Category: Hiking

Reaping Our Frog Skins

7/10/2017

The human race is acting like the proverbial frog. That famous metaphor who loitered too long in a pot of water and was slowly boiled to death.

Blog Frog

And isn’t it ironic that the Indigenous Peoples called money ‘frog skins’? And here we are slowly cooking ourselves. Using the philosophy of our growing frog skin economy to add kindling to the climatic burner. Placing our earth’s health somewhere near the bottom of the list. As if there is any comparison between money and oxygen or water.

                                         “When all the trees have been cut down,

                                          when all the animals have been hunted,

                                          when all the waters have been polluted,

                                          when all the air is unsafe to breathe,

                                        only then will you discover you cannot eat money.”

                                                                                                                 Cree Prophecy

Blog Deer

Maybe we’re so full of our own humanity’s importance that we can’t grasp the reality of the real. And maybe our being bombarded by social media news and pseudo info farts is deafening or deadening our ability to comprehend authentic and essential truths.

“Yet, as gradation is the beautiful secret of nature, and the fashioning spirit, which loves to develop and transcend, loves no less to moderate, to modulate, and harmonize, it did not mean by thus drawing man onward to the next state of existence, to destroy his fitness for this. It did not mean to destroy his sympathies with the mineral, vegetable, and animal realms, of whose components he is in great part composed—.”
Margaret Fuller, Summer on the Lakes

Blog Spider

So, we invest our frog skins. Worry over them, water them, and fertilize them as we try to make our frog skins grow and grow until they have become the most dangerous plant we’ve ever worshipped.

Why, some folks still think the incessant and massive poisoning of our earth isn’t causing climate change. And you know what scares me? So many of these folks have the words. They twist and fabricate the truth by filling the air waves with their smooth-talking poppy-cock.

The deniers quote the very, very few scientists who say the world is square and there is no climate change and many of these deniers are the same folks who swallow this pill and that pill. And they get tested for one thing or another. Why? Because the majority of the scientists and doctors tell them that science says they should watch their blood pressure and cholesterol, get checked for this body part and that body part, etc. etc.
I think they deny scientific proof of climate change because they’re protecting their free range rights to grab more and more frog skins. And the climate change confirmation is in the pudding.

Newfoundland Shepherd

Republican party’s convention cancelled because of a hurricane. The Conservative convention cancelled because of a flood. And now, historic hurricanes storming into the United States and the islands. Increasingly larger and more forest fires. Dryer and hotter weather. Records falling like bowling pins as more storms plunk their water-laden butts over an area and refuse to budge until they’ve cried out the last tear. Animals and plants being wiped out. On and on and pathetically on. Why, you’d think the world was trying to shake us off like a dog does his fleas.

         “For us who, from the moment
                              we first are worlded,
                              lapse into disarray,

                              who seldom know exactly
                              what we are up to,
                              and, as a rule, don’t want to,

                              what a joy to know
                              even when we can’t see or hear you,
                              that you are around,

                              though very few of you
                              find us worth looking at,
                              unless we come too close.”
                                                       W.H. Auden:   Address To The Beasts

Blog Bird

I once saw a sign that said, ”I’ve got nothing against God. It’s his fan club I can’t stand.”

I mention this because I’m ashamed of some of those frantic folks who say they are on their way to heaven and blessed by God and get messages from God and then I see how they talk and vote and treat the earth and their innocent fellow human beings. As if the worst sins in the world are those which involve our reproductive organs.

Because becoming a bona-fide, growing, and spiritual human, including those who believe they are climbing Jacob’s ladder to heaven, doesn’t mean outgrowing your need for the elemental.

How we’re treating our earth, ourselves and all of its inhabitants, isn’t that a sin?

Blog Hiker on Mica Mountain

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November- A Time for Remembering

9/11/2015

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For my family, this November has been a time for remembering our mother, who died in late September. For others, it may be a time for remembering family members or friends who died in wars.

Sue and I are back in Kingston, as my brother and I were named the executors of my mother's will and we needed to work together on all the paperwork involved. So this blog is one of pictures instead of words. Needless to say, the pictures were all taken in Cape Breton, and most of them are from around our home. So enjoy the Autumn beauty of Middle River!

Hiking Buddies

Middle River

Misty Highlands

October Colours on the Ground

Our Snowy Pond

View from our Living Room Windows

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Don’t Do Pennies

12/6/2015

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Last month, while we were in Kingston, I spent plenty of time walking the streets. Which meant I ran into panhandlers. Who, I think, some people refer to as leeches, bums, free-loaders, but not hard-working-taxpayers nor the aspiring middle-class.

        "Most of them look
         as though their bodies were boneless.

         Every animal
       has its own defense:
         theirs is plasticity.

         Kick them in the face
         and nothing breaks.
         It’s as if your boot
         sank in wet dough."

                                       Aldon Nowlan, The Shack Dwellers

They usually have no need to tell me their story. Because I’m digging into my pocket to pull out a coin before they even begin explaining why they are where they are.
Like one fella, who was sitting in a wheelchair. He told me he needed money for a new wheelchair. But I’d already pulled out a toonie, solely for him, so he didn’t have to waste his breath. Air could be expensive someday.

Later on, I ran into a woman panhandler, to whom I’d given some money earlier. She asked for more. I declined, and mentioned I’d given my money to the man in the wheelchair. Who, I explained, needed the money to buy a new wheelchair.

“Wheelchair, my ass,” she’d said. “He’ll use the money to buy more lotto tickets.”

Once, in Halifax, a panhandler asked me for money. He also wanted my coat. He didn’t get the coat, but I did empty my pocket into his outstretched paw.
He looked at the mess of change, and do you know what he said?

“I don’t do pennies.”

But last Thanksgiving, when we were in Kingston, I saw a man at the front door of our hotel. The man was wearing what I call criss-cross clothes. Plaids and stripes. Lines gone wild.
The man was tearing through the hotel’s garbage pail and it was Thanksgiving, for St. Peter’s sake. So, I pulled a fiver out of my pocket and gave it to him.

He was shocked.

“I don’t know what to say,” he said. “Well, thanks.”

And that was that, until a few days later, when I was sitting on a bench in front of the hotel, waiting for a cab. The same man walked by, wearing the same clothes and besides looking poor, he looked intelligent. I figured he knew where the chuck wagon was and was going to be having his hand out for some more money from this money bag. But he didn’t, damn it, so I stood up, caught up with him and offered him another fiver.

He was nearly speechless and gladly took the money. Maybe he was beginning to wonder about me.

Finally, I saw him a few days later. And seeing I was on a roll, and also because I would be leaving the city soon, I offered him more money.

“No thanks. I used the money you gave me to buy some groceries.”

I was dumbfounded, happy, slightly embarrassed and more respectful. He then told me he used to teach at Oxford and things hadn’t worked out too well for him. What did I know?

It reminded me of another time I ran into a fella who asked for money. I gave him some as he told me his wife was in the hospital and he was broke. “Sure, sure,” some folks would say.

A month or so later, I ran into him again. I automatically reached into my pocket and pulled out some change. I was dumbfounded, embarrassed and surprised again. He refused the money. Things were working out for him.

You never know, do you?

This photo shows a moose hanging out near our laneway. It's tricky getting a moose to pose nicely for a picture!

***

Lots of people want Buster stories, it seems. Yea verily, they have demanded it. And there are so many, I don’t know where to begin. He never lets us take him for granted. All you have to do is look at the photo of us sitting on the couch to see what I’m getting at. There we are, huddled together. Sue and I looking borderline senile, weary and bedraggled. Buster looking alert, intelligent, in control and ready to go. A real firecracker.

Buster and Family

Buster is a Christmas gift that keeps on giving. Giving orders that is. Of course, he can’t talk, so he has to use woof, woofs and highly complicated body language and facial expressions to get us to do what he wants. He also nips and tugs.

We have already completed another session of his training program. His being-let-outside-so-he-can-have-a-treat-when-he-comes-inside scheme. Where’s our diploma? And it’s pretty damn ingrained in us. He barks to go out. We let him out. It should be noted that each command comes with a different kind of woof. Then he barks to come in and we let him in. Good doggie. Good doggie.

He proudly, and I repeat proudly, tail in the air and walking right smart, prances to the stool by the counter, where his treat stash is kept, puts his front feet on the stool like a trained seal with a ball and waits until one of us serves him. Note the trained seal fallacy.

And in case you don’t think his training techniques are rock solid, well, let me tell you this little story about how well it has gone for Buster.

One day he came into the house and instead of going to the treat stash, he went to the window, to see what he could see with his little canine eyes.

What now?

Well, that dumbfounded Sue. She was lost. Note, it could have been me, because both of us are trained, but it was Sue this time. Lucky Sue. As I said, she was dumbfounded, perplexed, lost as to what to do. Things weren’t right.

So, what did she do? She went to the goodie stash, pulled out a biscuit and delivered it to Buster. Wow! Where will his training stop? It’s not like she expected a tip.

Buster is relentless in his training. Sometimes, his techniques are so subtle, we don’t even know we are being conditioned.

Is this how Buster deals with the stress of controlling us?

A few weeks ago, Buster came in from outside. Sounds pretty normal and innocent. We all go inside and outside from time to time, but apparently, Buster was revising and expanding his conditioning order of events.

Buster would speak his usual woof-woof-go-outside bark. We’d immediately get our asses in gear, go to the door and tie him out. But this time he wouldn’t leave the deck. Instead he’d sit on the porch and give his let-me-in woof. So, we’d wind our asses up once more and open the door. This began happening more often than could be considered just coincidence.

We became suspicious. Because we’re smart too, damn it, but my god, his plan is absolutely brilliant. Scary, really.

You see, Buster sees us as his buddies and a breed of dog. I don’t want to know what kind I am and what kind Sue is. And call me paranoid, if you want, but I think what he’s up to, what he has on his overflowing bucket list, is a dream of training us to share his doggie world with him.

Because, as soon as one of us went outside, he’d stop barking. Then he’d step off the deck while suspiciously looking behind him to make sure one of us was staying outside. If Sue or I complied then he was just fine, thank you.

But my paranoia hasn’t stopped at this point, nor do I think has his training. Because, can’t you see it? Can’t you? Us at the pet shop buying a second long chain and collar. A chain for Buster and one for Sue or me.

What’s next? Buster and one of us on our knees, well at least us down on our knees, eating from a doggie bowl. Buster’s stainless steel and ours yellow plastic.

Having doggie sharing time. Peeing on rocks, trees and car tires. Rolling in the grass. Rubbing our faces in dead leaves. Sniffing places. What a lovely time we’d be having. Romping and rolling to the sounds of the universe.

Then when he’d decided, I repeat, when he’d decided that it was time to go in, he would bark. Whichever one of us was on Buster duty would slide down the pole, march, or preferably run right smartly to the door and remove the chains from us before we’d enter the house. Buster’s feet on the stool and us serving the canine god.

Could it end up that someday, he’d be tying Sue and me out? Master Buster our caregiver?

***

       "God I love my master
        Of all the dogs I have the best master
        What a great master
        Yes I can get on the bed
    Yes I can have
    A bite of her brownie
        Oh no it’s a Pot brownie
        Oh No it’s a Pot brownie
    Oh god I am so high
    She is starting to look very weird to me
        So much skin so much open skin on her so bald all over
        I want to smell her mmmmmmaster mmmmmmaster
        She’s laughing at me quit laughing at me
        Now she’s barfing now who is laughing
        Har Har Har Master oh no now I’m barfing
        She thinks there was LSD in the brownie—-"
           Lynda Barry, “I love my master I love my master”

HIKING GROUP AT HUMES FALLS. LOTS OF AVID HIKERS AROUND HERE

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An Earth Memorial

29/11/2014

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Blog number thirty-one. Where does the time go?

            “I spoke a word
            And no one heard;
            I wrote a word,
            And no one cared
            Or seemed to heed;
            But after half a score of years
            It blossomed in a fragrant deed.”
                      John Oxenham, "We Never Know"

Well, I can hope that after a half a score of years, my writing will blossom in a fragrant deed, or at least a deed of some sort.

***

A few months ago we had a visitor. He wanted to inspect our river. Wanted to see if he could find a way to persuade the powers to be to come up with some anti-flooding action that would be legal for us to undertake. So we could stop the river from gnawing away at our land.

Anyway, as he was looking at the river, he said, “You’ve got a really nice salmon pool down there.”

That down there salmon pool he was talking about, was totally built by the river. There were no blueprints, schemes, or late night conferences, just the river doing her thing. In this instance her legacy was a salmon pool. Which had also become a haunt for the beavers. Life flows on and on.

However, this semi-blockade-salmon-pool place might be a little troublesome for us in the future. The pool has now become an area where large and small uprooted trees and branches loiter. That gathering of trees and branches has spread out since last week’s flood and is now blocking over half the river’s right of way.

Now, when it floods, it either roars over the blockage while pushing it further out into the river, veers to the left and roars over our hiking trail, (that’s a laugh, our "hiking trail"), or swings to the right and heads for the bridge. The force of the rushing water is awesome and I know this: the river doesn’t dilly dally.

Middle River Fury

***

You know, I think we might live smack dab in the centre of the Cape Breton Wizard of Oz climate-making factory. I got a hint of this last week. The river was once again rocking, roiling and rolling over her banks. So we did what we always do when caught in a flood emergency. We grabbed our cameras and headed for the rushing water. Focus, snap, click.

Anyway, we took some pictures and then returned to our little trailer in the woods. A few minutes later, I looked out the window. My gosh, the world over the river had filled in with a bank of fog while thicker blobs were still coming down the mountain when she comes.

Fog seen through our window

So, ?????????. Come on, you can guess. Correcto. I grabbed my camera and headed outside. And, oh man, such a chill wrung out my bones, but as I scurried down the short path to the river, (which is getting shorter), I was accosted by a sauna wave. Just like that. Boom! It was mid-summer.

That’s why I say we might be living in a special place where the invisible fairy weather-makers create the weather for the rest of the island. And I don’t have a big ego either.

***

Two Sundays ago, I climbed the steep mountain not too far from our place. The higher I ascended, the more snow there was on the ground.

Here, I was surprised to find the heights swarming with tiny brownish coloured moths. Now, these moths can also be sighted around our place, but not in such numbers.

The next Sunday, I hiked back up the same mountain. There was more snow on the ground this time but there weren’t nearly as many of these wee moths. However, I did find many lying still on the snow. I figured that they were dead or waiting to be dead.

moth on snow

What affected my poetic sense was a little moth who speedily fluttered past me. I wondered, where was he going in such a rush?

To find out, I increased my hiking speed, so I could keep up with the little fella. Well, he flew a little way further, then swerved off the trail and landed on a patch of snow. There he remained still.

I couldn’t help but think that the moth was hurrying to his dying place. And it seemed so natural and so not a big deal. Probably lived well as a moth and now he was resting in his dying place. Doing what comes naturally.

Of course this is only a conjecture because for all I know he might have been preparing for hibernation. A place where he would get a minimum of a good eight hours sleep. Whereby, sometime in the spring, he would awaken hungry, jump out of bed and begin nibbling away our forest.

Maybe, he’d even shape shift and switch into a caterpillar costume. Miraculous, really. There are lots of metaphors for death, resurrection and such which may have been floating around in my subconscious thinking when I watched the little moth lay down his head.

If anybody knows what kind of moth he is, feel free to let me know.

                   “Come with me
                    amongst the shadows
                    where inner wounds
                    can quietly heal
                    where anger melts like snowflakes
                    and love blossoms
                    like a warm embrace.”
                                                 John George Williams, "Come With Me"

                “I love to pick
                    the flowers
                    that grow
                    in splendid fields
                    for those flowers
                    that I pick
                    shall never die.”
                                                  John George Williams, "Immortal Flowers"

John George Williams is a Cape Breton poet. You can find more of his poems at:   www.voicesnet.org/allpoemsoneauthor.aspx?memberid=99549

***

Last week another poor little chickadee banged his noggin against one of our windows. This time we immediately got out a plastic container and lined the sides and bottom with a little towel. Then I picked the poor little fella up off the deck floor.

This bird didn’t make a peep. I think he was super stunned. He couldn’t even sit up straight but kept wobbling back and forth like a roly poly.

However, when I placed the bird in the container, he immediately hopped up on the side and soon had his posture sorted out.

With him perched on the plastic private room, I put the container and the bird on the deck railing, so he could keep an eye on his buds. I then went inside. From the kitchen window we could see the poor bird teetering on the edge, but only for a minute or two. It wasn’t long before he squirted up off the plastic container and was soaring off into the pasty gray sky.

Now, that’s two birds in a week I’ve picked up and then watched fly away into the sky. So I suggested something. It was only a suggestion.

I just said, “Why don’t we go to a discount store, buy up a whole whack of cheap headache pills, bring them home and mix a bunch of them in with the birdseed?”

Was that such a crazy idea?

***

One of the thoughts I can’t seem to shake loose from my brain, concerns the definitions I learned in school related to the meaning of the words finite and infinite. Because, you see, these two words seem so philosophically solid in their essences.

To me, infinite means there is no end to something. For instance, if there were an infinite number of moose, then we would never have to worry about depleting the moose population. Of course there might be a moral aspect to the number of moose we could shoot or kill, but we would not have to worry about there not being any more moose.

Then there’s the word “finite”. Which may not apply to our universe, although Einstein might disagree, but it surely does apply to our earth. For me, the word means, there is only so much of something and then there is no more, if we use it all up.

So you see, I can’t get my noggin around the idea that we live in a finite world and yet the wizards out there spew out theories that treat finite as infinite. There is always getting more of this and that, or we always need more of this and that. Until the this and the that is depleted and then we won’t have any more of this or that. See what I mean? Oh where, oh where has the little boy gone who said, “But the emperor has no clothes.” Is he locked up somewhere?

Up here in Cape Breton we have much natural beauty. The tourists love it and come here to get away from the places they call home. Many of them live in communities where they can find all the conveniences they need close by. However, they love visiting places that are naturally beautiful and have been mainly untouched. Uninhabitable, some of the visitors say. But they love to visit.

Now, some of the more spectacular beauty around here can be found in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park. An area that is a preserve for our finite (oops, there’s that word again) number of wild places and creatures.

To my mind, we have this wonderful preserve as a result of damn good luck as well as hard work. I’m so thankful that the people who created it and continue to maintain it had firmly implanted in their minds the meanings of finite and infinite.

However, there are, up here, some folks who plan to build in the Park a ten-storey high war memorial. Which they want to call, “Mother Canada”. This Disney World intrusion into a spectacular, mostly untouched part of the Cape Breton National Park coastline will come with tons and tons and tons of concrete, gift shops, parking lots and I don’t know what else.

I understand the need to remember those who fought to protect our freedom. I also have an idea that some day we may have to build a gigantic memorial to remember the wild places that were lost through decisions that seemed more important at the time.

You can read a thoughtful and well written open letter by Susan Zettel, if you want to see a balanced approach to this project: http://susanzettell.blogspot.ca/2014/11/never-forgotten-national-memorial-open.html I, meanwhile, have nothing more to say about this project except to repeat my mantra. Finite, infinite. Finite, infinite.

***

“A light had gone out from his vanquished eyes;
His head was cupped within the hunch of his shoulders;
His feathers were dull and bedraggled; the tips
Of his wings sprawled down to the edge of his tail.
He was old, yet it was not his age
Which made him roost on the crags
Like a rain drenched raven
On the branch of an oak in November.
Nor was it the night, for there was an hour
To go before sunset. An iron had entered
His soul which bereft him of pride and of realm,
Had struck him today; for up to noon
The crag had been his throne.
Space was his empire, bounded only
By forest and sky and the flowing horizons.”
E. J. Pratt, The Dying Eagle

***

       “The last wolf hurried toward me
       through the ruined city
       and I heard his baying echoes———--

       I heard his voice ascending the hill
       and at last his low whine as he came
       floor by empty floor to the room
       where I sat in my narrow bed looking west, waiting
       I heard him snuffle at the door and
       I watched as he trotted across the floor

       he laid his long gray muzzle
       on the spare white spread
       and his eyes burned yellow
       his small dotted eyebrows quivered

        "Yes," I said
        "I know what they have done."
                 Mary TallMountain, "The Last Wolf"

***

Moss-covered Stump on Moth Mountain

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Fish Stories

13/11/2014

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No matter how hard we try to make our windows look like windows and not entrances to a more exciting and fantastic forest, we always have birds crashing into them. Most of the birds survive but unfortunately a few don’t.

Like last summer. We found a Northern Parula Warbler lying on our little side porch. She was a beautiful little bluish coloured bird with a yellow throat and breast and two white bars on her wings. We looked her up and discovered that our area is definitely part of her breeding range. I also read that they like to nest in moist woodsy areas. BINGO. That’s our woods to a tree. Moist and mossy.

Last weekend we opened the door and found a stunned chickadee lying on our deck floor. He was alive, but looked like he was down for the count. I picked him up and let him sit in my warm cupped hand. The little rascal chirped at me when I picked him up but then settled down and just sat there.

Sue brought out a box with a cloth inside. She thought it might be like a nest to the little feller. It wasn’t. To the bird it was a jail or a superbug-infested hospital room and when I tried to gently place her into the box, she fluttered away and landed on the edge of our porch railing. Then she just sat there and sat there and sat there. Perched precariously on the edge, looking around and, as I said, sitting there.

That got us into a caucus meeting. Should we go and try the box out again? We deliberated and discussed and watched the little fella through our window, just sitting there and not doing much of anything. A motion was passed, which we put into a birdie omnibus bill, which said that we should, once again, retrieve the box and put clean water in the nest along with a bowl of black oil sunflower seeds.

It was also passed that we place the hospital room/King Cole Tea box into the woodshed where we figured the poor little bird would be comforted by Skippy the squirrel. Who we’re sure has now finished building her condo in the back of our firewood pile.

We also passed 100 other motions that had no relation to birds, so if anyone votes against our omnibus bill, we can accuse them of voting against the welfare of our birds. Democracy is alive and well in Cape Breton.

But guess what? All the plans of men and mice were for naught. The tiny chickadee looked through our window at us, with what looked like a thank you in his eyes, and then he looked up into the sky and whoosh! He was soaring off towards the trees.

Thinking it over, I would have to say that the chickadee had been down for the ten count. We should have put the little bird in the corner, given her a shot of water from a water bottle, dried her off with a towel and given her a pep talk. “You go out there, keep your left up and punch with your right.”

***

There’s a wonderfully informative column in The Victoria Standard, our local weekly paper. It’s called ‘Strictly For the Birds’ and it’s written by a knowledgeable birder by the name of Bethsheila Kent.

I phoned Ms. Kent one afternoon and told her about some of the birds we’d seen at our feeders. Two exciting sightings were a brightly coloured Baltimore Oriole and a Red Bellied Woodpecker.

The Red Bellied Woodpecker and the Baltimore Oriole are outside their ranges. The Oriole not so far outside but I believe the Red Bellied Woodpeckers are supposed to be found south of the Great Lakes, a long way from Cape Breton. But with the climate warming thing going on, these sightings are probably just going to become more common, as long as these critters can survive our rush for lower taxes, greater wealth and higher productivity. For some fascinating information about red-bellied woodpeckers, look here: http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/red-bellied_woodpecker/lifehistory

Red Bellied Woodpecker at our suet feeder

We’re happy that we have these birds to entertain us. I’m also grateful for being able to help so many birds make it through our rough winters when the snow and ice lie thick on the ground.

                        “How do you know but every Bird that cuts the airy way,
                          Is an immense world of delight, clos’d by your senses five?”
                                                                              William Blake, A Memorable Fancy

***

I read somewhere, in some book, at some time in the last six years, that the universe has a strange and unique way of looking after those of us who, how do I put it, have our heads in highly charged fog and aren’t quite so logical and good at rational planning as others. It compensates. Puts events and opportunities and solutions in front of us, so we can at least give them a good eyeball.

And if we’re perceptive, we’ll take a good look at these universal gems and see them as important messengers for our pilgrimage through this earthly gift of life. Maybe clearing out some of the stifling socialization defaults we’ve been hobbled with.

               “The world has room to make a bear feel free;
                        The universe seems cramped to you and me.
                        Man acts more like the poor bear in a cage
                        That all day fights a nervous inward rage,
                        His mood rejecting all his mind suggests.”
                                                           Robert Frost, The Bear

And is it possible that more of us would be aware of these connections and, dare I call them, messages from the other side, if we were more connected to nature and less influenced by the hypnotic attractions of culture, education, conventionality and unnaturalness, by which our citified population is so controlled?

As a writer, I deal in connections, happenstance, and surprise. And much like love, these things are not easy to codify. Thank God for that.

Because, if you too closely observe them through your logical microscope, there’s a good chance your desperate need to rationalize them into a neat bundle will get your brain all fired up and sweaty. Your brain warmth might then heat up and melt away these communications until they become only troublesome storm clouds lurking in the back of your subconscious.

That’s why I call my efforts at marketing, “soft marketing”. It’s loosely based on this happenstance theory. Because I know if I start too intensely pushing and jawing away about my writing, and if I start putting its source under rational scrutiny, then it’s bye-bye gut thoughts.

So, as with my marketing approach, it’s my responsibility to look at these surprises and connections and try to understand them, but it behooves me to approach them with child-like wonder and humility.

My Grandsons Tackling their Pumpkins

***

So let’s talk about our river, happenstance and surprise. As you know, it is prone to boiling over its banks and taking short cuts across our property. She even takes some of our property with her and carries it out to the ocean. Five acres and counting down. Four point nine, four point eight…

We haven’t really tried too hard to get something done about the flooding. We have even been told that we aren’t doing enough about the flooding. I call this soft flood marketing.
However, one day, the universe threw out a line of opportunity. Nudge, nudge, Larry, pay attention kind of thing.

This particular day I was hiking towards the trail that leads up the mountain. A man in a red pick-up passed me by. He parked in a field. Jumped out of the truck with a fishing rod.
We got talking. During the conversation I offered him the opportunity to salmon fish in our salmon pool, which the river had so kindly created, without a yes or a no from us.

At one point, the man pulled a cigar out of his pocket and reached for his lighter. “Damn it,” he said. “I forgot my lighter.”

I took off my knapsack, opened it up, pulled out a lighter and gave him the cigar starter.

Anyway, that’s when the fella told me he was a fishery enforcement officer. Then he told me that he would drop around sometime and look at our river and see how the river was treating our property. He said that after he made his visit, he would send out an official who would make suggestions as to what we could do about the flooding.

Of course, I now need to follow up. Phone him and remind him of the conversation. I mean I don’t just let the ocean roll over me without my helping it along.

Now, here comes the coincidence and surprise and being synched-in stuff I was talking about. Although this encounter was already a happenstance kind of thing.

At one point, the fisher person, (did I say that correctly?), told me that every year he wraps a salmon tag around a birch tree, at a certain place along the Middle River. It sounded like a ceremony of sorts. Maybe keeping a connection to a place he loved.

Have you followed the connections so far? How connections and happenstance and circumstance can create a story? A real story which can’t be imagined?

A few days later, we looked out of our living room window and saw two aliens walking around in the river. They looked like two salmon, who had undergone a pop-in-the-microwave-evolutionary burst and grown two feet and two arms and a head like ours. However, after careful observation, we realized they were two skin divers. Probably looking for relics and interesting things tossed into the river.

See what’s happening? Are you watching the connections here?

Skin Divers in our River

Later on that day, while I was hiking towards the Wilderness Area, I saw a Fishery and Oceans truck parked at the end of our road. I thought it was the fella I’d been talking to earlier, who was doing some fishing in the wilderness area.

Anyway, I hiked to my meditation place along the Middle River. There I sat on my tiny hiking chair and listened, smelled, observed and thought about unbelievably deep things. Ha.

Suddenly, I heard voices. I turned around and there were the two evolutionary-salmon guys walking towards me. Wearing the full skin diver outfit. It was un-nerving seeing these fellas pop out of the bush.

Do you know what they were planning on doing after they plunged into the water and let the river float them away? Their heads underwater and their feet thrashing from time to time? They were counting salmon.

Do you know who they worked for? The Fisheries and Oceans.

You see what I mean? It’s like the universe throws these themes out and you don’t have to be too far above dense, or below it for that matter, to know that there are these connections going on.

Guess what else I saw?

Wrapped around a thin birch tree, in the Middle River Wilderness Area, was a blue salmon fishing tag. Are you counting the odds here?

                         “The current of life runs ever away
                          To the bosom of God’s great ocean.
                          Don’t set your force ‘gainst the river’s course
                          And think to alter its motion.
                          Don’t waste a curse on the universe--
                          Remember it lived before you.
                          Don’t butt at the storm with your puny form,
                          But bend and let it go o’er you.”
                 Ella Wheeler Wilcox, As You Go Through Life

                                       “Your fish stories hang together
                                         when they’re just a pack of lies:
                                         you ought to have a leather medal:
                                        you ought to have a statue
                                        carved of butter: you deserve
                                        a large bouquet of turnips.”

                                       “There were no Christians among the early Gauls;
                             they were mostly lawyers.”

                                                          From ‘The People, Yes’, Carl Sandburg

***

Here's a challenge for you. Can you find the moose in this picture?

Find the moose!

Brave Tree on Aspy Trail

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Worth Fighting For

29/10/2014

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I began this blog in Kingston. My spanking new computer set up on the hotel room’s wee round table. A large steamy window to my right. An air conditioner clinging to the glass. Its rusty, damp air invading our room and lungs.

Today, we’re back in Cape Breton. The wind is shaking the trees loose from their leaves, and Grinder, our snow blower, has already had me down on bended knees with grass, wood chips and mud dampening my clean blue jeans, as I performed some emergency surgery. This involved the loosening up of his little paws to make it possible to get him started. Which would give us a fighting chance of holding off the relentless attacks of snow which use our yard as a shortcut.

These days, I find myself standing on the porch, gazing out over the huddling mountains, looking at the sky and wondering if the snow forces are already formed up and ready to rush over the mountain and plunge us into another winter battle.

And Skippy, the squirrel, is terribly quiet. He wasn’t when the wood was first delivered, but now, since we’ve returned from Kingston, we haven’t heard a swear word from him. I think he used his time wisely while we were away. I wish him a cozy winter in behind the many stacks of firewood.

Finally, because this is my twenty-ninth blog, yeah, I decided to take a little time to rant. Use a few words to spout off. Get some irritations off my chest because there are times in my life when a rant is about all I can do.

Little Salmon Lake north of Kingston, ON

TIRADE NUMBER ONE

First, I would like to say that this is not directed against all marketers, nor all those who try to help writers and me in particular, including all my friends and colleagues who give me their kind support.

However, I have had some irritating personal experiences lately. Also, I have read and listened to authors and other artists discussing this topic, so I think that my spouting off isn’t uselessly spinning towards a distant galaxy. May the force be with you, Hal.

One night, at a bar, I was talking to a fella. We got to talking about art and writing and that sort of thing. He’s a playwright and has a movie floating around called, ‘21 Brothers’. I haven’t watched it but it can be found at these establishments: Amazon, Hunes, Shaw and Cogeco and DVDs are available at HMV and Amazon. I’m planning on watching this movie and I believe it has been positively critiqued.

Anyway, he was talking about sending the movie off and the marketers getting hold of it and, well ———, I don’t want to say too much but there are a lot of sharks out there in the Marketers’ Ocean of Despair.

I’ve been exposed to the forces that be and if I’m going to protect anything, beyond my family and friends, it’s my art.

You see, my writing isn’t based upon how much I sell, although I’m definitely not against selling.

It’s not based on becoming a famous writer. Do I have to worry?

I write because I love to write. I’ll admit that I enjoy hearing that my writing is being read but that’s secondary to the actual writing.

However, like my friend who made a movie, artists are under constant pressure. Pressure from their own creativity and emotional foibles. Pressure from the marketing world where there is always a better way presented to get the readers’ attention or a more profitable place suggested where they can feed out their work. Many of these folks are willing and eager to take your dollars to help you become known and re-known.

Then there’s the occasional acquaintance who thinks he knows the best way for you to get your work known is to get it on the big screen.

For some, it’s just because they want to see you become successful, but for others it’s an attempt to own your work or at least ride on your coat-tails to some pre-conceived marketing success. I’m not sure how fast the ride would be if you hopped onto my coat-tails.

I once asked a fella, ‘What is the difference between a writer and most of the marketers and critics?’ I was actually surprised when he didn’t have the answer.

The answer to this quiz question is, ‘Writers write’.

That’s the thing about writers. They write and they’re not always so proficient with the selling part.

Now don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with searching for help. And many of us have the creativity to think outside the box and sell our work, but that takes energy. Also, there’s a certain amount of anxiety about single-mindedly spouting off about our work. Which, I think, might be wed to the sense of nurturing and mindfulness we have for our inspirations?

One piece of advice I have heard about writing is, ‘Don’t talk your story out.’ Why not? Because it can sap your need to write. The little or big story you’re going to tell gets out too early and like wine bottled too soon, it’s watery and tasteless.

The emotions and ideas must soak in time and thought and when they’re ready, and only then, can they be fruitfully and organically lifted out of our minds and placed full-bodied unto the paper or screen.

Maybe one could also say, “Don’t market your vision away.” Too much emphasis on marketing can flatten the writing energy. Some selling needs to be done, but I’m not willing to use up too much energy doing it. I’m not willing to twist and turn the mystery that drives me to write in the first place, so I can grab a chunk of readership. I like to call my marketing efforts ‘soft marketing’.

You see, I want my little bubble of magic to be sitting comfy and cozy, on a soft patch of grass, her privacy protected by a mountain of wild forest and wind. Covered by a thin veil of gentle mist, faintly perfumed with fir and spruce scent, camouflaged and chameleon-like. Suckling on the universe’s unfathomable ocean.

I want it to be only as clear as will allow it to remain a heartfelt enigma. A contrast to the eager grasping of our society as it attempts to get hold of everything that is worth anything.
Throwing out a little bafflement never hurts. So, as with a good poem you have read, you have a sense that the poem has no solid mental perimeters. An awareness, faint but present, that there’s an idea or emotion that hasn’t yet been fully plumbed.

TIRADE NUMBER TWO

Something else I’ve noticed. This may be because I was born into a rather black and white religion. It was my difficult and harsh departure from this form of thinking which instilled in me a terribly strong, tenacious need to defend my little creative piece of turf. Besides, trying to separate any artist from control over his or her art is like trying to take a bone from a hungry wolf.

And it’s because of my black and white background that I have become an expert at recognizing when my creative vision is under threat. I might even have to consider myself hyper-sensitive.

And guess what? When I hear somebody tell me that they know what’s best, that they are certain they are correct when it comes to how I should write, what I should write, how I should market, the existence of a pink elephant hiding in the back of my truck, or anything else for that matter, I realize there are a hell of a lot of black and white thinkers out there besides those who are labelled fundamentalists.

***

“Besides, what you love, you will protect.
That thou lovest well remains,
                     the rest is dross
What thou lov’st well shall not be reft from thee
What thou lov’st well is thy true heritage
Whose world, or mine or theirs
                       or is it of none?
First came the seen, then thus the palpable
Elysium, though it were in the halls of hell,
What thou lovest well is thy true heritage
What thou lov’st well shall not be reft from thee"
                    Ezra Pound, Canto LXXXI- libretto

***

I believe that many artists see their art as some form of commission. Maybe even as prophetic.

William Noble, in his book ‘Conflict, Action and Suspense’ wrote, “It’s pretty well acknowledged that readers “hear” as well as see words on the page. That is, word sounds and word images play in the readers’ minds even as their eyes scan the words. Some have referred to this as “the music of words.”

So, using this quote as an introduction, I’d like to quote another section of an Ezra Pound poem.

“Go, my songs, to the lonely and the unsatisfied,
Go also to the nerve-wracked, go to the enslaved-by-convention,
Bear to them my contempt for their oppressors.
Go as a great wave of cool water,
Bear my contempt of oppressors.
Speak against unconscious oppression,
Speak against the tyranny of the unimaginative,
Speak against bonds.
Go to the bourgeoise who is dying of ennuis,
Go to the women in suburbs.
Go to the hideously wedded,
Go to them whose failure is concealed,
Go to the unluckily mated,
Go to the bought wife,
Go to the woman entailed."
Ezra Pound, “Commission”

Hike to North River Falls, Cape Breton

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Missing Out

19/9/2014

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I’ve spent years hiking, mostly by myself. Because I love being alone in the forest. Sitting on a rock, a log, or any piece of natural furniture is more comfortable for me than reclining on expensive furniture in places where I have to be careful about what I say, how I say it, or what I might knock over or spill. However, some couches are more pleasant than others as butt resters.

And lately, the folks up here have decided, and have spread the word around, that I’m a trail guide. Even though I’m not as familiar with this area as I could be. And I’ve met some interesting people on the rugged Cape Breton trails.

Also, I’ve never stopped being amazed at how helpful and friendly the folks up here are. They accept us for who we are and last Sunday we even received an email from a fella who said that Cape Breton was a better place because Sue and I had made it our home. Well, that nearly knocked my socks off. Both of them.

As many of you know, Sue struggles with some chronic diseases, one of which can impede her ability to walk far. But, she gave it the old college try and actually joined our group on a hike to the Uisgeban Falls. It’s a magical place and she didn’t think she would be able to make it all the way. But she did and that’s a feather in her emotional cap. The big surprise was that her post-hike pain was no different than it was before she hiked the trail. I’m sure many of you are happy to hear that.

Sue's Favourite Tree on Uisgeban Falls Trail

Which brings me to the mentioning of a new book that was recently published: the second edition of “Guide to Cape Breton Highlands National Park”. The author is Clarence Barrett, a retired Highland Park warden. His first edition was very popular. To write this updated edition, he once again hiked all 26 official park trails and then rewrote his descriptions.

If you’re travelling to Cape Breton this is certainly a book to add to your library. Here’s a link to Parks Canada’s information about the book: http://www.capebretonpost.com/News/Local/2014-08-24/article-3845394/New-park-guide-edition-being-launched-this-week/1

My old Mac

I got a new computer for my birthday. Happy birthday to me… and that’s one of the reasons that this blog is late. Excuses, excuses, excuses. But, I have been tearing my ^*%&^%$ hair out trying to get up to speed so I can just plain sit down on my asteroid and write this blog and other things that I tap out on a computer keyboard.

However, I do try to get a blog out every two weeks or so. I know folks who have a blog out almost every day. Which I’ve heard is an excellent way to keep your readership up. It might also be an excellent way to empty your idea coffers, or at least mine.

One thing I try to do is respond to comments made on my blog. If you don’t get one from me then it’s because my comments didn’t get through or my website machine wouldn’t let me. You see, I’m relatively new to the blog world and sometimes I try to respond but I can’t get it to work. I think it’s because I don’t have all the blog ins and outs down pat. So, I apologize now for any comments I haven’t been able to respond to. I tried. Really.

Oh, and if you write a response please make sure you add your email address if you think I don’t have it. It’s supposed to come to me through the website, but doesn’t always seem to make it.

Anyway, back to the new computer. Cripes, I got so used to my old Mac. It’s twenty years plus old. It’s been everywhere, man. Had lots of sticky fingers tapping and thunking on its keyboard. Had plenty of little kids playing computer games on it and it has been dropped once or twice.

My New Mac

Oh woe is me, though. It’s not easy trying to master this new computer and I will give you an example.

I am, if you haven’t already suspected, a person who uses more of the creative side of my brain than my not creative side. Surprise, surprise.

Now as you might have read in an earlier blog, I bought myself a new camera. Only a little over a month ago, I think. It’s digital with all the funny-pictures-on the-screen stuff and with knobs, buttons or cranks spotted all over its smooth, black body.

And I have, as mentioned earlier, become known as a trail guide. So this means that I get to guide hikers into the forest. And, during the hike, I take pictures so that the fella who runs the recreational activities in Victoria County, (that’s the county I live in), gets to see pictures of the hikers and the beautiful places we walk in. He often posts them or pins them to his ‘wall of shame’.

So, I go home after a hike and hook my camera up to my new computer. Sue used to do this but now this technologic fledgling, who is me, has jumped off the tree and has ever since been wildly flapping his wings, bouncing off pixels and leafy start buttons and repeatedly crash-landing into digital bushes. Over and over again.

(*&^@%#$%&!!!! I mean, Sue used to be able to take my articles from my twenty-something-year-old computer and put them into her computer and her computer would translate the ones and zeros into an understandable language and then send it out over the internet or print it out for me. Now her computer looks at my new computer’s efforts, shrugs its shoulders and spits out these nasty, impossible to understand, bits and pieces of bits.

Yesterday Sue, whose computer acumen and expertise I trust, looked at one of my attempts and its pathetic appearance on her computer screen and said, “This is scary.”

Does one have to be a mind reader to understand some of the computer jargon?

I’ll give you a specific example.

To get the pics to my computer I have to hook my new K50 camera up to Mac. I use a thin black cord called a USB cable. The next thing I do is turn on my camera. Why do I turn on my camera now instead of before? I don’t know. Because it’s says in the Bible somewhere?

Then there’s a little box that pops up on my computer which I have to click on to IMPORT my photos. I was told this was the button I had to click on using my mouse. And that’s another story. The mouse, that is.

The pix are then supposed to slide along the inside of the cord and pour into some empty picture station where a tiny zit gets them to line up and stand at attention in order of entry .

This IMPORT box did not make sense to me. So I asked Sue where the EXPORT box was.

You must use your imagination to see a vision of the expression on Sue’s face when I asked this question. But come on. I took economics in high school. I was taught that if you live in Canada and you ship products to other countries you are exporting them. If you are receiving products from other countries then you are importing them. Do you understand?

You see, my photographs are coming from my camera. My camera was here first. I figured that I was therefore from the Camera Country. Oh Camerada, we stand on guard for thee, and I was sending out pictures to the strange place called MacBook Pro. So therefore, am I not exporting pictures?

So, how the hell am I supposed to know which place is my country and which place is not my country? How can I sort out import and export if I don’t know this? For poop sake, I’m dyslexic and this doesn’t even begin to make sense to me.

Oh god, I have so much to learn about the camera, let alone the computer. Have you noticed a change in mood in this blog? A little more hesitation in the sentence structure? Words that don’t sound so appropriate?

Where the hell is the thesaurus in this new computer? Maybe it dropped out when I took Mac out of the box. I mean when I buy a hammer, I don’t want to have to spend a long time learning how to use it before I can bang nails into wood. I just want to bang nails into wood.

Then there is my stacked-to-the-throat-with-new-gizmos camera. I’ll tell you how much I have to learn about this wonderful toy.

A friend from Australia was visiting. She has a good quality tiny camera. A quick shot thing which you can carry in your pocket like a pet Chihuahua. Anyway, we were talking about our individual cameras. I think we got to talking about the flash. This is where I pulled out the manual for my camera. It’s thick.

She asked me, “How many different languages is your manual written in?”

I said, “One *&^% LANGUAGE. English.”

It’s a friggen Stephen King novel full of Cujo mumbo jumbo. Like import, export, four way controller, JPEG, RAW, Button Customization.

I have been told that I should take up writing manuals for people like me. Ha.

***

         Let’s stop and think; Let’s know and feel

         That things like these are truly real,

         Yes, think how very rich are we

          When all the best of things are free.

                                            John Martin, “These Things Are Free”

***

Texting

I do think the virtual world is amazing, but sometimes I think it’s too enchanting and addictive. For example, there have been many times when I’ve been sitting outside on the patio of a local coffee shop. I’ve sat and watched the tourists and the locals bustling about or sitting at the little metal tables, drinking their drinks and eating their treats. Many of them, and I mean many of them, (sometimes even including me), are staring at their little prissy machines. Using their fingers to punch or rub commands into the magical virtual world that is hypnotizing so many of us.

Sometimes I’ve seen young couples at tables under romantic lighting, texting. And I’m sure they’re sometimes texting to each other. Whatever happened to the touching of hands? Leaning over for a little kiss? Rubbing your footsie up your lover’s leg? Now it’s being done with pixels.

“Oh honey, ooxx.”

“Yes, baby, XXXXXOO.”

“More, more.”

“XOXOXOXOXOXOIIIIIooooxx”

And while this human interaction in all its forms are going on, I’ve watched the crows, sitting on the power lines above the street, or on the post office roof or the steeple on the church, cawing their asses off. I can tell there’s some form of drama going on up nearer the sky.

They’re making different sounds or are buzzing each other and generally making a racket. I then take a look around at the flocks of pristine viewers and non-pristine viewers and nary a one is paying any attention. Not one. All caught up in their people or virtual world. Maybe some are even looking at the crows through their virtuals or are gazing at pixel crows on Google.

Which makes me think. Gets me wondering what would happen if this natural world, to which we don’t pay much attention, just vanished? How lonely this world would be if everyone was totally focused on the virtual world and on the human world and paid no mind to the real time world of wild others.

And what would happen if it got to the point where everybody was almost exclusively hooked up? Got to the point where we would all, for example, be checking the weather on our machines or on something imbedded inside our eye balls. Swirling our fingers down the little doo-dad screens, or poking ourselves in the eyeballs to find out whether we are going to get snow today, while outside our window there is a hell of a snow storm dumping all over our yards.

Just wondering.

“What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, men would die from great loneliness of spirit, for whatever happens to the beasts also happens to man. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the children of the earth.”

Chief Seattle

Sunset on the Skyway Trail

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Cape Breton-Wow!

26/5/2014

6 Comments

Congratulations to the following outstanding Cape Bretoners:

Author Bill Conall, whose latest book, "The Promised Land" won the 2014 Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour. His novel follows two generations of outsiders trying to fit into their new Cape Breton surroundings. See more at: http://www.zoomerradio.ca/news/latest-news/bill-conall-takes-leacock-medal-humour/#sthash.i36alvOw.dpuf

Author and publisher Sherry D. Ramsey, whose speculative fiction book, “One’s Aspect to the Sun”, published by Tyche Press, made the eligibility list for nomination to this year’s Prix Aurora Awards. See more at: http://www.sherrydramsey.com/?page_id=2094 and check out her current projects in process. Sherry is also well known as one of the three publishers of Third Person Press.

Multi-talented Leah Noble, whose blog was featured recently on the front page of The Chronicle Herald in recognition of her creativity in drawing the world’s attention to Cape Breton : http://thechronicleherald.ca/novascotia/1205722-dream-big-cape-breton . Leah is also quick to acknowledge other local bloggers.

My old buddy George from Ontario has been crashing at our place. It’s his first visit to Cape Breton and we’ve made sure that he’s seen and experienced as much as possible. I’ve taken him on a few hikes in Middle River, including one on the mountain. Sure looked a lot different from the cityscapes he’s used to! And he really enjoyed our trip around the Cabot Trail. It was wow this and wow that. An explosion of oohs and aahs. We made many stops along the way so he could record some of the incredible views, but I don’t think he’s likely to forget any of it. We finished the day with a campfire in our back yard.

We also took him to the Doryman Pub and Grill in Chéticamp last Saturday afternoon to celebrate his birthday. We were all impressed by the outstanding fiddling offered by Colin Grant and Jason Roach. It was a toe-tapping, glass-tipping time and there was a cozy feeling about the place. A nice mix of Celtic and Acadian music. If you haven’t been there, take a look at what they offer: http://doryman.ca/index.php/events . Try to get there early enough to get a window seat overlooking the water or you might be sitting at a boarded over pool table, which isn’t so bad if you are bothered by wobbly tables.

Here are some of the sights along the Cabot Trail that got George wishing he could move down here. He had a good time exploring the Cape Breton Highlands National Park, but he also enjoyed shopping in Sydney and North Sydney, eating pizza at Tom’s in Baddeck and getting a haircut at ‘Design Hair’ on Big Baddeck Road.

Cabot Trail Winding

Chéticamp Harbour

Snow along Cabot Trail in Mid-May

Clouds settling on mountains

Neil's Harbour

Grande Falaise

Such a Vista!

No matter how many times we drive around the Cabot Trail, we still find the scenery breath-taking.

View from Tom's Pizza in Baddeck

Relaxing around the campfire

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Weird or not Weird?

17/5/2014

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Cabot Trail in May 2014

I’d like to apologize for being so late with blog number nineteen. “I’m very sorry.”

And I’m aware that blogs are supposed to pop into the invisible yappy world at least every two or three weeks. Because if they aren’t out there, the magical graph which indicates how many people have read my blog, flattens out and then I get feeling like a nobody.

My excuse for being late, by the way, is that I was in Ontario visiting my family and friends.

Peach Tree Inn in Kingston, Ontario

First thing I had to do when I began to write this blog was remember how this blog-writing thing works. Because the city makes me crazy.

But not at first. I love driving into my old city haunts, rolling down the 401 and seeing the swamp on the east side of Kingston. Love seeing my family and friends.

Love the Peach Tree Inn with the big room. Two honking big beds, a large bathroom with a gigantic mirror. Now that’s some thrill, and the room has a window which nearly fills in one wall. It overlooks a gorgeous river of cars, trucks and motorcycles. With weird and not so weird people sauntering, power walking or running along its shore.

Who is weird and who is not weird? That’s a philosophical question that often tickles my thinking organ. And when I got thinking about this while I was in Kingston, I’d take a walk into the washroom and stare into the big mirror. Weird or not weird? Weird or not weird?

Then I’d be off to the little refrigerator for a cold beer. And the room had a microwave, a desk for the laptop, a table to sit around, two big drawers, a couch; the luxury was almost too much.

While in the city we visited this store and that store. This pub and that pub. This mall and that mall. Always with the gorgeous river flowing by. Rushing onward towards who knows where. And that’s another one of those weird brain-tickling questions that is hard to answer.

Then back to the hotel and to the big bathroom mirror. Weird or not weird? Weird or not weird?

Anyway, it took a few days of hurrying here and there before my brain began to curl into itself like a tired, nearly popped out baby in the womb. And my healthy Cape Breton routine of not drinking many glasses of beer a day ceased. My regular Cape Breton exercise program flabbed up. I began to do circles every few steps. Like a rat in a concrete shoe box with mechanically placed holes punched through the top.

Signs and rules. Rules and signs. Don’t park here. Don’t stop here. Don’t do this and don’t do that. Do this and do that. Scents galore. Good and bad. Tiny areas of grassy retreats next to tall buildings sprinkled with discarded dreams.

Well, you get the picture and when I finally saw the ‘Welcome to Cape Breton’ sign on the Canso Causeway, my mind and body stretched and yawned like a cat released from a cage.

Can you imagine me living in Toronto? I did actually live in Hog Town once. For eight months. Eight long, stuffy, depressing months.

***

I was reading a piece in a book edited by David R. Boyd. The book was called ‘Northern Wild’. The essay was called “The Subtlety of Land”, written by Sharon Butala.

She wrote: “Some years later, when I was an established author, I said to a Toronto reporter who had asked me a question about him, “My husband is a true rural man.”

“What does that mean?” the reporter asked, his voice full of skepticism.

“It means,” I said, “that he understands the world in terms of wild things.” I was a little surprised myself at my answer, having been called upon to explain something that until that moment had seemed self-evident, and realizing that, caught off guard, I had hit on the heart of the matter.

The reporter’s pencil stopped moving, his eyes shifted away from me, he reflected, his eyes shifted back to me, and without writing anything down he changed the subject. When I told this story to a writer-naturalist friend, he said, laughing, that for the reporter my answer ‘does not compute.’”

For me the city does not compute.

***

Flying Squirrel

I did manage to get two hikes into the Frontenac Provincial Park, a beautiful park north of Kingston. Twenty-two lakes dot this park. One of the places I love dearly. One of the few locales that kept me sane while I lived in Ontario.

My first hike was made with a long-time friend. At one point he stopped to knock down an old branch. While he was giving it a good shaking, a small animal scurried out of a hole. Scampered up the branch and sort of glued itself to a higher place. It looked like a red squirrel and it kind of didn’t look like a red squirrel. Upon further observation we decided it was a flying squirrel. I haven’t seen too many of them.

My friend took this picture of the flying squirrel and very kindly emailed it to me.

***

Orange Tape on Moose Skull

Oh yes, I think I have to make a correction. It’s about blog number eighteen. My blogs are nothing but pure accuracy and when I make a mistake I feel obligated to correct them.

In blog eighteen I wrote that I used bright green trail tape to mark my paths. That was wrong. I used bright orange tape. At least the "bright" was correct.

***

One day, a sunny day it was, with the snow slowly melting and the wind not so frigid on my face, I sat in my woodshed and gazed out at the world. At our little mobile home. Smoke curling out of the chimney. I was content in the knowledge that Sue was inside, most likely performing some computer miracle. I sat and watched and listened to the river and the host of birds who were chowing down at our feeders.

I tossed out some pieces of biscuits. Bird edible. I waited for a creature to swoop down and beak up a quick snack. The food was close to where I was sitting. This, I knew, would make the creatures nervous.

Hungry Crow

However, we have a crow who hangs around. Last night I even dreamed that he was outside our bedroom window waiting for us to feed him. He’s getting to be a semi pet. I think I gave him a name but I can’t remember what it is. I can thank the city for that. Would you know if I gave the crow a name?

This crow flew towards the woodshed. Did a fly pass or two and then landed about six feet from me. He grabbed a piece of food. But surprised me by not immediately flying away. Instead he grabbed another piece and another piece. About four or five, altogether. Looking like a hungry guest at one of those places where starvation sized sandwiches are laid out on plates for the guests to daintily pick up and swallow with a glass of fluid.

He took off, carrying his booty. He flew it to his gang, the five or six crows who hang out here.

These crows seem to get along. They seldom fight or rush at each other. Hold few food fights. Instead they all eat their own food. Like a good Christian family at Sunday dinner.

***

I’ll close this blog with a picture of one of our neighbours. He is a collector, a long-time resident and like many of us up here, a person who has managed to stave off elimination.

May the force be with him and with you.

Our neighbour

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Don't Blink-Here Comes a Short Story!

26/10/2013

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I’ve finished reading Bill Conall’s book, “The Promised Land, a Novel of Cape Breton”. It sure was a ‘novel’ look at Cape Breton, and I enjoyed it. To me, it was a gentle story, chock full of interesting Cape Breton characters, with lots of adventures woven together to make a great read. A wonderful book for tourists and others to enjoy learning about Cape Breton. To read an excerpt, go to his website: http://billconall.com/my-books/the-promised-land-a-novel-of-cape-breton/

We will be heading to Halifax on Tuesday. On Halloween Night, I will be trick-or-treating down the dark streets of the city with little Hannah, Sue’s granddaughter, scaring the willies out of the residents. I’ve sent a note to my dentist.

A few days later, we’ll be off to Kingston, Ontario. So it’s possible I might be off the grid for a few weeks. But don’t worry. I have my dentist’s prescription safely tucked inside my wallet, in case my front tooth gets too sore. And don’t worry, if it does get too achy, I will fill the prescription and swallow the pills. So there, there, it will be all right.

My dentist has promised me that I can have a root canal when I get back. If I so desire. So, don’t worry, and anyway, the many excellent pubs in Kingston may also help with my tooth therapy.

My Meditation Spot on Middle River

The last month I have been struggling with two short stories for a contest. I told Sue that writing a story is like giving birth. I’m sure she finds this hard to believe as she has given birth. Twice.

Of course, I’m talking metaphorically. Because I’m a writer, damn it. I’m talking metaphorical birth. Push, push. Breathe out.

“Okay,” I said to Sue. “Does giving birth last for weeks and weeks? Does giving birth turn you into a neurotic when you’re finished”?

Maybe it does, I don’t know. Does giving birth make your eyes blink rapidly for weeks? Make a teeny-weeny ache feel like the most acute, scary disease that humankind has ever been smitten by? Oh, I could go on and on.

Katherine Anne Porter said, after finishing her novel, ‘Ship of Fools’, “I finished the thing; but I think I sprained my soul.”

Making the Gold Brook Mine trail safe for a group hike

I’ve been doing some research on what judges are looking for in a short story. I’m talking about stories under 4,000 words in length. What I’m finding is that many of them want a long version of a short twitter. So I’ve been cutting, pruning, gouging, snipping, crushing, erasing, splattering and stomping on large sections of the first versions of my stories. As a result, what may have begun as a one-hundred-word paragraph, might, by the time I’m finished, be down to fifty words, or twenty words or maybe the paragraph gets the big SNUFF.

I think learning about and trying to write short stories for contests is similar to athletes training for and running the hundred yard dash.

I know people who go walking. I mean WALKING. They read books on how to maximize their stride. They walk a certain distance each day, walk as fast as they can to get the maximum aerobic effect. You see them dropping their heads periodically to check on what their computerized watches are telling them. And those watches can tell you a heck of a lot. Your blood pressure, your heart rate, how many calories you’re using, how many footsteps you’ve taken, how far down your stomach pipe your last granola bar has slid - oh, just lots and lots of data.

I think writers writing for judges can be like those intense walkers or cyclists. They’re trying to reach a goal. To win, and in writing short stories that means making the story super tight and super taut. Big muscles with little fat.

What about the hiker who hikes to see things? To smell, listen, taste, touch and think? That’s how I like to hike or to cycle. To be aware. Not to do a twitter hike.

However, I’ve read that the average reader nowadays has the concentration level of a goldfish.

“Oh look, Bob, there’s a man in a funny looking helmet blowing air bubbles.

“Oh look, Bob, there’s a man in a helmet blowing bubbles.”

“Look, Bob. A man blowing bubbles.” That’s my goldfish twitter feed short story.

Anyway, here are two, oh what the heck, I’ll give you three short story pointers. Start with a big bang and finish with a big summing up bang. And of course, as in all good writing, show, don’t tell.

Have a good week.

Buddy Lee enjoying fall colours at Lake 0' Law

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Don't Blink-Here Comes a Short Story!

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