The Fury of a Storm

We have had "leftovers" of Florida hurricanes coming up north here, but nothing was or is comparable with what we got today. The storm came out of the North-West, while the rain came from the opposite direction. 

At around 5pm the rain had stopped and I drove down to where the ferry lands in the summer. Even though the water had started to recede the sea-weeds were thrown way up on the roadway. When looking at these pictures you got to know that this is not the open ocean, but the Passamaquoddy Bay towards the U.S.-Coast. 

Being down there I discovered a load of 1ft-wide pine floor planks about 6ft long, somebody had dumped over the edge. I couldn't leave them there!  Instead I drove home and fetched the trailer. Down again I went and picked up the best of those planks.

Back home, I set them in a pile to dry out. Next year I might run them through my planer, and who knows what I make of them.

While all this bad weather went on, Molly decided to take a looong nap. Good gracious... She hardly moved all day.

Under soaring Eagles
With temps reaching 22C (72F) we had what probably is gonna be the last outing on the island. Note: I did not say THIS YEAR, cause we could have many more under a southern sky if everything works out. 
Bea made another Apple Cake and I had the idea to invite two neighboring ladies to Con. Robinsons Point in the Roosevelt Park. Isn't it strange that a coffee taken in wonderful surroundings tastes so much better? Not to speak of the Apple Cake! And indeed the peace and the view of the beach and the ocean beyond was a major ingredience for today's last get-together. Another thing which happened was the soaring eagles right over us. They were circling and circling and looking down on us. Bea tried to take a picture, but didn't have the telelens with her.

We had an absolutely marvelous time out there. 

It will be a very good memory until the next summer invites us out again. And tomorrow we will have even higher temps, but then I am "on the road again" with the day's destination set to a place in New York State.

September 28


Wow, wow and wow!
I am truly humbled about today's activity on American-Traveler. Al's mentioning the blog has resultet in an unprecedented rush of readers and we got 2 new followers today. Come right on in Janna + Mike and Dave + Susie. Thanks for being followers.
Janna and Mike have a blog called Tin Teepee/Log Cabin. Their pics from Montana are really looking great. Dave and Susie are hoping to one day get on the open road and "feel the wind from the back!" That is a very fine goal as there is so much to see out there.


Over here we had another one of those beautiful early fall days. After I had puttered around with the building of a new addition to our garage I decided to take Molly out for a beach walk. So we were both getting into the car and headed on the 3-minute drive to Herring Cove Beach.


A fresh breeze from the South-East had brought up a bit of a  surf and it sure kept me from building up a sweat. Molly was completely absorbed in finding stuff she could either eat (yukk) or sniff on. Two lonely beach wanderers came from the other side, but keeping their path close to the water's edge, they did not greet. So I just walked on, taking in the stunning scenery. 


Suddenly a little bird jumped out of the shadow of a piece of driftwood. he flew ahead of us for maybe 50 feet, then sitting down again. As we kept on walking we got close to that birdy again. And this time it was just sitting there. I was afraid Molly would start chasing it but she didn't. I praised her for that and slowly approached that bird in a crouched-down position.

It looked at me with real curiosity and did not seem to be afraid at all. I got as close as 5ft before it started on another short flight. I had never seen birds like that on our beaches and it looked quite a bit like it was lost. But I have found out that it was a Semipalmated Sandpiper. Of course I did not have my Nikon 3100 with me, arghh, so I had to find a pic on WIKIPEDIA. In order to put in the correct link I tried to look it up again, but made a spelling mistake like Semiplamated Sandpiper. Google didn't take that too friendly and asked in a rather naive way:  Did you mean Separated Sandpaper? I sure got a chuckle out of that.


After a while I found a white driftwood log and it seemed to me that this was an inviting place to just sit down and look around. Molly kept her beach-combing close, and I was spiding across the blue Bay of Fundy. Across from us, there is the Island of Grand Manan. It is a bit farther south and located off the coast of Maine. Grand Manan is the southern-most place in New Brundwick. We have not visited there yet, but may do so one day. It is said to be very beautiful as well.


The sun was warming my back while I had the cool breeze in my face. Almost a summer day, I thought and got up for the walk back. At this time I saw an elongated gleaming white spot on the horizon. It had just emerged out of the coast line of Grand Manan and it was moving north, riding on the horizon. It was the Grand Manan ferry heading towards Blacks Harbour on the Canadian main land. What an unbelievable peaceful sight!

You can even find Dollars on the Beach
- Sanddollars -

Returning home, I stopped in at the post office.
Talking (and listening) to Kathryn is always interesting, but today I got surprised to say the least. She asked whether I was selling my truck. "Trying to", I confirmed. After all it had been placed along the road with a For-Sale sign in the windshield. Kathryn told me then that "a guy" had asked her what I would be asking for the truck. As Kathryn hadn't even seen the truck being for sale she sure didn't know the answer either. So now I told her and she promised to let "the guy" know.  


What I am asking myself is, of course, why are people asking the post lady for the price of my truck, instead of coming to me and get it first-hand. Is the local post office  some kind of an unpaid broker? When I was telling Bea the story we both laughed. ISLANDERS... we said.


Are there similar experiences out there? I just wonder.

September 21


Summer officially over
Even though fall should start today we got quite a warm day here on Campobello Island. It was almost like the summer wanted to remind us that we still could go in shorts and short sleeves.
And the morning fog could not hide the sun for long. Molly and I went to Herring Cove Beach early to check out whether I could shoot a couple of nice pics. 


And pictures we got as you can see. The long line of sticks in the water is part of a Herring Weir, meaning the dumb little herrings must swim along a net which will finally lead them into the round weir from where there is no escape. Setting up a Herring Weir is quite an expensive affair. And it rarely survives the winter storms.


The sun was still relatively low and appeared a bit "gloomy" behind the fog. Molly had a great time with sniffing up all the half-rotten seeweeds and what worse she could find. The tide was quite low so the beach appeared huge.

Herring Weir

Whenever I get to a beach it reminds me of my home town Eckernfoerde,Germany.  Growing up in a  coastal town had a profound impact on my later choices in life, especially the last one with seeking out coastal surroundings here on the East Coast of Canada.


One of the most interesting coastal landscapes we have seen is the Charleston/South Carolina area. It was in November 2009 that we ventured down the East Coast to Charleston. Of course we had both read Margaret Mitchell's "Gone with the Wind" and consequently, Charleston held a special interest for both of us. The beaches are gorgeous and the water is really warm, even in November. But Charleston is also a very special city. For everyone with an interest in architecture must be thrilled about wandering the old town. Most famous of course is the walk along the "Battery", from where we could see Fort Sumter out on the island. It was here that the American Civil War started in 1861. 
We all know how that ended. 

At James County Island RV-Park

Along the "Battery" in Charleston

We also visited the Hopsewee Plantation, which was not a cotton plantation but produced rice of a special quality. Indeed the rice was so special that it was even exported to China. Under a big storm saltwater flooded the fields and destroyed the operation.


Only the park, the main house and a few small buildings, one of them the former slave quarters, remain.

If you've never seen this area we can recommend to stay at the James Island RV-Park. It is not too far into the city and one can also easily get to the beaches.

September 17


With a Hole in the Wall
It was one of those typical September Days when the air is crisp, full of sun and a feel for that the summer still lingers  around a bit. When night temps are dropping 6-7C and frost warnings are out for higher elevations inland, the days can still warm up to 19-20C.
It was the picture-perfect day to put in those new windows. I started with cutting a big hole in the wall of the entry. The window we would be using here, had a nailing flange and would have been been relatively easy to mount, if it hadn't been for the considerable weight of it. With a measure of 67x62inch it is way too big to be handled by one person. So I needed Bea to help with carrying it over from the trailer and putting it into place. To make it a bit easier we put two low Sturdy ladders with a sheet of plywood over it in front of the wall. That way we could use this "scaffold" to turn it upright in front of the hole. After some trying and failing we managed alright and I could put the nails through the nailing strip.

Hole-in-the-Wall #1

When we were done we took on the other window in the living room. Here we needed to remove the old window first. That was a more tough challenge as the windows were kind of "glued" to the frame by layers of old paint. We wanted to keep the old window frame as the new window was a so-called replacement window without a nailing strip. After a lot of bending and tearing we got the old window out.

Hole-in-the-Wall #2

When we tried the new window it proved to be slightly too high to fit into the hole. Luckily the old window sill was a very thick and solid one, so I could cut away a little bit of it, thus making the hole slightly bigger. When all was done I used a spray can of construction foam to fill the gaps around the window.


The result was a pretty nice solution also for the living room, and most importantly, we could keep the historic window moldings on the inside without even taking them off the wall.  You might remember me blogging about those old hotels on Campobello. When those buildings were taken down many of the materials were taken care off and used again in private residences. And that is the reason why we have the same moldings around windows and doors as also used in parts of the Roosevelt Cottage. Also our stairway and the interior doors are from the hotels. The doors are still showing the two small screw holes where the room number has been sitting once.

New Window in the living room

A day off the kitchen for Bea

At 5.30pm we were finished and instead of starting to cook a meal I suggested the Campobello Golf Course Restaurant for supper. Here I could enjoy my favorite Fish+Chips dish. 

September 7

The beautiful Summer...
Like most people I love the summer. Summer is what I live for. That's why I discovered the South. The South is an extension of summer. For me...at least. And that wasn't like that all my life. Oh no, when I was 25yrs. I thought of winter like fun, I wished that 20 inches of snow would fall over night, turning the country into a fairy-tale. I shoveled snow like it was money -- loving every bit of it. But that's over. Alberta's ice-cold winters scared the heck out of me. I still remember, it was the first winter out on the farm, the morning we woke I froze as soon as the warm bed cover was off my body. Looking at the themometer it showed +8C (46.4F) inside the house!! Outside it was -50C (-58F) And that was the reason why the dang furnace wouldn't come on. At -43C propane stops flowing. So we were dead in the water, or shall I say in the ice?

South Saskatchewan River

But we had wood burning stoves and that saved us over the next days,

Rusty train at Vanscoy, SK

No boy, gimme a nice summer and all is fine. Since we have been traveling south we have hardly seen or felt snow. Well, there was Salt Spring Island in march 2009, but it wasn't really much.

Summer is going in shorts and a light shirt, a wonderful breeze off the sea or across the prairie, summer is picnics and BBQ's, is being together with good friends, is hanging out on the beach, doing a lovely walk through a green forest, seeing summer campers driving along and having a ride in a convertible, seeing sailships and catchy motor yachts on the deep blue water; but also little children playing in the sand and biking along the road.  

Pit stop in Texas

I am completely in love with the summer.


But now it's gone. It is September and the first week of it is over as well. It is raining too and that just makes for a day inside. I always wanted to transfer thousands of pictures from my laptop to an external hard drive. So why don't I do that? Exactly!  So I walked over to the Motor Home and got the external drive. 1TB should do and it was still empty. It is the second one I bought. Not that the first one is full. Oh no -- it died - simply passed away as Bea tried to fire it up with a 19V power supply. That doesn't work very long if the device is laid out for 12V. 
Yep that's what happened. And a few weeks before that I fried the original 12V power supply as I plugged it in a 220V German power recepticle. So conclusion is we are slightly "overcharged" people. 

Rio Grande south of Big Bend National Park

Overcharged or simply crazy? Or is that the same -- in the end one never knows. Most of our families are saying (or at least thinking) that we are downright crazy. Spending weeks on end on the road just to be in a bone-dry desert environment for months and months. But like I said: I don't like winters. I would not mind if it would snow in the desert on Christmas Eve -- Tradition and upbringing in a northern latitude - you know. But next day I would want sunshine and sitting outside the rig enjoying my morning coffee at 8am. 

Mission san Jose, San Antonio,TX

But if we don't do it while we still can, we will never do it when we are past 80. Of course I can have a hope that I still drive a rig when being past 80 but one should not completely rely on it. I might need to take the short road, the one which goes about 2km down towards the U.S. border. Up on a hill there is the local nursing home. Yes, Campobello Island is the perfect place to grow old. At our last enquiry they had still 7 rooms available....:-))

Also a result of summer

Summer, summer, summer

And more summer...

Seems I am ramblin' along here, but aren't we bloggers supposed to write something meaningful, something we stand for. And that's me. Have a good one...and live your Dream.

September 05


Labour Day over...
The weather men had predicted rain several times, at least for Lubec,ME (5km) which is the nearest weather location for us.
However, the Wilson Beach (10km) Canadian weather forecast did not mention any rain at all, and matter of fact, the most we got was sunshine, while the mainland New Brunswick and Maine, U.S. was drenched in Thunderstorms this afternoon. With Labour Day over, most of the tourists are gone as well. But we still expect some beautiful weeks of fall with days of warming sun, even though the heat of the summer is gone.


It is a remarkable fact that most times the bad weather is either following the mainland or going out to sea hitting Nova Scotia or the Island of Grand Manan. Campobello Island seems to be located in a sort of weather-vacuum. 


When I got in at late afternoon I saw the bowl of apples, we had picked, was still sitting on the counter. So I decided it was juice time. Got the electric juicer out and cut up apples. It is a good idea to peel them first as the peel is easily and very fast clogging up the flow of juice.

Ready to juice the apples

The first juice running into a glass

Depending what kind of apples are juiced the
color of the juice can get pretty dark

I ran ten apples through the juicer and got almost half a gallon of nice dark apple juice. Now, of course, I filled a glass and emptied it. As I tried to fill another glass Bea looked at me and said it was not healthy to drink that much apple juice. Is THAT true?? I kinda think that apples right of our own trees can't be that unhealthy? 


When the apple bowl was almost empty I ran out with a plastic bag to get new apples. This year we seem to have an endless supply of apples. So I am sure looking forward to many more glasses of freshly made apple juice.

August 30


One more day to go!
Oops, one more day and another month is gone. So what, it's still summer here on the island or? An awful amount of leaves from our maples was down on the lawn. Actually it was the third time Bea raked leaves. And the apple tree in front of the house...still sitting full of it, but we brought two big garbage containers over to the forest edge. Would love to eat them, but these are full of worms. Have been that way every year. Friends told us to either spray the tree with some you-know-what but we are not inclined, or keep CHICKENS under the tree early in spring as these would eat up the larvae or as whatever these apple eaters exist, before they crawl up on the tree and getting homey in our fruits. 
Luckily, we also have apple trees which are not a target to those little creatures. They produce pretty good and if we would take care of all the fruit we would have apples in our menue every day and Bea's blog would be pretty boring.


Last winter Bea went to a California flea market and bought one of those little electric kitchen juicers. And now was the  time to get it into action. I tried with a few yellow apples first. Have to peel them first, then send the chunks down a chute and apply light pressure. Out comes the juice on the side. When Bea joined me she cheated and put carots in the chute. Result was my apple juice turned orange. We produced enough juice to fill a glas. We mixed in 50% water then tried it. Yummy it was and since just about every fruit can be used it gives a good variety of juices.


Bea found an animal today
Bea had cleaned up the outside stairs to the basement, and now she was holding up a big clear plastic jar. First I thought she had gotten a Garter Snake again. (Bea has a special technique for that) but this was no snake. From the inside of the jar a fat brown toad was looking at me. As we found out later, it was an Eastern American Toad. 

The Eastern American Toad (B. a. americanus) is a medium-sized toad usually ranging in size from 5–9 cm (2.0–3.5 in); record 11.1 centimetres (4.4 in). The colour and pattern is somewhat variable. Skin colour can change depending on humidity, stress, and temperature. Colour changes range from yellow to brown to black. Their breeding habits are very similar to  The call or voice of a breeding male is a high trill, lasting 6–30 seconds, similar to a ringing telephone. They hibernate during the winter.  While the belly is usually spotted, it is generally more so on the forward half (in some rare individuals there may be few or no spots). (read more:)


What we did with it? Bea released it into the woods.


Bea was just showing me the pics after Irene's damage in Vermont. I was shocked to see the extent of the damage caused by flooding and I must say our hearts are going out to those who have lost their homes, their belongings and even their loved ones. What a disaster Irene has caused. Will those people receive help? We are just wondering.

Irene, Irene see you in my dream...
While Irene is already pummeling the East Coast of Virginia and New York City resembles a Ghost Town, it is rather quiet up here on our beloved island. Actually we had another fine warm day and I took advantage of it as I finished up two walls with new shingles. And the day started out warm enough to enjoy breakfast on the new porch. What a delight! 


First towards the evening fog was moving in. As a precaution we removed all loose furniture from deck and garden and stored it in our 27ft cargo trailer. All tools are in the garage as well. The truck and the Jeep have moved away from the big maple trees as one never knows whether a big branch would come down or one of the spruce trees on the boundary to our neighbour would fall over crushing the vehicles. 


Wind speeds are predicted to be around 55mph at the most for Wilson's Beach. But who knows, maybe storm gusts might exceed that. Better safe than sorry. 


Just being curious I slipped over to the Herring Cove Beach to check whether a surf had arrived, but there was nothing. All was quiet. So I assume I will have more about the situation here on Sunday evening.


From my blog stats I can see that people all over the world are googling IRENE. That way I got a reader from far-away Finland today. Maybe a spread-out American who is trying to learn the Finnish language (good luck) and is getting worried about his family at home.


Take care - so long!

 August 23


A picture-perfect Day
You probably know the feeling. The day starts just right, the sky is blue, and the air is fresh and clear. That was just how it was today. And when I did the morning walk with Molly we chose the little round-trip along the waters edge. And it hit me again: There is something special to a deep-blue large water body. There are islands, and shorelines beyond, there are boats and ships and we even have a view onto a distant town with harbour: Eastport, ME. As humans we will always be attracted to landscapes like this.


A wonderful fresh salty breeze was coming off the water, but it was not the southwest bringing in fog, no - it was coming out of the north, a messenger for coming late-summer days, when heat and humidity is gone, but the sun is still inviting us to sit down and enjoy life as good as it ever comes.

Afterwards I went to check on the blackberry patch. On my way there, I passed along some of our apple trees. A strong wind had blown a basket full of them down to the ground. They were not ripe yet and too small and yet they were off the tree. 

You've gotta know that the whole island is full of apple trees, and we have our fair share of it. So when harvest comes, there is apple pie, and apple sauce and maybe apple cider.

I also came across a patch of Goldenrod, standing along the forest edge they glowed in the early morning sunshine.  

The Blackberries are coming along alright, but are yet not many enough to justify picking. Here, behind our house is our depot for this winters supply of Blackberry Jam.

It also was a great day for house-painting. I did all the white trim along the roof on the south and west side of the house. Had a great fun trying out the new yellow for the shingles. It sure makes for a nice contrast to the white trim. Pictures of that will come later.

View from the ferry landing

When finally evening came around we had a delicious supper (check: www.dinner-fourtwo.blogspot.com)

and the last walk with Molly went along the waters edge again, where I was able to shoot a couple of pics across the Passamaquoddy Bay. Mrs. Sun offered an unusual sunset and while that was going on we met with our nice neighbours for a chat.

While darkness settles in we are sitting in our little living-room reviewing the day, reading blogs just relaxing.

August 21

We've all been praying the weather would be dry and nice on this day, so everybody could enjoy the annual light house day celebration. Yesterday we had been setting up the stage and all the benches which had to be hauled from the Provincial Park Campground. This morning we had some fog, but it sure cleared throughout the day. Local vendors showed up and pretty soon our BBQ's were set up for burgers and Hot Dogs. The Ladies had made a delicious Fish Chowder and Chili, so there would be plenty of food.

Local musicians made for a variety of entertainment and as always the auction was a popular place to be.

Evelyn is dishing out Chowder here, but had to
realize that she wasrunning out of it all too soon.

And here is the Hot Dog Guy - just starting out

Great conditions for a sail on the bay

 With the money made on this event the friends of Head Harbour Light house can continue to renovate and improve a major tourist attraction in New Brunswick.