April showers bring...dreams of better days

Good grief. It’s raining again—but it is so raw outdoors I expect it to turn to freezing rain or worse any time now. The cats and I think we’d best spend the day hugging the stove, so most of us are in the kitchen doing just that.

Yesterday, there was sunlight, and enough warmth that the tide of snow subsided a bit more in the yard. But there’s still plenty to go around…


Although the dear little snowdrops have reemerged, looking a bit bedraggled and wan after an unexpected snooze of a week, but they’re here and they’re valiantly smiling.




Of course, the weather is a perfect topic of discussion among strangers waiting in checkout lineups, at the credit union, just about anywhere you see more than one person. We are reminding each other that it IS, after all, only April, and a Nova Scotian April is one of the most treacherous of creatures, right up there with neocon prime ministers who bully and go back on their word. (Oooops. That was a mini-rant of the political ilk. Must be the weather causing it. That man and his band of pirates are another major topic of conversation among thinking Canadians these days.)

On to better things, as the title suggests. I was looking through some of my photographs last night, selecting a few new ones to update my work website, and I found one that explains a little about where we live. I’ve mentioned Cape Split before, which is the promontory that terminates the North Mountain, a few miles down the hill from here. The Split thrusts out into the Minas channel in a curve like an appendix on the western side of Nova Scotia (if you look at a map of the province.) There are a number of basalt sea stacks that form the Split, broken off from the end of the cliff and catching the whirlpools and eddies of tide with great drama.

From our yard, we can only see Little Split, the end of the sea stacks; but we can watch the tide roaring through the channel, and around the end of the Split. The tide routinely screams through there at 8 knots, and it does make a distinctive roaring sound. Some call it “The Voice of the Moon”, and I have always thought that was the perfect description.

All that water—and all the fog, wind and other weather related to living on the edge of the Bay of Fundy—are partly responsible for our weather, as I’ve remarked before. But the cooler temperatures allow me to have my blessed blue poppies, and also bring on great gardens when the time comes. And the time will come, before too much longer. Last year, things came on a bit early after the weather smartened up in mid-May. They also last longer—this photo was taken on the first of June, and the double-flowered tulips were just nicely in bloom.


So I breathe deeply when I hear the wind screaming, and ice pellets—yes, they ARE pellets now—hitting the windows. Before long, we will be tending our gardens in earnest, even though on days like this we await that time more eagerly than children await Christmas morning.

Next entry, I’ll go back to my top ten (or so) perennials, and regale you with the wonders of sea holly.