Into every life a little rain must fall! Today was our day.
It didn’t just rain, it poured, it cascaded, and it was relentless! It also
coincided with David getting work to do so the timing couldn’t have been
better. I am so thankful that he is able to adjust to my vacation schedule and
work from the road that I am more than willing to accommodate when he has to
take the occasional day and work. He doesn’t mind either. Throughout the day he
can be heard muttering, “If you have to work. This is the way to do it!”
Since the day was a wash, literally as well as figuratively,
I thought I could keep the washing theme going and clean the trailer and get laundry
done. One of the things I LOVE about life in my trailer is housecleaning, top
to bottom, is a 15 minute job! Laundry not quite so quick and simple but you
always meet the most interesting folks and it really does become a social
event!
Today it was a couple from Aurora! He is an engineer and amateur
photographer, she is a teacher. They have four kids. Her parents were from
Newfoundland…all sounded very familiar! After laughing over the incredible
similarities we chatted away the afternoon feeding loonies to washers and
dryers!
By the time the laundry was done, David had finished working
and the rain had stopped so we enjoyed happy hour and a BBQ! Sitting at our
site we were discussing the incredible amount of Giant Hogweed there is on the
island! I know we are having trouble with it in Ontario, but I think sadly there
is even more of it here! Nasty stuff and too bad too since Newfoundland forests
are devoid of so many of the annoyances that are suffered elsewhere. There is
no poison ivy or ragweed, no skunks, porcupines, racoons, poisonous spiders or
snakes. Apparently in a manner similar to hogweed, someone thought it a good idea
in recent years to bring garter snakes onto the island (dumb cluck!). We were
able to find some reports of garter snakes starting to take up residence here,
but no poisonous snake and they aren’t native! We didn’t need a report to know
about the hogweed though, it everywhere at least on this end of the island.
I had also forgotten how big crows are here! They are
plentiful, noisy and huge! Also a resident in the woods around our site is a white-throated
sparrow. We haven’t seen him yet but we have certainly heard him. It makes me
laugh every time I do!
When Mom and Dad retired they became avid bird watchers.
They quickly became somewhat expert and immersed themselves in the culture of
the naturalists group they belonged to. The joke in our family at the time was
that while they were working, they didn’t know a seagull from a sparrow; once
they retired, the birds couldn’t fly south without them!
Now I am pretty good with “outdoor kinds of things”. I can identify
wild flowers and trees. I’m not bad at knowing what berries are safe to eat and
which ones should be avoided. I am hopeless with birds!! In the early years of
their enthusiastic pursuits, Mom and Dad were determined that this was
something I should be able to do. They were quite wrong but that didn’t lessen
their determination! One such effort involved Dad trying to teach me to
identify birds by their song. He would assign bird calls a human language equivalent.
For example, chickadees would announce their own name with a chickadee-dee-dee, chickadee-dee-dee; a
barred owl calling who cooks for you;
or a white-throated sparrow professing oh,
sweet Canada, Canada, Canada! Now while I was able to recognize the similarity
in intonation, it was always a lively argument between Dad and me that the
birds didn’t actually “say” anything! He would insist they certainly did! I
scored a point (though I was never sure it made much difference to Dad’s point
of view) when we were camping in Fundy National Park. Being the only bilingual
province all the signs there were in French and English. Along one hiking trail
there was a sign talking about white-throated sparrows and claiming that you
could identify them by their call of oh
sweet Canada, Canada, Canada!! I happened to also notice the French side of
the same sign. Apparently French white-throated
sparrows sing Je suis Frederic, Frederic,
Frederic!!!! Bottom line though? Thanks to my Dad, I can always identify a
white-throated sparrow sharing our site, even if I can’t see him!
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| Pouring rain from inside my cozy trailer! |
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