Larry Gibbons
  • About
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Reviews

Bite Me!

13/8/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
A few weeks ago, on a hazy Sunday afternoon, I was at a friend’s house getting pricked and poked by a mob of downed crab apple branches. Have you ever seen the size of those thorns? Two inches at least. I’m glad I’m not scared of needles.

Anyway, while I was doing this, Sue was at home, sitting on the deck, swatting at black flies and feeling Buster’s love, as he was sharing some quality time with Sue.
Suddenly, a moose appeared out of somewhere and Buster was off like a shot and then, so was the moose.

We’ve been told that our acreage—who really owns acreage?—-is a moose highway. This route meanders between the mountain range to the south of us and the mountain range to the west of us. Lucky us. I mean it. Really.

You may not know this, but a moose can outrun a dog the likes of Buster Boy. But, well, let me tell you another story.
Years ago, I used to have a wee rust-bucket 1962 VW Beetle. By the time I’d junked it, it had had almost every one of its organs replaced, including the motor and transmission.

(Note the two ‘its’ and the two ‘hads’ following each other in the previous sentence. This is what makes a writer’s life so gol-darned exhilarating. Sometimes I can hardly contain myself.)

Anyway, there was this big blustery fella who liked to have everything big. Big cars, big noises, big these and big thats. We used to park our vehicles near each other on a gravel parking lot.

One day, when I met him in the parking lot, he challenged me and my wee little handicapped, under-powered car to a drag. His vehicle was a 1961 V-8 Buick powerhouse. The drag would start at the back of the parking lot and end at the street entrance. It was a pretty casual affair.

So we started our engines, gentlemen, and lined up. He revved his engine. I burped my engine. A surrogate flag of some sort was dropped and we were off. Or at least I was, because this fella’s powerhouse car just sat in one spot and spun and spun and spun. My little beetle hiccuped forward and was at the street before the monster even got mobile.

I think this race happened because I’d mentioned that on a short race track, a race horse could probably beat this fella’s car. This guy was very competitive and he wanted to show me that I was wrong. As if I’m not competitive!

Anyway, I guess he thought he could prove I was wrong by having this race. His car being the car and my car being the race horse that looked like a ladybug.

Picture
Moose
So, in the animal world, Buster was my 1962 Beetle and the moose was this fella’s 1960 V-8 Buick. And Sue gawked at Buster’s speedy acceleration and at the gigantic moose spinning his hoofs. And as she saw them racing across our lot toward the quiet forest and into the beyond, all this drama was quickly ended by a law of physics.

The law that says: A two-hundred-foot rope tied to the neck of a hell-bent canine will stop this fuzzy streaker’s inertia faster than the sudden acceleration when the overly excited canine began.

However, it took Sue’s heart longer to decelerate than Buster’s and likely that of the ghost of the forest as well. Which, I think, is one of the phrases they use to describe a moose, along with sayings like, “Your mother wears army boots”.   

Picture
Our Busy Bird Feeders
***
Before I begin this Maritime Mac story I would like to make a little disclaimer or confession. Most of my M.M. stories are close to true, but not totally non-fictional. There’s usually a teeny, weeny bit of artistic license buried in the MM tales. So, you’ve been forewarned.

Here’s the next Maritime Mac adventure. Mostly true.

Maritime Mac likes to cycle, just like me. And, like me, he sometimes finds it repetitious and boring if he rides the same route over and over again. So, of course, he does other routes, like me. Seems sensible.

You see, his get-in-shape route is a 13.6 K ride to the Middle River Hall and back again. This is the route he cycles the most often and from time to time it can be a tiny bit tedious. Not a lot tedious though, because there is always something to see, smell, hear or feel.

Picture
Perfect example of seeing and smelling!
On this training route there are four dogs for Maritime to worry about. There is, however, another route which is 19.6 K and which goes to a now extinct baseball diamond. On that route there are six canines to worry about. Some of these dogs are huge. Two look like part bull-dog and part rottweiler.
Picture
Curious deer along the way...
Because, as I said, the training route can get a bit overly familiar at times, Maritime Mac has made up a game. This game, which he calls a road game, in contrast to a board game, contains only a few parts. They are: Maritime Mac, his bike, a dog and a stop sign. Maritime calls the game, ‘Sneak By the Dog.”

Now, it should be noted that the opposition, which is a medium-sized, yappy, canine mixture of dog and woof, is a fella who, once he gets his barking motor going, has difficulty shutting it off. He’ll start barking when he sees Maritime and, even after Maritime has biked the last K and a half to his house, has stripped down, taken a shower, dried off and is back outside to feed and water his bike, (which he calls ‘Hornet’), he can sometimes still hear the dog bow-wowing into the highland sky.

This dog is tied up along the side of his owners’ house. He’s hitched to his own little dog house. Maritime doesn’t know his name so he calls him Spot. See Spot bark. Woof, woof.

Picture
Spot

Anyway, here’s the goal of the game. If Maritime, on the way back, (The 'Way Back' Rule), can bike past the dog and make it to the stop sign, which is about a hundred yards down the road, without Spot barking at Maritime, then Maritime gives himself a point by sticking one of his right hand’s fingers out and saying, “One point for me.”

 If Spot barks before Maritime makes it to the stop sign then Spot gets a point. Maritime will stick one of his left hand’s fingers out and say, “One point for Spot.”

Saying these phrases out loud helps Maritime avoid the Senior’s Brain Fart Syndrome.

Another rule I should mention, is Maritime is not to look at Spot when he passes Spot’s house. This is the ‘Innocence is Bliss’ rule.  It must be noted, at this point, that the game can never be considered totally fair because Spot has no idea that he is in this competition.

By the way, the game only goes to five. I’m sure you can guess why. Therefore, the winner is the first competitor to get to five fingers. It’s called the ‘Five Fingers’ Rule.

***
“Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man had hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity. I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand, instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail.”
                                                        D.H. Thoreau, “Thoreau On Man & Nature ”

***
Anyway, one sunny, but cool day, with the wind a pleasant and gentle breeze and only a day after ‘Thumper’ had snowed Cleveland under a foot of sad bullshit, Maritime was breezing by Spot’s house. Not looking at his highly skilled competitor. His eyes focused on the stop sign. Pedaling as quietly as he could, avoiding gravel and noisy road surface stuff. Riding, riding, riding by the house. Not looking. The stop sign up ahead. Maritime’s fingers on alert, on both hands. Totally neutral. Left or right? Left or right?

“Woof, woof!”

“Oh nuts,” Maritime whispered. “Five to three for the dog. Looks like I’ve lost.” And he’d left the trophy at home.


Suddenly, “OMG!!” Maritime whispered, in the way only somebody on social media, such as a blogger, can curse and show genuine concern and fear. “OMG!!”

Spot wasn’t tied up, but wasn't he always tied up? It was part of the game. It was an unwritten rule. Spot had broken the rule and was barreling for old Maritime.

Maritime stopped his bike while Spot circled around the bike like a hunting wolf.
Maritime pulled out his water bottle. Tried to look cool. Took a swig of the warm water. Began to talk to the dog like he was Spot’s friend. Talked about the weather and about climate warming, those kinds of things. Tried to impress him with the human power of proper, grammatically correct speech.

It should be noted that Maritime sometimes, from time to time, has the tendency to put his foot into his mouth.

Anyway, “Woof, woof, woof and grrrrrrrr,” Spot replied, using only verbs. Bad dog.
Then he began to lunge forward and lunge backward. Parry and thrust. Snap, snap and so close to Maritime’s bare leg that Maritime could feel Spot’s hot breath on his leg.

Picture
Maritime tried offering Spot a drink. “Would you like a drink?”

Spot’s growl got to sounding more vicious.

“Holy crap,” Maritime whispered. He had to get the hell out of there. This dog, this competitor in this made-up game, was becoming frenzied in his attention to detail. In a game where he’d suddenly changed the rules.

  So, Maritime sprayed water square into Spot’s mug. However, his ammunition was low, because he had drunk most of it. The water strategy seemed to work, however, because Spot backed off. Watched Maritime intently while his lips curled and folded above his shiny white teeth. It looked like Spot didn’t like water in his snozzle. So, Maritime took a trial pedal forward.

Spot watched him. Still on hair-trigger alert.

Maritime might have been let off the hook, at this point, if he hadn’t had his macho streak. The element that makes him want to win. So much. Made him want to get in the last word, as mentioned previously.

Because, as he began some serious pedaling, with Spot only watching him and growling, but not making a move to charge, Maritime fell back into his old pattern.
So, as he was cycling his escape and as he was feeling the power and seeing the distance pile up between him and the slightly catatonic dog, he twisted his head around, looked at Spot’s confused, dripping face, and shouted, with the wind clearly carrying Maritime’s aggressive and competitive words to the dog, “BITE ME!”

OMG!!!.

Final score:   Dog five.   Maritime Ten stitches.   Game over.   For good.

Picture
0 Comments

Escapees

31/1/2016

1 Comment

 
Picture
Wreck Cove, Cape Breton
Wow! Blog number fifty! Woo-hoo! Hard to believe I’ve managed to stay with this blog writing endeavour. And, maybe even more surprisingly, that Sue has managed to hang in there and continue editing and submitting my fifty blogs to the blogosphere. Is there a medal for that?

Now I know some bloggers write a blog almost every day, but for me, fifty is a satisfying number and maybe that’s why I like the colour of the fifty-dollar bill. I might like the colour of the one hundred-dollar bill, but I’ve never spotted one. Maybe they're extinct.

***
About three weeks ago, four of us snowshoed on the Skyline trail. It was a blustery wintry Sunday. The snow was blowing itself dizzy and it didn’t look like it was going to get any better. Furthermore, the Skyline trail is located on top of a mountain, a sure recipe for down home snow trouble. However, we all travelled in some mighty fine four-by-four machines so I wasn’t too worried.

We parked our vehicles next to a brand new emergency station. This little building has a land-line phone, a wood stove, a bench or two and a goodly amount of firewood. I have, at other times in my life, attempted to get trapped in one of these emergency mountain accommodations, just so my partner and I would be forced to share the hut overnight with only a little food, a large bottle of champagne and some big ideas.

Picture
Emergency Hut
Anyway, we had plenty of snow on which to snowshoe to one of the most beautiful lookouts in the world.

But first, we had to pass a little washroom. Which always causes us to stop for a few seconds of silence. For it was here some hikers came upon a woman lying on the ground, bleeding and very close to death. Standing on her was a coyote. The hikers had shouted and thrown all kinds of things at the coyote while the coyote remained reluctant to flee his or her takeout. He did scram off eventually, but, sadly, left the woman critically injured. Apparently she was able to whisper her name before she died. A sad tragedy and a clear warning to never take wildlife for granted.

One of the characteristics of the Skyline trail is that a hiker has about an eighty percent chance of seeing a moose or two. One hiker with us had never been on this trail and he was looking forward to seeing a moose. He was hoping to get a photo of one.

Well, not too far in, we all saw a moose run across the trail in front of us. None of us was camera ready, but we all did see the moose and we all laughed and joked about how nobody had their camera or cell phone ready for the ‘BIG MOOSE PICTURE’.

About halfway down the trail is a huge, fenced-in area with two gigantic gates. This barrier protects acres and acres of land where they plan on planting about 50,000 trees. The moose have devastated the forest in this part of the highlands.

We entered through a tall gate and walked to the other end, where we exited by another tall gate. It felt like being in Jurassic Park, so I stopped snowshoeing for a brief time, and imagined feeling the vibrations of gigantic moose dinosaur feet stomping outside our fenced-in refuge. I have a vivid imagination.

At the look-out we couldn’t look out. There was nothing to see but gray snow-filled emptiness. So, as the wind attempted to gain entry to our bare skin and we bundled up tighter than ever, we ate a quick snack. Eventually, it got so blizzardy we could hardly see twenty feet in front of us. So we headed back. The snow settled down once we got into the forest.

                                  Out where the winding foot-path goes,
                          Out by the singing rill,
                          Out to the edge of mystery
                          And the land beyond the hill.
                                                Henry Holcomb Bennett, Adventure

Picture
Visibility Nil
The funniest incident of this venture involved a hiker taking a selfie. He had those huge, one plate of glass, ski goggles which look a little like a skin diver’s mask. Actually, they’re quite a bit like "beer goggles", (Google it!), except when you look through them, everything is clear, and no female or male hikers can be mistaken for the prettiest or handsomest persons in the whole wide world, bar none, until you sober up, anyway.

The goggle wearer likes to do the selfie photo thing. This is now a very big fad. He took out his cell phone and pointed it at his face while we all stood behind him. As he took a picture of his own face, which he probably sees a lot of in the mirror, a moose chose to cross the road.

Why did the moose cross the road anyway? So he could get to the other side and give the chicken a pointer or two.

What a laugh! What a hoot! Wally getting a picture of the wrong face! But, this is what happens on these hikes and makes them so much fun.

More interesting still, if you look carefully at the picture, which I have included, you might see a strange reflection in the fella’s goggles. Doesn’t it look like a moose?

Picture
Check out the goggles...
***
A week later I went snowshoeing up by Wreck Cove, God’s country, as one fella put it. I, however, replied that when I am skiing on our road and I stop to take a long gander at the mountains and the snow blowing around their crowns, I think that where I live is also quite godly.

Now, I should note that I didn't group hike often when I was in Ontario, but because I’m not as familiar with Cape Breton trails and because there are a plenty of big critters around here and the terrain is much rougher than where I used to hike, I now often go on group hikes.

And, as if to remind me that it wasn’t a bad idea to be with other hikers, a coyote crossed the road in front of us as we drove to the trail head. Let me tell you, this was one healthy looking coyote. I’ve seen coyotes in Ontario and they’re not as big as this one. He was more the size of a wolf and I’ve been told these coyotes run in packs, the same as wolves. I believe they call these Cape Breton canines, coy-wolves.

Last summer I met a fella on his favourite bridge over a section of the Middle River. He told me he’d had to fight a coyote off. The coyote had been quite determined and had tried different tactics to get himself a finger-licking good meal. Luckily, this fella won the battle or he’d not have been around to tell his tale.
 
Anyway, there were about fifteen hikers assembling at the trailhead while four dogs excitedly scampered amongst our pack of humans as we prepared to head up the mountain. They obviously couldn’t wait for the hike to begin.

But alas, on the porch, was a poor, sad, large German shepherd type of dog. He, apparently, wasn’t allowed to go on the hike. He was howling and crying and barking and tearing back and forth across his verandah jail cell. Poor dog. Poor, poor dog and that’s what everyone was thinking. And partway up the mountain, we could still hear his sad cries of abandonment.

Speaking of up the mountain, it was up the mountain that the THING happened. The event happened. The whatever you want to call it happened. Things happen to me. It’s my tagline.

I was climbing up a fairly steep grade. I was at the tail end of the lead group, but behind me, quite far behind me, were the slowpokes.

Up, up and away I went, until, at some point, I looked down at my right foot, and lo and behold, I saw there was no snowshoe to behold.

I dropped to the ground and started digging in the snow with my ski pole. I dug and dug, as if I was looking for an avalanche victim, while the hiking party ahead of me disappeared into the forest. I dug some more and there was still no snowshoe to be found. I was a little embarrassed, because the THING had happened to me and nobody else.

I surmised that it might have come off further down the mountain. Hadn’t I realized that my snowshoe had fallen off? Apparently not. This is what other hikers and folks to whom I’ve told this tale have asked me. “Didn’t you realize your snowshoe was missing?”

“No sir. No ma'am. It was the THING that came with me and I never know where the hell it’ll show up. This incident happened and I didn’t know it happened until when it became a THING.”

I think this part of the blog might confuse you and my editor, bless her heart. 

(Note from Ed: "No surprise to me!")

Anyway, I stopped and looked down the mountain. Oh god, how far down had it fallen off my footsie without my noticing it? Then suddenly I hearkened to the sound of a voice. A voice further down the mountain. The voice said, “Surely they’ll miss it eventually?”

The eventually had arrived. I shouted that it was I who had lost his snowshoe. Ha, ha, ha. And as they were all filled with mirth and laughter, guess who blew by me, sans snowshoes, and as happy as a flea on a grizzly bear? The German shepherd escapee. He was making up for lost time.

Near the end of the hike, as I walked along the Cabot Trail, snowshoes in hand, I saw a small barn. In front of the barn was a horse. I wasn’t going to take a photo of the horse until who should pop his head out of the barn entrance, but a small goat.

Now this goat had personality and even from the fair distance I was standing from the barn I could tell he was the boss. Why, it looked like the goat was saying, “Horse, what are you gawking at?  Do you know that fella with the bushy beard? Do you have some business with him? Stand back, I’ll deal with it.”

I just had to take their picture. So I did.

Picture
Goat, Horse and Dog Escapee
Later on, the owner of the horse, the goat and the escapee German shepherd, told us that her horse gets super lonely if the goat wanders off. The goat seems to keep him calm and happy. She also explained another thing. Most horses feel better if there is a goat around. For example, if a horse is going to race and his goat friend isn’t around, the horse gets all upset and will probably lose the race. She said, “that’s where the phrase, ‘He got my goat’ comes from.”

Now isn’t that interesting?

I will sign off now and wait for the THING. It’s the THING that has helped me write fifty blogs. He or she is a rather speculative fella so I’m not evicting the THING any time soon.  Not even if I could, because I have a thing for the THING.


          My modus operandi this--
                      To take no heed of what’s amiss
                                              And not a bad one:
                      Because as Shakespeare used to say
                      A merry heart goes twice the way
                                              That tires a sad one.

                          Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler, The Wisdom Of Folly


Picture
View of Cabot Trail from Skyline Look-off
1 Comment

If I Die Before I Wake...

14/8/2015

0 Comments

 
Two of our friends from Picton, Ontario have been visiting us. Now the point I want to make, other than the fact that we're very happy that these two friends are visiting us, is that one of them is named in my will.

So, what’s he doing in my will, you might ask? Well, he has, in my will, been legally proclaimed the person who is to manage all of my writing output if I should bite the bullet, kick the bucket, or go tits up before he does.

Which might sound a tad pretentious. I mean that I consider my writing good enough to require the involvement of legal entities. That I should presume, not only that I am a writer, but that if I kiss the hammer, my writing should be baby-sat until it can be spread around the world like a newly discovered religious scroll.

But, it is what it is, what it is. So, if I die before you wake, be sure to quake knowing that this blog for example, might be shining forth and forth and forth but never fifth.

(PLEASE NOTE THAT I HAVE BEEN SWALLOWING A LOT OF ASPIRIN AND ANTIBIOTICS LATELY, DUE TO A SERIOUS TOOTHACHE)
Picture
It should also be mentioned that Sue is my biggest supporter.  It is in her genes to be a teacher and an enabler.  So one might view her idea of having the managing of my writing put into a will, with a caretaker and everything, as a very, very smart notion, if one of your goals is to give yours truly a feeling of confidence and a sense that he is doing something worthwhile. How many writers battle with those two issues?

Last Sunday, our friend and my wordsmith babysitter after I am mort, proved he was the right choice.    You see, when they arrived at our little trailer, they showed up with a box of books for us. One of the books was Alistair MacLeod’s novel, “No Great Mischief”. A wonderful story and the only novel Alistair MacLeod wrote.

Anyway, our friend had bookmarked, using an actual, old-fashioned bookmark, the last chapter of ‘No Great Mischief’. 
He had read and enjoyed the book, even though, as he told us, there were a few times when he’d wanted to close its covers and not finish the novel. However, he hadn’t. He’d finished the book and then bookmarked its last chapter.  He’d suggested we re-read the book and that we should read the last chapter first. Apparently, the chapter had really affected my writing preserver and conservator.

He then made another suggestion, late into the afternoon, when our August summer was still in full bloom. (This meaning that the sun was hidden from view and the rain was just beginning to give our ground another good soaker, which it continued to do all evening and as of 1:42 am, it was still drooling all over our property.)

Anyway, he asked us if we would mind listening to him read the last chapter. Which kind of mind-boggled me, as people who drop into our little trailer don’t usually suggest reading anything to us. Except for a few who may be trying to sneak us through the pearly gates by reading to us a selection from their particular religious map.


Well sir, he began to read. He read the whole last chapter and what happened near the end of his reading confirmed in my mind, that this man was indeed the right person to preserve and conserve my writing.

Because, you see, our friend could barely finish reading aloud the last chapter of Alistair MacLeod’s book, “No Great Mischief”. He began to tear up, had to stop several times, and when he had finished reading it, he had to grab a tissue from a box Sue keeps on the back of the couch, in case we have to blow our nose or we need to stuff the tissue box under our open window to avoid bashing our heads on the window’s sharp edge.

Observing his reaction to MacLeod's story was proof. Proof that he was the ‘right person’ to look after my precious writing output if I should happen to knock off before he does.   And, as a matter of interest, he is two weeks older than I am, so we might need some flexibility in this will thing!
***
Previously, I mentioned that I am suffering from a tooth-ache. Poor me, but this tooth-ache taught me another lesson as to why we love living in Cape Breton.

A few months ago, pain drove Sue to trying to make an appointment for an emergency get-together with her dentist. Because we were in town, we simply drove to his office, where Sue planned to walk in, while gripping the side of her face and looking like she was in a great deal of pain, which she was, to hit the receptionist up for a quick appointment.

However, when we got to the dentist’s office, the door was locked, as he didn’t work that day. We then asked somebody if they knew where the other dentist was located. Baddeck has two dentists.

We found out and then drove there. Sue went in and the dentist looked at Sue once he had finished with his regular patients. He gave her a prescription and told her to make an appointment with our dentist when she had finished the pills.

He then said, “Why didn’t you phone your dentist at home?”

What?! We’re from southern Ontario. The preserve it, conserve it province. You don’t just go phoning your dentist at home when you want to. Come on.

However, last week I found out, when I went to my dentist’s office with my sore tooth, that my dentist was taking a holiday and wouldn’t be back in the office until the following week. Which actually gave me a little relief, because I don’t much like dentists. I mean in a dentist sense, not a human being sense.

Anyway, I thought, okay, I can deal with the pain. But, as I was shivering and rolling in my bed at four am the next morning because of the pain and the fever, I thought I'd better try phoning him at home. Good luck, I thought.

So, the next morning, after taking Buster for his pee and poo-poo walk, I did phone my dentist. Oh, Sue and I did have a discussion about whether I should phone before or at nine am. It was bad enough, I thought, to be phoning our dentist at home, but before 9 am... come on!

I phoned about 8:30 am. Figured it was a compromise.

The phone rang about six times. I’m thinking, he’s not even at home, Then he answered my call, hallelujah, glory to the great dentist in the sky! He answered and when I told him who I was and why I was calling and apologized all over myself for phoning him at home, he told me, no problem. He said this to me in such a way that I knew it really was no problem. It was expected that we call him at home if it was an emergency and he wasn’t in the office. 

We even chatted about my tooth. Not just the bare bone specifics, but non-important specifics which were taking up his dentist/holiday time. And we talked about boating and sailing and the weather. My lord, would wonders never cease?

So, off I went to his office to have my tooth extracted.  And today, at around two am, I noticed the antibiotics are starting to work. I wa
s so happy about this that I couldn’t go nigh-nigh.  So I got up and decided to write this blog in celebration.  The poor souls in medieval Germany didn't have such luck, it seems!
Picture
***
Last Sunday, BT, but still in the year of our Lord, (with the BT standing for ‘Before Toothache’), my friend and I hiked the Skyline Trail. It is a gorgeous trail. Both times we have hiked the trail in the evening. Whereupon, we wait until the sun has set below the earth’s horizon before we hike back out.

And, as we did the last time, we saw a moose as we were hiking out. Actually, I saw a moose’s butt. And not as clearly as did the tourists from Toronto, who were much younger than I am. Which made me realize I am much older than they are, but maybe closer to the spiritual feeling my friend and I get when we are there. Might this gorgeous setting be a heavenly launching pad for older guys who can barely see a barn door let alone a moose’s arse?
Skyline Trail
Larry on Skyline Trail
Anyway, we were peppered with comments from out-of-province and/or country hikers. Who, once discovering we were Cape Bretoners, would tell us how gorgeous the view was and ask us questions about Cape Breton.  One couple from Ottawa told us they’d been all around the world and had not seen any place as gorgeous as what they were viewing on the Skyline Trail.
I kind of needed to hear this, as I had just recently returned from Ontario. Where I’d visited my family and friends and of course, missed them, when once again, I left them behind to return to our tiny forty-five-foot trailer in the woods.

As we were loading our stuff into the back of the car, my friend said, “Hearing all the nice things we’ve heard from the tourists today, makes me feel that my decision to move to Cape Breton was a good one.”

All I can say to that is ditto, ditto.
Picture
Tourist Enjoying Sunset on Skyline Trail
0 Comments

Don’t Do Pennies

12/6/2015

0 Comments

 
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.”
Picture
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?

Picture
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.
Family and dog
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.
Dog on couch
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.
dog and beer bottles
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”
Humes Falls Hike
HIKING GROUP AT HUMES FALLS. LOTS OF AVID HIKERS AROUND HERE
0 Comments

Awe is a Reflex of Spirit  

13/5/2015

0 Comments

 
“Awe is a reflex of spirit.”
                                  Elpenor


Last fall, and again a few weeks ago, a friend and I hiked and snowshoed on the Skyline Trail. This trail is located in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park. The path is mostly flat, being on a plateau, and it winds its way through stunted, moose-chewed trees and bushes, ending at a long boardwalk which snakes down to near the edge of the mountain.

What a view! Gorgeous. Fantastic in the fall with the sun setting in the west, turning the sky and ocean into a curtain of brilliant colours.

And what about in the early spring, when we last snowshoed the trail? I’d give it a totally wonderful grade. The ground and trees draped in snow, the ocean covered in scattered white puzzle pieces with sugar-coated mountains floating along the edges.
Skyline Trail
View from Skyline Trail in April
My friend and I felt this was a very special place. A sacred pathway. We felt at home and safe, even though we knew there were plenty of moose roaming around in these here parts.

Matter of fact, we passed a moose as we headed back to the vehicle. It was dark by this time, because we had stayed to bid the sun farewell and bon nuit. So we were forced to use flashlights to illuminate our way. The moose was huge.

I stopped and tried to get a picture of the moose. However, my camera was new and still unfamiliar and I couldn’t get the shutter to snap to. Meanwhile, the moose stood thirty or forty feet away, watching us excited ninnies getting all hot and bothered.

My hiking buddy kept saying, “It’s big, Larry. It’s really big, Larry. Really big.” I finally gave up, partly because I kept hearing this ‘really big’ alert and partly because my damn camera was being as stubborn as the proverbial ass. And as we walked away from the night-time forest monster, my friend said, “It really was really big, Larry.”

How could we not feel awe? How could we not experience the chill of wonder? Reverence? Fear, but in a good way. 
My friend and I felt this was a very special place. A sacred pathway. We felt at home and safe, even though we knew there were plenty of moose roaming around in these here parts.

But, do you know what I’ve heard? I’ve heard that wonder and awe are not among the main emotions of the majority of us western world, scientific homo sapiens.  Maybe being able to feel the natural fear that comes with the majesty so obviously permeating everything around us, can help us be less fearful about what we tend to get all neurotic about.

“After several thousand years, we have advanced to the point where we bolt our doors and windows and turn on our burglar alarms - while the jungle natives sleep in open-door huts.”
                                                                                                                              Morris Mandel


Maybe, when we see everything as a resource, that also helps to remove the sense of awe and fear we feel when we look at the world around us. Heck, we even see ourselves as a resource to exploit. I  think a tendency to see through things, so we can better manipulate them for our needs, is a mystery/majesty blinder.

“You can’t go on seeing through things forever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it. To see through all things is the same as not to see.”
                                                                                                                            C.S. Lewis


***
I may gripe about there being too much snow, but I have to admit, I love snow. However, when spring comes, I’m ready for it to melt away and not come back until another winter’s day.

Folks from other, more populated parts, sometimes say to us or hint to us, that they wonder why the hell we would choose to live in such a tough environment. I say, see above. Reading the first part of this blog should give those folks some understanding of the why.

Some tourists from a big city passed through our island two summers ago. They drove through the forests and mountains. Through the out-ports and towns. Stopped in the mom and pop stores and observed the lack of big box monstrosities, mile-long subdivisions, clogged streets and roads, and noticed miles of empty places to park and think, and then they declared that Cape Breton was mainly uninhabitable. How can we battle against such unarguable wisdom?

But actually, I’m thinking, “Yes. Keep thinking that way.”

When I told a local that this fella had declared Cape Breton to be uninhabitable, he said, “Good, that will keep those )(*& away.”

What an attitude, eh? If he had only a little bit of that asphalt sophistication, then he might not so easily discount this fella’s declaration of wisdom that came from afar.

Picture
***
DogBuster
Once, a long time ago when the sun was blue, I was told by a rather logical and rationalistic person, that animals have no or next to no memory. It’s all instinct. I assume he would place our dog Buster in this memory-less category. 
What a crock of shipwrecks. What a wad of Buster doo-doo. Buster has a memory like a snapping turtle clamped onto a big toe. Why, his memory is so good that Sue and I are worried that he may actually not be our pet but our care-giver. Our fire alarm. Our defender against big bad men and wild animals. Our reminder of where we left our plate of toast and other goodies. Our trainer. Our organizer. Well, I guess you get the point.

Example:  We let him out one night. He encountered a raccoon. Whom he barked at and treed. Thank god. I mean, thank god that the raccoon climbed a tree and didn’t, instead, decide to whip Buster’s ass.

Anyway, the next evening, at around the same time as the night before, we let wee Buster out and he was off like an Arctic winter streaker toward the tree.  No memory? Instinct?  Bull chips.

Example:  Recently we took our little man to the beauty parlour, where they bathed and clipped him. And by the way, we’re still trying to figure out if we picked up the right dog. He looked so different. They clipped him near bald, but I guess that will be good for Buster in the hot weather. Anyway, we think he’s Buster. One of the reasons we think this is that the groomer told us she didn’t do his nails because, well, he made a fuss. I can imagine the fuss.

So, back to the memory thing. As we were paying the bill, Buster was given a dog treat. He was so excited about getting the hell out of there, that he didn’t pay the purple coloured artificial dog bone biscuit much mind.  So Sue put the treat in her coat pocket.

After we got home, Buster kept going to the closet. He’d scratch the door. Whine at the door and at us until we finally figured out what he wanted.  He was after the treat in Sue’s coat pocket.  No memory?

Buster’s bear-trap memory, his brain fartless memory, has led to my beginning to worry about something. You see, I’m beginning to think that all the time Buster and I are going for walks, he is mentally making a bucket list. A bucket list of places to dash to if he ever gets off his leash. Because at each place, Buster will stop and sniff around. Then he gives a little tug on the leash. I’m assuming this is to see if by some miracle, I’ve had a brain fart and have forgotten I’m walking him. That maybe I’ve dropped the leash and am sitting down on a snow bank so I can have a little drool and a wee confab with my lonesome.

Then Buster would be off, running through forest, fields and over the mountains, checking off his Buster bucket list the things he’d sniffed, whizzed on and pooped over.


wise dog
Buster Sees All
Note  from Sue: My apologies for the late arrival of this blog post. I'm the technician who posts Larry's work, and an injury to my hand put me out of commission for  a while.
0 Comments

Fish Stories

13/11/2014

0 Comments

 
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.
Picture
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
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.
pumpkins
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 diver
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?
Picture
Find the moose!
Aspy Trail
Brave Tree on Aspy Trail
0 Comments

Thirty-nine Different Pieces of I.D.

23/4/2014

0 Comments

 
We still don’t have the Middle River figured out. However, last week’s warmer temperatures and heavy rain gave us a pretty good idea something was coming down.

But how would the river react?  Well, first it went into a temper. That’s a constant. It always throws a fit. But this time it spread out more. Sent a massively wide flow of water at us. Which roared by our little mobile home like a Panzer Division. One group heading for the Cabot Trail bridge. The other section veering to the left. Pouring over, not only our walking trail, but an area many times wider than our hiking path. 
Middle River Flood
Middle River Flooding our Land...Again!
However, the snow wall kept the river away from our home. This barrier was created by the winter rains, which later froze when the temperatures dipped. Which turned the snow banks into an icy hard dam, so the water couldn’t get onto our property, at least, not in the part near our home.

Thank you, winter rain.                        

                                                                                 ***

Did you know, and really, how would you, that I’ve climbed or partially climbed two mountains since I submitted my last blog entry? And, if I’d sent it out one day later, I would’ve been able to brag that I’d climbed three.
snowshoesnowshoes
You see, a few weeks ago, I bought a pair of snowshoes in North Sydney. The first time I put them on, I thought, “Where have you been all my life?”

For years I’ve been trying to cross country ski into the back country. The problem is I’m not a very good ski turner. So, I have a great deal of difficulty negotiating corners and steep hills and when I’m skiing in the woods, with its constant twists, declines, ascents and turns, it’s rough going. My life and limbs are in constant danger.

Then I bought the snowshoes and now the snow world is my oyster. Let the band play!

A great feature of snowshoeing is that it’s hard to get lost. Because all I have to do is follow my snowshoe tracks back to where I began. When I’m hiking at any of the non-snowy times of the year, it’s easy to get lost. Because I can’t see my tracks unless I stay on a well-marked trail. In the highlands, there are many old trails, but they are overgrown. Sometimes it is almost impossible to figure out if I’m still on a trail or wandering off into cyber wild. That’s why I carry bright green trail marker tape.

Snowshoeing also forces me to use different muscles. So, if you haven’t done it before, taking it easy is a good thing. Especially if you’re getting long in the molars.


                                                                                  ***
Moose droppingsMoose Droppings
Yesterday, which was a beautiful sunny day, I climbed Eighty Degree Mountain. I gave it this name because it is very steep. Parts of the climb are well beyond an easy climbing angle.

I was up there by myself and during my snowshoe cruise I saw super large moose tracks along with mega large doo-doo piles.

And I was alone. Which made me think the number of members in my hiking party was going to make it terribly easy for said moose to make a decision about whom he or she was going to charge.

And don’t think I wasn’t a little bit aware of other possibilities. It’s spring. Even though the snow is still up to my chest and beyond in places. And, because it’s spring, the bears are probably out scouting around. Hankering for a little nourishment, other than what they’re able to suck from their paws. Apparently that’s what they do during their long hibernation. Suck toes. I don’t want my toes tasted.

Eastern CoyotePictureEastern Coyote
Also, the Eastern coyotes found here in Cape Breton are almost twice the size of the common coyotes found in Ontario. They are believed to be a cross between wolves and coyotes. I would think they’re a bit famished, as it’s been a very long and heavy winter.

However, I don’t think too hard about these things. If you love doing something enough, you will do it in spite of the fear.


                            “---I wasn’t going to tell you and I mustn’t.
                            The best way is to come up hill with me
                            And have our fire and laugh and be afraid.”

                                                             Robert Frost’s Bonfire

                                                                              ***
I named another small mountain, ‘Fallen Spruce Mountain’. There is a fallen spruce on the way to the top. It’s the tree I sit on. From it I can see a considerable distance, and it’s on this tree where I write in my journal, or read something from my Robert Frost book, or the hard copy of my New Testament. Which I think I rescued from a city dumpster. Something about the words, ‘from a city dumpster’ gives me a poetic nudge. I’ll have to think about it some more.

It was on this tree that I thought about a Robert Frost poem I have been in the process of memorizing. It’s called, ‘The Vantage Point’. I recited a bit to myself as I looked out over the highlands, the fields and the few houses dotted here and there.

                                       “If tired of trees I seek again mankind,
                                       Well I know where to hie me-in the dawn,
                                        To a slope where the cattle keep the lawn.
                                        There amid lolling juniper reclined,
                                        Myself unseen, I see in white defined
                                        Far off the homes of men, and farther still,
                                        The graves of men on an opposing hill-----”

                                                                           ***

Blue Toe Mountain has that name because I got two bruised toes after hiking up and down its bulk. I was wearing a new pair of hiking boots.

“Do they fit you okay, sir?” the sales clerk had asked.

I’d said, after I stomped around the flat store floor, that I thought they fit perfectly.

On flat land. On flat land, they fit perfectly. However, when walking down the side of the mountain, they didn’t fit perfectly. They fit snugly. They fit tightly and painfully, because the decline forced my toes into the front of the boots. Which, after a few miles of descent, caused those toes to be very sore. Later on, the nails of my big toes turned blue and one is still an ugly colour.             
                                                             

Wild Honey
  As I mentioned in blog sixteen, I am not a book reviewer. However, I think I can be a book talk-abouter. So I want to mention another poetry book that I enjoyed recently. The book is called, ‘Wild Honey’ and its author is Aaron Schneider. The book was published by Breton Books. Aaron Schneider lives in Cape Breton.

I savoured his poems. They are elemental. Connected to the earth, sky and sea.

“Life at Sea” is one poem in his book which reminded me of our experience this winter, as our little green mobile home was battered by the winter storms.

               “Today we are again at sea
              the house sails
              into the white storm
              stoves blazing. Trees
              bend like stripped masts
              and the white earth rolls.”


                                                                                                      ***


squirrelScavenging squirrel
I have always liked the smell of firewood. Any wood, for that matter. But the last few loads of wood I have taken into the house have had a peculiar smell. Like Pine-Sol mixed with piss. And the sad reason for this odour is that I am now dismantling the actual condo living space of the poor squirrel.

Now, I have to say that I gave him every chance to vacate before I threatened to send in the sheriff. I purposely bought him time by taking wood from the far side of the pile instead of directly over or near his nest. 

And I’d loudly bang the door before I entered the shed. I’d shout, “You’re going to have to move because I’ll have to be dismantling your house soon. You have to be out before this happens. Because I don’t want you jumping out while I’m grabbing a piece of fourteen-inch firewood and scaring the crap out of me. Sue doesn’t need the extra laundry work.”


The poor squirrel did vacate. I think his present address is 216 Slab Wood Pile. Located next to the woodshed. Good for him. I’m glad he’s resilient and street smart enough to be able to start a new life, while the cold winter winds were still blowing.

Do you think he will be able to find, out of the thirty-nine pieces of ID allowed, one that will prove where he lives and one with a picture of his furry mug? Because he’ll need it to be able to vote for the naughty nuts he wants in office.

This squirrel still gives me the occasional lip. Even though I allow him to hang around in the woodshed when it’s not in use.

Like last week. Nuttsie said, “It’s so damn cold. How can you be so heartless?”

“Because it’s cold. That’s why we need the wood. That’s why we put it there.” My logic, as usual, was rock solid.


RavenPeeping Tom
He wouldn’t let up. Danced his little squirrely jig, so I said, “Next year, I promise we’ll buy three-and-a-half full cords. That should give you an uninterrupted living space all winter.”

This whole conversation was watched and listened in on by the draining-sink-voiced raven. Who probably knows everything we do. I don’t want to think too hard about that.

I think I’ll call him, "Peeping Tom".

Cape Breton Mountains
View from 80-Degree Mountain
0 Comments

A Nutty Conversation

18/3/2014

1 Comment

 
Cape Breton WinterCape Breton Winter
You may have noticed from reading my last fifteen blogs, that my life isn’t normal. But then, how could it be arse-tight conventional, when we live in a forty-five foot, what looks like an industrial trailer, situated in a snow belt, at the base of the Highlands? Is that possible?

I try. Oh, how I try to be cool and not draw attention to myself. However, sometimes, because I live in the bush, (where I like being), I find myself going into the village and spraying my conversation at everyone near and far. It’s as though the words are stored up and when I get a chance to use them, I do. Then I return home and run the conversations over in my head, and holy crow! Did I say that? Did I say this? What a moron!

So, no matter how hard I try to act like cool, deep-voiced Gregory Peck, I fail, and I will give you one example of my not being cool. Only one, because I don’t like making my blog too long. (The blog regulations can be found in the blog/twitter/selfie manual.)

Last Tuesday night. Yes, let’s take last Tuesday night. I’m chewing on another weather-related decision. I have plenty of them. This time I’m asking myself, do I or don’t I drive to the hockey arena? Because it’s pounding snow out. However it’s not windy. So probably not going to be blizzardy.

Anyway, at seven pm, I decided to drive over the lonely, snow- and-ice-covered mountain road to Baddeck
.
Now, as I may have mentioned, my snow blower, Grinder, was in the hospital for quite a time. However, it was recently returned with a new problem. Now the augers won’t stop turning, even when I’m not asking them to. But they do turn, which is an improvement of sorts.

I said to Sue, “I’m used to buying a second-hand piece of machinery and having it gradually accumulate a list of mechanical eccentricities, but I’m not used to buying a brand new machine and having it, almost immediately, fill out a roster sheet of problems.”
snowed underSnowed Under
So, the lane isn’t cleared of snow and our vehicles are parked two hundred meters down at the end of our lane. That means I need a flashlight, because, when I return from my hockey game, the spruce-bordered lane will be as dark as a horse’s artistic tendencies.
Well, I drove to the arena. It was a nail-biting trip at times and I saw two separate places where it looked like a vehicle had gone off the road.

Whenever I’m in the arena, I somehow morph into becoming a hockey player. In my mind, I take on my hockey player persona. A combination of Gregory Peck and Davy Keon. He was a great centre for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

I turn on my flashlight. Poke its light around in the back of Basque’s cap so I can find my two hockey sticks. I find them, pull them out, then fetch my hockey bag from the front of my truck. I like it to ride in the cab with me. It’s a good conversationalist and the truck heater warms its contents.

I decide, rather than putting my flashlight back in the truck, which I always do, I’ll put it in my pocket. It's warmer in the arena and therefore the battery will be stronger and more energetic.

I haul my sticks and hockey bag into the cold arena and then into the warmer locker room. Because of the bad driving, only three players have arrived. It’s getting late. I plunk my equipment down. I’m pumped. I’m the man. The not-really-so-good-any-more hacker player. Ready for the game, if there is going to be a game.


As I’m standing in my straight and true hockey pose, a fellow hockey player casually says, “You have a flashlight in your pocket.”

Big deal, I think. I pull it out of my pocket, to show him it really is an authentic, two-battery flashlight. But when I take it out of my pocket, I’m surprised, and somehow not surprised, to see the flashlight shining forth in all its brilliance. My goodness, I must have looked funny, strutting around while the flashlight shone out of my pocket. Like a walking lighthouse.

Last year, one fella, who had only shown up for one game, asked me if I had stayed in Cape Breton and played hockey the whole year. When I said, “Yes, I’ve played the whole year in Baddeck,” he said, “Oh damn! I missed all the fun.”


Picture
Now, what did he mean by that? I think I know, but it’s not just me. I have a weird computer too. It’s over twenty years old. Maybe twenty-five years old and I bought it second-hand a long time ago.

Do some of you want a name for my computer? Okay, how about “Percy Macintosh”?

Percy has a word-changing feature. You know, if I want to change a name from “Tom” to “John”, I just fill in the existing name and the name I want to replace it with and hit Change-all. Then my whole manuscript has the name “Tom” changed to “John”. Can be a thousand “Toms” and they will all zap to “Johns” in a matter of seconds.

One day, not so long ago, I decided to change a character’s name from “Ken” to “Calvin”. Hundreds of Kens lurked inside my manuscript. So, I clicked on “Edit”, wrote in “Ken” and “Calvin” and hit Change- all. Voila, all my Kens were Calvins, and I was hoping it wasn’t too traumatic for Ken, and for poor Calvin, who must have felt a few pounds heavier.

Everything went well. Except, Percy is very, very efficient. Possibly too efficient. So he conscientiously changed all Kens into Calvins.

Example: She hung her tocalvin around her neck.

Example: She said to poor Bob, “Sorry Bob, but I am already spocalvin for.”

Example: Larry wasn’t a very good hockey player and ended up with a brocalvin arm.

My god, it changed every darn “ken” in every darn word.

“Oh, excuse me, Mr. Computer, I think you have a flashlight sticking out of your stupid pocket.” Hardy, har.

A few weeks ago, I was in the trailer by my lonesome. Sue was in town. I went into the bedroom to get something out of the closet. I opened the door and heard a funny chirping sound. It stopped. I hit the closet door. It chirped and squeaked. It stopped. I kicked the wall. Heard a cackling sound. I went to the other wall, near the phone, which broke down last week, gave the wall a knock and heard the tattling, crackling, dripping noise. My god, do we have squirrels or ghosts in our walls?

I walked to the living room. Listened. Nothing. I stomped on the floor. From the bedroom came the weird, playing-a-horn sound, a squeak and something like the sound of dripping water from a tap. I walked back to the bedroom and as I went to knock on the wall, a crow flew away from below the window.

Picture
It was our friendly crow, who now had decided to hold a conversation with me through the walls. This crow often follows me down the lane and along the road. As a matter of fact, this crow followed me around the first day we moved in. He must have been curious.

One afternoon, he was sitting in a spruce tree sounding off. The tree grows close to our woodshed. I went there to fetch some wood, and when I opened the door, I found a poor red squirrel, standing in the middle of the room. He was pleading with me not to evict him.

You see, the wood pile is getting smaller. So, I was literally about ready to break into his home, hidden in the last row of wood. Poor squirrel. I felt sorry for him. And maybe the crow did too, and when I went to bed, I got worrying about whether I should make another home for the squirrel to live in. It was still very cold out
.
squirrel gnaiwng on moose skull
Squirrel gnawing for minerals on our old moose skull
I even said to Sue, “Maybe next year we should buy three and a half cords of firewood. That way, the squirrel will have a permanent winter home. Rent-free.”

Which I know sounds rather funny to some folks, because what many folks do is pop them off for trespassing. Which makes me wonder about who was there first, but I won’t go into that.

So, see what happens when you live in the bush too long? But maybe it’s good to have shining flashlights in your pockets and peeping-tom crows, and snow blowers that don’t follow new snow blower rules and computers which are overly conscientious. Because it means there will always be wacky material to draw from. At least enough to keep this blog going.

Anyway, I like surprises, inconsistencies, wackiness and the humour that arises from these incidents.

Sydney Cox wrote in his book, Indirections for Those Who Want to Write, "Humour frisks the minute to make incompatibles unite. (We earnest people - whom atom bombs and dated obligations to salvage civilization keep on the jump and on the dot - miss that “waste of time.)"

Have any of you found yourselves being wacky without trying?


PictureMountain view of Gold Brook Rd
View of our road from halfway up mountain
1 Comment

CAW! CAW! CAW!

23/11/2013

2 Comments

 
We’re back. With a tale of two cities: Halifax, Nova Scotia and Kingston, Ontario. Whew! Busy. So different from the life we live here in Cape Breton. On the Middle River, which, believe it or not, holds our mortgage. Because if the river decided to pump itself up and become like the mighty Nile or Fraser Rivers then we’d be carried away. High rubber boots, trailer, mortgage and all.

As we were crossing the Canso Causeway, heading toward the ‘Welcome to Cape Breton’ sign, I told Sue that it felt like we were emerging from some kind of tunnel of love. Only we would call the tunnel we’d been living in, ‘The Tunnel of Noise, Chaos and Stimulation’. Mental and physical.

The city must have had a considerable effect on my partner. Because on the way home, she mentioned that she wondered where she’d stored her gun cleaning kit. Said she had this hankering to take her rifle to the shooting range to brush up on her skills. First time I’d heard her mention this.
Halloween Aftermath
Halloween Aftermath in Halifax
However, only after we had arrived back at our little Cape Breton trailer did we realize just how different our life is from normal city life. I’ll tell you one of the reasons I knew. It was the story titles I was hearing from either Sue or myself.

Speaking of titles, I’ve noticed that many of the best titles that have occurred to me have come from brief statements spoken during a conversation. I think I have even recorded some of them. I just don’t know where I put the folder. Do you have that problem?

Anyway, after we got home and I’d had time to unpack and pop a cold one, I heard myself saying, “I’m not going to caw anymore.” I certainly never thought such a thing while I was watching my hat get run over and destroyed on a windy Halifax street, or when I discovered a twenty-five dollar parking ticket on my windshield. But here, back in Cape Breton, this phrase made perfect sense.

Picture
You see, I don’t think I understand crow talk. Every time a murder of crows gets cawing from trees above my head and I try to answer with my crow call, they usually flee. Cawing and croaking all the way across the land. Except for one, who remains to make sure all the crows have completely evacuated. Then he or she takes off in a flurry of caws. I have an authentic sounding caw. It’s not that, it’s just that I don’t know whether I’m cawing, “Bugger off”, “Good morning”, or “I have a hankering for roast crow”.
moose skullmoose jaw
And it wasn’t long after I’d made this profound statement that my partner shouted through the screen door, “Would you pick up my deer teeth, please?”

Pick up a quart of milk, a loaf of bread or a case of beer, but I’d never heard anybody ask to have their deer teeth picked up. Not in the city. But out here, resting on our porch railing are a moose skull, a deer jaw, some antlers, a couple of old bottles and several rocks. So it makes perfect sense when you live here and there’s been a high wind all morning.


need for snowblowerWhy we need the snow blower!
However, yesterday I didn’t come up with any smart titles for what I found in the tool shed. I’d wanted to get the snow blower going. Move it closer to the trailer. Unfortunately, I’d left some insulation in the tool shed. There are a lot of mice out in the world that think pink. I pulled the cover off said snow blower. A mouse leapt out. Ran for his or her life. A ball of insulation fell to the wooden floor along with mouse doo-doo, pee-pee and some other kind of pinkish coloured liquid. Which took me a minute or two to figure out. Gasoline. The little bugger had chewed the gas line and now it has to be repaired.  The title for that story: “Pass me the &%##@#&& traps, dear.”

As I stepped through the trailer door, mumbling some distinctive old English words, I smelled something shitty. The aroma seemed to be coming from my boots. I took a look. It was doggy doo. Apparently, when I’d walked to the mailbox, I’d stepped in a deposit that our neighbour’s dog likes to mail to our residence. And believe you me, we’re both pretty sure that there is a message in that soft brown envelope.

Anyway, I took the boot off, scraped most of the poop off with a stick and then ran water onto the boot from our outdoor tap.

Have to run. Sue is shouting that an animal is banging around inside our wood stove.

CAW! CAW! CAW!

deer in Frontenac Park
Deer in Frontenac Provincial Park, Ontario
2 Comments

    Recent Posts

    Archives

    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    January 2022
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013

    Categories

    All
    Aaron Schneider
    Abigail Thomas
    Aboriginal Culture
    Aldon Nowlan
    Alistair MacLeod
    Amos R. Wells
    Answering Machines
    Antigonish
    Antigonish Harbour
    Authors
    Autumn Beauty
    Baddeck
    Ballad Of Winky
    Bats
    Beer
    Bible Reading
    Bible Verses
    Bikes
    Bird Feeders
    Birds
    Black And Decker Tools
    Black Flies
    ‘Black Water’
    Blizzards
    Blogging
    Blue Jay
    Boarding Kennel
    Book Launch
    Book Review
    Books
    Brown Bat
    Building Bookshelves
    Bullfrog
    Buster
    Buster Wear
    Cabot Trail
    Cameras
    Canso Causeway
    Cape Breton
    Cape Breton Beauty
    Cape Breton Books
    Cape Breton Highlands
    Cape Breton Highlands National Park
    Cape Breton Music
    Cape Breton Trails
    Cats
    CBC Interview
    Cell Phones
    Chain Saw
    Chaos
    Charles Hanson Towne
    Chief Seattle
    Clarence Barrett
    Clear-cut Recovery
    Climate Change
    Coltsfoot
    Computer Frustrations
    Computer Jargon
    Confucious
    Consumers
    Cottage Activities
    Country Life
    Coyotes
    Creativity
    Crocs
    Crows
    C.S. Lewis
    Customer Service
    Cycling
    Dancing Goat Coffee Shop
    David Boyd
    David Woods
    Deer
    Denise Aucoin
    Dentist
    Dentists
    D.H. Thoreau
    Dog Food
    Dogs
    Dog Training
    Dog Walking
    Dog Whisperer
    Driving In Blizzards
    Druids
    Dry Rot
    Earwig
    Eastern Coyotes
    Economists
    Editor
    Editors
    ED’S BOOKS AND MORE
    E.J. Pratt
    Election ID
    Elpenor
    Enerson
    Evening Grosbeaks
    Exercise
    Extractions
    Ezra Pound
    Fall Colours
    Family Holiday
    Family Life
    Farley Mowat
    Field Mouse
    Finite Vs Infinite
    Firewood
    Fishing
    Flood Plain
    Floods
    Flower Gardens
    Flying Squirrel
    Fog
    Forest
    Fox
    Freddy The Pig
    Freedom
    Friends
    Friendship
    Frontenac Provincial Park Ontario
    Fundamentalists
    Fungus
    Gamay Wine
    Gazebo
    George Eliot
    George Horace Lorimer
    Glotheri
    Goats
    Gold Brook Road
    Goldfish
    Grandchildren
    Green Cove
    Grocery Shopping
    Grosbeaks
    Halifax
    Halloween
    Hawks
    High Junction Gymnastics
    Hiking
    Hiking Boots
    Hiking Trails
    Hildegarde Of Bingen
    Hints Of Winter
    Hornets
    Horses
    Houdini
    Human Capital
    Humes Falls Hike
    Hummingbirds
    Humour
    Huron-philosophy
    Hurricane-arthur
    Ingonish
    Inspiration
    Interviews
    Invasive Plants
    Inverness
    Inverness Trail
    James Joyce
    James Thurber
    Jealousy
    Jennifer Bain
    Jesus The Carpenter
    J.K. Rowling
    Joachim-Ernst Berendt
    John Martin
    John Muir
    John O'Donohue
    John Oxenham
    John Updike
    Joy Of Spring
    K-50 Pentax Camera
    Karen Shepard
    Kingston
    Knotty Pines Cottages
    Lake O' Law
    Language And Politics
    Larry Sez Again
    Lego Toys
    Lewis Carrol
    Life Cycles
    Lily Tuck
    Lion
    Literary Magazines
    Little Clear Lake
    "Local Hero"
    Lord Alfred Tennyson
    "Lord Of The Flies"
    Love
    Lynda Barry
    Mabou
    Mabou Shrine
    MacBook Pro
    Machines
    Magic Realism
    Margaree
    Margaree Forks
    Margaret Fuller
    Marion Bridge
    Marion Zimmer Bradley
    Maritime Mac
    Marketing
    Mary Tallmountain
    Merrill Markoe
    Mica Mountain
    Mice
    Microphones
    Middle River
    Middle River Wilderness
    Mike Youds
    Mi'kmaq
    Mini-homes
    Mobile Homes
    Moose
    Morris Mandel
    Mosquitoes
    Mother
    "Mother Canada"
    Mother Mary
    Moths
    Mountain Climbing
    Mountains
    Mouse
    Mouse Traps
    Muse
    Nature
    Neighbours
    No Great Mischief
    NS
    NS Library
    Ocean Waves
    Old Trailers
    Omnibus Bill
    ON
    Ontario
    Orwellian Language
    Oscar Wilde
    Panhandlers
    PeachTree Inn
    Pentax K50 Camera
    Perversion Of Language
    Pet Dog
    Pileated Woodpecker
    Pine Siskins
    Playing Poker
    Poems
    Poetry
    Political Power
    Port Hood
    Privy / Outhouse
    Profanity In Fiction
    Promoting Books
    Punctuation
    Purple Finches
    Qur'an
    Raven
    Red-wing Blackbirds
    Rejection
    Remembrance
    Renovations
    Reviews
    Rita Joe
    River Lessons
    Rivers
    Robert Frost
    Roethke
    Rules
    Salman Rusdie
    Satellite Dish
    Sharon Butala
    Sherry D. Ramsey
    Short Stories
    Short Story Anthologies
    Short Story Contests
    Short Story Tips
    Skiing
    Skyline Trail
    Skyway Trail
    Snow
    Snow And More Snow
    Snow Belt
    Snowblower
    Snow Blower
    Snowshoeing
    Snowshoes
    Social Media
    SPCA
    Speculative Fiction
    Spiders
    Spirituality
    Spring Peepers
    Squirrels
    Sri Chinmoy
    Stations Of The Cross
    Stephen King
    Storms
    Storytelling
    Stoves
    Stress
    Subjectivity
    Sukie Colgrave
    Summer Activities
    Sunday Breakfasts
    Susan Zettell
    Suzi Hubler
    Swarms Of Mosquitoes
    Sydney
    Sydney Cox
    Technology
    Texting
    "The Great Gatsby"
    "The Murder Prophet"
    Theodore Roethke
    The Saga Of The Renunciates
    “The Subtlety Of Land”
    Third Person Press
    Thoreau
    Titles
    Tolstoy
    Tomas Transtromer
    Toothaches
    Totalitarian Regimes
    Tradesmen
    Trailer
    Trail Guide
    Tree Planting
    Trucks
    Trump's Foreign Workers
    Truro Train Station
    T. S. Eliot
    T.S. Eliot
    Twitter
    Uisgeban Falls
    Used Bookstores
    Veterinary
    Victoria County
    Victoria Standard
    Vincent Scully
    Virtual World
    Vocabulary
    Wabi Sabi
    Wallace Stevens
    Walter Brookes
    Walter Whitman
    Walt Whitman
    War Memorials
    Warren Lake Cape Breton
    W.H. Auden
    "White Eyes"
    Wildlife
    William Blake
    William Carlos Williams
    William Noble
    Wills
    Wind
    Winter Beauty
    Wood Stoves
    Wreck Cove
    Writers
    Writing
    Writing And Playing
    Writing And Soul
    Writing Business
    Writing Contests
    Writing Drafts
    Writing Fiction
    Writing Tips
    Yearbook
    Yeast Infection
    Yellow Jackets
    Zen

    Archives

    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    January 2022
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013

    Subscribe to Larry Gibbons - Blog by Email
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.