Mona's Dare......... Fall Pics

 

First meeting after four years of chit - chat .... September 25th , 2003 .. in Härnösand - By - The - Sea , Sweden

 

Fall , 2004 in Lac - Beauport

Cuzins By the Duzins !!

 

The other day we went over to Bayshore at the mouth of the harbour. I sat on the bulwark above the beach while Fluff ....... always looking for some action ...... prowled the sands below lining up as many unfortunate gulls and cormorants as possible in the crosshairs of her super - duper camera lens ........ and looking very professional too , I might say ! All of a sudden a fellow my age siddled up to me , hunkered himself down and , pointing to the island a bit offshore , asked me the following question , " Do you know what that is out there ?" ( With Fluff shooting everything in sight down below and me disguised in tourist garb the guy had taken us for out - of - towners ). "Why yes , " I retorted , " some of my distant kinfolk and forebearers have been fertilizing the plant life out there for nigh onto 160 years." He laughed , saying .... " so you're from around here , are you ?" .... to which I answered , " Yeah , I'm a Northender ." 

It turned out that he was a Westsider of Irish origin like myself who had just come back from a three - week tour of the Old Sod and we were on his turf... in fact , he just lived up the hill a wee bit from the beach behind us. We chatted on for some time about Partridge Island there before us ( our own little Ellis Island ) , growing up poor in the 1930s - 1940s , Catholic parish life and how it had changed , etc........ but it was when we exchanged family names that all my geneological bells started tolling loudly. He said his name was Greg Hayes. Now my grandmother on my mother's side was Annie Hayes from the West Side !! .... and back in 1925 when she died her brother , Michael , who lived at Market Place on the West Side  was mentioned in her obituary as well as her sister , Catherine. My Mom often referred to Uncle Mike and we had Aunt Catherine ( Kit ) living on and off at our house in my childhood. I can even remember attending Aunt Kit's burial at Holy Cross Cemetery in 1944 when I was 8 years old.And to boot I still have her old standing rocker she brought from Ireland here with us ..... one of the few pieces of antique family heirloom furniture I have not let go of yet.

For the sake of brevity .... thereby sparing my readers the arduous yet palpitating details of our conversaton and the complexities of kinship terminology ..... it turned out that Michael Hayes was Greg's grandfather ....... so his grandpa and my granny Hayes were brother and sister ! ......... and Greg and I are second cousins !!  

We shall get together soon for coffee and an exchange of old snapshots. I feel blessed and enriched .......

A Hunting We Shall Go !

It's hunting season again here in New Brunswick and yesterday an article appeared in the local newspaper urging the folks in this area to report any acts of illegal or unlawful hunting practices..... even waving a $ 2000 carrot at the end of the line by way of reward. As I said to Fluff , "Snitch and get rich ! " Anyways the bears are on the run as archery hunting began last week..... and moose season gets underway this coming Thursday. It must be real hard on the nerves to fully enjoy mating season when you're being shot at all the time  !! The poor buggers !! Deer hunting with bow and arrow kicks in on October 5th and with firearms on October 26th.  

The spokesperson for the Ministry of Natural Resources was interviewed and enumerated the usual litany of the " don 'ts" of hunting ... no baiting with apples , no salt licks , no night hunting with spotlights , etc .... ending her question and answer period with the following words of wisdom , " We want to ensure the sport of hunting and fishing for future generations. For our children and grandchildren we have to protect our natural resources. A lot of people think these offences ( illegal and unlawful hunting acts ) just happened years ago but it still happens. THE ANIMALS DEPEND ON US TO SPEAK FOR THEM BECAUSE THEY CAN'T SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES " "

What a heap of skunkdung !!.... and poor grammar to boot !! 

Were the animals able to speak I believe they would say something along these lines........ " Those are not at all our wishes ,Madam.  Screw your hunting laws and regulations for tracking us down and killing us ... how about NO SHOOTING US AT ALL !!

Photos by Fluff.... friends we met while out for a drive upriver.

N.B. I am by no means an "anti - hunting " nut , my friends. Reasonable hunting for personal consumption is OK in my books. However , when politicians start speaking on behalf of animals and uttering stupidities I get critical !!  

Strange Bylaws !!

You would be astounded and often bent over in laughter were you to browse an inventory of the odd /  bizarre / weird bylaws that are still on the books in many states , provinces , cities and towns throughout North America. For example it is still  illegal to sing off key in public in North Carolina...... to shoot rabbits from a boat in Kansas , to possess lifelike dildos in Texas , to urinate within 20 paces of a public way in Trois - Rivières , Québec , to sell booze while dressed in a Santa Claus suit in Ohio !! etc

The following qotation is from page 22 of Will Durant's "Caesar and Christ ".

"The law of the early Republic allowed a creditor to imprison a persistently defaulting debtor in a private dungeon , to sell him into slavery , even to kill him. Joint creditors might , said the law , cut up the corpse of the defaulting debtor and divide it among them----- a provision apparently never enforced. "

Applied to modern times I can just imagine the guy from the collection agency or the Repo Guy at some poor devil's front door armed with a sawed - off shotgun and chain saw

P.S. I put in a pic of my son Kevin before the Roman Coliseum to give my blog about Roman Law a tidbit of credibility ! He was with me there in 1986.

Tidal Waters !

Please enlarge picture.

Hereabouts we have the highest tides and one of the swiftest harbour currents in the world. Ships bringing goods and tourists come in on the flood tide and leave on the ebb tide. Movement of the tides is central to many primary activities here in Saint John. How many times this year have Fluff and I stood back and watched busload after busload of Americans from the cruise ships pull up to our World Famous Reversing Falls at the mouth of the Saint John River where it flows into the harbour and ask , "Where are the falls ?" The poor devils hit there during slack tide , the twenty-minute interval when there is no tidal movement nor difference in water levels at all !!  

Yesterday ( 9/11/2009 ) Fluff and I took a drive upriver a ways .... looking for an unsuspecting flock of ducks , etc to shoot..... with a camera that is !! So lo and behold we came upon this sorry lot in above pic about ten miles upstream in Brothers  Cove. Mother Nature had pulled their watery carpet literally out from underneath their webby feet leaving them high and dry for six hours or so. Just a few hours earlier these same quackers had been floating about in 8 feet of prime water.  Effects of ocean tides in this area are felt as far as 100 miles inland ..... upstream ... from the sea.

And thus it has been  with the treacherous , dastardly deed of 9 / 11 / 2001 and its tsunami-effect  aftermath reaching the most remote nooks and crannies of the world. We lost our innocence on that fateful and tragic day and shall never again trust the "other guy " in quite the same way as we had before.

Went Fishin' This Afternoon !

                                                           

Since Fluff was going to the zoo with Isabel I decided to take the ferry across the Kennebecasis River to Summerville and Bayswater to tease the trout , pickerel , perch , gaspereau , bass or anybody else scaly with gills who liked night crawlers. So there I was on the edge of Milkish Creek...... 40 or more Canada geese on one side whooping , barking and splashing around with myself on the other side moaning , cussing and damning the fish that weren't biting... too bloody hot I guess !! Anyways a good time was had by all on an absolutely glorious afternoon in a very peaceful picture - postcard setting.

Southern New Brunswick is a land of ferry boats and covered bridges...... they are everywhere ! Today I would add two more items to that list that local folks never think about until they move away from here .... and boomerang back again like myself after living elsewheres .......... wild appletrees and cedar trees !! Driving along any lonely country road around here one is struck ..... especially at this time of the year.......by the great abundance of appletrees laden with Mother Nature's red 'n sour answer to drugstore Exlax. My Mom always warned me that should I eat too many I would spend the night in the outhouse with terrible cramps in my belly...... but we ate them anyways !! The other day I drew Fluff's attention to this phenomen as we drove along just one back road ...so today I started counting and stopped counting the trees after I had reached 30 for one rather short stretch of the same road....... mind boggling !!

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I was in Quebec I had but ONE cedar ( thuya ) on my property and could not find another one anywheres else ... and God only knows I looked ! Today I was walking through cedar groves all afternoon. .... many of which were close to two feet in diameter.........and in my youth out in th back forties ....not far from here ........we had nothing else surrounding our house but spruce and mainly cedar with the odd yellow birch and rowanberry tree. Ah  , the rowanberry tree !! Now there is another species that you find everywhere around here .. and especially noticeable nowadays since the berries are red and bittersweet.... full of alcohol to inebriate unsuspecting birds !! Alleluja and amen !! 

N.B. Please enlarge apple tree !... and two photos at bottom.

Making a Mountain Out of a Molehill !!

 

I sat watching these guys practice mountain climbing techniques for a while and then baptized Fluff 's photo.   

Haliaeetus Leucocephalus

      Since the bald eagle is the national bird of the USA and given its powerful symbolic role  in American nationalism / patriotism..... I often wonder just how many Americans have had the privilege of observing this majestic bird soar ´freely and unfettered above their heads as it goes about its daily struggle wth survival. Fluff and I feel blessed indeed  here as we spot one or two  on a rather regular basis. Just a simple query ,  folks?   Photo shot by Fluff Studios Inc