Don't complain camp in the rain...

Long time, no write!

Been busy though…

I did go on the kayak-camping trip last week, Monday through Friday. The first day was solid rain and then we had three days of sun and cloud, with rain on the final day of packing up and leaving. I have to say the rain made things quite difficult. 

Shelter from the rain

We were extremely grateful that our first campsite included a shelter, so we decided not to pitch tents but sleep in the shelter. That was okay although I didn't sleep very well. The next two days we had to move to two more campsites, which involved a lot of packing up, unpacking, setting up tents and taking them down again. That part of the whole trip was utterly exhausting, at least for me. I think the other two fared better: they shared a tent and were probably in better shape than I was for that sort of thing.

On our last day, one person was packed up and ready to leave before the other two, I was ready but stayed behind to help the third person into her sprayskirt. They get caught on the life jacket behind you and it often takes a helping hand to get it unstuck. She left and I tried to leave but got stuck between a rock and the shore. Rocking the kayak did not free it but did end up letting water into the cockpit. Then I got out to guide the kayak away from the rock, only to get two boots full of water. So by the time I left the shore I was soaked and sitting in a puddle of water inside the kayak.

The other two were waiting for me offshore but they had their backs to me and did not see my futile efforts to get launched. One of them asked me what I was doing and I told her. She was sympathetic, but the other woman laughed.

I guess I don't like being laughed at when I am in difficulty. I said, "I know it sounds funny, but it doesn't feel funny."

We paddled back to our starting point and I kept my distance from the others because I was seething. 

There were incredible moments of joy and beauty during the trip. One of our campsites was up a river and the trip there and back was absolutely magical. At that campsite, every time I looked at the river I was completely in awe of it, completely entranced.

But overall it was utterly exhausting, not from the kayaking but from the camping. A friend said she would have an awful time sleeping on the ground but for me that wasn't it. It was the packing, unpacking, packing again and erecting and dismantling of the tent and tarps over and over again. It absolutely killed my back. Also the fact that the other two women helped each other but I was largely left to fend for myself. I guess three is an awkward number, unless you have a spacious three-person tent.

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My town has recently embarked on an ambitious plan to cut carbon emissions by assisting homeowners to get climate-friendly upgrades. I contacted the plan organizers and they got me started on a project to install solar panels on my house. In the past I have resisted this because it is costly and the breakeven point on upfront costs is about 15 years from now, when I may very likely be dead. However, the town's plan involves offsetting the costs through home equity. In theory I can install enough solar panels to cover all my electrical needs without spending a dime of personal money.

Of course, like all such programs, it involves a lot of paperwork, talking to contractors, getting quotes, and who knows what else. The upside is meeting and talking to interesting people who tell you interesting things, the dowside is consuming a heck of a lot of time and mental energy. The plan spokesperson thinks I can be all done by Christmas, but at least one of the contractors I spoke to is saying probably next summer for completion. That sounds more realistic. There are a lot of unresolved issues and questions, but I guess it's kind of exciting.

Yesterday and today I am digging up potatoes, so something complicated but somewhat exciting to think about is welcome. As I told one friend, digging potatoes is as backbreaking as my previous week of camping, and given how cheap potatoes are to purchase, I wonder why I bother to grow them.

Lots to think about…

Fragile Miracles

Yesterday was the last day of morning kayaking. The director of the program came out to the lake early to unlock the gate and give us Regulars an extra hour of paddling, she brought her son and a couple of his friends with her to play on the paddleboards while she oversaw the kayak registrations and sendoffs for the day, because the students who usually do that job ended their summer jobs the day before.

It was a gorgeous day for it. The latest heat wave ended yesterday so it was warm but not scorching. A few of us did not come because the early hour was just a bridge too far, but those of us who did come set out in search of the mythical Fish Ladder.

Word has it that there is a fish ladder on the lake, we kind of assumed it would be near the power dam. D and myself had already explored the environs of the dam but had not sighted the ladder, so the group set out for a wider search of the lake. However, after a two-hour paddle the mythical Fish Ladder remained mythical, a project for next summer. It was an exhilerating paddle, especially since we kind of lost track of the time and left ourselves only a half hour to get back to home base. We went straight down the middle of the lake, a flotilla of little kayaks paddled in unison.

Next week is a week of morning appointments, things I postponed until kayaking was done. The week following is the kayak-camping trip on Kejimkujik Lake. Last spring we had organized a four-day kayaking trip at a lodge (Milford House), but that was cancelled due to Third Wave lockdown. Here in Nova Scotia it was actually the second wave, but for the rest of the country it was the Third Wave. Anyway, we had so many people wanting to come on that trip that I was half-thankful that it was cancelled; it was going to be crowded. But now we are hard-pressed to get four people willing to go, perhaps because we are all of an age when sleeping on the ground and camping in the rain are less than pleasant prospects.

But for me, four days on the water sounds like heaven, rain or no rain. And I am ridiculously fit, I feel more up for this than I have in decades. One night this week, insomnia had me up in the wee hours and while failing to get back to sleep I was marvelling at how hard my stomach muscles are now. My thumbs were very sore for a while but they have recovered, paddling hard for an hour now hardly affects them. In spite of lack of sleep I am still up and ready for an active day first thing. It feels like some kind of miracle and I don't want to waste it, at this age one is keenly aware of how fragile such miracles are.

Last night I was watching TV with the back door still open, the last of the heat wave was dissipating and leaving windows and doors open was nice. At a certain point I had a very strong sense that Hapi had just come in through the back screen door to check on me, it was quite overwhelming. I had to turn off the TV and walk around the house for a bit to try to shake it off. In spite of having a very good day I went to bed sad. One of my appointments this week is an interview at a seniors housing co-op, and one of their rules is no pets. For the first time since Hapi died I wonder if that will work for me. In addition to missing Hapi, I miss my backyard cardinal and the chipmunk that lived for a while in my window well. One grows attached.

Birds and ballots

I noticed about a week ago that the little cardinal that flitted around my back yard and sang constantly all day long was absent. It took me a few days to notice his absence and I guess I just thought he was somewhere else for a few days. Then I nticed that there was a cat visiting my back yard; he would scamper away whenever he noticed me watching him. And finally, while mowing the lawn a few days ago, I found scattered blue jay feathers. I put it all together and cursed that damn cat.

I tolerate cats but am not a huge fan, mostly because I am allergic to them and they always like to rub up against me. But now I dislike them all and that orange-and-white cat in particular. I feel like a good friend was murdered. I don't know if the chipmunk has survived the carnage, haven't seen it around either, and the back yard is deathly silent these days.

Today I watched a young male cardinal checking out my back yard from a nearby tree and I hoped he was thinking of moving in. But he came with a companion, a much larger bird of another species (I am not sure what it is). I suspect the young cardinal is hanging out with the bigger bird for protection and I rather got the impression that the big bird was calling the shots. It will be up to him (or her) whether they move in or not. This new cardinal isn't a singer, or at least not today, but it would be nice if he moved in.

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Our provincial election was on Tuesday and I put in over 15 hours as "information officer". In fact, all I did was run around sanitizing after each voter. In my not-so-humble opinion our supervisor did a poor job of organizing our poll and as a result there were lengthy line-ups. There were no breaks, the voters showed up constantly and we had to keep our masks on whenever there was a voter on the premises. That meant no eating or drinking either. By the end of the day I was exhausted and in pain all over.

What makes it worse is that as "information officer" (the supervisor took over my job as information officer and relegated me to sanitizing) I was low man on the totem pole and my opinion did not count. The supervisor was not doing the job of information officer effectively and as a result too many people were waiting in line for half an hour only to be told that they either didn't have the right ID or they were at the wrong poll. He was supposed to catch those folks at the door and redirect them. So it wasted their time as well as the time of all the people lined up behind them. The tasks of registering and screening each voter fell to two people who processed things very slowly while two other people just handed out ballots and sat there doing nothing otherwise. They couldn't step in to help, the supervisor was too busy chatting with voters and doing my job, and I couldn't do anything about it except scurry around with the sanitizer.

After the poll closed we counted ballots and registration cards and the tabs ripped off the ballots. The numbers were all supposed to match up and of course they didn't. So we recounted and recounted and recounted until we finally got it all to match up. At least there was a clear winner. I spoke to one of the other candidates the next day and the scuttlebut is that the winner didn't even want to run but was cajoled into it. So now we have a reluctant MLA who wishes he had said no. The provincial election signs have all been switched to federal election signs and we have another month to go of election campaigning. Only the names of the candidates have changed. It seems the election issues are more or less the same, with similar promises being made.

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I went on a little road trip with a friend the day after the election and we discussed the election results. The Progressive Conservatives won by a landslide, apparently Nova Scotian voters are not happy with the Liberal party that was in power. They did a good job of handling the pandemic, but not much else. Anyway, the PCs focussed on a single issue, health care. My friend said she belonged to a Facebook group about saving provincial health care and after the election the group moderator said she was disbanding the group because the PCs were in power now and they were going to fix everything. We both guffawed. I bet that woman believes in Santa Claus too.

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Between my extreme annoyance at the poll work and losing my lovely singing cardinal to a crappy cat, I was more than ready for a hard paddle on the lake two days later. I visited the young eagle, who was crying plaintively that morning. She stopped when I paddled up to her tree but started in again when I left. Her head and shoulders appear a little greyer than before, I looked that up on the internet and it probably indicates her age as around two years. This is odd since juvenile bald eagles don't usually hang around the nest that long, they are usually off on their own by 6 months of age. Either premature aging or a very immature juvenile.

Election, election, election...

So, as I type, PM Trudeau is chatting with Gov-Gen Mary Simon about calling an election in the fall. Here in Nova Scotia we are set to vote on Tuesday, a provincial government election. Back-to-back elections just annoys me no end.

I was listening to a woman on the radio talking about the current promise of affordable childcare, which apparently is still in negotiation with the various provincial governments. This woman is tired of waiting (she has two daycare-age kids) and in any case finds daycare totally unaffordable. The waitlists for daycare spots were bad enough before the pandemic but now are so bad that it really doesn't matter how much it costs, she can't get it anyway. Which all reminded me of the promises made by politicians when my kids were preschoolers, and now they are in their 40s and 50s. I am so bloody tired of listening to it.

Childcare is important, so is climate change, affordable housing, social supports for the poor, the homeless, the disabled, the sick, the old, and of course how we manage the pandemic (fourth wave?!?). Then there's LGBTQ issues, policing problems, discrimination, indigenous issues, blah blah blah. Not to mention wars and earthquakes and all the rest of that 'End Times' stuff.

A short while ago I happened to run into an anti-vaxx anti-mask fanatic. We had a very polite friendly conversation about our positions on the Covid vaccine but I came away thinking O, M, G. And elections just accentuate all that, all the diverse opinions from compassionate and rational to the fanatical and insane are aired out and shouted out and I am so tired of it. I feel like it's useless to vote, it's useless to listen to all the promises being made because all it does is make me sad: a world we could have had but probably now never will.

On the radio Trudeau has emerged from his chat and is saying stuff about how we need to discuss all these issues and make up our minds. I didn't hear a date yet but I'm guessing middle to end of September.

O, M, G.

Today I was daydreaming about a good old fashioned tyrant, you know, kind of like what they have in China. Somebody who said, Enough talk, here's what's going to happen. I suppose I should keep quiet about that, be careful what you wish for you might just get it, and all that. But still...

Sigh.

Family Visit

Annapolis Basin from Fort Ste Anne

My eldest son was visiting this past week, he just returned to his home in Toronto this morning. We had to be up at 4.30am to get him to the airport on time, and it was a 2.5 hour round trip (he did half of the driving). So I am not much good for anything today. Fortunately there are leftovers to eat and nothing I need to go out for.

We had a great visit, lots of good conversation, visiting with friends (his, mine and shared friends), various outings and TV watching. I had Indian Summers (2015) so we watched one or two episodes each night. It was originally planned as a 5-season show, but only the first 2 seasons were made; just not popular enough. I got quite into the stories of some of the characters and wished they had finished it so I would know what happened to them.

We ate out a couple of times, went to Halifax to visit a friend of my son's who recently moved from Toronto to Nova Scotia, did a little road trip to Annapolis Royal, and went kayaking a couple of times. We also went swimming at the Reservoir of course. A PEI friend of my son's dropped by my place, he was on a business road trip selling cider from his cidery business on the island. He left us with ample samples of his wares which we drank every night and I think there is still a little bit left. 

The friend in Halifax is absolutely ecstatic about her move to the Maritimes, she loves the city. Her partner's mother lives nearby ("720 steps away!") and helped them find a lovely house rental in a great neighbourhood (the North End). I mentioned that I was considering an e-bike but was uncertain about price and quality. She recommended a bike that both her teenage daughter and her MIL love, so I actually ordered it the next day. It won't arrive till the end of the month or early September but I am looking forward to that.

We planned our road trip to Annapolis Royal to arrive in the middle of their Saturday Farmer's Market and while browsing through we ran into some old friends of mine who hadn't seen my son since he was a toddler. They made laughing comments about things he used to say (at age three) and he smiled through it gamely. 

After we parted company he asked me if he was supposed to know those people, because he had no recollection of them at all. I said he was only three then so no, I didn't expect him to remember them. At least they didn't say how much like his Dad he looked, which my son hates. Yes, he looks like his Dad but he doesn't consider that a compliment. It was Pride Day in Annapolis, we missed the parade but caught some of the musical entertainment. We walked along the waterfront boardwalk to Fort Ste Anne and took a couple of photos before going back to the truck.

On the ramparts of Fort Ste Anne

We took a slightly different route home just to make it a little more interesting. About halfway home I realized I was sinking into a kind of hypnotic trance so we stopped and traded places. My little truck is my baby and I am reluctant to hand over the wheel to someone else, but it was clearly necessary.

My son took a lot of photos and he said he'd send some to me, but I already have the photos he took while we were kayaking.  Another friend of mine came along on that trip too.

I'm in the red life jacket, my friend in the yellow one

He took a couple of photos of the juvenile eagle we visit regularly. It moves around but we can usually find it. 

We have to paddle hard to get across the lake, but once across we can meander around the little islands and coves.

Crossing the lake

Also this week I got a roof rack put on the new truck cap. I still need a couple of tie-downs on the bumpers before I can put my kayak on the rack but that is coming soon. 

This week I am doing some training to be an election information officer at a local poll, the election is the following week. We have four candidates in my riding, one of them is a friend and she asked if I would take one of her Party's signs on my lawn. I decided not to, since she's running for a Party I don't intend to vote for. Not that she wouldn't make a good MLA and she might very well win, but I'm done with strategic voting and I now only vote for what I believe in, even if it's a Party that has a snowball's chance in The Very Hot Place.

Rainy Thumb Rest Day

Big Rain Day and I can hardly move out of my armchair. I called our kayaking leader last night to say I wouldn't be coming due to predicted rainy weather and she said, But you will come if it's a beautiful day, right?

Uh… sure...

I spoke with my youngest son later and he said, Why did you lie? Your hands hurt! That's a good enough reason not to go, why did you lie about it?

Uh…

My son The Ethical Philosopher.

Truth is, I don't like to admit to weakness if I can avoid it.

I love being out on the water, and it is killing my thumbs. But paddling fiercely into a strong wind is exhilerating, I don't want anyone telling me I can't do it because I am hurting myself.

Aylesford Lake Kayak Loan Program

These days, first thing in the morning I am on automatic: roll out of bed at 6.30am, coffee, toast, granola, wash dishes, brush teeth, put on bathing suit and pack waterbottle, hat and sunscreen into backpack and I'm out the door. An hour later I am at the lake, signing out a kayak and slipping on a life jacket. Then I'm out there. I am the second fastest and strongest paddler, I team up with the first fastest and we determine where we are going today and then go for it. She is ahead of me, I am putting everything I've got into keeping up with her. I don't know where the other paddlers are, they've gotten used to D and I disappearing across the lake. Yesterday D didn't come so I went alone; she said she had to go to the South Shore but I bet she was home resting her thumbs.

When I get home I usually have a list of things to get done: errands, garden chores, whatnot. But I try to spend at least an hour doing nothing to regain energy for a late afternoon swim, across the Reservoir and back. It's a 5-minute bike ride away. By evening I am so exhausted I wonder if I'll make it out to kayaking tomorrow. Lights out at 9.30pm, down for the count moments later. Repeat all over again at 6.30am the next day.

But there's only so long I can keep up that pace, four days apparently. I didn't go today but I still had a list of things to do. Didn't do any of it. Read the list and mentally ticked off each item: Not Urgent, Forget It. Too damn tired.

Eldest son is coming to visit for a week, he says he has to work online for part of that time so I will probably get out kayaking while he works. But no kayak time is scheduled until Tuesday so hopefully four days of not paddling will allow my thumbs to improve.

One of the kayakers gave me a phone number to call to work as an election poll clerk. I procrastinated because I wasn't sure I wanted to work 14-16 hours in one day. But I did call today, they don't need poll clerks now but there was an information officer position available. I took it. Pays less for same amount of time, but oh well. At least it's close by.

Here's another photo from the evening at Houston's Beach last week; that's me in the pink shirt gazing intently at the popcorn being popped over the fire.

Eaglet, moon rise and post viral

Houston's Beach, cloud with rainbow

Another more or less perfect week. I and another kayaker have been exploring the hidden coves on the other side of the lake that we kayak in. There's a young eagle living there who sits by its home nest calling all day, presumably for his parents to come feed him. He can fly—we've seen him in the air—but he prefers to sit in a tree by the nest calling plaintively. One day three of us floated in the water beneath him and he quieted and examined us from the safety of his perch.

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I missed only one morning of kayaking due to weather and I am glad that I did, I think five days in a row is a bit much for me but I can handle four days broken by rain. Yesterday I kayaked in the morning, swam in the afternoon and went to a beach bonfire in the evening to watch the full moon rise. We roasted marshmallows while waiting for the moon. Our "firepit" was an ingenious little metal affair that folds away to nothing, it has a heatproof but porous bottom to allow air flow from below without setting fire to whatever is underneath, it also has an optional firescreen cover and a grill for roasting food over the fire. The owner of the portable firepit says he bought it over the internet from some company in southwestern USA.

We also had telescoping forks for roasting our marshmallows. My companions prefer their marshmallows browned but not burnt, I prefer them well burnt. I stick my marshmallow into the coals to set it afire, then raise and twirl it to make sure the entire surface is burnt. After we had our fill of marshmallows, the popping corn was popped and we filled up whatever crannies of our stomachs remained unfilled. 

At one point we were all so engrossed in the popping of the corn that we missed the actual rising of the moon. It was halfway up before we noticed. Watching the progress of the moonrise was the highlight of the evening, a few clouds at the horizon allowed you to actually see it rising upwards. It gradually turned from dull red to bright white as it gained height. The reflection of the moonlight on the water of the Minas Basin gave the moon a kind of long bright trail.

The tide was very low so the beach was extensive when we arrived, but it was coming in so that by the time we left the beach was half its width (length? distance to the water's edge?). Some fishers were out fishing for striped bass and flounder; they only come into the Basin when the tide is rising so serious fishers are prepared for nighttime fishing when the low tide is late at night. The beach is also the only place in the county where you can camp for free so there were several tents and one RV set up for the night, with a couple of fires in the parking area. In June recent school grads use the beach to celebrate so it can be quite noisy, but in late July it is quiet.

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I am quite exhausted by a busy week so I try to rest on the weekend, nevertheless I plan to go out tonight to a music event with a couple of friends. I was going to mow the lawn today but couldn't muster the energy so hopefully I can do that tomorrow. My friend J is going to paint my truck cap tomorrow and then sometime this coming week I will get a roofrack installed on it. In the course of prepping the cap for clearcoating last week, J managed to sand off too much of the existing paint, so now he has to paint before he can finish the clearcoat. I didn't think I would find a roof rack before autumn but I found a shop that said they could have it for me next week. A little pricey but worth it.