Saturday 4 September

Monday: Took Melanie's Hyundai up to Ted Embree this morning for pre-inspection inspection. Melanie drove, first time in quite a few months. Chatting with Ted, who has been working on our vehicles for a number of years, we got into a discussion of family. He was surprised when I told him I'd first come to The Shore in 1954, that my grandfather had built the Green Cottage in 1908, and that Clare Christie is my first cousin. 

Came back home to watch more news of Ida on the Weather Channel and read local news in my online copy of Saltwire. One of the lead stories was Cape Breton police rein in wandering horse, lead it to rightful owner, very different from the daily news we've been consuming in the States. In fact, I decided to remove the major newspapers from my browser 's Bookmark Bar. If I really want them I know where to find them but they won't be the first thing I read every morning, local news will suffice.

Tuesday I went in town (Amherst) and played a round of golf with the LeMoine brothers and Blake Daily after which I went shopping at the Walmart, which I did not care for, followed by the Atlantic Superstore, a much better experience though I was surprised that they did not have rolled oats in large cardboard containers, only plastic bags. 

Wednesday Melanie had fitness class at 8:30 while I stayed home, did some paper work and started to straighten up the work bench in our shed. In the process I came across fittings, used when we were on the boat twenty years ago, that enabled us to hardwire a phone into a marina dock outlet occasionally; such facilities were relatively rare in the marinas at which we stayed but were very nice to have. Around 4:30 Phil and Suzanne arrived, from Botsford, New Brunswick. First time we'd seen them since Green Valley in 2019. They have become successful and quite well known potters in our area which includes NS, NB, and PEI. Over dinner we exchanged 'war stories' about our Covid lives. It was good to see them and I expect we will visit them on The Island some time this fall.

Thursday evening we were invited to the Tanguay's for dinner along with the Spears, ar 4 PM, "Since Melanie likes to go to bed early."  A lovely evening with rum and wine, fresh scallops, fried rice, fresh green beans, fresh strawberry-rhubarb pie and Scotsburn's ice cream, plus lots of good stories and sharing of tales from our last two years away. All this through the tail end of Ida, rainy and breezy but not too bad, the temp was in the low 60's and Chuckles was curled up in one lap after another. 

A bit after ten we said our goodnights and headed home through a light drizzle. Came along the Tyndal road, from the Tidnish River, through the Tidnish Crossroads, past the Lorneville Church, all in drizzle and dark of night. There was no traffic. Up ahead we saw an array of bright flashing red lights, the Amherst Shore Volunteer Fire Company was at work. I slowed down, put on our flashers, and rolled down the window to see what was up. A chap with a light stepped out from the fire truck and said "Is that Charlie and Melanie?" Here, we'd been away almost two years, it was in the dark of night, at the tail end of Hurricane Ida, and Glenn Fullerton recognized us. Said we should keep to the left, there was a flood across the road from the Verstratten's pond, don't go off onto the shoulder. We did so and arrived home shortly thereafter.

Where else could that have happened? a) We had just had a delicious dinner with friends, b) it was a dark and stormy night, and c) we'd been 'away' two years. It made us feel more 'at home' than one could believe. Amazing.

Friday was another mostly cloudy day with some sprinkles. I spent a lot of time on my PC trying to sort out and change access to a number of different sites, then did some printing of files and general bookkeeping. In the evening I picked up Jeanne Christie who joined us for dinner, very pleasant, trying to eat less following a real pig out Thursday evening, got about 5 lbs to lose - slowly.

Now it's a quiet Saturday morning- I'm doing laundry, paper and plastic waste is out for an early Monday recycle pick up only it's Saturday since this is a long weekend. The remnants of Ida (or her sister) are outside providing temps in the 50's with a little Maritime sunshine, it's cloudy and spritzing - hope to get to the Pugwash Farmers' Market later in the morning and then to an outside concert and pig roast in Baie Verte (If they will let us into New Brunswick with Texas license plates). We might drive with the Tanguays, it's all weather dependent.

We "celebrated" our two weeks back home with Jeanne Christie last night (Friday) with a large stuffed zucchini from a friend's garden, beautiful ripe tomatoes from another friend's garden, and store bought lettuce (probably from the US). The beer was local, from Tatamagouche, and Guinness  Apparently Guinness Extra Stout is no longer made in Ireland - just the empty cans - and the stout is produced in New Brunswick, at least for eastern Canada.

It sounds like Ida may finally have gone to bed, but Larry is appearing on the distant weather scene  (Whatever happened to Julian???)  Have you been reading about the emergence of Mu, the new Covid variant? In our quiet little corner of the world, we're trying to relax, enjoy the moment, see friends before they go home for the fall and winter, and otherwise search for perspective on where we go from here.

We think we have contracted with a young beef farmer, Brodie Trenholm, to plow and maintain our fields for the next five years - five years seems like a looong time. This will require working out a land lease, in case we sell the property. Brodie plans to plant corn next year in order to kill all of the uninvited plants like lupin, Queen Anne's Lace, loosestrife, etc... which have invaded the fields in the past two years. We've been told how gorgeous the fields looked with lots of blooming lupin last spring. Unfortunately lupin is poisonous to cows, or at least not good for them - cow vetch is better....

A nice quiet morning Saturday, still cloudy with sprinkles, started out with my usual cuppa and reading a sci fi novel, Ender's Game. 

Then off to the market in Pugwash which was booming, a lot of cars parked along the nearby streets, families browsing the stalls for arts and crafts, locally brewed beers, a honey mead, and some fine vegetable stands - Melanie bought some prune plums for jam and a nice eggplant ($4C), then on to the Co-Op for a few more staples

Home via Ted Embree's to check on the status of our car which will be done Monday morning. Chatted with Ted about local events: a seagull that died in the wash from Francis' pond, maintenance of the graveyard behind the Lorneville church, selling a lot in the graveyard to a woman whose husband died last winter (in his fifties - way too young), the size of the ball on our trailer hitch, etc....

There is to be a pig roast with dueling bands at Jim & Janet's Campground on the Baie Verte Road this evening - BYOB and a chair - but the weather does not look auspicious, forecast to be in the low fifties and raining so we will stay home and read or make chutney, or something.