Reading locally: Flandrum Hill

Amy-Lynn Bell is the creator of the blog Flandrum Hill. Her neck of the Nova Scotia woods is the region called Cow Bay, along the Atlantic coast, just east of Halifax and Dartmouth. It is salt marsh and sea and sky, and so much more. Flandrum Hill focuses on the natural world experienced at the scale of your own backyard. Since this backyard's in Nova Scotia, it can be pretty spectacular.

Amy-Lynn discovers the wonder of the tiniest thing and shares it with her readers. She is a wonderful writer. She is a well-informed naturalist. Her photography is breath-taking. She has the eye of an artist, which she also is. She has a deep sense of the spiritual dimension that informs all living things. And she's funny.

I always learn something new from Flandrum Hill. This is a blog that helps me see the world more clearly, by looking closely at a small corner of it.

Early season lobstering

Shelley Van Buskirk Spears is one of our island neighbours. Shelley's grandfather was one of the last lightkeepers on the island, and she is part of a big extended web of family and friends whose McNutt Island connections go back many decades. When lobster season arrives members of this extended network jump in to provide extra help during the crucial first days, when there is so much work to do.

Shelley went on Lyndon Crowell's boat, Maybe Tomorrow, as a bander. Her job was to put rubber bands on the lobsters' claws so they couldn't damage each other after they had been caught. She and her crew-mate Josh took these photos, and she graciously let me use them here.

Josh is emptying a trap. He'll put fresh bait (seen in the foreground) into the trap before he slides it back into the sea.

A banded lobster.

Lyndon Crowell, captain of Maybe Tomorrow. Lyndon grew up on McNutt's Island as the son of one of the last lightkeepers.

Shelley's uncle Cliff's boat, Bar Tender.

One of her dad's boats, Ocean Motion.

Her brother's boat, Au Cobra.

Her uncle Mark's boat, Butt Buster.

A fashion statement. The crews have fun and work hard. On freezing mornings we shiver in our cozy house when we hear them steam by in the darkness, long before dawn. It is dangerous and difficult work.

Lyndon says he loves it and looks forward to every new season.

"Behold, I bring you good tidings"

Here's a grapevine crown trimmed with some of the island's blessings: the hanging lichen called old man's beard that festoons dead trees, eel grass from the shore, sheep's rovings caught in branches, dried grasses, rosehips, spruce cones, and crab shells dropped by sea gulls after they had sucked out their insides. The heavenly host -- that flock of angels Luke talks about --used to wear crowns made out of things like this before the Renaissance artists took over the visuals department. These treasures remind me of Thomas More's Utopia, where money was thought to be worthless and beautiful shells were highly valued. Whether we bother to notice or not, we are always encircled with the most precious and unexpected sorts of blessing, wherever we go. And you never know when an angel will bring you good tidings in curious ways.