Tuesday, February 23, 2010

"These are a few of my (unexpectedly) favourite things"

I've learned some things about myself in writing this blog.  First, I'm reminded of my interest in geography, which was the subject of my university degree.  Okay, so I knew I was interested in it back then.  But, Geography, where have you been these last 30-odd years?  It's not so much that I think about geography, because I don't.  But from these posts, it's apparent that I notice it; that it compels me in some way.

The other thing I've learned is that I enjoy writing.  Again, this is old news.  My original intention, when I started at McGill, was to become a writer... re-confirmed later in life when I took a journalism diploma at Sheridan College.  Writing has been the skill I've practiced throughout my working life... so why should it surprise me that in "retirement", I enjoy writing?

But here's what I notice: of the things I do as a newly retired person, writing is one activity wherein I lose all sense of time.  Something arises that I want to say and I write until I'm done, without reference to the time of day or how long it takes.  I can lose myself in the act of writing.

That's a good thing sometimes; it's winter (however balmy); the neighbourhood is quiet; I'm still "making friends" in my new home.  Writing beats alcohol; that much I know for sure!

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Winter wonderland

As I write this post, at 6 p.m. on a Saturday, it's still 6 degrees C outside.  I intended to work today, but there's no way to sit in front of the computer when it's spring in February.  Lately there've been winter storm warnings aplenty for the Maritimes but -- knock on wood -- the storms have missed us here.   There's almost no snow in my backyard and -- seriously! in February! -- I've started to look for patio furniture for my deck.  On a sunny day, a person could definitely wrap up in a sleeping bag, recline and read while soaking up the rays.  (Just like I used to do on the deck at my cabin in the Yukon...)

My new friend Kate, who keeps bees, says they were out and about today... a sign that this winter's cold snaps are behind us.  Cold snaps??  People here are quite clear that this has been an exceptional winter, but me, I'm waiting for winter to arrive.  And though I would miss winters if they were all like this one, I'm enjoying the novelty of no winter for a change, and sustained spring in February.

When I feel lonely, as I do sometimes having been here a mere four months, I like to hop in the car and go exploring... which is what I did today.  First, I drove about 20 minutes west down the coast, on the Shore Road to Tynemouth Creek, where a good-sized creek -- we'd call it a river in the Yukon -- meets the ocean, just around the corner behind the grey gravel bar to the upper right of this picture.

The main reason for the photo, though, is the huge squared timbers lying in the mud, the largest of which are at least two feet square, hand-hewn.  The site appears to have been a wharf at one time...  in fact, there's still a lobster boat wharf a few hundred feet or so farther inland from this spot, obvious from the lobster traps piled high.  It's a perfect spot for for a boat harbour, the creek carving out a navigable channel that's sheltered behind the gravel bar.

The white crests mid-stream on the water indicate standing waves, where the outgoing creek water meets the incoming ocean swell.  They're small waves, but they tell a story of what's going on in the water.  Just up from here was a spot along the shore where river ice and seaweed floated side by side, another sign of the waters' co-mingling.

Up the hill from this spot is an old house that appears to date from the late 1800's (I'm getting to know the architecture a little...), still occupied.  My imagination took off, visualizing catch after catch unloaded at this secluded spot.  It must have been a prosperous site in its day; many hands would have been needed to build the wharf and it would have harboured several boats.

From there, I drove across the covered bridge over Tynemouth Creek and via back roads, took the long way back to St. Martins.  There, I went to Mac's Beach, the most public of the local ones, which I haven't visited before.  There was a scallop boat out in the bay -- which I refer to as a scallop boat only because it's scallop season.  What do I know about fishing boats??  If it were lobster season, I would have called it a lobster boat.  Under today's conditions, I wished I were on it, looking in at the town instead of out at the boat... although a couple of days ago, about an hour to the southwest, a scallop boat was lost with two men aboard.  It makes you think.

Mac's Beach is a pebble beach, unlike the sand beach near my house which the tide seems to sweep clean of debris.  The pebbles seem better able to capture the ocean's artifacts.  I picked up shells and a shard of blue-and-white pottery to send to a friend in the Yukon.  Because the tides are so high here, you can literally watch the tide go in or out by observing the reach of the waves on the beach.  Here, the tide was receding... and as so often seems to be the case, I was struck by the shapes and patterns of the beach geography.

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but how can a picture do justice to the sound where it was taken?  The portion of the beach in the following photo is relatively steep, so when the waves recede, the water moves fast enough to lift the pebbles and rattle them together.  No wonder every stone on the beach is rounded.  If I had closed my eyes, I might have thought I was in a concert hall; it sounded exactly like applause, building slowly at first, then resolving into a thousand clapping hands, a sustained, standing ovation, before gradually fading away.   It's one of the benefits of being alone as much as I am these days: you notice these things.  What a miraculous world we live in!

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

A walk in the woods

Around 4:30 this afternoon, after a housebound day, I took a walk to clear my head.  Because of the late hour and the day's overcast, I almost didn't take the camera...

Two or three minutes to the west, the road my house is on turns into the same road under another name (Giffin Pond Road), heads up a short hill and, derelict at this point, disappears into the trees.  The road runs west, parallel to the Fundy coast but through the forest, for 2+ kilometres.  There, it ends at Giffin Pond and (yet another) spectacular beach.

There hasn't been much snow this year and an ATV had been up the road fairly recently, so the walking was easy despite an inch or snow of fresh snow.  With some brushing and deeper snow, the road would make a great cross country ski trail.  Encroaching alders have narrowed it in some places and in others, it is more stream bed than road.  In fact, on the descent to Giffin Pond, the ATV had turned back because of the deep cuts evidently caused by running water.  It would be a lot of work to turn it into a passable ski trail and I haven't met any cross country skiers here to help with the work... but perhaps one winter the right conditions will inspire me.

Today's conditions were perfect for seeing wildlife tracks, some fresh, others snow-covered.  There were countless fresh rabbit tracks, plus those of other small animals which I'm guessing were squirrels and moles/mice -- yet surprisingly few fresh predator tracks.  The one set I saw probably belonged to a fox, given the small paws and short pace.  Toward the pond, there were moose tracks, snow-covered but unmistakable.

Predictably for a winter walk in the woods, there was a profound stillness, broken primarily by the sound of my boots on the snow.  At one point, a small plane flew over, its engines muffled by the clouds.  At another, again toward the pond, small streams broke through the snow and percolated cheerily downhill.   And just before the road broke out of the trees at Giffen Pond, I recognized the increasingly familiar, rhythmic sighing of the ocean as small waves washed the shore.

Giffen Pond was visible through the trees as I approached, an expanse of snow-covered ice.  But I was unprepared for the view of the beach.  To the west:


And to the east:

The beach rises up to a dike of sorts, on one side the ocean and on the other, Giffen Pond.  It's a testament to the power of the waves, because the stones of the dike are rounded and smooth, clearly shaped by the waters that have piled them there.


The pond must be a haven for waterfowl in spring and fall; it's perfect for that.


Despite the isolation, there is plenty of evidence of human activity, from the fire pit in the photo above to the refuse, old and new, washed up among the stones.


It was getting late by this time.  With so much left to explore, regrettably I had to turn and leave.  I started back up the road thinking only about whether the light would hold long enough for me to get home.  It was already dim enough that I had to watch the trail without looking up... and so, as I broke out of the trees into a more exposed area it was an unexpected glow on the snow that caused me to look up and abruptly turn around.  This is what I saw:




Good thing I decided to take the camera!

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

The best thing since sliced bread

Let me give you a tour of my new wood chute, thing of beauty that it is.  Previously, I've had to carry firewood in a smallish Rubbermaid container, up the back stairs to the deck, then down the stairs -- carefully, one at a time because of the heavy load -- to the basement where the woodstove resides.  I knew from the get-go that I wanted a wood chute and thanks to the design and execution of Stephen Hopey, local carpenter and Mr. Fix-it, hauling wood is now a breeze.

The wood comes through a basement window into a 4' x 4' bin, which holds easily a week's worth of wood.  (To the left of the bin, you'll see the Rubbermaid container I was using before.)


The window above the bin opens easily and stays open thanks to a little catch on the upper left hand corner.


Outside view... with the wood chute in its usual storage position.  Note the new wood at the bottom of the window frame, which serves as a stop to keep the chute from sliding in too far.


The chute is light and easily lifted into place.  The surface is faced with metal so wood slides easily and side-rails keep it headed in the right direction.


At the woodpile, I load the wood into a wheelbarrow for easy transport.


Number of steps from the woodpile to the window with a full load: 11 or fewer.


Result after five or six loads and about ten minutes' work:


Ta da!

Monday, February 8, 2010

Erosion

The first picture in this post was taken in mid-January, 10-20 feet from the edge of the cliff at the end of my property that faces onto the Bay of Fundy.  On this particular walk, I was trying to find the trail that the deer take to traverse my property.  I know they stay close to the cliff until they cut up and across my neighbour's property to get to the trees beside it.  There had been quite an interval between snowstorms and some warm temperatures, so much of the snow had melted away.  In fact, the closer I got to the cliff, the less snow there was, so I had no luck finding the deer path.  What I did find was this speckled snow.


PEI is famous for its red rocks and soil, but they extend along the Fundy Coast as well... so the cliff is actually composed of a red rock that I'm guessing is a sandstone (although a couple of properties over, there's basalt in the cliffs, so the geology is rather complicated and beyond my superficial expertise).  The wind blows in off the Bay, so it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the cliffs are going be constantly eroding, either from the force of the wind or the waves.  What surprised me, however, was how much residue had been deposited in a relatively short time.  The cliff may be eroding, but the land apparently is being built up...

The second picture in the post is from the same walk, taken on the beach a few minutes from my house.  There is a lot of ground water in this area, so where the cliffs would be wet in summer, now they're icey.   Notice that the ice stops short of the beach... which tells you about the reach of the preceding high tides.


Wind, water, ice, red rocks...  nature constantly in motion.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

It took a while, but I'm back!

Here it is, the photo I was trying to post when I last wrote: Ms Stressed Face at work.


The good news is that after some further stress (computer fumble-fingers that I am), I've finally resolved the technical difficulties that interrupted the unfolding of this blog.  

It's been a busy few weeks: what you see above is me back in the role of government bureaucrat but working from home.  A couple of intense weeks like this were followed at the end of January by four days in Ottawa for meetings, which was more stimulating and certainly more social than being hunkered over a computer.  On one level the work has been very welcome, as the money will help to offset the expenses of settling into my new home.  On another level, well, what happened to retirement?!?!  I was just getting started...  This working really cuts into the fun time (she whines).

Last week, I focussed on work of a different sort: I finished and assembled two bookcases, moved them into my office and unpacked several boxes of books.  The office is now more functional and I'm delighted to have access to the books again -- another small step toward this feeling like home.  Unexpectedly, however, there are still enough boxes to fill at least one and probably two more bookcases, so I guess there'll be another round of cabinet-making in my future before too long.                                            

Next week, though, I'll be back in front of the computer.  I have 30 days worth of work to do for Environment Canada before the end of March, with half of those days already done.  (That ought to allow for a reasonable amount of fun time interspersed among work hours, you'd think.  We'll see...)

I've resented the work for cutting into the pleasure I was having before Christmas; it's made me grumpy.  Okay, maybe it's not just the work, maybe it's winter.  But it's been a pretty benign winter here so far and the days are noticeably lengthening, so maybe it's a bit of everything.  I upheaved my life by moving and retiring at the same time, and maybe it's just a lot to deal with at once without some ups and downs along the way.  I find myself churning with big questions to which only the passage of time will provide answers (like: "What am I doing here?"  "This was your plan, don't you remember?"  "Well, yes... but What Am I Doing Here?").  No regrets about moving, but in truth I haven't yet fully arrived... and that will take time.  

I feel like the proverbial kid in the candy shop: many dazzling options but only a nickel to spend, so how to choose?!?!  Do I want to recommit to the life path I've been on (trying to make the world a better place by changing society) or take a new path (creativity and entrepreneurship) or find a way to merge them?  These are the kinds of questions that one faces (okay, I'm facing...) in "retirement".  I'm simply not ready to sit in the bleachers of life.  It would be easy to seize the first opportunities that come my way in order to avoid the question: what do I want my life to be?  We all faced that question as teenagers, when there was a lifetime ahead, we were immortal and anything was possible.  It was a toughie then... but it gets more complicated when time is starting to run short, the body is showing unmistakable signs and it's patently obvious that some things won't be possible.  One might think that having fewer options would make the choices easier, but I'm old enough to know that every door I open means another door -- many others -- that will have been passed by forever.  

In fact, what an incredible privilege and luxury it is to have the opportunity to consciously, intentionally revisit those kinds of questions during the course of my life.  I'm very, very lucky; blessed, even.  Respectful of this gift and trying to choose wisely, I'm going to take my time, keep on putting one foot in front of the next and stay observant for what comes up.  Even when, as lately, the inner turmoil leaves me feeling grumpy.  Please bear with me when I'm a sourpuss; I'm merely venting.