Spring is a long time coming...

The locals tell me that this has been an unusually cold and long winter. I have developed the habit of believing them as they are all inclined to be honest and also, excellent observers of their environment. Spring is, as I understand it, always a bit of a mysterious maneuver here in the North. As my dear guy is wont to tell me, over and over again, spring here beats the hell out of Nova Scotia's relentless season of disappointment. The other morning I was awake at 4:11 and sitting on the chesterfield looking out the bay. Yes, I could see out there because it was dawn. The sun wasn't quite over the Mealy Mountains but enough so that I could have easily driven or gone for a walk without worry about being able to see my way.

And it doesn't rain here much at any time, or so I'm told. We certainly have had little of it while I've been here. So there are some signs of spring - long days, more and some different birds, and the constant whine of ski-doos as many of the young men (and some old, and some women) take to the ice in the last days of spearing a seal. Or at least feeling the freedom that they all love to skim across the surface of Lake Melville before the break-up happens. One of the fellas down on the beach told my fella that there was a good four feet of ice yet and it would be another month before it broke up. He was happy. My heart sank.

No one that is local likes the in-between time. In between using the ski-do and the motor-boat. In between getting to the cabin in the winter on snow and ice, or the summer on a boat. They are happiest when the ice is fully in it seems to me.

As to me and the dog and the fella, we'll be here until near the end of June and then we'll be back in the fall. We've decided that much. For this adventure to work out we need a good run at it - a few years of going back and forth before we settle in Prospect Village, Nova Scotia for good. I'm up for it. I'm gung-ho as my mother might have said. I won't be living this contemplative quiet life on the beach though. I shall have to put my own shoulder to the wheel and make an honest day's living. I'm good with that too. I like working and it is hard work to have been idle so long. So, another 40 days here, then home for two months, then back.

I've quit fbook as some of you might know and plan to post here more often. You can see some of my reasons over on my writing site  so I won't go into it here. No big dramatic reason - just a slow dawning of realization. I may put some poems here or there though probably not so much as I did. I am putting that energy into poems for future publication and so don't wish to dilute my energy in that regard. At some point one must stop sketching and make a finished thing.

And here is a photo for all who have come by...taken by my fella of Bella. It is, indeed, a dog's life!