Val says I asked Bill who has a house in France to tell us about his life in Cap Breton, and he said he would, and true to his word we have an account of his " double life" in diary form.
Good day Dear Val:
Friday, 19 July 2013; the potatoes are PLANTED! aside from just about killing myself with our 35 year old Troy tiller, the job is done. This has been an exciting week. Several forest fires in the Province of Quebec have blanketed our beautiful lake with a pall of smoke since last Tuesday. There are 4 major fires feeding this plume as far as 1300km away! The smoke drifts to us across the Gulf of St. Lawrence and is pretty much unimpeded by land except for the low lying Magdeline Islands and Prince Edward Island.
Maggie has been restructuring her flower beds around the house all week. most all of the tiger lillys have been re-homed to friends and neighbors and replaced with lots of new plants I can't remember the names of. We went oto a nursery in MacKinnon's Harbour today for some replacements.
We went to Sydney (2 hours away) Tuesday and she had her annual knee check-up. Good management, active living, and her brace will probably forestall surgery for quite some time which is good news. The report from my ear surgery showed yet another basel cell carcinoma which was completely excised by the incredible Dr. Brennan!
This was a meeting week for me. Tuesday evening, North Inverness Forest Management (which I chair), Thursday Inverness district planning committee 11 to 3, Inverness County food security advisory committee 17h30 to 19h30. I also serve on the Central Inverness Community Health Board but they don't meet in the summer.
Wednesday we went to the Mull Restaurant in Mabou with friends from Maine who have a 200 ha woodlot just up the road from our home. As we were driving them down their long driveway we saw 2 buck deer in a field and their new antlers were in velvet. Wish I had a camera as they stood posing for us less than 25 meters away. That reminds me, I was at the dentist Monday morningand looking out the picture window at the Cabot Links golf course with the Gulf of St. Lawrence as the backdrop when a BEAR ran across the fairway and hid in the dunes by the shore. It seems like bears are everywhere this year!
Goodby until next time.
Bill McCarthy
