The Living Beach – August 1, 2016

Silver Donald Cameron uses a study of the elements of the beach to build a case for the beach as an integrated, living entity in its own right, and a model for the unity of all things on Earth.

The Living Beach

The beach is always changing. Every time we take the dogs to the beach for a walk, there’s something different – more rocks, less rocks, more sand, less sand, the waves coming up higher today than they did yesterday…. Some beaches, like Sand Dollar Beach, disappear completely under water at high tide. We usually time our walks on the beach to coincide with low tide, especially in the winter when there’s more rocks than sand on the beach.

Which got me thinking that it would be interesting to do a comparison of our local beach from month to month. After living here for over a year and experiencing the beach during all the seasons, I’m amazed at how the beach transforms. People who only come to the beach in the summer would never guess that the rocks they’re sitting on are ten times bigger in the winter!

So here’s the first instalment of our living beach – I cheated a little bit and took these pictures a couple of days ago (no time to get to the beach today at low tide). I’ll be taking all the pictures the first day of each month from the same spot with the same lens at low tide.

Whoops, looks like I caught Sassy in mid-dump in the middle picture!

There may not be a lot of changes over the next few months, but once winter rolls around, the beach will be looking a LOT different!

Exploring Big Tancook Island

Last week, I headed off to Big Tancook Island with my friends Sara and Sybil and Sybil’s dogs Wendy & Sooki. It’s a 50 minute ferry ride each way and the only mode of transportation for visitors on the island is by foot (residents have vehicles, mostly old pick-up trucks). It’s not what we were expecting – not so much charm and quaintness, more of a backroads kinda vibe.

We were a bit confused about the free bicycle rental.

Sybil pondering this…

Turns out, if you buy lunch at the cafe next to the bike rental place, you get a free bike to explore the island.  The sandwiches at the cafe are delicious – loved the curry bread – but the service is a bit slow!

This was also a bit confusing… are those killer picnic tables?

More things that make you go HMMMMM….

I was expecting more colourful houses like these ones…

But most of the houses and buildings were more like this. The old weathered wood is quite beautiful, but I wanted more colour and whimsy!

Of course, being an island, there are lots of boats…

 

Not all boats on the island are sea worthy…

 

And not all the vehicles are road worthy. This is a 1954 Bridgewater fire truck. The siren still works, but it doesn’t have any back tires.

 

There’s a museum/shop/library in Southeast Cove that’s quite interesting.

 

And another shop near the ferry that had some cool stuff like these colourful bottles…

 

And some other cool stuff from our walk…

Wendy and Sooki don’t look too impressed!

Would I go to Big Tancook Island again? Not any time soon. We did have fun and we enjoyed being outdoors on a beautiful sunny day. But it’s a bit like going to a restaurant and ordering a big slice of decadent chocolate peanut butter mousse cake for dessert, and getting a chocolate chip cookie instead :-)

All work and some play

Not every day is a work day around here – there’s also time for having fun and exploring too :-) These are some of the things I’ve been up to over the last few months…

Sometimes when Brian is doing work on the garage that I can’t help with – generally anything happening more than 10 feet above the ground – I wander off to explore the cliffs around our lot.

I love hanging out with my buddies Sara & Sybil :-) They’re always up for exploring, and we always have a great time. These are some pics from our adventures over the last few months, starting with a live sand dollar that we found on Sand Dollar Beach. Did you know that sand dollars burrow their butt end into the sand? I didn’t even know they have butts!

We went exploring in Blue Rocks and Stonehurst in April.

And exploring Bachmann’s Beach on Second Peninsula in May.

Sybil often brings her dogs Wendy and Sooki. They’re awesome girls :-)

On May 6th, the tall ship Picton Castle left Lunenburg on a voyage to France. I was up early enough to see her head out to sea, but Mother Nature had other plans. The fog that morning was insane, so I couldn’t see much. This is the best I could do, with a lot of tweaking in Picmonkey.

June 3rd was Lobster Day. A bunch of us got together at my friend Barbara’s house and we cooked & cleaned & canned 225 pounds of lobster in 3 hours!

And of course we go to the beach every day to walk the dogs :-)

Getting artsy on the beach…

There’s something to do every day here! I pretty much don’t stop till the sun goes down and the moon comes out…

Hope you’re out there enjoying this awesome summer weather and having some fun adventures :-)

We have the beginnings of a house!

It happened under the cover of darkness…. or so it seemed! One day we had a lonely garage on a cliff in Nova Scotia. The next day, our garage had a buddy!

It started with the footings, and then the forms went up and the foundation was poured. We’ll just have a crawl space, not a full basement. There’s just way too much rock to break through to get down low enough for a full basement.

Then the forms came down and the sealer went on. as well as the insulation around the stairs.

It was a couple of weeks before the excavator came back and did the backfill. I literally stood there all afternoon watching the excavator doing its thing!

That was close!

I missed the day the sonotubes and big foots went it, and of course Brian didn’t think to take any pictures – DOH! This is what they look like – they’re the footings for the joists that will hold up the deck. Each of these babies is filled with about 1,500 pounds of concrete!

Source

Yesterday afternoon the concrete truck and a crew of three guys came to fill the them, and I was there for all the action. It’s amazing the things that entertain me! :-D The tubes on the water side had to be filled with wheelbarrow after wheeelbarrow of concrete. The guy carting the wheelbarrow back and forth is going to have some serious pipes by the end of the summer!

The sonotubes on the side closest to the truck were filled right from the chute. The operator has a remote control that he uses to choose the direction that the mixer spins – clockwise to mix and counter-clockwise to dispense the concrete – and to control the flow of the concrete. As long as the truck is running, concrete can be mixed and poured :-)

A piece of rebar goes down into the concrete in each sonotube and a smaller piece goes into the top. These ones will hold the metal brackets that will hold the wood joists.

It didn’t take long for all the sonotubes to be filled. Which was a good thing, because right around the time they finished the rain started.

And now we’re completely up to date on the house progress :-)