Snapping turtle laying eggs by the side of the road, Upper Northfield, Lunenburg Co., June 24, 2010
This cannot be a good survival strategy.
Snapping turtles lay eggs in June and July uphill from a water source. This snapper has found some gravel right by the side of the road, a foot or two from the pavement. The water source, as you can see in the picture, is a human-excavated pond some distance away.
I wonder if this snapping turtle has tuned into her ancestral memory. Perhaps, before the road was developed, her mother laid her eggs in a sandy bank here, and when my friend emerged from the egg, she scampered and tumbled down the hill to the embracing water in a natural stream or that once flowed quietly just below this very spot.
Now she is laying her eggs in gravel that has been brought in to elevate and level out the road. If the eggs don’t dry out in the gravel and hot sun, or get squashed by a truck parking on top of them, her hatchlings will have to reach the artificial pond in the distance in order to survive and thrive.
Trying circumstances, it seems to me, and not unsimilar to those facing many young members of a much more recent species on this planet, homo sapiens.
Don’t just visit her blog, though. Go eat! The restaurant which she started with her mother, sister and aunt a decade ago is still going strong with Jenny at the helm. She comes from a family of great cooks. More than that however; the food is far from your ordinary fare. It is healthy and local, made from scratch, creative and delicious.
The Wick Pub next door, part of the same establishment, is home to an open mic Kitchen Party on Friday nights, hosted by Jenny’s dad, singer-songwriter and soundman Don Osburn. It is also a concert venue. All this information can be found on the Union St. Café website.
This is the “Kid’s light Nova Scotia T-shirt” from the CafePress shop behind the “Gift Shop” link above, in ash grey. Here it is after lots of washings, still looking good and still a favourite.
If you’re in the US, ordering clothing from CafePress is fine, but if you’re ordering from Canada, you have to be prepared to pay duty, as well as GST, on clothing. (So much for that free trade agreement!)
Printed materials, however, including Nova Scotia fridge magnets, have come through just fine for me by Canada Post. Your results may vary.
Disclaimer: I earn a small commission if you order any of my products from CafePress.
The Mahone Bay Classic Boat Festival, formerly known as the Mahone Bay Wooden Boat Festival, isn’t happening this year, but a new group has come together to present the Mahone Bay Regatta on the same weekend.
So if you’re used to making a trip to one of Nova Scotia’s most scenic towns at that point in the summer, for food, entertainment and a bit of “messing about with boats”, or if you have a boat and like to take part in the races, you should continue to mark that weekend on your calendar.
This year has a strong Pirate theme, so if you come on Saturday or Sunday, bring along some Pirate garb, or at least be ready to say “Arrrggghhh, me hearties!” You can practice by changing the language on your Facebook to Pirate: Account > Account Settings > Language and from the drop-down, choose English (Pirate).
I’ve been mesmerized by it out on the ocean on a sailboat, where it becomes your whole world – but that’s another blog post.
The other morning after the fog moved in, I was startled by the colours of the flowers. It was partly the contrast between the saturated colour close up and the grayed-out view in the distance. And partly (as photographers understand) the non-directionality of the light – the lack of shadows, so the colours are purer.
We moved to the South Shore of Nova Scotia for the sailing, essentially. Lots of folks here have boats. There are kayaks, runabouts, sleek motor cruisers built for speed, a few “trawlers” (non-planing motor cruisers), fishing boats converted into pleasure boats, “personal watercraft” (sea-doos), small and medium-sized sailboats of all vintages, some wooden, and more (if I left your kind of boat out, no offense; just leave a comment below). No mega yachts to speak of; when you do see one of those, it’s probably “from away.”
Even if your boat is just a runabout with an outboard, and even if you’ve been running about with it since God was a boy, since September 2009, if it has a motor, you’ll need your Pleasure Craft Operator Card (PCOC) to run about with it in the future – in Canada, that is.
So there’s a bit of a rush on to get the card. Courses are popping up here and there, and presumably they’re being filled by those who’ve been putting it off all these years.
Courses are offered by various groups, such as the Canadian Power and Sail Squadrons (CPS), where I got mine in 2003 as part of their more in-depth Boating Course. CPS now offers a standalone Boat Pro course which is geared towards the PCOC exam.
Converted fishing boat
My husband, a lifelong sailor, and our 9½-year-old son recently took a 2-evening course with local instructor Michael Ernst. Ernst uses the curriculum developed by the Lifesaving Society.
Taking a course with a group of people and a teacher who knows what he or she is talking about is actually fun. It allows you to ask questions and learn from other people’s experiences. There are also online courses available, or you can study the materials on your own and write the standardized exam online with a proctor. Exam challenges are also held at boat shows around the country.
Course prices vary from $30 to $85 or more, depending on venue costs and what the instructor charges. Some teachers, such as the CPS instructors, offer the course voluntarily, as part of that organization’s long-standing interest in promoting safe boating through education. For other providers, including the online courses, it’s obviously a business. Some of these providers are probably showing up in the Google ads on this page, above left.
We are proud of our new young cardholder! The card is good for life, so he has lots of time to benefit from getting it now. It serves as a great base for developing his boating knowledge.
So yesterday I put up the deer fence around the garden. I didn’t get around to pegging the bottom of the netting to the soil, but did bravely transplant my broccoli.
This morning when I went to check on my baby brassicas, I was very surprised to see the leg and hoof of a deer lying next to my tender greens!
The leg of a deer in my garden, next to the broccoli.
There was no sign of damage, and no clear tracks that would help me identify who brought in this offering. It obviously wasn’t a vegetarian, as there had been no nibbling on the luscious leaves. And it couldn’t have been a very large animal.
What an ironic reminder that despite my efforts, I’m not totally in charge here, and the deer will get into my garden one way or another, dead or alive!
Update: I found a tear in the netting on the other side of the rhubarb that could have been from the stress of a raccoon, perhaps, pushing its bulk under the netting by the broccoli. There has also been a fox around, who may have wanted to bury the leg, and was attracted by the freshly-dug earth. I should think that a raccoon would have done more damage.
Children dance with butterfly wings at the South Shore Waldorf School. Click photo to visit camp descriptions.
Looking for activities for your creative kid(s) this summer? Maybe you’ll be visiting Nova Scotia and would like something special for the children to do while you’re on the South Shore visiting Mahone Bay, Lunenburg, Chester, LaHave, Rissers Beach etc.
Every summer, a group of creative artists, theatre folk and teachers have been hosting Day Camps at the South Shore Waldorf School in Blockhouse, near Mahone Bay. For little ones aged 3-7 there is the “Morning Glory” program, and for an older age group, variously 4-12, there is “Summer Arts“, including a week for early teens aged 12-15 in August. You can attend for just a day or for a week at a time. Programs and teachers change from week to week, so check out the program.
The school is in a beautiful, natural setting with fields, woods, swings and other play structures, and an enclosed play area for little ones. The school itself is a beautiful old building with lots of character, polished by 100 years of little hands and footsteps. A new annex has expanded the school’s capacity to provide art and nature based education in the Waldorf tradition.
Tourists are very welcome at the Day Camps. Some of the teachers speak German or French.
4 rows of potatoes in the foreground half of the garden
The Victoria Day weekend is coming up, traditionally the time you can expect it to be safe to get your garden planted – though I wouldn’t put out the tomatoes just yet. But the potatoes are now happily buried in the new part of my growing vegetable garden.
This area of so-called lawn (“so-called” because there was no grass growing there, only weeds and wild strawberries) was forest a decade ago. The previous owner cleared it and apparently got gypped on the topsoil – there isn’t any, really. A lot of rocks, though. Last year I covered another section with seaweed, manure, about 10 layers of newspaper and 2 layers of black plastic, held down with big rocks dug up in the older part of the garden. This year I removed the plastic and rototilled it with my grandfather’s old tiller, picking out rocks as I went. Lots of rocks. They made the tiller kick like a wild horse. I’m still recovering.
I don’t expect a lot from this new section of the garden this year. I’ve put in potatoes and will add bush beans between the rows when it warms up, as they are good companion plants for potatoes. All the digging and redigging, and the opportunities to remove more stones, will get the soil in better shape for future years.
Here is the tool I desire: the Lee Valley rock rake. (I wish they had an affiliate program so I could make enough money from that link to buy one!)
Apple blossoms, maple and birch in Lunenburg, May 13th
Apple blossoms were blooming in Lunenburg last Thursday, which means they’re past their prime in the Annapolis Valley already. The Apple Blossom Festival will apparently be blossom-less. Usually the organizers hit the blossoms right on with their timing, but this year it is generally agreed that spring is 2 to 3 weeks ahead of schedule.
Not that we’re complaining … this is my favourite time of year, when the leaves burst forth. If it’s part of a long-term trend, however, it could be very disruptive to the natural balance of blooming and birthing, migration and munching, which governs the ongoing survival of many animals and plants.
Spring is early across Canada, not just in Nova Scotia, or so I hear. Is spring early where you live? Leave a comment below.
