Nova Scotia, week 5: Assorted stories

Hello Everyone,

The Gods of thrift store shopping giveth and they taketh away. Our first trip to the Atlantic Canadian institution, Frenchy’s second hand clothing, was a bit of a bust. Emilie got a part of garish blue lounge pants, the kind that are so wildly ugly they have to be comfortable. She suffered some good sticker price shock when we got to the check out and realized they were $4.50. Plus tax. Outrageous! The worst part is that when we got them home and washed, they weren’t even that comfortable. What even is the point of pants such as these?

On a different outing, we stopped in at Value Village, looking for a desk for her. I have myself set up in the little side building next to the cottage with a couple of stools and a board as a desk. We needed something where Emilie could sit comfortably. Lo and behold, what do we find but an adjustable, easily stored wheelie desk, for the larcenous price of $6.99. What’s more, we found me a mini tripod for my camera. Outrageous!

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The house where I lived after residence in my university years had an apple tree in the backyard. I didn’t pay it much mind until the last year I was there and realized that they were actually somewhat tasty apples, and made excellent applesauce. I felt like a fool, letting these free apples go for years without taking advantage. Rest assured, dear reader, I wouldn not make the same mistake twice.

There are apple trees all over the place here. I cannot, in good conscious, let free apples go. Not again. Are they good apples? Not particularly. But they’re not poisonous and (mostly) not wormy. In about 5 minutes you can pick enough to make apple sauce for the next week or two. We don’t have a lot of room in the fridge, so I’m making it in smaller batches, but it feels good eating free applesauce every day.

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I wrote once about the smallest jerks of the animal kingdom, the hummingbird, who chase each other away from a giant, inexhaustible source of food that is the feeder at the cottage, trying to keep it for themselves. Well, they have company and competition for that title. There is a bird feeder here, and I've bought myself a bit of bird seed. I can watch the little creatures go to and fro all day from one of the windows in my office. It's amazing entertainment, especially because they are colossal assholes to each other. This is literally the formula for reality TV. The squirrel will chase the blue jay off the feeder and through the tree, the blue jay will chase away the chickadees, and the chickadees will chase each other. I fill the trough every day, so there's an endless buffet for them, more than enough to go around, but they resolutely will not get along and share. Nice to know we're not the only ones.

Wes

Photos

I've been playing with the settings on my DSLR camera, so I've got a few more pictures than normal to share.

The first is Arthur on a frosty morning walk.

Next are the chickadee and blue jay mentioned earlier.

Then flowers from the last two farmer's markets.

Arthur on a lazy, sunny day.

Lastly, a photo of the stars that I'm quite happy with. Took a little while to get that to work.