My Garden, and the Clucking Hen Cafe

This weekend and through the week I have been getting my veggies in, lots of fall vegetables and root crops this year: red cabbage, beets, carrots, potatoes and various onions along with the usual zucchini, tomatoes, basil, peppers, parsley, cucumbers and pumpkin and lots of nasturtium for colour (and salads). Still waiting for squash plants. Andy and I made a trip to the greenhouse in Ingonish but they didn't have squash plants, nor did the lovely garden centre in Big Baddeck. I'll find some this weekend for sure, meanwhile,the lettuce and pea bed has been planted for ages but has slowed right down with our cool weather. It's also been dry here, threatening skies, a mist of precip, nothing too much, not enough to really get the garden going. But it will come, the rain, the warm weather. It always does.

Instead of coming right home from Ingonish, we decided to head around the Cabot Trail. It was a foggy drive, but we did see a wee brand new baby moose nursing from its mother outside of Bay St. Lawrence, passed piles of snow on North Mountain, and had a wonderful lunch in the newly built but old reliable Dancing Goat. If you're passing by, stop for a cranberry-almond scone, or a sandwich that will last for a week it is so big, or-or-or...

Check out the Dancing Goat TripAdvisor reviews yourself:

http://www.tripadvisor.ca/Restaurant_Review-g499219-d1052430-Reviews-Dancing_Goat_Cafe_Bakery-Margaree_Valley_Cape_Breton_Island_Nova_Scotia.html

And while I'm at it, if you're in our area, the North Shore section of the Cabot Trail, drop in to the Clucking Hen Cafe for a delicious breakfast, lunch or an early supper. You'll enjoy the staff, the surroundings -- you might see a moose if you sit outside on the deck and this time of year you can watch the lobster boats at work while you eat your breakfast -- and you can even buy a signed copy of my book! The Clucking Hen has the prestige of making it into Where to Eat in Canada 2010-2011 (Oberon Press). Congrats, Melody and staff!

http://www.oberonpress.ca/wheretoeat/


If you're home tonight and have a computer nearby, remember to listen to An Hour On the John at 6:30 PM CB time (2:30 Yukon time), starting with John's story hour and music for kids, then at 7 PM (3 PM Yukon time) relax and listen to a sampling of John's eclectic and wonderful taste in music. Go to www.cfyt.ca and click on listen online and follow instructions for your computer. You can email John with requests for next week, or comments on his show(s) at: anhouronthejohn@gmail.com

For playlists and an online chat, visit John on his Facebook fan site. Just search for An Hour On the John and facebbok.

Trillium trailer stories

Trillium trailers are special. People who like Trillium and Boler trailers like not only how compact they are, they like the cachet. As there are with Airstreams, clubs and groups and chat sites exist for little trailer lovers. Today we had several calls about the trailer but two stood out. A fellow from the Sydney area called looking for a manageable trailer for his 85 year old father. Now you have to love an 85 year old who is still ready to hitch a trailer to his car and set out camping. The second story involves a couple from Vermont who stopped to look at the trailer. They are in Cape Breton because they came here 35 years ago after they were just married. The wife in the couple is unwell and is waiting for a heart transplant. She isn't high up enough on the list to have to stick around town yet, so they figured, you never know the odds so they'd better get going on that second honeymoon they'd been thinking about. They talked to Andy for ages and when Andy came to tell me about them he said, You never know; we'd better be sure we're doing the things we want to be doing right now. So we are.

Trillium trailer for sale

We have decided to sell our wee Trillium trailer, my office (see middle picture) for The Checkout Girl and the research part of The Lazarus Maple. I'll miss it even though I have a nice spot in the house now with our new addition. The Trillium was comfy and roomy enough for all my books and research materials and had the advantage of electricity for my computer and a propane fridge and stove for tea and food, but no phone, no Internet, and it was just far enough away from the house for real privacy. Without the communication distractions there was nothing to do but work, and work I did.

The Luyas

My young friend Stef Schneider is in the band The Luyas and they are playing in Halifax this weekend, Sunday, May 27th @ 8PM at the North Street Church. Stef's mom, is a long-time and wonderful friend from Ottawa. I first met Faith when Daniel was in kindergarten at First Ave. School. Faith came to pick up her kids who were in Daniel's class, wearing a stunning shiny red raincoat and I thought it, and she, were magnificent.

To listen to Stef and his friends click on the post header above, or the myspace site below.

http://www.myspace.com/theluyas

Lobster season starts

Along with rhubarb, spring brings the opening of our area lobster season. Friend, neighbour and photographer Jim Steele got himself up at 4 AM and down to Little River Harbour to take these pictures of loading traps and the boats on the water.

In the very, very early morning for the next two months, Andy and I will hear the boats from our bedroom window as the fishermen motor from trap to trap, cold, hard work, but oh, the lobster! Let's hope the price is up a bit this year, good for the fishermen and their families at least. Every year we have a feed or two of steamed lobster shared with friends, and Andy makes at least one lobster pie, a deep dish pie with savoury pastry crust and puff pastry topping filled with onions and leeks, herbs, lots of cream an stock, and chock full of lobster, scallops, shrimp and crab meat mixed with carrots and potatoes. This year we're going to try Lucy Waverman's (Globe and Mail) Mother's Day recipe for Lobster Strata, a kind of savoury mustard and cream bread pudding filled with lobster. Hope the fiddleheads will be ready to make it a perfect Cape Breton meal.

I think it's time for lunch!

First rhubarb

I feel like it's spring when I pick the first rhubarb, its gorgeous crinkly green leaves and pretty red stems. I always stew some to have with yoghurt and with the rest I make a custard pie. We're feeding extra people tonight so I made a large tart instead of a pie, less pastry and more rhubarb and custard.

On a sad note, one of the pair of Northern Flickers has died, perhaps hitting the window. I found it in the garden, so pretty even in death. The mate came this morning to call for it.

And a reminder: John's show An Hour On the John airs tonight as usual. Click on the site below, go to "listen online", follow directions to set up your computer and enjoy. 6:30 CB time for stories and music for kids and adults who like kids, 7 PM for eclectic music, 8 PM for John's special mix of blues, jazz and soul. You can figure out time zones for your area. And you can email comments to John at anhouronthejohn@gmail.com, or join him live on Facebook. Just google An Hour On the John + Facebook.

www.cfyt.ca

Northern Flicker

We have a pair of Northern Flickers busying themselves with calls and mating display the past few mornings. Perched in the poplar tree directly across from our window, they begin around 4:30 AM and call every two minutes without break all day long. We hope they soon do the deed and get busy with eggs and then babies.

Click on the post header above (or below) to go to a site where you can see what they look like (quite pretty, which is why we are tolerating them as well as we are), and listen to their calls. The last part of the call, the whoop-whoop-whoop-whoop part is what we are hearing.

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Northern_Flicker/id

Mother's Day

Every spring when I clean out the sun porch there is an empty nest. I have never been sure who has made the nest -- squirrel or mole or mouse -- but each nest is a unique and lovely home made from found materials. Last year we had a grouse killed and eaten on our deck. We arrived home to a pile of bones and a mass of feathers. Last year's sun porch nest was a phantasmagoria of feathers woven together with grasses, an empty bed fit for royalty. This year I found a rag-tag nest, bits of grass, a few feathers, and strings pulled from a red-toned cotton mat I had left on the floor through the winter. But this year's nest held a family of wee beings, not sure exactly who they are, but cold and dead, their mother lost to them. So sad, but also beautiful for their wee-ness and vulnerability, and the beauty of the resting place their mother constructed. You can click on the picture to enlarge it.

Allister MacInnis

Our dear friend Allister MacInnis, who was 85, died last Saturday morning and was buried yesterday. Throughout the week we've had violent winds, wild seas, misty rains while the sun shone, rainbows and sunsets that made our world turn red. I think the stunning and unusual weather was the cosmos shifting, saying goodbye to a good old man, one of the last of his kind. Allister was born in his own home and lived, for all but a year, on our shore. He was a fisherman, fur rancher (until he retired from fur ranching at 83), dump truck operator, story teller and historian and a beloved husband and family man and neighbour. At his funeral his nephew Merrill MacInnis told us that Allister fashioned a snow plow blade from wood, covered it with metal so the snow wouldn't stick and attached it to his dump truck. If I heard correctly, the blade was raised when the truck bed was lowered, and visa versa, and did an excellent job of keeping his driveway free of snow.

Through the winter, Allister shared his family history, papers and letters and stories with me, and helped me with the local research for my novel-in-progress, The Lazarus Maple. I will miss him. We all will miss him.

Catching up

John is playing a Day on the John, the best of his first 24 hours of show time. Tune in for good tunes!

www.cfyt.ca

or click on the post header

Click on "listen online" and follow instructions. You won't be disappointed.