Our Message Archive
September 2023
Sunday September 17
Our vegetable garden a bit roughed up by Hurricane Lee
The main story this week was the arrival of Hurricane Lee as a strong post-tropical storm. We spent most of Friday moving everything moveable in the yard or on the decks into the garage, finding candles, flashlights and the transistor radio, and harvesting anything in the garden that might blow away (mainly tomatoes). I also made an apple pie and some lemon blueberry tarts to make sure that we had enough to sustain us through the ordeal. When it finally arrived, the centre of the storm passed over the westernmost part of the province so we were only on its edge and were spared the worst damage. Even so we had sustained winds of around 50 kph with gusts over 100 kph and almost a third of Nova Scotians lost power. We lost ours at 7:30 p.m. but only for about 25 minutes. We lost it again this evening for an hour and three-quarters in a scheduled outage by the power company so they could fix some damaged power lines. Today we spent some time cleaning up the leaves and twigs that had blown over the yard. My eggplants also were partially flattened (see the photo) and had to be restaked. In another year I would have been able to harvest them before the storm but they are several weeks behind due to the lousy weather we had all summer. Ann and I went for a ride around town this afternoon; there are quite a lot of branches down but no whole trees that we could see. So, all in all, not too bad and quite a lot better than Fiona, Dorian and Juan.
Our neighbour Roxanne currently has a photographic exhibition at Viewpoint Gallery. I went to the opening a week ago Thursday but Ann was busy at one of her book clubs; she plans to go to the artist's talk next weekend.
This Thursday, Ann went on an outing with the ABC Book Club to celebrate its longevity (19 years; they couldn't wait for another year to get a nice round number). Various ideas were bandied about for an exotic destination but they settled on an afternoon sampling the delights of beautiful downtown Dartmouth. They started at noon doing the thermal circuit at Nature Folk a spa in the old City Hall building on the Dartmouth waterfront. That involved self guided visits to three kinds of sauna, a cold plunge pool and a warmer pool to rebalance you after heating and cooling. The two hours spent there was much more enjoyable than Ann expected because she thought there would be massages or lotions, things that she does not enjoy.
When they were done at the spa it was pouring so, instead of walking along the waterfront as planned, they went to the Craig Gallery to see the show on icebergs. During a pause in the rain they then made their way to Café Marco Polo for coffee and snacks ending up spending more than an hour there as the rain started again. Once the rain had stopped, they wandered up Portland Street stopping at the Trainyard General Store, The Dart Gallery, Friction Books and Taz Records, and Maria's Pantry before reconvening at Dear Friend Bar for cocktails and mocktails. Several of them had the host whip up unique mocktails according to their various tastes.
At 7 p.m. they went to Audrey's Little Shop of Plants to learn how to make a terrarium. The one Ann made is now on our mantlepiece where we hope it will be too high for Louie (who loves to eat flowers and plants).
They finished up with dinner at The Canteen.
Monday September 4
Fishing boats in Central Port Mouton
(near Carter's Beach)
I left you last time with us enjoying a ride-free day in Liverpool. The next day (Thursday) we started with coffee and pastries at Main & Mersey Home Store & Coffee Bar (the lemon muffin-like pastries are really good) then drove to Carter's Beach to ride back towards Liverpool to meet most of the rest of the Ramblers who were riding from Liverpool to the beach. We then turned around and rode back to the beach. The purpose of this manœuvre was to shorten the ride a bit by skipping its boring part (from Liverpool to Hunt's Point). It also meant that Ann could spend the afternoon at the beach while I returned to the hotel in the car (Ann likes lounging in the sun on the beach much more than I do). That evening we returned to The Quarterdeck for dinner with all the Ramblers.
By Friday it was clear that we were going to get another major rainfall early on Saturday. Since the roads between Liverpool and Halifax had closed after the previous major storm, all the other Ramblers decided to return home after the day's ride from Mill Village to Port Medway, over to Vogler's Cove via a very rough trail, then back to the Riverbank General Store in Mill Village for lunch. Ann and I decided to return and have dinner at Paul's German Café Bistro in Liverpool before going home.
Since then we have been enjoying some time at home. Ann has been trying to catch on her book club reading list while I've been working in the garden. We've both been looking for new ways to eat cucumbers (a bumper crop) and I've made some pesto and tomato sauce (more to come). We also have broccoli, carrots, parsnips, zucchini, kale, beets and beans. I'm worried that my eggplant won't be harvestable until we get some frost; usually they are well on the way by now but so far I only have flowers with no fruit formed yet.
Last Thursday Ann and I gave blood for the first time since before we were in France. Since then we have been banned due to the mad cow scare (which really didn't affect France much but, I guess, it is sufficiently close to Britain that they were afraid that it could have done) but recently they changed the rules so that you are only banned if you spent more than five years there.
On Saturday we joined the Ramblers for a ride from Hantsport to the Bent Ridge Winery in Martock. We had a nice lunch at the winery sitting outside under a tent. Ann and I shared a sampler of four of their wines. On the way home from Hantsport we stopped at a market in Falmouth to pick up some fresh corn and some other goodies for dinner.