Meet the Cat

Here he is. Ten years old, he is called Rojo. Yesterday, Cat came near to realizing a deep, unknown and unfulfilled inner dream. Or maybe he was never even close…

 

I woke to strange noises, reeled my way down the steps. What’s that Cat doing!? OMG there was a dark, slightly oval hockey puck ricocheting back and forth all over the dining/living/kitchen room floor! A blur faster than the eye could follow, with the Cat a whisker behind! CHUCK! Get up!

That mouse could only run in a straight line, instantly changing direction at each wall. Here, there, then under the couch. Pause. Oh RATS! We’ll have to get a trap. Then he’s back out with 10 more laps around the room!

Scared, not me! Great reflexes! I jumped immediately to the bunk level and held a rug as a wall in case mouse headed up the steps. Then, loyally stayed out of the way behind it to cheer Chuck on. On each pass, Bang – Bang - Bang with a heavy hiking shoe. Just when it seemed hopeless, a quick one to the head! Thankfully, on the vinyl linoleum rather than the woven rug.

While the body was tossed into the forest behind the rig, I sprayed cleaner on the spot. My hero wiped it up. What a team!

How the critter got in is still a mystery. Cat remembers him occasionally, checking the corners. But that won’t last long.

A Most Welcoming Door

The long, fertile Annapolis Valley is dotted with tiny towns, apple orchards and farms - an idyllic, almost totally rural setting. Nestled  among beautiful trees, roughly halfway between Digby and Windsor, just an hour and a half from Halifax, is Paula & Jerry’s lovely home. These folks know how to enjoy and appreciate life! They’re fellow Mexico RV travelers, too.

 

Chickadees are almost members of the family, and they’ll come to house guests, too.  Hint: peanuts,  patience, persistence!

 

 

And, can they pack a lot of fun into just one day! We begin in Halifax: The Halifax Maritime Museum, with an iron cage as a Pirate’s Fate. Two ship tours. The Busker’s Festival.

  

 

 

 

 

 

Lunch at the Old Triangle Pub, Halifax potato dishes: the boxie, a potato pancake folded over seafood filling with potatos on the side. Haibut and mashed, the mashed on top, quality comfort food!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then we were off to Grand Pré, a site memorializing 1766 expulsion of nearly 10,000 Acadians from the Maritimes by the British. It’s called the grand derangement here, it sounds like a sort of insanity. The site and the time are embodied in the Evangeline statue, taken from Longfellow’s poem, “Evangeline, A Tale of Acadie.” The Acadians had built a fruitful farming life around ingenious dike systems supporting rich fields, which are used to this day.

Many of those Acadians went to Louisiana, and contributed hugely to the unique cultural mix we enjoyed so much during our years there. I guess that’s why we came to Nova Scotia…where we’ve discovered so much more!

 

Our winding route took us through the town where Paula & Jerry were married, and on to an overlook view towards the Avon River.

Nearing sundown, we arrived at Halls Harbor (oops, Harbour) for dinner. It’s a sliver of water between steep hills – at high tide, that is. The huge Bay of Fundy tides were at the max. A valley stream is the source of the only water in this marina today!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A toast to friends, the day, and to this beautiful, welcoming province!