Back to Series Today’s post looks at local backyard wildlife and expands out to the province, particularly Cape Breton. It’s that time of year when the chill of autumn bites the air, just teasing after summer heat waves and ongoing post-tropical storms from hurricanes, such as Henri and Ida. We […]

Back to Series It’s that time of year that everything in our lives is busy: personal projects, work, and tending to the garden and meadow. Somehow our meadow turned from a brown place where buds were barely starting to a wild, vibrant, green space where the fruit trees (pear, crab […]

Back to Series The long winter I talked about in my last post hasn’t completely subsided. On Good Friday, we had an overnight ice storm and a layer of snow the next morning. It might also snow this weekend. But the days in between are growing longer and warmer. We’ve […]

Back to Series It’s been nearly a year since we moved to Nova Scotia in the midst of a pandemic. It feels longer at times. At others, it feels as though we’ve always been here. The bird-bath statues seem like watchers in the yard, with their stone forms and long-lasting […]

Back to Series I’m going to start this out by reminding folks that where I live, and the nearby lakes, are in Mi’kma’ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq People. I’ve often referenced the lake you can see through the trees behind our property, though I won’t name […]

Back to Series I always think of Jeff VanderMeer’s prolific Twitter feed, where he talks about writing as well as about his backyard wildlife. He has a lovely camera and tweets a ton about all the stuff happening in his back yard, but I am not so active on Twitter. […]

Back to Series Recently in the New York Times, a woman bragged about our province being Covid-19-free. It’s a little early to be bragging about that, I thought. The Halifax subreddit seemed to think the article was a little smug. While the rest of the world has suffered terribly, as […]

Back to Series This is the second Backyard Wildlife post that goes beyond my back yard. The first was back in April, just a few days after we’d moved to Nova Scotia from Vancouver, and I explored Elliot Page’s There’s Something in the Water. This post, too, will look at […]

Back to Series Last night my husband and I sat in the living room discussing plans for the house. Surrounding us were the cozy warmth of our new wood stove, the fairy lights strung about the bay window and around the room, the sound of crickets coming from the open […]

Back to Series It’s already August, almost fall here, but you wouldn’t know it. Nova Scotia has had hotter than normal weather this summer and a high humidex, making it rather uncomfortable with no air-conditioning. But so far we’re okay, staying hydrated. I guess we were lucky to have the […]

Back to Series Note that I decided to rename this series “Backyard Wildlife” due to my original plans of getting out more into the province being squelched because of the coronavirus. Nova Scotia is really careful about things opening, more so than the United States. Nova Scotia has had, as […]

Back to Series A lot of stuff has happened since last month. Between May and June, the black flies have come out in big numbers. Crickets began to sing at night–a sound that I love and which I grew up with but never heard during my years on the west […]

Back to Series When we first moved in, our realtor let us know that planting season wasn’t until mid-to-late May. I had a hard time believing it, but now I’m convinced. The weather is just so wild here. Last week we had a snow storm. Last night as I was […]