Big Tancook Island NS, Animals and Birds

Our first night on Big Tancook Island, we watched this eagle soar and float over the shoreline, hunting for food in the out-going tides.

The neighbour had chickens running free 

around his yard and sometimes, 

they came over into ours to visit.

This young deer had unusual markings and seemed always 

to be by herself, at the edge of the graveyards and fields.

This deer had many fast-moving companions 

but stopped long enough for me to capture her photo.

The cat-tail marsh was full of red-winged blackbirds.

They searched the lawns for food 

and returned to the cat-tail marsh to feed babies,

hidden in cup-shaped nests made of rushes.

And one herring gull made it his business...

to patrol the roof edge, whenever we barbecued.

We shooed him away many times, as we cooked.

Diving ducks floated in circles on the out-going tides,

disappearing under the water for food.  

I wasn't able to get close enough

to identify them.

On calm evenings, we watched and heard loons, 

at the water's edge.  The evening light looked like stripes 

on the water's surface.

Big Tancook Island, off the coast of Chester in Nova Scotia, has white-tail deer, muskrats, mice, rabbits, snakes and many birds. Walking the trails or the shorelines, we were often rewarded with encounters with the natural world.

It was a pleasure visiting Big Tancook Island, a beautiful, peaceful place of heart's ease.

For more information about the Big Tancook Island area, click here.

Spring and Yellow and Poetry

It’s been a long time; a long time since I’ve written any words in my blog. 

Time has passed, full of worry about my mother and weariness from her care.  Time passed regardless of whether I wrote or whether she grew worse or well.  The months rolled on; time and circumstance changed both our lives.

Mum deals with her new fragility.   She struggles for strength, relishing every day and every accomplishment, pushing her energy forward to healing.   Back in her own home, she manages with help from family and a hired caregiver, a good friend.  She learns to cope with the changes in her body.

I am recovering my own energy and relishing the seasonal changes, the bright places in each day.   My focus on writing, particularly poetry, has returned, and though rusty, is responding to re-writes, polish and hard work.
 

The grey and brown days of spring give way to splotches of fresh green, flashes of colour—the goldfinches at the feeders, the dime-sized yellow crocus, the larger purple ones, the hint of red and gold on a blackbird’s wing. 

I welcome these signs of colour, renewed vigor and fresh life.    It’s been a challenging winter.  I am grateful for the lessons of love and the wisdom hard won, as I move into a transformed thankfulness for each new day.

Spring and yellow and poetry and purple fill the sweet breezes.  I am ready.

Photo and words are ©copyright 2009-2014 Carol Steel