The morning in Baddeck, an afternoon in Sydney

After breakfast at the nearby Tim Horton's, our first task of the morning Baddeck was finding the local laundromat. We packed for eight days, or at least I did, but D and Eli tend to change more frequently, so we had a couple of loads of laundry to complete. While the clothes were in the washing machine, we did a walk up and back the main street. It was early, around 8 a.m. so there wasn't a whole lot open as yet. 

We originally thought this building was a church, but I have learned it is actually the Gilbert H. Grosvenor Hall, built in 1887. It has gone through various iterations, including customs house and post office, library, and now houses the Bras D'Or Lakes and Watershed Interpretive Centre. I wish I'd discovered before we left Baddeck!

D took this photo of the hotel that my friends stayed at, back in 2015. It's a lovely old building, but with no pool, I didn't think it would suit our purposes on this trip. In the end, we didn't use the outdoor pool at the Cabot Trail Motel, as it was a little cool in the afternoon.

Eli had his I-Pad, D and I our phones, so kept ourselves amused while waiting for the clothes to dry. We headed back to the motel to drop off the clean laundry, and before we left, D and Eli went down to the lake.

Then it was time for the main attraction of the day, the Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site. A short drive from the downtown area of Baddeck, it is an very interesting museum. While Bell is known to be the inventor of the telephone, he had a hand in many other inventions, including hydrofoils, kites, aeroplanes and x-rays. I remember being fascinated on my last trip there, and this time was no different.

A wall of telephones from through the years. I can only guess what Alexander Graham Bell would think of our current cell phones!

The plane above, is a replica of the Silver Dart. The Silver Dart had it's initial flight in Canada on the ice of Bras D'or Lake on February 23, 1909. The pilot who flew the aircraft that day was J.A.D. McCurdy. It was a short flight, but the plane lifted to an elevation of 20-30 feet. A few days later, McCurdy flew again, this time at an elevation of 50-60 feet for a distance of four and one half miles. Sadly, on August 2, 1909, the Silver Dart was crashed Petawawa, Ontario, during its demonstration flights in front of Canadian military officers. The plane was demolished and McCurdy suffered a broken nose.

Eli was fascinated by the telephone switchboard, and spent some time connecting and disconnecting the lines.

This is portion of the replica of Mr. Bell's study. 

I should mention that the Bell's spent thirty years between their homes in Washington, DC and Baddeck. Their home near Baddeck is not open to visitors, though we did take a drive to see if we could find a viewpoint. After finding a sign that advised there is none, we turned around and headed back to the motel.

After packing up and loading the car, we headed off to Sydney. Here are a couple of the photos of our drive.

Brid
A view of the Seal Island Bridge, or alternatively the Great Bras D'or Crossing. 

I don't recall exactly when we arrived in Sydney, but we were early enough in the day to make our way to Fortress Louisbourg. The site is a partial reconstruction of the fortress built by France, beginning in 1719 and completed on the eve of the siege in 1745, following a declaration of war between Britain and France. The British took the fort, but their occupancy was short-lived when three years later it was returned to the French via a treaty. In 1758, another siege occurred, the British prevailed and demolished to fortress walls.

The reconstruction was completed in the 1960's through the 1980's, many of the buildings on the site of original foundations. Most interesting is the reconstruction encompasses only one quarter of the original town and fortifications.

We started our adventure at the Visitor' Center where our admission gave us a ticket to ride a shuttle bus to an area outside the fortress. It's a little bit of a hike from the bus stop to the main gates, and the area within the gates has a lot to see!

This building was sectioned off, with officers in one area and regular soldiers in another. There were young men in period costumes who explained the history as if it were today.

There is a lovely chapel inside the building. 

I don't imagine the pews were very comfortable.

I believe this was the bed of the commander of the Fortress. Much more comfortable looking than the beds in the jail house below.

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In addition to a garden area, there were animals to be visited too - these were Eli's favorite things in the Fortress.

Turkeys, ducks, and chickens were on display, and totally disinterested in the people eyeing them through the fence.

We walked to the bus stop, waited just a few minutes and returned to the Visitor's Center.

Both inside the park gates and just outside was evidence of Hurricane Fiona, which came ashore as a post-tropical storm in September, 2022. 

Back in Sydney we went to our hotel where D and Eli headed for the pool, and I relaxed for a bit. I recall where we picked up our dinner that night, a concession stand at a Open Hearth Park. The fellow was just about to close down when we arrived as it was cool and a bit windy. But he gladly prepped our burgers and fries, while we waited in our car. While waiting we noticed the playground and decided it would be a good place to visit the next day.

More on that in the next post!

More weeding, decluttering, and day camp

Another week with lots of weeding, interrupted by rain, trips to day camp, and some crafting.

I spent three hours on both Saturday and Sunday tackling the weeds in the area outside the side door and in the raised flower bed. The original plants in this bed are the day lilies and poppies, as well as some other plant that I didn't like and dug out last year. The bed also had the red oxalis. It was overshadowed by the larger plants and wasn't doing very well. Next spring, I plan to remove the day lilies and poppies. There are lots lilies elsewhere and I'll keep seeds of the poppy to seed later in another bed. In my mind they are in the wrong space - they should be at the back of the bed, not the front. Another project for next spring is replacing the fence. It is in rough shape and my brother braced it for us in a couple of places. So I don't want to move anything to rear of the bed until the fence replacement is complete.

Last year I added a small piece of Lamium (pink flowers) from the yard at the old house. It is a form of dead nettle, of which there was another variety here (yellow flowers). I moved a piece when we had the air conditioning unit installed. This year, I've planted tulip bulbs, gladiola bulbs, and two small rock cress in the back of the bed. I'd cleared the bed, as best I could early in the spring, but by the time I returned it was overgrown with cleavers, bindweed, thistle, and others. Our problem is the next door neighbour and their un-used dog run. By late last summer the weeds in that area were taller than the fence. D called the bylaw officer and they did cut things down, but did nothing to get rid of any of the weeds. As I was weeding, I was pulling on plants that were coming through the gaps in the fence and growing into our side. I suspect we'll continue to have issues, as the  weeds in their yard will continue to go to seed. It does look like they may be mowing that area this year.

Just in case, you are concerned about me removing the daylilies, here is the area behind the house where the lilies are almost a hedge!

Another view taken from the bottom of the stairs provide a view of my container garden. There are five tomatoes here, peppers, parsley, sage, and basil. Since this area gets a lot of sun, I've added a pot of portulaca for colour.

We had a rainy and cloudy day on Monday. It didn't rain a whole lot; the gauge held about 4 mm, just over a 10th of an inch. But it was enough for me to declare it an indoor day. Besides some housework, I did a bit of crocheting and knitting. D is planning to make sunflower pens for appreciation gifts for Eli's teachers. She'll wrap the pen with floral tape, and glue two flowers together for the head of the pen. I think they will be cute. I finished a toque I'd started some time ago, and started another. These will be added to the bag for Eli's school to provide to children who don't have the proper winter gear. 

Tuesday and Thursday were Day Camp days. Eli enjoys the camp so much. It's offered through SaskAbilities. Their mission statement is, "SaskAbilities supports people experiencing disability with program and services that enhance their lives". The Day Camp he attends offer opportunity for indoor and outdoor play, as well as field trips. Eli loves it! They offer the program during school breaks in February and at Easter break too. Thursday was exciting as they brought in a bouncy castle!

D and I took the opportunity to do a bit of shopping and a whole lot of browsing without buying. One of our stops was the Book Worm, a used book store, and picked up a pile of books for ourselves and Eli. Everything in the store was buy 1, get one free. The store owner told us she is moving the store in September to a larger pace, about twice the size of the current store. I can understand why. There are wooden shelves (appear to be homebuilt) that are at least 8 feet tall. She keeps step stools available so one can climb to find books on the upper shelves. In back, she has an curtained off where the books she hasn't room from out front are stored. She wants to sell as much as she can before she moves. Like a regular bookstore she has the books organized by genre and by author. As far as I know, she works alone, so it must be a lot of work!  She told me the books come from donations, from garage sales, and through exchange. Once we've read the books we can return them for a credit against the cost of new books. (obviously for less than what we paid). It is pretty impressive for a one woman business.

Wednesday, Eli and D went to the library for their summer program. I met them there towards the end of the day's event, and had a chat with the librarian. She's agreed to allow me to set up a Stitch and Chat group in the fall. We'll put up a poster in the library, and D will post to local FB groups later this summer. I've been here for just over a year, though not full-time, and I've yet to meet any folks my own age. There is a senior's center, but I haven't made it there, as yet. I should, but I seem to fill my time with things at home.

I also did some sorting and rearranging in my bedroom. When we bought the house (over a year ago), I asked that the nine drawer dresser in the room be left behind. I quickly filled that up, with clothing, bedding, table cloths, and personal items. I've found another space for the table cloths and some of the toiletries. We have no linen closet and our bathroom is tiny! I found a box of books that hadn't been unpacked, and I set aside half of them to be donated. Along with three bags of other items D has gathered up, we dropped them off at the thrift store on Thursday.

I was ready to get out early on Friday, and finish weeding the last area in the side yard. First, I went to the front yard and weeded between the cracks in the city and our sidewalk. When I finished there, I took the now full bag of weeds to the garbage bin, and managed to trip over a downspout landing on my knees and jamming my left wrist. I lay on the ground for a couple of minutes catching my breath before I got up and continued on. I did manage to finish half of the area before giving up and heading for the shower.

We still have the parking area behind the back fence but D bought a weed torch to work on that...and I'll let her do it. I'm hoping, once I've done the weeding in the main yard, that I'll only have to maintain - maybe a half hour each day? We'll see.

Out in the wee garden out back (Wednesday's photo) are peas, carrots, onions, lettuce, asparagus, and strawberries. The last two were here when we moved in. We did get a few misshapen berries the last two years, and I think the plants are just too old. While they are lush and green, I plan to pull them this fall. It will give me more room to get the bed fully weeded, and more space to plant vegetables. I picked the last of the peas on Friday - Eli's had three feeds off the few plants. The carrots and green onions are looking pretty small, but they still have time. The lettuce that Eli planted at school is doing well, and I've picked the first bit for a salad this weekend. I also have sweet peas planted on the trellis - it' a throwback to my mother's garden which grew (like crazy) on a lattice fence.

Today, I hope to finish off that last area of weeding, and then it will be time to go back over the areas I've already weeded to get rid of the stuff that's popped up. We're supposed to get rain starting this evening and continuing the next few days. The gardens will be happy...as will the weeds. 

Have a great week ahead everyone!

Friday funny

 

Off to Baddeck, via New Glasgow, Arisaig, and Antigonish.

The next few days involved more driving. After four nights we checked out of the hotel in Bedford, saying see you later, with the Cabot Trail Motel in Baddeck our planned destination for the night.

We had lots of time, as our driving time would have been around 4 hours, and we weren't scheduled to check in until 3 p.m. Though the Pomquet Beach outside Antigonish was on the spreadsheet, it was a cool, cloudy day with rain in the forecast, so we decided to forgo the beach day and find other spots to visit along the way.

But first of all, here are a few photos of the scenery along the highway. I can't tell you exactly where we were, but do know the photos were taken before we reached New Glasgow.

D did some research on the "Google machine" and came up with a historical house in New Glasgow, the Carmichael-Stewart House Museum. Built in 1880, the house was a wedding gift to James Matheson Carmichael and his bride, Christian Matheson from his parents. His eldest daughter, Maria Carmichael inherited the property. She married Robert Bruce Stewart. The couple had no children and on their passing, the house was bequeathed to the Town of New Glasgow. Maria passed away in 1959, Robert in 1962.

We happened to arrive on the day the museum officially opened for the 2025 season. The staff were busy setting up for the event which included the renaming of the property as the Pictou County History Museum.

We were welcomed in, admission was by donation. One of the staff shared some information with us about the history, and provided a quick tour of the main floor. In addition, she told us they were having a scavenger hunt, and we happily agreed to take part. We were provided a sheet of paper with clues as to where to find the rocks that had pictures attached and off we went to explore. 

The museum holds artifacts including household furniture, glassware, tools, toys, tools, and guns. Eli found a pair of wooden swords in the children's bedroom and was told to go ahead and play with them. (That surprised me). We found most of the rocks inside the house, and then headed outdoors to the garden and yard to find even more of them. When we returned indoors, the staff member was kind enough to point us in the direction of the last one or two we were missing. Eli was presented with a prize for being the first to complete the scavenger hunt. It was a fun stop and I think we all enjoyed it.

Leaving New Glasgow we started on our way to Antigonish. Again D did a little research and found a unique option, the Arisaig Lobster Interpretive Marine Life Centre. The centre offers touch tanks, a scaled down lobster fishing boat, and lots of information about the lobster fishing industry. There were two young men working the day we arrived. One, was the grandson of a man who built many of the boats that were used in the area for lobster fishing. His father recently sold his fishing license as this young man plans to go to university to become an engineer. The second young man had just graduated two days prior from highschool and was planning to go to university in the fall as well. 

The biggest draw was the lobsters in the touch tank. They were various colours, blue, green, and brown. (I didn't think to ask why. Their claws were banded shut, but the critters were still aggressive towards one another. Sadly, neither D nor I got a decent photo of the tank. The best I can offer is the mounted lobster. According to the note, it weighed about 20 pounds, and was thought to be about 40 years old.

Nearby was the Arisaig replica lighthouse. The original burned down in 1939, but was rebuilt by local volunteers in 2007. It contains an ice cream shop on the lower level. Had it been a warmer day, we might have enjoyed a cone. We did, however, enjoy the views from the shoreline.

Leaving Arisaig, we continued on to Antigonish where we stopped at the Peace by Chocolate store. Originally from Syria, the Hadhad family lost their chocolate factory in Damascus in a bombing in 2012. They originally fled to Lebanon, later found their way to Canada, where they built their business in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. If you ever have the opportunity to taste their chocolate, I can assure you it is delicious. We bought a couple of bars to bring home with us, and each picked out a single chocolate to enjoy in the car as a treat.

Since we were planning to stay one night in Antigonish a couple of days later, we decided to wait to do more exploring then. We headed for the main highway, and I did an oopsie mistake, taking the wrong exit. We were off course for probably 15 minutes or so before our GPS maps gave us a reasonable option to return to the highway. (There were a couple of roads it suggested we turn on that looked a wee bit suspect to me).

We arrived at the motel mid-afternoon and were ready to get out of the car. Our room was up on the hill above the main office and restaurant. The view of Bras D'or Lake was lovely. The lake has a connection to the Atlantic Ocean, but also has fresh water inflows - we learned the water is called brackish. Before we left the following day, D and Eli crossed the highway to put their toes in the water.

The motel did have a restaurant on site, but we had passed by the Red Barn Gift shop and restaurant, a few minutes away. The meal was memorable, not only for the meal, but for D's interactions with several other guests. A couple came in shortly after we did, having ridden in on a motorcycle. They were from Quebec and spoke just a little English. D is functionally bilingual and was able to assist the couple and the waitress with their order. Later another group was trying to order dessert, and she assisted with that request as well. Back to our meal, would it surprise you if I said I ordered fish and chips? Both D and Eli had French fries a well, and we all agreed they were the best we'd had on the trip. After a brief stop in the gift shop, we headed back to the motel for a good night's sleep.

We had big plans for the next day!

Wordless Wednesday

 

Peggy's Cove and Lunenburg

We were all excited to leave the city of Halifax and get on the road. I was tired of battling traffic to get to the downtown area of the city. Bedford was better, though still more traffic than we're used to in our small town. As one of my readers suggested (thanks Kim), we chose the scenic route to Peggy's Cove, a winding two lane highway, rather than the main highway. Every curve seemed to provide another beautiful view, of the trees, water, and small communities.  Sadly, there are no photos - I was driving and my daughter was so fascinated by the scenery she took no photos!

We arrived in Peggy's Cove ahead of the crowd that would soon arrive. There were just a few vehicles in parking lot near the visitor's center. After a stop to pick up a map (though it wasn't really needed we made our way towards the lighthouse.

Eli was very interested in walking on the rocks, however we managed to keep him away from the ocean.

Unfortunately we were too early in the season for many of the shops, though likely by just a few days.

One of the buildings we had hoped to visit was the old schoolhouse but, it too, was locked up.

Leaving Peggy's Cove, we made our way to Lunenburg. We were able to find a parking spot just a short distance off the main shopping street, where D was lured into visiting. After dropping off her parcels at the car, we walked a little further down towards the water.

After a short walk down the boardwalk, we went to visit the Bluenose II. The original Bluenose was launched in March 1921 in Lunenburg as a fishing and racing schooner. It would reign as an undefeated racing champion until 1946 when it ran aground on a reef off Haiti. The ship is featured on the Canadian dime. Bluenose II was launched in 1963, and currently spends it's time in Halifax and Lunenburg. Open for on deck touring, one can also book a two hour cruise available twice daily. The price was a bit much for my pocketbook so we limited ourselves to a wander on the deck of the ship. Eli was quite disappointed to learn he wouldn't be sailing on it...maybe next time.

Another short walk brought us to the Fisheries museum which featured a restaurant on the wharf with an incredible view of the bay. (Pricey but good). While the temperatures had moderated somewhat from the two previous days, it was still quite hot and the shade of the patio umbrella was appreciated.

After lunch, it was time to visit the museum itself. I had not been there in 2015 and found it very interesting. There is a large room towards the rear of the building that was full of exhibits, ship models, ropes and other equipment, and several interactive displays.

A visit to the museum's gift shop capped off our afternoon, and we made our way back to the car to return to Halifax for our last night at the hotel in Bedford for a few days. 

A road trip to Baddeck was our plan for the next day!