spring visiting

Yesterday was such a social day on the island. In the morning Peter and Sherry came over to the island, and came by for a visit. A dark-eyed junco made a flying house call.
Actually, many song sparrows and juncos spent the day settling in after their long trip back to the island. They twittered about unpacking their bags and checking out the menu at local diner (which is the same menu as last year).
The sheep came by to greet the returning birds.
Blake and Ashley came by. They brought lobster from Blake's dad Skipper, and stayed for a visit. Later Skipper himself came by, with mussels and eggs. We really don't need to go to the store.
At the end of the day Greg sat in his favourite place and appreciated the beginning of spring.

insects of the sea

Our friends Skipper and Radar dropped by for tea on their way home from lobstering the other day. They brought us our dinner, too! After four years here it's still amazing that we can sit down and eat lobsters as fresh as this. Skipper and Radar say the lobster season hasn't been good, though. The weather even in December -- usually the best month -- was horrible for lobstering, with some major storms. Maybe things will pick up in May, when the waters are warmer. In the meantime, Skipper says "We are a non-profit organization."

Well, especially if they give away the catch before they even get back to their wharf.

supper time

We were at the lighthouse today, and saw many boats far out on the horizon. Once in a while one would come close enough to have her picture taken as she rounded Cape Roseway on her way up the eastern channel.The gulls are delighted that lobster season has begun, and follow the boats hoping for odds and ends of leftover bait that might be tossed overboard. Supper for gulls.

And supper for us, too. No, not leftover bait. We were stacking wood for winter of 2012 when we spied the H. Sinclair coming toward the cove. Greg grabbed a yellow plastic pail and walked down to meet Radar and Skipper while I followed with frosted applesauce cake.
They tied up at the dock long enough to give us three lobsters and eat cake.
After a bit of a chat, they were on their way. They would have lots more to do before their day was finished and they could have their own supper.

happiness all around you

Here's an interesting statistical study that confirms what we see around us here in Nova Scotia. It turns out that in Canada satisfaction with life is more related to community than to how much money you've got. As Americans we are, as they say, gobsmacked.

92 per cent of Canadians satisfied with their lives

The Canadian Press

Date: Tuesday Nov. 23, 2010 4:00 PM ET

OTTAWA — A new study of life satisfaction in Canada finds that among the provinces, Prince Edward Island takes the happiness crown.

The study released Tuesday by the Centre for the Study of Living Standards found that on a scale of one to five, the average level of happiness among Canadians aged 20 and over was 4.26 in 2007-08.

At the provincial level, life satisfaction was highest in P.E.I. at 4.33 and lowest in Ontario at 4.23.

In 2009, 92.1 per cent of the population aged 12 and over were either satisfied or very satisfied with their lives, up slightly from 91.4 per cent in 2008.

The study also looked at factors influencing the happiness or life satisfaction of Canadians, and found that it's not all about money.

In fact, household income was found to carry less economic significance for happiness than other variables like mental health.

A sense of belonging to the local community was a key determinant of individual life satisfaction, while high stress levels were linked to lower life satisfaction.

Being out of work also had a negative impact on people's happiness.

The study found relative to household income, moving from unemployment to employment has the same impact on happiness as a 151 per cent increase in income for the average person.

The study was based on data gathered from Statistics Canada's Community Health Survey.

To read about The Centre for the Study of Living Standards and this report, go here. Note to Americans: it's not one of those fake politicized think tanks. Believe it or not, they don't really seem to have those here.

getting ready for lobster season

At Fort Point Fisheries in Gunning Cove, everybody has been getting ready for the lobster season for weeks. Now they are putting the finishing touches on their work. Next Monday is dumping day, also called setting day. That's the beginning of the lobster season for Lobster Fishing Area 33, which is this one.

The traps are either already loaded onto the boats, or about to be. A lobster license entitles the holder to set 250 traps. All those traps will be set next Monday, beginning at 7:00 a.m., if the weather is okay. The word from Environment Canada is that it will be windy.
Randy Van Buskirk is helping load his brother Cody's boat. I suppose Cody will return the favour later on.

Here's Cody Van Buskirk on his boat, Au Cobra.
The traps are very big and they are very heavy. Each one has a concrete weight inside that keeps it from moving around too much when it is sitting out there on the ocean floor.
It is a big project to slide the traps off the stern and into the water. They go off the stern one after the other, mostly in strings of several tied together. The boat is moving over the place where the traps will be set, and the traps are sliding off the back. This is all happening far out in the North Atlantic, at the beginning of December.
The day the lobster boats go out with their traps is a dangerous day. So much is going on and there's so much weight and mass to deal with. There's a lot of skill involved, and even then things can go wrong.A view of Skipper's new boat, H. Sinclair, which is named for his dad, Harry Van Buskirk. Randy's new blue traps are stacked on the dock to the left, ready to be loaded onto Sea Arrow.
Locomotion, the red boat on the left, is already loaded. That's Cody and Randy's dad Roger's boat.
Another view of Au Cobra taken from Chopper I as we sailed away toward home.

Anne Barclay Priest

Mary Morse and Leroy d"Entremont emailed us last night to let us know that Anne Barclay Priest had died. Anne was a good friend to many people, including Elizabeth Hyde, who owned this house before us, and her daughter Joanna, and Mary and Leroy, who took care of her Blue Island sheep when she was back in New York, and later bought the flock from her. We were fortunate that she reached out to us newcomers as well, soon after we moved here, and so began a brief and lively friendship of email exchanges in the winter and a visit each summer. We learned right away what so many other people know better than we: that anything having to do with Anne was lively, to say the least.

Besides the post entitled How to Keep Warm you can read a little bit more about Anne in posts here, here and here.

You can read about her memoir, Trafficking in Sheep: From Off-Broadway, New York, to Blue Island, Nova Scotia (The Countryman Press, 2008), here. The beautiful photograph of Anne on the book's cover was taken during a sheep gathering here on McNutt's Island.

Here's how Anne concludes her memoir:

I have asked myself questions about my life in Nova Scotia. What if I had purchased a piece of land in another part of the province? I never would have bought the island, never bought sheep, never heard of Brian Nettleton. It was an immense crossroads, one that never in my wildest dreams I could have foreseen. I don't regret one bit choosing the road I did. It has brought a richness and beauty to my life that I love and embrace, as well as many friends. And so what it the people in Greenville as well as West Green Harbour think I'm off my rocker? They could think worse. And probably have.

season of good cheer

There's a quality of good cheer about deer hunting season on the island. The "hunters" are the same people as our neighbours, only for a couple of weeks they dress differently. As far as I can tell they have customary hunting rights over the whole island, which means that whoever I see riding by on an ATV belongs with one of our neighbours. It's usually one of their fishing mates and some younger relatives who are gradually learning the ways of hunting under more experienced eyes. So, since it's pretty much the same people year after year, they take a great deal of interest in how the deer population is doing. I would say they know more about the habits of the island's deer than anyone else. They are, really, students of the deer.

I'm glad to see them every fall because it's my chance to ask questions and learn something about the mysterious ways of deer. I try not to ask too much. I don't want to seem like I'm prying. So I limit myself to a question or two per year. This year I learned that the bucks usually stay deep in the woods while the does and fawns wander about more. That's why we see does and fawns around the house and sometimes on the road, but hardly ever do we see bucks. Just because we don't see them doesn't mean they aren't there.

The bucks become less cautious, though, as rutting season strikes them. I learned from the hunters this week that it's the onset of cold weather that triggers the bucks' desire to mate and lures them out of their hiding places. Deer season began officially last Friday, but it only started to get cold a couple of days ago. They said something about the phases of the moon too, but I didn't understand that part. I'll wait until next year to find out more about that.

I like the sound of their ATVs going up and down the road, heading toward their blinds deep in the woods or to another camp, then back again. Each year in late October they clear out their old ATV paths into the interior. Their paths do us good, since we can walk along them at other times of the year and explore an otherwise impenetrable landscape of forest and bog.

For some reason I don't see hunting season as a tragedy for the deer. Most of the deer who gather around the piles of imported carrots and apples to help themselves are does and fawns and under-sized bucks who can't be shot. Maybe the carrots and apples they are eating now will add to the reserves they need to get through the winter. And if the hunters decide the herd seems too small and the bucks too few, they will just agree among themselves not to shoot any. Since they have been hunting here for years, they take the long view. Sometimes I think they are more interested in watching the deer than anything else. But they are truly happy when somebody bags one.

They enjoy being out here for a few days anyway. The young fellas are learning the ways of the woods. The old fellas are getting away from the mainland and enjoying a break between the end of fishing and the start of the lobster season in a few weeks, when they'll be hunting beneath the deep, cold North Atlantic waters.

road crew reinforcements

McNutt's Island does have a road crew. It's an assortment of people, mostly Lyndon or Skipper or Mark or Cliff and since we moved here, Greg, who go out with a chainsaw and open up the road again whenever a tree falls across it, which happens now and then, especially after a high wind. The road crew is not the least bit organized and maybe because of that it does excellent work.

But sometimes even the most dedicated road crew needs reinforcements. There are places where huge crowds of alders jump up off the side of the road when they see you coming and wave their branches in your face and generally act all wild and crazy. They have gotten out of hand. They had to be cut down to size.

Ken Taylor, captain of Browneyed Girl, got the ball rolling when he brought his bush cutter to the island and spent days and days clearing the road's edges, starting at the government wharf.
Then Randy VanBuskirk brought his dad's big rig over
with the help of his friends Wade Pennell (right) and and Lee Rodgerson (left).
I can't imagine what it took to put this scary monster on Randy's boat and then get it off again, twice. Its fearsome blade does a terrific job of cutting back whatever is in its path, and Randy is constantly adjusting its angle so it misses nothing.
After these big-time reinforcements the road will be back in the hands of the sturdy regulars and their simple tool of choice.

a day of gratitude

Today is Thanksgiving Day in Canada, even though it seems like people actually celebrate by getting together for a big meal on the Sunday before it -- yesterday. Maybe that's only true of the little slice of Canada we know anything about, which would be Carleton Village and Gunning Cove.

Among many, many other things, today we are thankful that our boat, Chopper I, wasn't more seriously damaged when she grounded in the cove on the rocks in high winds on Saturday.
Skipper says we can be grateful that she is a Rosborough hull, renowned for its strength. In which case we are grateful to Skipper for finding Chopper I for us in the first place. We are also grateful that our neighbours Skipper and Jim both came racing over in their skiffs to Greg's rescue, and that our neighbour Robin helped later that night-- in darkness and continued strong winds -- when the tide was high enough for Chopper to get towed over to Skipper's dock.

Then grateful to Skipper for looking her over yesterday and working out the slight propeller damage. And for dropping off sea trout he pulled out of the gill net. Those high winds did bring some good things into the cove after all.

gifts from the sea (continued)

Dylan and Skipper came by to show us what they had found washed up on the shore. They brought me an unusually dark purple sea urchin for my collection.
They found a bounty of buckets, buoys and lines. You never know when you'll need more.
They found Charlie Brown.
An excellent coffee mug from a very high class place down the shore beyond Lockeport.
A perfectly useful matched pair of lobster claws, size extra large.
With his handy new claws, Dylan is demonstrating the proper use of a chest freezer which is also a recycled item, new to us, but which was not found on the beach. That would be another story, really. Maybe Greg will tell it in his next book.

an island outhouse

It's true that our own outhouse blew over in that not-quite-a-hurricane event last weekend. But it got all fixed. To see it blown over and then right side up again, you can go on the Island Year Facebook page (you can click on it in the column on the right). In the meantime, on an island that has many truly fine outhouses, I've been meaning to show you the prettiest one. It's also the newest one. It belongs to Margot and Dave.

a young neighbour

Susannah is Margot's grand-daughter. She visits the island with Margot and Dave, who built the coziest camp last summer further along the Lower Road. Their place looks right out onto the cove.Susannah wrote a school report about McNutt's Island this year. I was glad that I had the chance to read it this weekend. It was lovely.

This weekend she built a bird house with her Uncle Skipper's help. It will be a lucky bird family that moves into that fine house.

swimming deer

Shelley Van Buskirk Spears took an amazing picture yesterday afternoon of two deer swimming across the western channel of Shelburne Harbour, from McNutt's Island to the beach at Carleton Village, on the western shore. Her husband Alex called her to say that he had spotted the deer leaving the Horseshoe on McNutt's. That's the northern arm of the cove, here on the western side. Shelley ran to get her camera and stood on the shore to wait until they appeared.

You can see part of McNutt's in the upper left of the picture. The wind was quite strong yesterday afternoon, coming from the west-northwest, and the water was choppy, with whitecaps. This must have been a difficult swim. It's hard to imagine why the deer went across. People have always said that deer swim to and from McNutt's Island. But as far as I know this is the first time anyone has taken a picture of it. Thanks to Shelley for sharing her photograph.

camping out

Blake, Walter, Andy and Elijah -- cousins and friends whose family connections to the island go way back -- are camping out tonight. I walked down to the end of the cove to see their set-up.Really, they picked a fine night.
When I peeked inside one of the tents I could see that they have big plans.
They have built an excellent campfire and they brought marshmallows. Their site looks out at Gray's Island on the western side.
It's on a grassy rise on the shingle beach, across the cove's end from the sheep pens.
When the tide rises they will be cut off out there!
But they cleverly brought enough food to see them through, including clams which they are steaming in rockweed. I imagine they will have a night to remember.

the fog horn collector

When we were away last January, we got an email from Randy Van Buskirk. He collects fog horns, he wrote us. He had bought one from a gentleman in South Carolina much earlier, but he hadn't been able to figure out how to get it to Carleton Village. And he had just heard we were in Florida! Could we possibly pick it up for him on our way home? And he hoped it was okay that it weighed three hundred and fifty pounds.

We were glad to have a chance to do something for our good neighbour Randy. The patient fog horn seller was Tom, who very kindly drove two hours from the South Carolina coast to meet us at the Interstate for a hand-off. We met him at a truck stop in the early morning dark. The fog horn did weigh three hundred and fifty pounds. But Tom and Greg managed to wrestle it from Tom's car into our truck. In this picture, Tom's looking mighty happy to be sending it on to its new home.

And we were happy to have its weight in the bed of the truck as we drove slip-sliding through a tough winter storm into Carleton Village. Randy had gone out and shoveled off our boat that morning so we wouldn't have to contend with two feet of fresh snow. We handed over the fog horn and sailed away to the island. It seems like it was a long time ago.
Now that lobster season is finished, Randy has had time to tune the fog horn and install it on his boat, Sea Arrow. He has a couple of other big horns on Sea Arrow, and he can really manage a floating concert when he's inspired. It's amazing how much he can do with three notes.

On Friday evening we heard the sound of a gigantic tanker steaming directly toward the shore: this time the sound was a bit intimidating, really. When we looked out, we saw Sea Arrow approaching our dock.
Here's Randy, in post-lobster season mode. The fog horn we brought back from South Carolina is the one closest to him. He built a wooden box for its housing. He fabricated the other two horns -- which are really beautiful -- himself, because, he said, somebody told him it couldn't be done.
It turns out that this old fog horn has an amazing history. It was salvaged from USS Neosho A23, a fuel tanker built in 1939. She delivered fuel at Pearl Harbor the day before the Japanese attack there. She escaped during the attack, and continued to serve in this crucial capacity in the Pacific until 1942, when she was severely damaged in the Battle of the Coral Sea.

We love hearing Sea Arrow as she travels the harbour. Thanks to the fog horn collector, she reminds us how much the world is connected in all sorts of odd ways we never could have imagined.

a visit to the island

Anna and her cousin Josie came with Anna's papa (Josie's uncle) Leroy d'Entremont to look at Leroy's new lambs again.

Anna and Josie are finishing fourth grade in West Pubnico. Josie saw three kinds of terns on the way across the harbour. On the island they collected what they called artifacts: a tiny feather, a perfect snake skin with a complete head, two sea urchin shells, and the ornate foot of an old cast-iron stove. They helped me water the plants in the greenhouse and change the water in the hummingbird feeder. They ate moussaka and carrot-zucchini slaw and chocolate cake and later peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. They saw the hummingbird and Josie added it to the list of birds she's keeping.They climbed into the oak tree in front of the house.
They were the first passengers on a shake-down voyage of the McNutt Island Express, which apparently has a few kinks that need to be worked out. They visited the World War II guns and went down in the bunkers where a snake raised its head and hissed at them: get away! They saw new lambs near the lighthouse. They visited the fish house, twice.
All in all they had a pretty good visit. Then they sailed away again, back to West Pubnico.