Spring Awakening in a Small Town

Like many small towns in Nova Scotia, Annapolis Royal and Granville Ferry fall asleep in the winter. Perhaps not asleep. Perhaps one might better describe it as a comfortable drowsiness.

Many residents disappear to warmer climates for a few months. Many businesses close. 

But now, like the buds on the trees, the locality on both sides of the Annapolis River is literally springing to life. Shops are re-opening, restaurants too. People are out and about. Tourists are starting to arrive, with licence plates from other provinces of Canada and from several states of the USA being apparent. One can hear foreign accents too. 

Nevertheless, for those of us who have stayed during the long winter months, we still found a community and a vitality. It was just a different one, a quieter one; one might even say a gentler one. 

White Washed

 

This morning, from our vantage point in Granville Ferry, Annapolis Royal had been swallowed in a cloud of thick fog. But when I went across the river, the town was bathed in thick frost and glistening sunshine. 

The cool air was invigorating. A walk in the fort grounds was magical. It was early. 

But an hour later, when I had returned, the frost had disappeared, as had the fog. The fortress grounds danced in sunlight reflected off the wet trees, bushes and lawns.

There was a warmth and freshness in the air, even though it was still autumn crisp.

The Waves of Time

After ten wonderful weeks at our off-grid cabin in Ontario, we always look forward to being home again in Nova Scotia. And since we arrived back in late August, we have been delighted by the glorious autumn weather.

And we got home in time to pick the late blueberries and our first crop of apples from our own trees, planted just a year ago. Home in time to get the last of the pickling cucumbers for a batch of nine-day pickles. There has been less canning undertaken. The tomato crop has not been abundant due to a wet summer here.

We have had more time to sit on our lower deck and watch the activity on the water. And, more than ever before, the herons have entertained us. Indeed, we had the holy trinity of them on our beach recently.

Warm dry days have allowed us to leisurely put our garden to bed, with pruning, weeding, manuring and mulching now done. Next will be the leaves which are still clinging to the trees, battered by a recent hurricane and yet to come into colour, if indeed they will.

A week of heavy morning fog, has given way to bright clear mornings. The tides have been unusually high, causing problems for some low-lying neighbours, and also unusually low, causing problems for some boaters.

Today the sun glistens off the water with higher than normal waves from a south easterly breeze.

A Gullible Moment

We have had many spellbinding and some hilarious moments watching wild life, - seals, dolphin, eagles, hawks, and more from our home. But one moment will be sketched indelibly into my memory. 

It was sunny, but cool, yesterday, too cool to sit comfortably on the deck. We'd done our gardening and were sitting in our back room with friends for a late afternoon cocktail. 

In an instant, I noticed a seagull land cautiously on the railing outside our western window. This was a very rare occurrence, and never had I seen one in this location. 

It was a moment one wishes the camera had been ready. But it wasn't, so I have sketched it here.

We had made Coronation sandwiches for the celebrations this weekend: white sandwich loaf with the crusts carefully cut off before the delicious egg salad and salmon salad had been slathered onto the crustless bread slices. These crusts I had bagged, thinking perhaps the gulls would appreciate them. But for some reason, the gulls were scarce and those which did come by did not seem at all interested in these bland morcels. 

Nevertheless, I kept the bag on the ready in our back room, just in case. But I did not think it appropriate to leave them dangling from the back of the rocker by the door there when guests were coming. So, I placed the bag on a table outside on the deck by that railing to the west.

Shortly after the initial sighting of the gull out the west window, I gasped. The table had been obscured from my vision by the wall. I saw, out the southern window, the majestic but cheeky bird fly off gracefully with the bag carefully dangling from its handles in its beak. 

I am sure it winked at me.

 

Indirect Delight

The sun has now moved so far north that we no longer benefit from the magnificent sunrise skies of the winter months. At least, not directly. 

But we do see its rosy reflection painted into the chairs and railings on our deck, on the calm water, and in the trees behind. 

Beauty can be found in most things. One simply has to be open to seeing it.

Call the Docker

 A sure sign of spring, from the vantage point of our upper deck, is the arrival of the first fishing boat of the season. It has come for repair work at the boat works across the river from us. It is always a delight to our eyes to watch the vessel nestle up and into the cradle that will raise it slowly to its perch on land. Then, several days later, sometimes longer, it will be lowered, repaired and often repainted, into the water again. And we’ll watch it disappear slowly down the river and into the Annapolis Basin. Sometimes, this is as another boat is approaching the wharf, awaiting its turn at the "spa". We never tire of being a witness to this ritual.

Weather Go We

I remember in years gone by, long winters of deep white snow and blue skies. Our father created a skating rink in our back yard. We spent hours playing hockey there and honing our skills on skates. I never became a pro. I was on the Church’s B league team. But it was fun. Always it was followed by hot chocolate cradled in cold hands. In later years, it was hours spent on the pristine cross country ski trails. The silence of a snow covered woods and the cloud of breath as one took in the wonder of nature.

Today winter seems out of focus. One day it feels like spring with green grass and pleasant temperatures, the next, temperatures dip to ice-age depths. Then snow, a skiff or a blizzard. Then freezing rain. Then ice pellets followed by thawing. 

Often the weather folk get it wrong. Or we weren’t in their thoughts after all. The weather teases, then laughs at us. Fog, mist, rain, snow, a glimpse of the sun, stunning sunsets, magnificent sunrises all within a relatively short period of time. How does nature adapt? How do we? I guess we have to.