10/30 Halloween Eve

When we got home from the dinner party at the Morley's last Saturday night we stayed up 'til around eleven, held up by Rusty Nails. As a result, Sunday was a day of rest - and recovery. Maybe that's why this morning I'm inserting Melanie's perspective on life along The Shore from a recent email -

"Guess I should add my comments to the weekend - My Chromebook is having aging issues -  it gets finicky, unhappy, and decides to rest a lot these days (hope its just the computer) -  but, it's not been easy to sit down and do what I want, when I want. Charlie is great at trouble shooting and getting things to work, most of the time, but... 

Now that we know we'll be meeting in Va. Beach on the 18th-19th, an early Thanksgiving, we can finalize our stops along the way and send out another revision to our tentative travels plans - We're targeting our ETD for Veterans Day (Remembrance Day). Four couples (friends) are leaving this week for Green Valley and Florida. We'll be helping them somewhat - dinner for one and a ride to Moncton airport for another. By Halloween, most of our seasonal resident friends will be away or on their way. There is a lot of apprehension about returning to the States and how they will feel "re Covid." They are double vaccinated, but do not have boosters yet - coming soon but not really available until November for population without medical issues. Two couples have plans to return to Nova Scotia for Christmas though, they are planning to get boosters in the states ASAP. Flu shots are available here.  We got ours yesterday afternoon on our way to  friends for dinner in Amherst - $12.50 each, since we are not Nova Scotia full time residents - seemed quit fair. Of course we could have waited a couple of weeks but, since we'll be traveling, this felt like a good idea. We'll see about getting our booster Covid shots in the states, either New Orleans or Tucson depending on what is available.
Jeanie - Thanks for forwarding John and Lois' wedding announcement - you are correct - we have not received the invitation. In fact we decided to have Escapees hold all our mail until we return to the U.S. It's not worth wondering when and if we will receive mail. (we'll probably have it sent to Ridgefield). 
 
I have been doing some canning with what's been available since we returned:  Unfortunately no black currants, gooseberries, or raspberries -  BUT lots of apples, blueberries, zucchini, and cranberries. Let me know if you have any interest in the usual...... You'll probably get some anyway.  I'll be participating in and leading fitness classes for the next couple of weeks.  We have a very stable group of around 18-20 individuals - A few leave the end of the month - Heather's last day is today.

It's currently two degrees centigrade outside - not windy at the moment - but I've been looking for gloves, hats, scarves, etc.... We just hope the weather holds until we leave (not particularly interested in leaving in ice and snow). Hope everyone has a good week - looking forward to your travel plans - just in case our paths might cross along the way -  We'll be going to Florida after we leave Va. Beach.

The fall colors have peaked.  Charlie sent some photos in his last blog.  He's been getting a lot of positive feedback on his weekly accounts of our so-called local activities -  People seem to enjoy reading about what they know and feel close to especially  when they are  somewhere else - And Charlie has  been enjoying the writing and journaling.

I actually did some pottery and the firing worked - amazing since we had no idea if the kilns were o.k. - seemed to be....We'll probably leave the pieces here. 

Actually, Sunday morning I took a walk, through the nearby Provincial Park, this time toward the water. On the beach I met a couple from Ontario who are serious house sitters and travelers - they have been all over the world and are currently making their way west to spend January and February sitting a house on Salt Island. On my way home I passed a number of apple trees. There were lots of good large apples of various kinds on the ground which will necessitate a trip back with a couple of bags.

Late Sunday afternoon we went to Amherst to do some grocery shopping before going over to the Baldock's for dinner, another 'goodbye' dinner for Fran and Tony. We stopped at the PharmaSave to pick up a flu vaccination schedule and were persuaded, on the spot to be shot, before going to the Wal*Mart and thence to dinner, which was very fine. Al has a new NA beer from The Island which I like - he is getting me some - they ship by the case, direct to one's home at about 3/4 the price of buying at the NSLC. Now, about that dinner - the highlight was a fine roast of beef which Al had slow cooked to perfection - first roast of beef I recall eating in many years - carved in very thin slices. Before leaving Carol told Melanie that Bev Hennigar is under hospice care and not expected to be with us much longer. Al and I played golf with Blois back in early September and I had no idea Bev was not well. A sad end to a happy evening. Then Carol called Melanie early Monday morning to let us know that Bev died around 5:30 AM. There will be a memorial service in Amherst for Bev on November 12th. We will be on the road south by then.

Last week I ended my post with a list of items not written about. By popular demand I'm inserting a brief section about some of our co-habitants. The last two months we have, on occasion, seen the odd mouse scurry across the floor - in the kitchen, in the living room, and upstairs from Melanie's office to the attic stairwell. At Canadian Tire we purchased four sticky traps to place in areas where mice had been seen.

In addition, Melanie has a small two drawer drop-leaf table in her office which she suspected may harbour a mouse or three. It was my task to explore a drawer. The lower drawer was easily opened and, sure enough, it contained a large comfortable nest. The top drawer was jammed shut; I had to go out to the shed, getting a long pry-bar and a hammer to open it. Lo and behold - another nest and the residue from several years of habitation - their larder. There was a bit of an odor so the table and drawers are now in the shed and will remain there until we return next spring. In the meantime we are waiting for sticky traps to do their work. As a follow up, during the past week we have caught two mice by sticky traps and three by old fashioned snap traps - winnowing the population.. 

Monday afternoon I spent bookkeeping which isn't very exciting to write about though I do enjoy it. A simple dinner, a quiet evening, and early to bed - if early to rise I doubt it will make us any healthier, wealthier or wiser. Tuesday my hip was still bothering me, I took a short walk to test it and it doesn't like uphill slopes, so another day of R&R was in order. during which I moved outdoor furniture off the porch and into winter storage and straightened up the shed. In the evening Heather and Hal came over for supper - they are flying to Orlando (Dundee) tomorrow so we gave them a chance to close up their kitchen early. Wednesday I returned to the Park (Amherst Shore) with plastic bags and collected several different species of fallen apples for another pie - my hip is a little bit better. After Melanie's exercise class we went into Amherst. Melanie had lunch with Carol and Nancy while I went shopping: oil and filtres for our vehicles, mothballs, rat poison and a few more traps for our nearest and dearest neighbors, plus groceries for us. Another quiet evening at home with a wedding at 8:30 ADT:

John Craig Menszer
and
Lois Anne Proctor
invite you to participate in the very small
but live celebration of their wedding
...
in the main sanctuary of Touro Synagogue
4238 St Charles Avenue
New Orleans, Louisiana 70115
....
(https://tourosynagogue.com/livestream) 

The service was live streamed on the temple's website and 'we were there.' We've participated in a number of internet meetings these last two years but this was our first wedding.

Thursday afternoon we ventured into the wilds of New Brunswick - taking Fran and Tony to the Holiday Inn in Dieppe the night before their flight to Tucson [Green Valley]. Our reward included one very large zucchini, onions, carrots, cheese, etc. from Fran's larder, plus 12 Libra NA beer delivered to their back porch by Al Baldock. On the way home we stopped by Ted Embree's to switch cars - the Chevy had got its tonsils checked prior to our trip south so we left the Hyundai for its oil change - in a week or so it will be stored in our shed for the winter. In the evening I prepped some dough and put it in the fridge for a small loaf (2 cups of flour, 1 cup water, plus a little salt, sugar & yeast) to be baked in the morning while Melanie upgraded our bean soup to take to Don & Gloria's for supper Friday evening.

Friday was a day of eating though Melanie did begin with a Halloween exercise class lead by Brenda (van Snick) while I tried out my hip - taking an hour walk. The hip was good so I guess it really may have been the golf that torqued it a bit. At noon we had the parents of neighbors, Nick and Becca, in for lunch - interesting people, widely travelled, he a Brit + US citizen, she a Canadian + US citizen. They brought us one of Janice's home made fruit cakes to which I immediately added several glugs of Gosling's rum; I'm already enjoying it, the cake, and we swapped fruitcake recipes.

I wasn't completely satisfied with the way my small loaf of bread turned out this morning so I did another loaf using the same ingredients but this time I proofed the bread under a damp towel in a very low oven for three hours. This yielded a much lighter loaf which we took, along with a salad and the bean soup, for dinner with Don & Gloria - had a very pleasant evening catching up on events. It's strange the way Covid has put a two year blank space in our lives vis a vis our Canadian friends. It is very good be able to reconnect.

The last few days have been rather breezy. Many of the trees are now bare of leaves though the hardwoods and birches are holding on. The weather is cooling down, though there is as yet no first frost in sight daytime temps will be in the single digits (C) by the end of the week. Today, Saturday, Melanie spent in Amherst getting her CPR certification to go with her Fitness Instructors license. I picked up a few items at the grocery and got more oil for the cars - Auto Zone shorted me two litres for the Hyundai, one litre for the truck, and gave me the wrong Hyundai filtre - I'll have a chat with them next week. In the afternoon we picked up the Hyundai from Ted and are now settling in for a quiet evening - no more dinner parties, until Wednesday.

All in all, another good week at Amherst Shore. As an autumn evening settles in, I am sitting on the old yellow couch, looking at a reflection of book spines cast from a circular glass table top resting on the wide wooden wheel from an old apple press belt drive. I took it one evening from a barn, around sunset, after a day spent running a field survey crew, fifty years ago. I can still see the washed out red barn siding, oak trees tinged in autumn midst fields not mown for many years, and imagine a young family moving from the city to a new life in rural West Virginia's Eastern Panhandle.