Birchdale

There is a serene, beautiful place in Nova Scotia called Birchdale.

Amazingly not many people know about it or the stories behind it.

But enough people know about this legendary paradise to want to make the very,

very, very long journey in the woods on dirt roads to get to it.

And don't bother with your GPS cause it has no idea how to get you there.

Birchdale is over 100 years old and was built by a prominent man from the

area.  It was built as a hunting and fishing lodge.  Throughout the years many 

people have visited Birchdale some regular people like myself and Dave...

some not so regular...people like 

Teddy Roosevelt,  Babe Ruth, Danny Kaye, Greta Garbo..ya know

normal people.

When I was younger this place was what dreams and stories are made of

because nobody was permitted here.

A group of Carmelite monks bought the property in 1972 and renamed it 

Nova Nada.

If I'm not mistaken, they would open it to the public once a month

on Sundays, but we never went.  

For one thing it was too hard to find and in those days

you didn't travel like you do now.

The property consists of a main lodge and super quaint

cabins.  There are around 14 or so scattered all along the

lake and property. 

In 1997 the monks disbanded and there was nobody in the buildings for 

four years.  While the monks were there though, they built a beautiful 

round library and chapel overlooking the lake. 

Eventually someone bought the property and returned it to its

original name of Birchdale and kept it till last year. 

She then sold it to two lovely ladies from Toronto.

Tracey Erin Smith and Sarah Garton Stanley

They have a Facebook page that you can check out.

Birchdale

It's not open everyday to the public because it is their home.

I mean would you want people barging onto your property unannounced?

But they do have Afternoons at Birchdale.

We've been there 3 time so far this summer.  Twice to visit and

once to interview them since I will be writing an article on them

in the French newspaper very soon. 

But in the meantime here are some photos I took of both times we 

went there.  Once was earlier this summer and the other was 

just yesterday.

One of my favourite little cabins

Snuggling on the porch of the main lodge

My parents with Dave and I

My mom and I...in case you hadn't guessed

Massive pine trees!!

Just swinging along!

Have a Blessed day.

And I hope you'll someday be able to visit Birchdale.

 

Politics...the good kind

I've been thinking about it for years.

But it was never the right time.

It's now the right time.

This year it's the municipal elections in our neck of the woods.

And I'm running for councilor.

Lisa Doucette running for District 3.

I like helping people and talking to people and my community

is my passion so it's time for me to give it a go.  

I know I can do good for the people.

I want to help the older people, but also 

bring new and younger people to the area.

Both can benefit from each other.

I have a lot of other concerns.

Things like the environment, jobs, preserving our culture

and I could go on and on.

But what I really want is to listen to the people and 

have them tell me what they want. What their concerns

are all about.  Because I mean, it's them I'll be working for...

right!?

Covid is on so it's not the most ideal time to be running for

an election. But it needs to be done. Some of the candidates

are not going door to door.  I wasn't sure what to do.

But after many sleepless nights and speaking with 

the public and following the provincial 

protocol, I have begun going door to door.

I wear a mask, stay a minimum of 6 feet away and I have

my stash of hand sanitizer ready at all times.

So wish me luck!

Have a Blessed Day

Lisa

Harvesting has begun!

It's time to start harvesting.

I just came back from picking blueberries in our garden.

Yum!

Our paprika peppers  are starting  to ripen also.

That means they will be going in the dehydrator soon.

Perennial flowers are still going strong even without the rain.

This phlox smells sooo good and the colour is amazing.

The pink is actually brighter in person.

Wow!

The tomatoes are almost ripe and the regular peppers also.

I've picked some yellow beans  but they are late coming because

I had to replant them since most didn't come up.

But all in all it's been a not bad gardening year considering the lack of rain.

Have a blessed day!

Lisa

Happy August!

Summer is almost over and it's still so hot you can't do anything

outside.   We've been in a heatwave for the last

week or so.  It's regularly 30 Celcius but with 

the humidex it's over 40.  

We are supposed to dig up the garlic but it's just too

hot!  Plus there's no rain.  

Tomorrow we are getting up at 6am to dig up the garlic

hopefully it will be cool enough.  

Even with Covid things are still busy around here.

Nova Scotia is doing well.  We've gone over 2 weeks with no 

cases in the province.  But then some people came in from 

another province and we had a few cases.

We were almost at 2 weeks again when 

someone came in from another province and now we have two cases.

It seems like we are just going to have to learn to 

live with it.  

Being not very densely populated area we are fortunate.

We never had a case in this area yet.

But that's all I'm going to say about Covid.

I'm just finishing a week of vacation.

We went to the Oak Island Inn and Marina but our tickets for our 
Oak Island tour had been cancelled.

We went on the mini vacay anyway.

Just to get away from it all for a bit.

The garden started slow, but things are ramping up.

I had to plant my yellow beans twice but they are finally

producing.  We ate some yesterday.  

The carrots are doing awesome.

I'm having a cold cellar built to store everything in there.

The potato plants are beautiful so hopefully there's 

potatoes under the soil so I can put in my cold cellar.

The spaghetti squash is coming along nicely.

We've eaten a few feedings of peas.  

But my radish and lettuce have gone to seed.

That's okay.  I'll save the seeds for next year.

My herb garden is gone wacko!!

The greenhouse is doing well also.  As you can see, my watermelon

is growing! 

So this year I've been drying even more herbs

than I did last year.

And a friend of mine dries wild rose petals for tea.

So I did that also.

My spinach was going to bolt so I dehydrated, crushed it and 

I'll use it in smoothies this winter.  I have a full 

bottle of spinach.  This was only at the beginning of

my experiment.

One interesting thing we did this year is with our garlic scapes is

dehydrate them and crush them to create garlic scape powder.

We also had a camera crew  (ok, one guy because of Covid)

come and interview us regarding our bees and gardens.

It was pretty cool.

The only thing was that it was the hottest day this year and poor

Dave had to get in his bee suit and show the bees.

He  had to go change clothes after because he

was soaking wet with sweat!

Last night my mom and dad came over to play radio

bingo. It was finally cooling off.

And Grenouille likes the heat.  She was panting like crazy and instead of 

getting out of the sun, she'd just pant some more.

So I put her on the stool beside me so she could cool off.

We went a few weeks ago to some public gardens and it was gorgeous.

Our friends took our picture.

Well that's the summer update so far.

I hope things keep going well.

Have a Blessed Day

Spring fling

Things started off a bit slow in the gardening department.

I had to replace a few cucumber plants because they just up

and died on me.   And pretty much all the tomatoes I had

started from seed bit the biscuit.  

So I went out and bought new ones.

I'm not sure what the heck I did but 

oh well...live and learn.

The temperatures are finally steadying. But like most years

now, we need the rain.  I remember back in the day, springs

were  so wet.  Like they're supposed to be.

Not anymore.

But thank goodness for our new well...(see last post )  

It's also lupin season in Southwest Nova Scotia.

I find they're lovely. When I was younger I didn't

like them all that much. 

I guess my tastes are maturing as I 

get older.

Well for the 8th straight day, Nova Scotia has no new cases

of Covid-19.  There are only 2 active cases in the province. Both are in

the hospital.  I hope they recover soon.  It's bad enough the deaths

we have already had. We don't won't more families suffering

the loss of a loved one.

And yes, I remember a few posts back saying I wouldn't mention it.

But it's hard not to when it's the  only thing happening.

It's rhubarb season!! My patch did well, but I didn't harvest too 

many because  we don't eat it all that much. So I picked a bit  

and froze it for desserts this winter.

If  things keep going well like they are, we are going to have 

a ton of blueberries, strawberries, plums and even a few cherries!!

The bees have been doing their job. Wowsers! 

Speaking of bees....we picked up our new nuc a week and a half ago.

They seem to be  settling  well.  We are feeding them

sugar water at the moment, so they can concentrate

on setting up housekeeping instead of foraging for food.

Here's Dave putting them in their new home.

Saturday was a beautiful day. So we went to the Annapolis gardens.

They have opened  their doors  and lowered the entry fee.

It's a beautiful spot.

The rhodos were in full bloom.

Friends met us there and they took our picture.

Since restaurants can now serve at half capacity

we ate at the German bakery in Annapolis Royal.

Oh my word! You gotta eat there!

It was so good!!

I love my province and I love my municipality. I'm a proud Acadian.  

Yet I usually only put pictures of our property or places we visit.

I've been walking a lot on the local beaches lately, especially ones

that most people don't go to. 

So I thought it was high time to show you guys a few pictures of

our great municipality of Clare! 

We have awesome beaches.  Some are sandy, some are rugged.

All are gorgeous.

This is Saulnierville Beach at low tide.

Most of you don't realize that we have the highest tides in the

world in this neck of the woods.

But from now on I'll be adding pictures of our area. Just to tempt

people to come and visit when things get better.

Check us out!

Municipality of Clare

Well I guess it's time to go put the chickens to bed and weed a garden or two.

Have a blessed day!

Lisa

Well, well, well....

Things are turning great here on Spring Peeper Farm

It's been a strange spring.

Not particularly warm or cold.

Evenings are still cold.

And wind.

Lots and lots of wind!

I've planted almost all the seeds except the ones

that are cold sensitive.

But  the tomato plants I started in the basement

are pathetic.

Wow. I won't even post a picture of them.

Sad, sad, sad.

I hope they make it through the 

season.

The pepper plants didn't look good at the beginning, 

so even though some died,  the ones that

survived are looking good....so far.

If there is one thing that lifts my spirits on a sad day

is cut flowers.  I just need to buy a small bouquet

of cut flowers and my day is made.

Well since Covid, cut  flowers are harder to

find than sanitizer!

Today we were in Yarmouth and I found some!

I was on cloud nine.  We also

went a had a visit at Ouest-ville Perennials. 

Yikes!  Let's just say I'm broke.

But my gardens are going to be beautiful!

Alice, owner of Ouestville has  the best plants.

Very hardy. They never die! 

What more can a gardener ask for!

I also  stopped and picked up our tub of worms.

Waste-check had worms for vermiculture for us.

It's for where I work. We are going to let

the wormies eat our compost and make poop.

Isn't nature grand.

Mr. and Mrs Duckworth finally had ducklings!!

She showed up last week with (what we think is)

13 ducklings!!

That's quite the brood.   They are so cute.

Well things can't always go well.

Dave had started my cold cellar.

He just wanted to move the water pump a few feet so

I could have more room.

I won't go into details (because I don't know the details)

but we had to dig up the well, which we had

no clue where it was, and put a pump in the

well.  Chaching! Now we're broke.

It was going to happen eventually. It was just a matter

of time.  At least it happened now and not

in the winter when the ground is frozen.

So now, hopefully we won't be bothered with the pump 

or well for 20+ years.

But at least we know where our well is now.

About 2 feet from the herb garden. Phew.

That was close.

Have a Blessed Day.

Lisa

The beekeepers

Well it's that time of the year again.

Well really it's our first time.

Time to check to see if the bees made it 

through the winter.

First of all we took off the insulation from the outside

It's not really necessary to cover your beehive.

But we would rather be safe than sorry.

In our area it's not really the cold that 

will kill the bees because it honestly

doesn't get all that cold here.

It's also very windy here. But like the cold that's not a killer either.

The killer in these parts in the winter is the lack of snow 

for insulation.

So we make sure that we insulate the hives so it'll

act like the snow would have done in

normal parts of the world. 

We have strong winds here in Nova Scotia and it burns plants in the 

winter and can make the temperature feel like it's a lot colder 

than what it really is because we also have the humidity.

But if we had some snow for insulation it wouldn't kill 

the plants with the wind.

A friend of mine used to live in Nanuvut where it gets f-f-f-freezing.

Yet he said here in Southwest NS it feels  a lot colder 

than it did in Nanuvut.  Go figure!

The humid cold goes right through your bones. You can't warm up.

It's strange.  It rarely gets colder than -15 Celsius  here.  I mean hardly

ever.  But it feels a heck of a lot colder than that.

Brrrrrr

So anyway, enough with the weather forecasting. 

We took the insulation off, 

cleaned out the wet straw and started taking apart

the frames, one by one.

We had never seen the queen.  So that was our mission.

I took pictures of every frame Dave took out for closer 

inspection later.

This frame still had capped  honey on it!

We were very happy to see this.  That meant they could

have handled a longer winter.

Very proud of our girls!

And there she is!  Right in the middle, circled.

The Queen bee!

We both had on our full suits.  When you do an inspection 

like this you need full protection.

And you can see why from this picture.

We were halfway through the inspection when I asked Dave,

" We forgot the smoker, didn't we?"

Whoops.

Well if we can do a full inspection without smoking the bees

I guess we are either pretty good, stupid or very docile bees.

The jury is still out on that one. 

We are waiting for another nuc to come in.

But with the coronavirus and the travel restrictions

we're not sure if they will come in or not.

They come from New Zealand.

And no planes are coming in and out yet.

I'm hoping that they will let them come into the country soon!

So here's to hoping we'll have a fruitful honey season!

This girl was already coming in with pollen on her legs!

Have a Blessed Day!
Lisa

oh and btw...

I love reading your comments and I would love it more

if I could answer them.  Unfortunately either google or

blogger won't let me log in to answer them.

Rest assured that I read all comments!

So keep them coming!