can be over-powering.

After we ate our lunches which included the cookies that Jenna made, and after Jenna and Brownie Bear did their puppet show, we began to pack up.

HIKING ALONG CHETICAMP RIVER

Vincent, at one point, walked over and said, “Didn’t you use the tea bag I gave you?”

Well, in my defence, I have to say that the bag must have gotten buried under all the calendar jokes and then became unburied. So, there I had been, sipping merrily away, at my hot cream and water drink.

I was somewhat embarrassed, but then began to explain that it wasn’t age that made me do that, but it was just the way I was. I mean really now, half my creative efforts come about because I trip over the obvious and end up in a world that wasn’t contemplated by myself.

“Oh yeah,” I said. “I was just as stupid when I was in my early twenties.”

VINCENT POINTING OUT SOMETHING OF INTEREST

For example, I had a date with a nursing student. I was about 21 years of age. She lived at a nursing residence in an Ontario city. I was nervous.

So, I was driving down the highway at a fairly fast clip when I noticed a sign which said I was only ten miles from the city. However, I realized that being ten miles from this city meant that I was sixty miles from the city I was supposed to be travelling to. I was heading west. I should’ve been heading east.

That was our last date.

INVESTIGATING ALONG BROOK

One day when I was in my thirties, I came home from work. I wondered why the front door was open and my ex was inside. My question was, as I jumped out of the car of the kind fella who gave me a ride home from work, where the hell was our vehicle?

I walked into the house and said to my wife, “Where is the car. Did something happen to it?”

“You took it to work this morning.”

So, I had to hitch-hike back to my place of work and drive the car back home.

She’s now an ex.

MY THINKING SPOT

OUR WEE POND

I’ll skip my forties and fifties, too much data.

One day when I was in my sixties, and in my defence, I was very tired as I had been doing a lot of driving, I made another error of sorts.

What happened is that I was at an outdoor party. Only a few days before I had bought a hamburger at a hamburger joint and found, maybe because my imagination was going a little wild, that I could actually taste the cow. I’m not sure which cow, but a cow.

However, the hamburger at this gathering had no cow taste to it. I complimented our host for her great hamburgers. Why they were so delicious and un-cow-like that I went back to the kitchen for another one.

It was while I was adding all the accoutrements to the bun that I had a eureka experience.

When I did up the last hamburger I hadn’t added a meat patty.

SECTION OF GRAND FALAISE

OUR SCREEN CHEWER

So you see, the hot cream and water drink was no big deal and I’ve got plenty more examples that are spotted throughout my illustrious tea-less-drink-life.

READING AND REAXING

Last week, Torey and I hiked on the Le Chemin Du Buttereau Trail. It was a gorgeous day, but we should have brought a saw. Every few hundred feet we either had to climb over, under or through a windfall. One area was so thick with downed trees that I had to push some big logs over before we could work our way through. All the time trying not to get poked or prodded by sharp branches.

Torey working her way. through a wee blockade

Along the trail there are little signs that indicate that a homestead used to be at that spot. We noted that as in this age two children seem to be the norm, in those days ten or more were.

Lots of children

The view of the Cheticamp River entering the Gulf of St. Lawrence was spectacular. We could see, down below, people fishing and one person riding a horse along the beach.

Oh and I did something rather stupid this day too, but I won’t go into any details.

We are so blessed to be living in Cape Breton. A place where I have plenty of beautiful space to carry out my unorthodox behaviour.

PERFECT SPOT TO HANG OUT AFTER GETTING VACCINATION

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TOO MUCH BLOG MATERIAL

10/4/2021

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EARLY MORNING GATHERING

“Looking back over the first 50 years of my career, I can find nothing that I have done that is worthwhile. At the age of 73 I have at last arrived at the point where I can perceive the true form and characteristics of birds, animals and plants. Thus my true life as an artist is just beginning.”
Katsushika Hokusai
Maybe there’s hope for me.

WALKING ON RED ISLAND BEACH

After I posted the last blog I said to Sue, “Sometimes, I barely get a blog out when another blog pops up.”

Because, after I posted the blog and only a few days later, I was, against my will, sliding down an icy mountainside.

What happened is that on Sunday we hiked one of Jalal’s mountain trails. The hike began with us wearing ordinary foot-wear, part way up it became foot-wear with spikes and then it became foot-wear with spikes while hanging onto a long rope.

HANGING ONTO THE ROPE

However, once we got to the top we were treated to a gorgeous view.

On the way back we took what was called the easier route. Part way down, the easier route became the harder route. The soft fluffy snow became hard icy snow. So, there was Vincent and I hugging a tree while Jalal, who was wearing mountaineer’s spikes on his boots, cautiously worked his way down the icy mountain. He used his spikes to smash foot-holds into the ice for us. It was almost impossible for me to break the ice and snow with my pointed ski pole.

ENJOYING THE VIEW

Then it was our turn to put our footsies into his foot-holds and very carefully work our way down. On our asses. I, in a moment of induced stupor, removed my mitts. I thought this might give me a better hand-grip if I needed my hands to grip something.

Anyway, I managed to get my wide-toed boot into one foot-hold and then it was free-Willy. I was sliding down the mountain-side, on the Sabbath even. Quickly gaining speed and without knowing whether to pray to God or be an atheist and mentally arrange my books while I whipped through a mountainous cartoon world.

ENJOYING THE VIEW THROUGH THE MAGIC RECTANGLE

As I careened down the mountain I managed to grab a tiny fir tree with my bare hand. My hand slid up its prickly trunk, because I couldn’t keep my hold on the poor little fella. My burning hand lost its grip as I continued on my down-ward journey. However, this action did slow me down some.

Next stop was, maybe, going to be a big tree. I know I was aiming for it and quite aware that hitting the tree could possibly stop my trip but also involve broken bones or worse.

However, if I missed it, I was going to be skidding on down the mountain until I crashed into the forest many feet below.

I’m not sure whether my mental book arranging, my quickly tossed out prayer or coincidence helped, but just before I hit the tree I ran into soft fluffy snow and my ride was over.

TOREY INTELLIGENTLY DECIDES NOT TO CLIMB ANY FURTHER

STAYING CLOSE TO A TREE

I then checked my bleeding hands and wiggled my slightly dislocated middle finger while wondering how long the tingling and burning of the nerves in my hands would last. Would I have been able to slow myself down by grabbing the little tree if I had been wearing my big mitts?
Anyway, I noticed that, otherwise, I was still in pretty good shape.

I felt sorry for Vincent who was still hanging onto the tree. My ride had been sudden and scary, but it was over. I could now relax and think about my next blog.

Luckily, Vincent was better at it than me and was able to avoid a fun ride down the mountain.

The end of the hike had a happy ending. We all ended up in Jalal’s kitchen where we were given a great meal. Some of the best chicken I’ve ever tasted.

THE KITCHEN

The slide down the mountain-side would probably have been my next blog, but I barely had time to think about it when on Thursday it began to rain. It rained and rained for three days and three nights. Buster was all for going out and bringing in two of every creature that lived near-by.

A WEE EDDY OF FLOOD WATER

On Friday morning we went for a drive. The river was roaring by and we wanted to get away. We didn’t want to have to worry and watch the rising water. We drove around for about an hour and a half. Drove through some big puddles, crossed some partially washed out dirt roads, stopped for an Iced Cap, the lawyers be damned, and then we headed home.

RIVER GETTING ANGRY

When we pulled into our laneway and turned the corner we saw that our lane was being torn apart by the rising water. The water was bubbling and ripping away at the lane, specially where it flowed into our pond. I gritted my teeth, drove through the rising water and saw that there was already a foot of water on our lawn. We jumped into the water, Buster in my arms, rushed to the trailer, grabbed some stuff and quickly got back into the truck before we’d have to swim.

FLOODED LANEWAY

I learned, once again, that the river and water in general is unpredictable. Because, even though the river did flood its banks, it wasn’t the river that caused damage to our laneway. It was run-off from the mountains.

I think the river also took a hard right before it passed our trailer. This may be due to the beaver dam.

WATER MOVES IN

To end this story, we stayed at a friend’s house for one night and as I sat in a chair at our friend’s house, I wondered what my next blog was going to be about now that I had another adventure to think about.

And a day later I decided that I wasn’t going write a blog about how our washing machine wasn’t co-operating. ‘F’ it.

NEW PARKING SPOT GIFT FROM THE MIDDLE RIVER

Oh yes, and I think we have a squirrel or some animal larger than a mouse inside. Something was squeaking and gnawing behind my head when I was sitting in my chair and twice there has been an awful racket somewhere inside our trailer.

“F” it!

Yesterday, I had to shout at a squirrel who was trying to gnaw his way into our deck’s inner sanctum.

“F” it.

BROOK ON TOREY'S PROPRTY

Today, although I said “F” it to writing about the squirrel, I will mention that I had to cover a hole in the dryer vent, screw a board over a hole near the water heater and put chicken wire over the outside port to the dryer.
"F" it all!

LOOKING AT THE BROOK

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GOD IS A VERB

27/3/2021

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CHETICAMP RIVER

“Don’t oppose forces; use them.
God is a verb,
Not a noun.”
Richard Buckminister Fuller, No More Secondhand God

LEAVING SALMON POOL"S CABIN AFTER A GOOD LUNCH

Some people believe that if they make good choices they will be blessed. A fatter bank account, better health, bigger house, thicker steaks and a whole whack of other choice bits and pieces of the good life. I think it’s based on the Old Testament ten-percent-tithing rule.

In my last blog I wrote that I have two lawyers in my noggin. One lawyer tries to prevent me from making bad addiction choices and the other lawyer tries to convince me to make poor addiction choices.

BLIZZARD CURTAIN OFF RED ISLAND BEACH

Let me recap. I made an Iced Cap addiction resolution. I would only buy one Iced Cap on Friday or when Sue, Buster and I went to Sydney or North Sydney. They were my addiction parameters.

But you see, last Wednesday, after skating (please see my last blog) I passed the Tim Hortons and didn’t buy an Iced Cap. I was, I must say, a little proud of myself.

However, like I said, some believe if you make good addiction choices, that the universe will repay you with opportunities you didn’t know existed.

SUE AND BUSTER AT North Sydney MALL

On Saturday, we went to the dump. Buster and Sue love going to the dump. Buster because the woman in the little house with the big scales always hands him a biscuit through the wee window. Sue because she loves seeing Buster tying his tail up in knots when he gets the biscuit he so dearly deserves.

After we’d dumped the dump material I decided we needed things in North Sydney. We drove to North Sydney and then, you guessed it, on the way home we stopped and bought two Iced Caps. No argument from any of my lawyers. It was in the contract.

A VISIT TO THE DUMP

GETTING OUR ICED CAPS

So, I’d managed to legally set up a two-Iced-Cap-in-two days situation.

Now I was faced with the thought that there would be no more Iced Caps until next Friday.

Luckily, on Saturday night I was showering and suddenly the water quit. There I was, soaking wet. My hair chock full of conditioner.

JALAL MAKES A DELICIOUS SOUP

The first thing I did was dunk my head into an emergency bucket of cold water that we use for power outages. We have quite a few power outages.

The second thing I did was slip and slide my way through deep snow to scoop up a pail of river water. It would be our emergency water source.
The next thing I did was get an old fuse box from the woodshed and replace the broken one with this old semi-broken one. Now our water ran and then stopped running and then ran again. On and off. On and off.

On Sunday I tried to get a new fuse box. No luck. So I went hiking on the Red Island trail.

TOREY WAVES GOOD-BYE AS SHE SNOWSHOES TO HER CABIN

On Monday I went to a local hardware store and no luck. Then, glory hallelujah! The Lord works in mysterious ways and there was nothing my lawyers could do about it. You see, I managed to find one in North Sydney. It was their last one.

Cape Breton HOMESTEAD

I received a revelation while I was driving to North Sydney. It’s that good things happen if you follow the rules. I’d turned down an Iced Cap on Wednesday? I’d received a moral pat on the back. And because of my good behaviour, the universe wrecked our water supply and now, here I was, heading to North Sydney on a Monday. Whistling a tune with joy in my heart.

GETTING SNOWED ON

I was able to legally drink, after paying one hundred dollars and change for the fuse box, three Iced Caps in four days. Will the bounty ever cease?

BUSTER ABOUT TO SHAVE

It’s now Thursday and Buster is running out of treats. Should I go to North Sydney today and buy him some? He looks quite desperate and Sue must need something. Maybe I should go into the washroom and pull out our water supply’s fuse box. Or maybe I could hang in until Friday.

I think I need a beer.

GETTING SOME MONEY

MID MARCH SNOW

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ADDICTIONS AND LAWYERS

28/2/2021

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WIND-BLOWN WOODS

“What we need is a single hero to uphold the defeated, a Quijote of the wind-mills, here and now, and then after we’ve thought we’ve found him, only later to see him breaking bread with the enemy, and smiling and tipping his hat as though he thought we were damn fools for believing in him, and we were.”

Charles Bukowski, Portions From a Wine-stained Notebook

TYRANT OF THE WOODS

I did another solitary hike on the Corney Brook Trail. As I snow-shoed in, pictures of the destination danced in my head. My settling down on the wooden bench, eating my spartan lunch and lovingly gazing at the beautifully icicled falls.

However, shouldn’t I have known that the winter landscape is not a bare-trail-cake-walk? Shouldn’t I have known that the bench would be buried in hard, icy snow? That the trail would be a treacherously narrow icy forty-five degree slope? That I would have to dig my pointed snowshoes into the ice so I wouldn’t slide into the brook? Would have to put gloves under my keister to avoid future kidney or prostate side-effects?

VIEW FROM MICA TRAIL

And while I’m manipulating through all these precautions, I’m wondering how I would be approaching this situation if I were younger. Would I have danced on the head of an icicle?

I just don’t know.
***
A few weeks ago while we were heading to the Blueberry hiking trail, one of my hiking buddies was, unbeknownst to me, taking photos of me while I was driving.

She was amazed to find, while looking at one of the photos, that I had sprouted a belly.

Now I knew that this hiker didn’t believe that everything was fake news, didn’t believe that black was white, that oceans drain into rivers and she wasn’t into a weird Quack Up cult that believed in the coming rapture of blood-sucking pedophiliacal vampires.

So, I assumed I had a bit of a belly and decided I’d cut back on some calories.

HIKING ON MICA TRAIL

I have a theory. Actually, plenty of theories, but this one is specific to addictions. Big ones and small ones.

My theory is that any person who is addicted to a substance has inside their brain two lawyers. One who will put forth a rational argument that you should stick to your resolutions and the other lawyer who will make up arguments which will give you the feeling that it is alright to break your contracts.

VIEW FROM LIVING ROOM WINDOW

Take me for example. I like Iced Caps. I know they are full of yummy sugar and all things not nice. So, I signed a contract with myself. My contract stipulates that I will allow myself an Iced Cap after I skate on Friday. I will also allow myself an Iced Cap on any day that I or we go to North Sydney or Sydney. The Bras D’or Tim Hortons is on our way home. It’s our treat. I order two Iced Caps while Sue hits the can and Buster yellows up the base of Tim Horton’s large sign.

Sounds simple. Right?

SUE AMUSED BY POLITICAL ANTICS

Well, after I made my resolution, I found out that they’d decided to schedule public skating for Wednesday morning. No heads-up for my lawyers. This meant I had two days of morning skating between ten am and eleven-thirty am.

What was I going to do?

I decided that I would have, on Wednesday, after my skate, a real coffee. I often do this after a hike. However, coffee makes me anxious after it has sent me into high-energy euphoria. It means, therefore, that I need to have a beer or two after the coffee. My lawyers are still thrashing out this beer situation. My resolution-keeping lawyer has some suspicions about the reasons for my having a coffee in the first place.

ANOTHER VIEW FROM MICA TRAIL

Anyway, I planned to have a decent cup of real coffee after my Wednesday skate and deal with the after-results when I got home. I would not have an Iced Cap. No sir.

So, after my skate on Wednesday, I bought a real coffee. Small with one cream. I followed the contract to the letter.

I then headed for home. As I got closer to the Tim Horton’s my two lawyers began to try to persuade me.

“Larry, get a grip. You were skating. You always buy an Iced Cap after you skate. The skating will only last for a few more weeks. Why can’t you?”

That was lawyer number one.

TOOL SHED ON WHAT USED TO BE A LAWN

“Hang tough Larry. Don’t buy the Iced Cap. You’ll like yourself better in the morning. You stipulated that you’d only have one on Friday. Skating is irrelevant. Friday is relevant.”

That was lawyer number two.

As I looked at Timmy’s through my rear-view mirror one of the lawyers stormed out of the office.

Legal battle settled?

A FOREST CREATURE IS BORN

Well, the day before, we had our laneway ploughed. We weren’t at home to pay the plough-fella so I owed him money. He lives a few Kilometres past the Cabot Trail. That’s the road I have to turn onto so I can get home.

I passed the Cabot Trail and drove a few more kilometres to his house where I gave him the money.

On the way down his snowy laneway, my lawyers were back at it.

WALKING HOME AFTER CHECKING OUT NEIGHBOUR'S HOUSE

ONLY ANOTHER K AND A HALF TO GO AND THEN THEY ARE HOME

To make a long story short, I drove past my turn-off to home and onwards and upwards to Baddeck. More specifically, right back to Timmy’s where I bought two Iced Caps. One for Sue and one for me. I skated. Wednesday was irrelevant.

And please don’t ask me how many trips we’re making to North Sydney or Sydney, but I have had to make two urgent trips to North Sydney this week and lawyer number two can’t say anything about it because it’s in the contract. He’s working on a new, air-tight clause.

TOREY LOOKING AT HER NEW PHONE WHILE STANDING ON BLUEBERRY MOUNTAIN

And let’s not even get into how my lawyers deal with my beer intake. I’ll only say that my lawyer who fights for sobriety, is holding his own, but only barely.

WHAT AM I POINTING AT WHILE ON MICA TRAIL

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PERVERTED WORDS

3/2/2021

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BUSTER DOESN'T WANT TO STOP

I’m tired of shallow and nonsensical verbosity. Not that I’m not prone to shooting it out from time to time. However, I’m getting the suffocating suspicion that as I’m exposed to more of the social media’s tinsel-town pandemonium that I’m being slowly, or not so slowly, buried in tons and tons of buffalo doo-doo.

I’m hoping my blog isn’t contributing to this whole soul-sucking enterprise.

CORNEY ROOK IN JANUARY

Also, I’m wondering if the conspiracy theorist politicians don’t have a portrait, similar to Dorian Gray’s, hidden away in their attics. The portrait contaminated by the stains of their lies and shamelessness because it’s mind-numbing watching these folks brashly and proudly going about the business of being barefaced fabricators.

GOOD OLD Cape Breton

Hikers On Old Cabot Trail

ICE EAGLE

Maybe their words will create an alternative universe and come back to bite them.

ON BLUEBERRY MOUNTAIN

A LEAF

“A man’s power to connect his thought with its proper symbol, and so to utter it, depends on the simplicity of his character, that is, upon his love of truth, and his desire to communicate it without loss. The corruption of man is followed by the corruption of language. When simplicity of character and the sovereignty of ideas is broken up by the prevalence of secondary desires, the desires of richness, of pleasure, of power, and of praise,— and duplicity and falsehood takes place of simplicity and truth, the power over nature as an interpreter of the will, is in a degree----"
Ralph Emerson, Nature

Gold Brook Road

“Guard your tongue in youth, ”said the old chief, Wabashaw, “and in age you may mature a thought that will be of service to your people!”
Charles Eastman (Ohiyesa)

View From Blueberry

Hiking Down the Blueberry Trail

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DON'T DRESS IN LAYERS AND STAY ALERT

12/1/2021

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VIEW FROM SUMMIT

Sunday morning, my throat felt raw and I felt tired, so I decided to climb Blueberry Mountain.

APPROACHING SUMMIT

Being tired makes me neurotic. I worry about stupid things like how I should dress. I knew it was always colder on top of a mountain. So, I dressed in layers. I should have known that too many layers can be a problem, if you don’t know what to do with the layers after you’ve shed them.

Tara, my hiking buddy, brought three of her kids along on the hike. The little fella’s snow pants kept causing him trouble. This kept the hiking pace at a reasonable rate for this old fella.

ENERGY DRINK

As we climbed we encountered more snow and more sweat. So much so that I had to remove my heavy shirt which was under my heavy winter coat. I tied the shirt’s arms around my waist.

The higher we climbed the hotter I got.

CROSSING A BROOK

I couldn’t see. My glasses were fogged up, my eyes were burning and my camera lens was steamed and wouldn’t un-mist.

NATURE'S JEWELLERY

On one of my stops to clear my glasses and for the little guy to adjust his pants, I started worrying about not being able to hear a key-jingling sound coming forth from any of my pockets. Which pocket had I put my keys in? Was this a neurotic concern?

ENJOYING VIEW

I made some cursory searches during our brief stops, but couldn’t locate them or hear them. Oh god, had they fallen out of my shirt pocket when I tied the shirt around my waist? A quick check of my shirt and some of the six or seven winter coat pockets and my vest’s pockets found nothing to end my worry.

CHASE THE GLOVE GAME

We kept climbing and climbing. Near the top we saw huge moose tracks. My hiking buddy began to sing. She told her kids that she sang because she wanted to let the moose know we were there, so we wouldn’t startle it.

I tried to offer some levity to the hike.

“Do you know how you can identify bear scat?” I asked.

“You see lots of berries in it,” was the response.

“No, you look for crap filled with tiny pieces of bells, bugles, pots and pans,” I responded. Yuk, yuk.

The view from the summit was gorgeous and even though I was in full key-lost-worry-mode, I couldn’t help from enjoying the view and from taking photographs.

RESCUED

I then did a thorough search of all my known pockets. My hiking buddy even took my shirt, turned it upside down and gave it a good shake. No jingling or jangling sounded forth. I couldn’t find the keys in any of my coat’s six or seven pockets, my vest’s two pockets, my snow pant’s three pockets or my blue jean’s four pockets. My tee shirt is pocketless.

NIGHT-FALL APPROACHES BLUEBERRY MTN

We hurried back down the mountain as Tara was in a rush to get the kids out before dark.

I hiked at the back of the line with the little fella who was always adjusting his pants. We had a lively conversation as I poked and prodded the snow with my ski pole trying to find my keys. “Here keys. Here keys. Here, boy.”

BULLS EYE

Half-way down the mountain I noticed that my damn shirt was gone.

I stopped and yelled at the hikers that I had to go back up and get my shirt. You see I was afraid that my keys were bunkered down in a pocket that I hadn’t known existed.

AN IRONICAL MAGA CULT ANTIDOTE

“If you find my keys just leave them on the hood,” I shouted.

As they hiked down the trail I heard the children shouting, “Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas.”

I was alone with no keys and no shirt.

I found my shirt near the top. On the way down the mountain, the sun too quickly slipped towards its nightly resting place as I poked every dark spot I saw in the snow. No keys.

SUE & BUSTER ENJOYING BADDECK'S CHRISTMAS LIGHTS

I began to think about nightfall in the park and how dark it would be. How I might have to build a fire while I waited for somebody to pick me up. I began to think about how exciting that might be and what a story it would make when it was all over. I began to think about lots of things and when I got down to my truck, just before it got really dark, I saw the keys sticking out of my tail-gate. I had put them in and then had a sudden, inconvenient senior’s moment attack.

CORNEY BROOK TRAIL

On the way home I decided to pull over at a look-off and remove my coat. Don’t worry, I still had layers and layers to go.

Then I phoned my hiking buddy and told her I’d found the keys.

She laughed. “We know. We’re right behind you.”

CORNEY BROOK'S CUTE WEE BRIDGE

Her car pulled up next to my truck, we rolled down our windows, so we could communicate, and I showed them my keys. The three young hikers were very interested in my keys’ show and tell demonstration.

She told me she’d been worried about me, so they’d driven around and then came back to see if my truck was still there.

We chewed the fat for a few more minutes and then she drove away while three separate voices shouted from the car interior, “Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas.”

CORNEY BROOK

On the way home, I stopped for a few cans of beer to offer as a sacrifice to the gods of luck.

SNOWY CORNEY BROOK

I’d had my adventure, but it was a bit more of a trying adventure than I’d planned on and I wondered if this had happened because of my dry throat, my being tired and my possible neurotic tendencies.

HIKING BUDDY & ME AT THE CORNEY BROOK FALLS

SNOWY TRAIL

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SATELLITE REPAIR MAN’S ORGANIC TRIPODS

29/12/2020

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HUMBLE HOMESTEAD

In the last blog there’s a photo of Sue, Buster and me sitting by the Middle river. The river having settled down after, once again, re-arranging the beaver damn. In the photo Sue is sitting on a log. I wanted to use a different photo. I planned to take a photo of Sue and me sitting on the log together. Buster would, I hoped, be smiling at the camera.

Please note that I knocked my camera onto its keister, three times when I attempted to take the photos. Once off a step ladder and twice off a big, log that had been tossed out of the angry river five years ago.

INSIDE OLD HOMESTEAD

What happened, so that I never got the perfect group shot? Well, I sat the camera on the exiled log, set it on time delay, pressed the shutter button, ran like the devil to the log, sat on the log and it collapsed.

SUE AND BUSTER RELAXING IN HOMESTEAD

Whereupon I quickly grabbed Sue by her coat which prevented her from tumbling ass-over-kettle into the watery abyss, while at the same time, I prevented myself from rolling into the river. I don’t know what Buster did while all this was going on. Probably just watched and thought to himself, “What’s with their nonsense this time? I hope it ends at a good place.”

So, we used the photo that had my face half covered by the hat, Sue smiling and looking innocent of her looming adventure and with Buster eyeing the river’s landscape for beast and foul.

ICED MOUNTAIN TREE

Now-days we’ve got communication gadgets coming out of our ying yangs and yet if you try to phone these communication companies, you might as well settle down for a day of sitting on your ass, your cell phone or mobile set on loud speaker, so you don’t burn off your ear, your phone sucking out the battery’s power while you listen to elevator music over and over again with periodic interruptions by smooth voiced persons who inform you they’re sorry about the wait, they value your patronage and they’ll get to your super important phone call as soon as they can. It’s like listening to a brick wall.

WALKING THROUGH ICED TREE FOREST

Speaking of, this summer, Torey and I decided to explore Cheticamp Island. We discovered an old cemetery, picked berries and watched tour boats. They were usually stuffed with tourists who were watching the cormorants, seagulls and eagles minding their own business.

TOREY ADDING COLOUR TO CHETICAMP ISLAND

OLD CHETICAMP ISLAND CEMETERY

At the end of the official hiking part of the day I heard that special call of nature. “Wee wee, wee wee, Larry.”

While feeling this tug of nature I noticed a couple and their black and white dog hiking towards us. They were quite a distance away.

ENJOYING BEING WITH ICED TREES

I figured I had time to zip in and unzip behind a large satellite dish and finish up before the hikers passed by.

I was halfway through when I saw the dog. I quickly ended my session and not too soon because the couple weren’t far behind.

HAPPY TREES IN THEIR COVID BALLOON

The woman asked me if I was doing maintenance on the dish. I indicated I was. You see, I often look like somebody other than who I am. If I’m in the forest, I’m a forest ranger. If I’m picking berries at a U-Pick berry place, I’m not a public picker, no sir, I’m an official worker picker who just happened to be out in the berry field, so dedicated to his job, that he’s picking berries on his coffee break. I’ve been a fella from Seattle, who, while in a grocery store line-up in Ontario, was blamed for breaking up the cashier’s best friend’s marriage. I’m also a forester in Ireland, a doctor from Cleveland, the Commodore at the Baddeck Yacht Club and, on the same day, the evening’s entertainment. Where’s Waldo?

HIKING ON OLD LAKE'S TRAIL

So, I also said to the lady, “Beautiful day, isn’t it.”

It wasn’t that beautiful, but what do you say when you’ve just fibbed, even if it wasn’t a doozy. I love my satellite dish job.

When they walked on down the lane, I finished up and then continued on with my murky life of doing satellite maintenance and breaking up marriages.

ON OLD LAKE'S TRAIL

Why am I telling you this? How does it relate to the social media being so prevalent? People staring at their plastic shiny rectangles, talking at them, pointing them or waving them in the air?

Well you see, a few weeks ago, I was on top of Squirrel Mountain with two of my hiking buddies. From time to time the one fella would take photos and talk to his phone. I assumed he was live-posting the photos and telling his Facebook followers all about how great the day was. And it was. I even found a chair lying in a snowy ditch that I used to put my camera on so I could set it on twelve second delay and get a photo of all three of us. I had planned to buy a tripod, but it’s so much fun trying to find organically creative natural camera supports for steadying my camera that I didn’t. See first section of blog for why I should buy a tripod.

SHARING HIGHLAND'S LOOK-OFF WITH TREES

And of course, while we were enjoying the view I had time to tell the story about having a wee wee on Cheticamp Island and being mistaken for a satellite dish mechanic. The reason it came up was because we could see Cheticamp Island and the satellite dish from Squirrel Mountain’s summit. It was a gorgeous view!

JALAL ENJOYING VIEW

Anyway, I’ll end this blog by saying that on the way home my hiking buddy and I stopped into the Dancing Goat for a coffee.

I noticed, as I drank my coffee, that he looked sheepish.

You know what he told me?

VINCENT AND JALAL MAKING HOT TEA AND SOUP

He said, “you know that while you were telling us your pee and satellite dish maintenance story that I was live streaming on my cell phone.

Did anybody happen to hear my really interesting satellite whiz story?

HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYBODY!

THREE HIKEETEERS

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December 09th, 2020

9/12/2020

2 Comments

HAUNTED FOREST

I want to begin this blog with a wish that Carter, my grandson, gets the cast off his leg and can soon be back to one hundred percent. I hope he has plenty of important signatures on his cast.

GHOSTLY HIKER AND CYCLIST

Remember, a few blogs back, when I told the story about taking my truck to the dealership? The poor truck had an electrical problem, which by the way, healed up by itself. Anyway, when I’d parked the truck in the service area a poor little disoriented mouse ran out from under the truck.

ONLY A LOG? MAYBE?

The diagnosis, after they hooked my truck up to a Truck Cat Scan, was that an animal may have chewed on a wire or moved a wire around. However, they couldn’t locate the problem. The advice I was given was to stuff my truck with Bounce sheets. The fella told me he did that when he was storing his boat and it kept the varmints away. I think it might work like Voodoo.

A HAPPY TREE

Well, let me say this about that. A few days ago I took a gander at my truck and guess what I saw? A ghost. A wee ghost floating and scurrying around under my truck.

VINCENT STANDING BY BADDECK RIVER

I thought it was a ghost because it was white. I knew it wasn’t a ghost when I realized that a squirrel was carrying it in his mouth. I assume to use for the building of his winter nest.

This incident wasn’t such a big deal except for two facts. The critter was carrying a Bounce sheet and the critter was under my truck.

VIEW FROM BALD MOUNTAIN SUMMIT

A few days ago I accepted an invitation to cycle to the Bald Mountain trail-head and then climb the mountain. I quickly found out that the easy part, which I assumed to be the cycling, was actually the hard part.

ROAD

The road to the trail-head was arduous. Potholes full of water surprised us with sudden plunges to depths we hadn’t expected. Branches, logs, and big and small rocks littered this bit-of-a-son-of-a-road. Mud, lots of mud, gummed up the trail and, it seemed, just for a chuckle or two, the trail would surprise us with sudden bits of missing roadside.

My hiking buddy and I both took a partial dip, each in our chosen muddy coloured swimming hole.

VINCENT AND ME AT SMALLL CABIN ONLY A SHORT DISTANCE FROM TRAIL TO BALD MOUNTAIN

At one point on the trail, it got so narrow that the bushes were poking and grabbing at me and my camera. I finally had to stop and stuff the camera into my saddle bag. Then when I got on my bike I almost fell over into the expectant bush.

That’s when I came to one of my conclusions. My conclusion being that I do not have as good a balance as I used to have when my hair was brown and the world was my half-eaten

RESTING ON BALD MOUNTAIN SUMMIT

You see, the thing about this stretch of trail was that the ruts were mud-filled and the centre grassy area between the wheel ruts were slippery as heck. So, I chose rut over mound and came to two more conclusions.

SUE AND BUSTER RELAXING

One: cycling through mud is extremely strenuous. Playing three periods of hockey is easier. Granted, much of the trail was uphill.

Two: I’m getting a tad long in the tooth.

VINCENT READING LOG BOOKS

When we finally got to the trail-head at two-fifteen pm, I was ready to head back. I didn’t want to cycle back in the dark and we still had a mountain to climb.

My hiking buddy, Vincent, went into his sarge-mode and convinced me that we could do it. So we climbed it and the view was, as always, spectacular. Mist softening the distant hills while the sun teetered dangerously close to the horizon.

VINCENT, TOREY AND ME AT MYLES DOYLE FALLS

We stopped for about fifteen minutes so we could eat a snack and savour the view before we headed back. The Sarge barking out, from time to time, “No pain, no gain.”

We arrived at the bottom of the mountain just before the darkness began to gobble up the remaining light.

Sarge gave me a wee light, about the size of a toonie and then we set off. Sarge took the lead.

VINCENT, TOREY AND ME AT ST. MARGARET'S OF SCOTLAND CHURCH ON MOUNTAIN

The wee light threw no perceptible illumination. However, Sarge would shout guidance. “Stay to the left of this mud hole.”

“Watch out for the culvert.”

“Stay in the middle.”

Anyway, I learned another lesson while I was cycling this darkening trail. The darker it gets the more powerful a tiny light becomes.

ROAD TO CHURCH

The very last huge mud-hole, before I got to my truck, had a little fun. I thought I’d plough through the middle like I did a lot of the other huge puddles. However, when I got in the middle, the mud sucked my bike’s tires to a halt. I had to step into the muddy water, which was up to my knees, and found my foot stuck in the mud. It took lots of effort to free my boot and then wade my bike to the beckoning shore. They told me at the store that my boots were water resistant. They are, as long as the water isn’t coming in over the top of the wall.

IS HE THE PRIEST CYCLING TO WORK?

But we had fun, right? And Vincent was kind enough to give me the little light as a token of a job well done.
***
In case this is the last blog before Christmas, we’d like to say: MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY HOLIDAY!!

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BEAVER BATTLE

28/11/2020

1 Comment

WAITING FOR A RIDE

I was wondering, as I wrapped trees with chicken wire, whether I’m not playing a part in the absurd. Sort of like the politics that have been going on and on and on south of us.

Voltaire wrote, ”Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”

The Queen, in Lewis Carroll’s book, “Through the Looking Glass,” attempted to convince Alice to believe absurdities. She said, “Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six thousand impossible things before breakfast.”

APPLE TREE IN FALL

But, what about my trying to keep the beavers from chewing down our trees? You see, the trees’ roots tighten down the soil and help prevent the river from eroding its way up to our mobile home’s front steps and beyond.

BEAVER DAMAGE

I bought, in a sudden leap of faith, two rolls of fifty feet by four feet of chicken wire. Of course, it had to be pointed out to me that four feet becomes minus two feet if there’s six feet of snow on the ground. We’re liable to get at least three to five feet of snow. Rather discouraging.

SCENE NEAR CHETICAMP

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WONDER WHO LIVES IN THAT HOUSE?

I did cover a partially chewed apple tree with about two and a half feet of wire before I bought the roll of chicken wire and on Sunday I saw that a Jolly Green Giant beaver had already started gnawing on the trunk above the wire. Must be yummy. He also chewed an exposed root. So, I wrapped my new four-foot chicken wire around the tree and used fence staples to attach it to the trunk and the exposed root. I hope the trees are not beyond saving.

DRYING OFF BUSTER

The resources person told me we could get a trapper who might charge around one hundred dollars per dead beaver. Trappers used to get money for the pelts, but now they get more for killing them for guys like me. I don’t want to go that route if I can help it.

THE SUN APPROACHES

“You’ve got to realize,” he said, “that they can give birth to up to six kits in a year.” Nice to know they are fertile and don’t use birth control. That’s a lot of hungry tree chompers.

Another fella said, “There’s fifty or sixty beavers on this part of the river.” Nice to know.

FOG BLOCKS VIEW FROM SQUIRREL MOUNTAIN

Apparently the best approach is to put metal around the trees. How absurdly expensive would that be?

They also say you can paint the trees with paint and sand. However, it washes off. Always a catch, and of course one fella had to say to me, “Beavers floss with chicken wire.” Yuk, yuk. So absurd.

MIST LIFTS

There are good and bad things about using chicken wire. One good thing is it’s not too expensive and it doesn’t need to be hooked together with anything. The bad part is the small pointy pieces of wire will also hook to everything else. The tiny metal claws poking my skin, getting a death grip on my coat and yanking away at my pants. The chicken wire also hooks itself to itself when I don’t want it to, so I’m constantly shouting, “Unhand yourself, you oaf!”

JALAL, VINCENT & ME ON SQUIRREL MOUNTAIN

Of course, there’s also the grabby branches I have to walk the chicken wire through to get to the tree subjects I plan to beaver-gnaw-proof. They’re also catching onto everything and constantly yanking my tuque away from my head. Specially one son of a bit off muffin.

VINCENT ENJOYING HOT TEA ON THE TRAIL

So, at times I’m praying the river will throw one of its hissy-fit floods our way. The rushing water could tear the beaver dam to rat crap if it was in a really foul mood.

JALAL MAKING HOT SOUP ON THE SPOT

Of course you’ve heard the saying, busy as a beaver. Totally true. Totally hard workers, totally persistent and totally tenacious in following their set work schedules and if you tear down their dams, they don’t re-use their building material. No, they don’t give a damn. They just use brand new material, which means they’re chewing down more trees. They’re the kind of consumers our society prays for.

VINCENT'S SQUIRREL MOUNTAIN PAIL. A GIFT FROM ME

So, as I wrap wire and poke myself, my knees soaking up the wet snow, I sometimes think about the crazy absurd political talk that’s going on outside our little woods. Which helps make me aware of how lucky I am to be listening to the purring river, to be smelling the soil and damp leaves, with the chickadees occasionally interrupting my work to give me the message that the feeder is empty.

TRAIL TO MEDITATION SPOT

AND THAT'S IT FOR THIS WEEK.

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POINTY SIDE DOWN

14/11/2020

2 Comments

CHETICAMP RIVER

SICK TREES HUDDLING BY THE MOUNTAIN

In my last blog I wrote some nice things about hornets and bumble bees. Live and let live was my theme. I wrote this with the knowledge that nature has a way of testing us and not long after my supporting-hornets blog the animal kingdom sent me some messages.

For example, we were at the North Sydney Mall when what did I spy with my little eyes? The check engine light was on and so was the anti-skidding light. Plus, my cruise control stopped working and the indicator light on the stick shift for Drive was off.

CHETICAMP RIVER CREATURE

However, I had to take the truck in for its warranty servicing anyway. Plus, after two days the problem went away and hasn’t returned as of this present blog writing exercise.

In Port Hawkesbury I drove my truck into the area where you park your vehicle before it’s taken into the garage. When I jumped out of my truck, a woman who was eating her lunch inside her car shouted out the window, “There’s a little animal running around underneath your truck.” It was a mouse. Now homeless.

SALMON POOL'S TRAIL

They hooked my truck up to a computer and told me they couldn’t find any problem. They thought an animal might have chewed on a wire or two.

Now my truck is stuffed full of Bounce sheets. It smells glorious.

Is it working? Not sure.

HIKING BUDDY AND ME AT SALMON POOLS TRAIL CABIN

A few days ago I saw a squirrel run under and then jump up into the underside of my truck. Later that day I walked to my truck and a chipmunk came out from under my truck. Not the squirrel. Where was he?

APPROACH TO CABIN

And guess what I was doing on Tuesday and Friday? I was covering the bottom of some hardwood trees with wire. Why? Because the beavers have moved in. They have built a dam almost all the way across the main Middle River’s channel and have also built a smaller dam behind our woodshed. No threat yet of a flood, but the beavers are chewing down our trees.

I phoned the Ministry of Resources. The woman who answered gave me a phone number to call and told me she had a squirrel under her floor and didn’t know how to get it out. What did she do, I wonder? Did she test nature in some way?

SALMON POOL'S TRAIL

Anyway, we had the Ministry of Natural Resources fella out our way. He gave us some tips. Told me to put sheet metal, about five feet high, around the tree. I can also use chicken wire, although it’s not as good.

NATURE'S PULPIT

Of course, I heard that five feet high doesn’t do it when the snow starts to fly. Five feet high becomes no feet high around here. Another person told me they hibernate so maybe that won’t be a problem.

EGYPT FALLS

I can also hire a trapper. He charges one hundred dollars per deceased beaver.

Are you getting the point? Do you see how by giving the hornets great press I opened myself up to the universe’s testing. Because, only days after I posted the hornets’ blog I was being tempted to hire a trapper to kill the beavers?

SUN REFLECTING FROM THE BRANCHES

So, guess what I’m doing? I’m daily checking our trees for gnawing marks. Chicken wire, staple gun and snippers near-by.

And by the way, getting my staple gun to work was another possible proof of how this universe works for me.

ENJOYING EGYPT FALLS WITH A CUP OF TEA

How did I get the staple gun working? Well, I kept frigging around with it until it worked. Put the wrong staples in. Put the right staples in, but in the wrong place. Put the correct staples in, but upside down and finally put the correct staples in what I considered to be the right side up-side. Click, clicked a few times for each procedure and finally at the end of the last insertion of staples and still with no staples shooting out, I attempted a true and tried method. I tested a universal law.

ALMOST AT EGYPT FALLS

TWO HIKING BUDDIES AND ME AT EGYPT FALLS

I took the staple gun and put it on top of some pages of a manuscript that I DID NOT WANT STAPLED TOGETHER! I placed the staple gun with pointy staples facing downwards, just like before and then pressed. Sure enough the gun worked and my manuscript was severely stapled together.

It seems to be the way my life works.

MAGIC IN EVERYTHING

“For the truth is a terrible thing. You dabble your foot in it and it is nothing. But you walk a little farther and you feel it pull you like an undertow or a whirlpool. First there is a slow pull so steady and gradual you scarcely notice it, then the acceleration, then the dizzy whirl and plunge into darkness. For there is a blackness of truth, too. They say it is a terrible thing to fall into the Grace of God. I am prepared to believe that.”
Robert Penn Warren, All the King’s Men

NORTHERN CLOUD LIGHTS

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ONLY HUMAN PLENTY OF TIMES

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GOD IS A VERB

ADDICTIONS AND LAWYERS

PERVERTED WORDS

DON'T DRESS IN LAYERS AND STAY ALERT

SATELLITE REPAIR MAN’S ORGANIC TRIPODS

December 09th, 2020

BEAVER BATTLE

POINTY SIDE DOWN

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